Wishing for a Snowfall

Yes, you know if you are up at seven, watching talking animals on TV and reposting Facebook videos, you are a tiny bit lonely on Christmas morning. Really, I am most happy to have the quiet and solitude I need so much but the bustle of the Holiday Market is fading more slowly this year. I was one of the last two out last night, just taking apart what took twelve hours to set up, loading it on the cart, hauling it across the Fairgrounds to pile in the shop unsorted. I have a few more things to gather tomorrow when we open again for the last load-out of fixtures and debris, then will go through it and stow it away for April.

I counted up the money from yesterday's Basket Raffle and it was a piece of work I was happy to do. As the secretary of the Kareng Fund I have a long list of people to write thank-you cards to, cards I bought from Nancy Bright who would not stop giving me discounts as I paid her. I make it a practice to buy lots of things from my fellow vendors, partly because I want them, and partly because I want to share with them. I feel that when I do well all should do well. I'm not bragging about this, just admitting that there is a place where I am not selfish and I do not complain. It's a glimmer of the better self I have been working on improving for the last six and a half decades. I know you are all doing that too. We all start out with a tree full of presents and gradually learn that what is important is our presence. That and the trees.

This was my first year without getting to hug my son on the actual event day or the Eve. I saw him a couple of weeks ago when he was kind enough to drive down to visit me. I have been gradually getting to this day as we do the letting-go part of our relationship that is the natural way of life. I'm not upset about it, just missing him and all the years of putting him at the center of my life. Now I am fortunate enough to have the Kareng Fund to remind me how good it feels to give and how central to our lives that giving is. Presents finally really don't matter. I did buy and trade for a big pile of them though, and I love looking at every single handmade thing.

It would be work to take photos but maybe by the end of this post I'll be motivated. Each transaction made two or more people feel good and this video gives an inkling of that happy community. Colleen suggested me as a singer, and I said why not? My sister's family has been posting videos of them singing and this is pretty close. http://registerguard.com/rg/video/33890831-319/holiday-market-goes-out-with-a-song.html.csp?autoStart=true

I feel loved. My neighbor came by the booth and we smoothed out the ruffled feathers about the fence. I still hate it but not him. It will be fine. They actually ended up putting it on their side of the easement so I got the use of seven feet of gardening territory which I will use to shore up the tenuous friendship with his sister who lives in the side of the duplex next to me. We are both solitary people and a bit afraid of each other, but perhaps the raspberry patch will be the way we learn to share our lives more easily. He is easy to talk to but she barely talks. I am in the middle. I think it can work, and we'll get raspberries.

Holiday Market is an emotional rollercoaster but when you step off you are always sorry the ride is over. The Pottery Smash and Basket Raffle are both exceptional examples of how generous craftspeople are with each other. We seem to always want to be the ones who give the most. When we trade, each one of us tries to give the best value to the other. We constantly try to give away our work, not because we don't value it, but because we love it and want it to be loved by others. We make such an overwhelming mountain of stuff over our lifetimes, and it goes out into the world with our fingerprints all over it and is treasured far beyond the reach of those fingers. When others recognize what a beautiful thing that is, I just get all teary and tender.

Despite the downsides of consumption of resources and forced giving, I just love Christmas as the turn of the sun and celebration of the year that it is. I no longer get that twinge of disappointment when all the presents are opened and something is still lacking. That void has been completely filled by participating in the giving and sharing of my large and wondrous community. Many of us, alone, fail utterly to feel secure and right in the big world. We are not different from probably most of the people alive in these complex times. Feeling different and wrong is a common thing, and we can all see how isolation and misunderstanding builds and destroys many people who don't have a way to talk themselves through to the abundance and joy that lies there quietly waiting.

Thank you Kareng Fund and Saturday Market and Oregon County Fair and McWhorter extended family for everything you give to me. I feel so very lucky. Now all I want is a snowstorm. I can be patient. If I have to I will wait for next winter, too.

I will have my Jell-O Art to sustain me in the meantime. Once Holiday Market is put away, Jell-O Season begins. The year goes round and round. Seems like a good one. Enjoy!