Traveling in the Big World

I tell you what, there are a lot of people in the Denver airport! I had to laugh at myself for how small my life gets sometimes, just me and my cat, my little neighborhood, and work and work. Saturday Market definitely expands that world, and that Market family is large, too large for me to even know all of the other vendors and their families, although I do know most of them by sight now. I meet more every week, and see what they make, and how they live, a little bit, when we interface on Saturdays. I learn a bit more from Kim's blog, and the others linked on her site.

Add the public who comes to hang with us are a pretty big crowd, and our town seems pretty big, but I don't know what a million people feels like, really. Certainly I have no concept of a billion. Thanks to the internet, I get a glimpse of this, but I can turn off the computer and make my life small again. I like it small, generally.

But down at Tuesday Market when we had practically no customers at all this week, I got a little too comfortable with the limits, and started to think I will never be able to sell my inventory, never be able to expand my business, never get any better hold on financial security. I felt small and even a little desperate, and we all know that even a whiff of desperation will translate to people making very wide circles to avoid being drawn in even a little.

But there I was in the Denver airport today, realizing that of all those many, many people walking on the speedy sidewalks and trailing their wheely suitcases, hardly any of them, maybe even none of them, knew anything about what I make or how to get it or why they might want to. And the vast majority would never, ever stumble by my booth on the Park Blocks, and even if they did, they might get distracted by the Jell-O Art and not even notice that I make clothing and funny hats, much less that I paint silk and write and have important things on my mind.

But oh boy, I have the internet! I have a website with untapped potential and I have a digital camera and there is no reason that I have to stay in my small world when there is an almost limitless one that is open to me, as open as can be.

I checked my stats on this blog and I have had readers in 10 countries, many continents, and I had no idea. I never looked. The Gelatinaceae blog has similar stats. I suppose some of them are random hits and not really readers, but even so, my world is bigger than I thought.

And I don't even have to cram myself into a tiny seat in a metal tube that magically goes into the air and transports me back to my origins in just a few hours to reach these people. All I have to do is take pictures and post them, write entertaining tidbits to amuse them, and voila! Connection. It's amazing.

I'm really finding the Occupy protests heartening. I remember thinking when Kiev happened that I couldn't see my countrymen camping out in the snow for weeks to make change happen. I thought we were too comfortable to do such a thing. I am so happy to be wrong about that.

It may be that I was not the only one feeling a bit desperate this week. Perhaps a lot of people are feeling desperate, and instead of making wide circles to avoid each other, people are finding common ground and working together for each other. That's what it looks like.

I've certainly done my share of protesting, mostly when I was younger, and I well remember how full it makes a heart to be joined with others in passion for justice and equality and sensible choices and peace, and even prosperity. It's very wonderful to see people discovering that and building on that and forcing change to happen.

Because the master will not give you the tools to take down his house. You have to make the tools and you have to plan and dream and act. It's all within your grasp.

Discouragement and limiting yourself is a trap. There just isn't time for it. There's a lot of work to do, and the energy is there, and the imagination is there, and the means are available.

Local people, check in on Occupy Eugene, or Portland, and if you can't participate, there are other ways to support. People in the East, take the Amtrak up to NYC or Boston or get together with your people where you are. We're the 99%. What an amazing notion.