Tis the season

It's beginning to be the Holiday Season (we had a sax player in Santa hat playing carols on the corner, in the rain on Saturday) but for those of us who are getting ready for Holiday Market, it's the season of irrationality and stress.

We're over-extended, with lots of cash tied up in inventory, lots of piles of products to finish, lots of new ideas for display and arrangement nagging at us that we can't really do anything about until we get into the building at the Fairgrounds. Saturday was cold and wet, and miserable, though most of us sold a few things, had a few laughs, and made it through the day without too much damage.

Lots of us stayed home. My body wanted to stay home but my loyalty won out. If Market is going to sponsor an event for me, I'm going. There was always a hot bath and a rest and a Sunday at the end of my day (even an extra hour of it) so I felt I could make it. Also I wore three pairs of socks, four jackets, rain pants, and had dry socks just in case. I took no chances. Most of my products stayed in the realm of damp and didn't get actually wet.

Raven was back, so the neighborhood felt somewhat normal, and there were many nice marchers on the scene to appreciate us and help us feel a part of the movement, even though we had to yell from across the street. There were shoppers, there were people buying Christmas presents and people just discovering Saturday Market. Except for the wet and cold part it was a pretty good day. Next week will have that nostalgic feeling of the last Market of the year on the blocks, and I'll be there, no matter what the weather promises. I'm tough.

But being tough this time of year takes some new thinking patterns. I was going over my normal lists of reasons the Holiday season disappoints and distresses me, thinking of writing letters and blogs and all of the things I usually do to work out the angst, when I started reading a book about brain biology and realized that new thinking will help me.

My usual pattern of letting my family know about my distress is actually a way of making my problems their problems, and I'm guessing they already know all about mine and might just have a few of their own to deal with. So one thing I can do is not make my problems anyone else's problems. I can just decide what I am doing about showing love and appreciation this year, do those things, and let my distress lie in the past where it originates.

Maybe there is really no new distress in my story. I've done awfully well at identifying it and analyzing it for many years, so maybe this year I can push it back into the past. Can't change the past, but I can change the stories I tell myself about it. I know that works.

Money is just not important enough spiritually to let it be the driving force for everything. I can focus on having enough: what I have is enough. I'm doing well. I can be warm and safe and do the things that help me feel warmer and safer. I have lots of dry socks, and I can get my traditional new pair of fleece socks right at the HM and maybe a new hat. You can never have too many warm hats, and maybe it would help me feel warmer if I shared some of the old ones I don't wear with new people. I know lots of people sleeping outside who need more than one hat.

I can focus on what I do like about the Holidays, the foods, the traditions that I enjoy, the warmth of beeswax candles. I like singing carols. I can find more singing opportunities or even get that old piano book out and sit down at the keyboard and see if I can still play. I was looking through my books and found one in which I had written down all of the mandolin tunes I was learning way back in the early 70's, so I could tune up the mandolin and see if my fingers remember any of them. I could treat myself to a uke, which was my first instrument, and find ways to play it, maybe even with some of the plethora of local uke players.

I could work on my tendency to isolate, a little bit at a time. I could isolate less, I could exercise more. I could challenge myself to give a gift to myself, something meaningful, something I could spend the full array of emotions on: the longing, the wishfulness, the fear of not deserving, the fear of not being seen, the disappointment of not being understood, the feeling of emptiness that can come with watching other people give and receive. All the love I tell myself I don't get while ignoring what I do get.

I could easily turn off the TV more often and stop that insidious tendency to compare myself with others, especially others who only exist in advertisements so deviously crafted to ramp up our inadequacies and feelings of deprivation. It is sometimes not enough to intellectually understand this stuff. Sometimes we just have to take actions to counteract.

I've always loved Buy Nothing Day despite the very real conflicts I have with retailing on that day. I could do more to live my ideals, like find the very best sources for my goods, instead of the most convenient, and try to be more comfortable with the contradictions I set up for myself. I might be able to find items made in the USA that aren't dorky (the hats) and overly expensive (those family wage jobs are worth supporting.) I could do myself a big favor and not carry so much inventory.

I've taken steps down these roads, but I can step livelier and challenge myself a little more. I might find that instead of increasing the stress, it makes me feel better. I can practice more kindness and understanding for everyone, including myself.

I can look around and see what is happening, because we who isolate and work too hard tend to forget to do this. Just look around. There is a lot happening, and some of it is amazing.

There is a lot to be thankful for, like good frozen whole wheat pie crusts and friends who actually cook turkeys and put up with our habits of mind without complaint. There's that amazing Harvest Dinner we have on HM set-up day, where we gather to share ourselves in every way. There is the glory and gorgeousness that is the creativity in our locale. Holiday Market is just a little part of it.

There are all of those who love us as we are, support our growth, and hope for the best for us. Sure, the cynic is right that we all act in our own self-interest. But there is a lot more to that story.

Sometimes it is in our self-interest to act in ways that don't connect directly with our narrowest view, but rather see our self-interest in the thriving of everyone in our much broader view. It is in my self-interest that all beings be well. Do your part. Be kind to yourself this time of year, and let that flow outward and onward.