The Whole World is Working

What do we want? RESPECT! When do we want it? We've always wanted it, all of us. Since Day One.

I'm loving the growing Occupy protests and how they are serving to get the issues articulated and opened up and the people realizing that we are so much more alike than different. Today's protesters (which of course include many of yesterday's) are so much better (aided by FB and such) at expressing the common ground. The signs are so intelligent and thought-provoking. It's the public square where the panel discussion is taking place, with everyone participating. And the whole world is involved, not just watching.

Expressing ourselves is so vital, and we get so frustrated and isolated when we have no way to do that. We need to know that not only are 99% of us in the same boat, it isn't really sinking as fast as we thought. Lots of people are working to keep us all afloat! I have great hope that many things will improve so that political realities realign with actual domestic realities for so many.

And hope is really important in times of difficulty. I'm glad that I can still access it through the crust of cynicism I tend to wear to protect me from pain. But Naomi Klein just said that cynicism is a luxury we can't afford right now. So I'm brushing off the crust.

I spent the day yesterday working for my Mom. We put preservative on her deck, which didn't go so well since it didn't dry and we will probably have to wipe it off today. Oh well, one step forward and two steps back. I'm charged with her yardwork. Fortunately the weather is gorgeous, summery. Our conversation:

"I'm going to get the ivy away from the foundation, Mom. You're not supposed to grow English ivy, invasive species, you know." Me being the condescending environmentalist as usual.

"I've been working to get rid of that ivy since Day One." She's lived in this house for 55 years. So I guess we can see who is winning. It's on three sides of the house. She can't keep up with it.

Ivy is tenacious and persistent and you can manage it but it takes major efforts and invasive techniques to eradicate it, so you usually don't. I pulled a ton of it out and it looks good today but it's still there and will probably be there for another lifetime. It's just trying to survive and get its needs met.

I'm always looking for metaphors and there it was. If you can be tenacious and persistent you are a match for the invasive species of the world but at best you can manage them, so don't get too attached to your particular outcome. And if you think it is a battle, be prepared for defeat. Better to think of it as gardening, a lifetime of care and tending that results in moments of beauty and grace and clear common ground, but mostly a lifetime of something to do that gives you the illusion of control and practice at cooperation. And is a bunch of work you might rather not do, but you have to do it, or the stuff will start to get on your neighbor's house and they will have to deal with it. They might hold that against you.

Everybody is trying to get their needs met. I'm talking about Saturday Market and our home on the Park Blocks, and the difficult year we have had with all of our neighbors trying to tend their own gardens and survive and thrive. There has been a lot of juggling and a lot of listening a quite a few demonstrations of desperation and utter confusion. Things that have gone right have been a clarification of who we are and what we are doing together, and what we want. We've unified and opened our hearts and done a lot of thinking about the past and future and our values and plans and strengths and vulnerabilities.

We want respect for what we have built. If you are going to erode our foundation and act like a weed upon our landscape, we're going to be inclined to want to manage that. We might try a few things that are a little harsh and there might be unanticipated consequences. When we get in the same room and talk it through, go think some more, and talk it through again, we do pretty well. We can see our limits and expectations and we've increased our mutual trust and understanding.

That's internally. Externally we have not done as well, although we are not finished. We've avoided the public forum, preferring to keep fairly quiet and work carefully so we don't get boxed in. We think of ourselves as a transparent organization, in that our meetings are public and we don't do secret agenda stuff and we don't lie. We try for courage. If you can't say it in public, you probably shouldn't say it. If you can't allow yourself to be open to being wrong, or needing more information, if you get defensive and fearful, it might turn things into a conflict or it might spread the problem to even more of your gardens and compromise even more of your beautiful flowers or those of your neighborhood. That isn't fair.

And if you don't do anything, that ivy will grow over your whole house and bury you. It needs to grow and propagate itself. The farmers need to be the kind of farmers market they see it necessary to be in this economy at this time. It might not be the kind of farmers market I want it to be. It might not fit in my neighborhood anymore in the form it was, or in the form it wants to be. I can try to cultivate and manage it, but my vision of it is not a fact, and the sum total of everyone's visions is maybe the best outcome, if that sum total can be found. Maybe my house was built first, but the neighborhood is for all of us. So we probably need to get together and talk about it, if we can. Certainly we don't want to make things harder for each other.

And the city and county we are located in have different concerns and goals, and needs, than we do. Careful communication can help us see where things are going well and where they need adjustment. It seems that because we have been so persistent and tenacious in putting down our roots and tendrils, what was once viewed as an invasive species of hippies with brown pottery has evolved into business incubator, public gathering place, and very healthy arts venue that has enabled thousands of people to make a living during hard times and good. Both the 80's recession and this one have caused a lot of damage and Market has been a lifeline and still is. We've blossomed and seeded many times now. We want respect for that.

Being next to a space dedicated to free speech seems like a perfect fit. We are all about free expression and we support that. We've tried hard to manage that space adjacent to ours, because we are good gardeners and if our neighbor's tree comes over the fence we try to learn to appreciate it, or do what we can to alleviate the affects of the leaves and flower petals that fall on us. We're not going to tromp over there and cut it down.

We clean that space at our own expense, even though some people don't seem to respect some aspects of it and leave a mess. We've tried to educate. We were patient for years of a few pipes being sold, on a few blankets by a few people who needed the money. We've encouraged as many of the sellers there to join us as we can. We've tried to protect attendees from danger by spending thousands of our hard-earned dollars to close the spaces where illegal activities were hidden. It's our major concern that our value of having a safe and family-friendly community space is respected.

Things got out of hand. We worked a long and patient time for solutions. We're just beginning to find one and both the city and county are opening to trust us and work with us for the mutual goals that we hold. This is a world away from the days when we were the ones with the blankets being moved around town, trying to find a home to do what we were compelled to do to survive: to create and share our self-expression and to live lives of mutual respect and cooperation.

It's our charge to manage our garden. It's a task to which we bring all of our collective skills and for which we must spend a lot of time working on compassion, justice and fairness. We value equality. We want to hear each voice before we decide anything. We don't want anyone to go away mad before they understand how they can contribute and what will erode us.

We're not the establishment and we aren't conservative and we aren't all about making money. We want to meet a much broader range of needs than the economic ones. We want to find a way to support free expression in that space, and all over our city and our county. We're progressives. We want social progress. We want to be involved in evolving.

I watched Invictus last night. I know Morgan Freeman isn't Mandela and Matt Damon is an actor too. Still, I cried as I watched how carefully Mandela thought and the things he said about forgiveness and how much we need to change ourselves first if we want to change the world.

So let's keep looking within and see if we can exceed our own expectations and come up with the elegant solutions we need. I am sure that we can. There is so much common ground to stand on. There are so many people willing to do the work.

And when it all comes down to it, there are no enemies that cannot be made into friends. That's not just a movie scenario. When minds stay open, doors do too.

Keep thinking. Keep working. Keep dreaming of what the best world would look like. Be tenacious and persistent. Stand beside each other and use all the tools in the garage. And then do it some more. Because it is a lifetime of tending and it will never be finished.