Better!

You'll be glad to know things have eased up on the areas referred to in the cryptic midnight blog of last week. I handed over some of my over-responsibility to other entities who gladly accepted my surrender without even a conversation. I was the one who took on all of that over-responsibility, put that weight of the world on my shoulders, and it didn't take that long to sluff it off once I had someone recognize it and call my attention to it. Others stepped in, and my relief was immediate.

I am not really the only one holding up the sky, and it certainly looked ridiculous even to me when I saw that I had been trying. Was I really forgetting that there were plenty of capable, caring people working for the same common good? I'm guessing now that I had merely fallen over the edge into a zone of irrationality, one of those where you can only see that level of mistakeness in everyone else, not yourself. It's fairly common for me to be there, with that blindness that convinces me I am right about that (and pretty much everything else.)

Ah, arrogance. I really did have too many plates to spin and was afraid and unable to drop any of them. I don't fault myself for believing in my powers. I'm glad I didn't proceed with too many decisions during that time, that I was moving too fast to pile up a lot of mistakes on that underlying one. I did some good work and kept up for the most part, which impresses me a little. It was a huge workload and I'm relieved to trade it in for my regular pre-Fair workload, which is mighty. There will still be way too many meetings but there are a lot of other people in those rooms.

I'm still the point person with City staff on the Park Blocks issues, and I like it. It's fun to gain confidence in a new area and find myself capable in new ways. I worry about it of course. My thinking about the whole Park Blocks remodel needed some months to evolve and I have now realized that it would be wrong to stand in opposition to the opportunity to spiff up our home downtown. When they say "permanent home for the Markets" I should hear golden bells of exactly what our shining diamond Saturday Market deserves and will love. I can easily admit I love that photo in the PPS report of the meandering stream with boulders in it and people lounging beside it.
I'd love that. Nobody is going to take my space and not give it back. Maybe I'll even gain back the corner that I give to the fountain and be a real 8x8 someday.

I'm embarrassed and still trepidatious to be a city booster but when I meet with these folks I like them a lot. I see that their intentions, within their job descriptions, really are to honor us and help us thrive. They have been so careful, really, with their own set of trepidations that someone like me will be hurt or damaged by their actions. They are so welcoming to our feedback and very responsive. Of course they are bound by so many restrictions that don't bind me...they are public officials with all kinds of legal boundaries, ethics rules, regulations, laws and the myriad details of each department and its codes. They have to think about everything: who they can be seen having a beer with, what kinds of things they say that might be misinterpreted, what kinds of things they might see as illegal or untoward and have to report to their bosses. I can hardly imagine the kinds of things they worry about late at night. In comparison, I am free as a little old bird.

I have to worry that my fellow members won't like me anymore (those who do) if I lead them down this path and we don't like where we end up. That's about it, really. I suppose my income or retirement "plan" might be compromised if I am involved in some dumb decisions. I might have some arguments or make some enemies in the process, but really I have little to lose and so much to gain. 

I think we forget that when we moved into the Park Blocks 32 years ago, we fit ourselves into the existing spaces. If they weren't perfect we warped ourselves to fit them. I've spent years in a spot where I can't use the fourth leg of a popup because I can't put it in the fountain (yes, we used to...). I have to be next to a fountain where some people do gross things in public and sometimes splash my goods in the process. The concrete is uneven and lots of people trip and lose their balance on the cobbles, and the morning sun can be too hot and the afternoons too shady. Each one of us has fit into a space with some limitations and we've made it work. There is no reason to think we can't do this in a new space. There is every reason to think we can do it in a better space!

A lot of us initially thought this was not what we asked for and we felt somewhat resentful that we would have to change what works for us so well. But if we're honest, we can find things that don't really work that well, that could be improved, like access to the interior, access to the raised areas, and amenities we don't have like flush toilets and cool shade coverings and who knows what all?

If we really got to work and designed ourselves the Market of our dreams, I'll bet we could find a few things to change that we'd love. That's our task: not to react in dismay to what gets done to us, but to design for ourselves the spaces we want and the amenities and features we need. We can grab this opportunity and make the most of it, and we'd be shamed if we didn't. If we really opposed this gift to use and made it so hard for the city to do it that they gave up, we'd be doing a disservice to the whole community. The community loves us. It wants this for us too. 

Nobody wants us to do anything but polish up our facets and shine all the brighter. Everyone we know wants us to thrive. Sometimes I think so small I wonder how I made it this far. Thinking big is risky, sure, but nothing really great happens if we can't at least be open to hearing from people who think bigger than we can.

So I'm a leader on this, taking on the interface between the city and my people of the market, but it's not something I am doing by myself. I'm listening to everyone, writing down what they say, writing down what we think, and helping to make an articulated plan. Every part of it is open to our thoughts and our visions and our ideas. We don't want to be the limiting factors for our lack of vision, we, who are some of the most creative and innovative people around. We want to add our vision and our great skills to the mix that comes up with the best home imaginable, the best we can all afford, the best we can all achieve together.

It feels like a lifting of a burden, to really accept and embrace this big change in our beloved home. It feels like an anticipation of a big event, a life-changing one like a wedding or a birth. I really want to live there in a brilliant and successful future. I do not want to be one of the ones who stood in the way of a good dream.

So finally, somehow, I have entered into the world that some consultants from NYC saw for us when they came with their wide worldview to our little town. I will never agree with everything they recommended or  thought they saw, because of course I know us a lot better than they could. I see our flaws and the ways we've made our compromises and decided we couldn't have nice things. But I'm not going to be stuck there in the "this is good enough for me" zone about the Park Blocks. 

It wasn't good enough for us last year, and while it's getting better, it's still not good enough for us. We're incredible. We're a force of nature that makes our community great right in the very middle. We're where you can bring yourself and find your people, find the things that matter, be in the middle of a time and place of fun and depth of emotion and what is real in our lives. We are at the center. We offer this to our community every week, for practically nothing, for their enjoyment and their dismissal and their delight and their distraction. We put it out there for whatever other people want to feel and want to do with it. We've been giving and putting it at the feet of our community for all these decades. And now our community wants to give it back. I want us to accept it, with gratitude and with joy. I want us to use our talents to make it so shiny and beautiful, so perfect, that we will all expire with satisfaction and be fulfilled forevermore. 

Yes, I have a romantic fantasy about the Park Blocks Revitalization. I think it is going to be remarkable, and I want to be a part of it. I want to be a city booster for it. I want to put my hand to it and help make it happen. I want to leave my little fingerprint in it somewhere. What better way do I have to use all of these skills I have gained over all these years?

That's the weight I want on my shoulders, the weight of possibility and the lightness of perfection. Let's try for this, together. This is so worth doing. Let's not let our fears get in our way. Let's embrace. We're already in the middle of it, so there's no turning back now. 

And all this work I'm doing, all this oppressive, onerous work...well, I love it. I want to be needed and I want to put the meaning on shirts and make beautiful treasures and sell them and I want to stay up late and get up early. And get paid for it. Today was a gorgeous summer day at the Tuesday Market and people wanted what I brought and I had a lovely day. I came home and forced myself to type some minutes and then, rather than being depleted and depressed, here I am happy and reluctant to stop writing and go to sleep. I have a wonderful life and I chose it. I get to share it. I get to work harder and longer and then go to a festival that will still be full of love even when we disagree and always when we love each other the way we do, when we're honest. And we do know how to be honest. Right from the deepest part of our hearts. We'll get through anything we need to get through. And then we'll laugh and get on with whatever comes next. On that bus, that bright and colorful bus. 
Glad I got to be under it long enough to get back out and climb on top. There's quite a view! 

Park Blocks Vision

Yes, Saturday Market has one, a quite detailed one in fact. Our task force worked on it and I went wild with post-its and glued it up last night. Our idea was that this would be a template or suggestion for some willing architect or graphic artist to translate to a shiny 11x17 flyer, or some portable version that we could share with city residents and others who have ideas about the park.

Since we use it so thoroughly every Saturday in the season, any changes will affect our footprint and each one of the little squares on the blue map at the bottom represents a business owner. Sure, a micro-business, but if you are the owner, you are invested, sometimes rather heavily, in your location, your display configuration, and your equipment. So it's understandable that we Saturday Market members are wary and worried about substantial changes to the south Park Blocks.

My observations of the Project for Public Spaces folks who came to view us twice was that they were good people, working hard to do what they were experts at doing, which includes re-imagining how spaces are used and thinking about the big picture of re-animating public open spaces. They told us several times that Saturday Market was the best thing going downtown, that we were doing everything right, and they wouldn't want to change a thing about us. I did try to take them at their word, and as far as I know, that's the city plan as well.

But as luck would have it, the two days they came were not the best days. The first one was one of those unimaginably hot days in August when our vendors stayed away by the dozens. We didn't look full at all. The second day they came in October, it was the monsoon day. They left, being completely unprepared for that, and both Markets closed early as well, which was unprecedented in recent memory.

So they never saw the current reality that we fill almost every inch of the two south blocks and spill over into the streets, and the two north blocks are full to bursting as well. So they might not believe that. Lots of people who come on marginal days might not believe that, but I will swear on a stack of bibles that it is the truth.

So lots of the ideas pitched by the public were not realistic or applicable to Saturdays in that location in the selling season of April through mid-November. A play structure for kids? Great idea, but it would have to be removed every week for safety and spatial reasons...they need the right surface under them, the right amount of space around them, and so on. A water feature that kids can play in? Well, maybe, but it won't be only kids that use it...people take baths in the fountain all the time in our current reality. So do you really want some half-dressed adults playing in the water too? Because you can't put a chain-link fence around it and sell tickets.

We support an enhanced stage area so that more groups can use the infrastructure during the week and at other times when we are not there. Some lighting, an electrical upgrade, a covering that drains better and doesn't cause puddles to form where guitarists want to stand, yes to those. On the west block, the existing coverings have problems too, but many of our members count on the shade and weather protection and rented their spaces with the idea that those would be provided. So some accommodations will have to be made if those are removed, and the walls on that block are used and loved as well. The stairs and access for wheels are pretty lame on the west block, though we've adapted, so we have mixed feelings about leveling it, but we could probably cope with changes like that. With difficulty, though.

We want a kiosk that provides information to tourists, with maps, charging stations, permanent restrooms, and other amenities, that could include storage for tables and chairs that the city could own and lease or lend out for events. In concept it is a win, but location is an issue of course. If we could use it as an info booth and put it over on East Park and Oak where our booth is now, that might be ideal...and many, many people support permanent restrooms. 

We rent nine porta-potties on Saturday, and it's a huge chunk of our operating budget. Of course as a large event we would still have to rent some, but it would be great to get some city support to lower that cost. But yes, location is an issue once again. It leads to the thought of redesigning the southern corners of both blocks to see if utilities can be fitted in with a gain of sales space instead of a loss. Might be tricky, but if it is planned for, well, great.

Most of our other issues are small...smoother concrete in places where people regularly lose their loads from hand-trucks and dollies when trying to load into the center of the blocks, and some anchors embedded to hold down some of the booths and eliminate the 100 pounds of sand we are each required to haul down there as booth weights. Let me tell you as an older person that the weight bags are going to be the determining factor for me to attend on rainy days, maybe even this season. I can't do it without hurting myself, and of course I am not the only one. We have 600 members! On any given day in the season we fill 250 booths.

We kind of want to stay exactly as we are if the choice is a big change or none...but of course we don't know yet what the choices will be and as renters of the parks, we aren't going to be making the decisions. We are included in the process, thus the task force, thus the visioning process, but yes, the wariness too.

It might be impossible to imagine what the loss of even one space does to our system. Each member commits to a space on the basis of a complex point system that ranks us with lots of variables worked in. You can hold your space for years if you keep your points up by attending and paying on time, so many of us feel that we have permanent homes and neighborhoods. My particular space has its issues, like backing up to the fountain and in fact losing a corner to it, but I love it and have made it work for me. So putting benches or other items around the fountain could eliminate my space. If that happened, it's not a simple matter to fix. Any space I was eligible for would be someone else's unless they gave it up and I had the point order to get it. People strategize and plan for years to get the space they want, so the good locations don't generally open up. Moving my booth to another location entirely is a huge disruption for my business and my personal experience at the Market. 

Sure, it might be good, but it might destroy what I have built so patiently and with so much effort. And it we displace a lot of members with some structure or other, we might have to start all over and remap and redistribute space. Some people think that would be a good idea, but I see it as utter chaos and a plan that will involve a lot of loss, people quitting, people arguing, people hurt and relationships disrupted. It would not be simple or effortless in execution, so if anyone suggests that it would, let me give you my full rant on that. It could take awhile.

I should say that everything so far that has involved our organization and the city has worked out fine, even big things like the fountain repair last summer and the siting of dog-waste stations and signage...if it is in the wrong place, it gets moved, and we adapt. There's a pretty strong trust relationship between SM and the City staff. I don't want to set up anxiety or speculate on what horrors change could bring. I'm really here to illustrate that we are artists, so we do have a lot of creative ideas, and we generally celebrate the creative ideas of others. 

I think I've said this before, I simply do not want Eugene citizens and leaders to break what is working really well. We're here to help make these decisions work. We want the Parks to be loved and healthy and used by a wide swath of residents and visitors. We want to continue to be the well-loved gem that we know we are. We do not want to be forced to stand in opposition to something lots of people want.

So if you are interested in this process that is coming up this next month when PPS reports and recommends to the City, stay tuned, and keep me in mind if you have questions about what the Market wants. A large group of us got together and distilled that and we are ready to work together. Let's do a good job of this. It is vitally important to a number of business owners that we get this right from plan to completion. I'm ready with my post-its and my heavy notebook of all that has been said and done so far, from the Park Blocks Master Plan of 2006 to this fall's forums and presentations. I know we can all end up on the same page and I can put my notebook on the shelf at some point. I'm paying attention, and keeping a lot of people informed as well, so any discussions about the Park Blocks are not happening in theory, they are happening in a living reality, a legacy event that is a town treasure. It's the city's front porch. My rocking chair is on it.