Surprises Every Week

The combination of routine and the unknown every Saturday Market makes for an unfolding mix I can't resist. So often I wake tired and unwilling to mount the energy I know it will take, but I learned long ago to make no decisions in the morning. I am going. Coffee and sometimes bacon are needed and when 6:45 comes I log out of Facebook and go load up. My Tuesday commitment is only slightly less concrete. I am continually surprised at the sources of pleasure and food for thought (as well as the body) that float through my booth neighborhood. Never two days alike. Nearly always soul-stirring as well.

Yesterday so many things happened I won't be able to report on all of them. The Slug Queen did bring the Empathy Tent as well as playing onstage with his Sunday band, and I'm enjoying Markalo Parkalo immensely as he brings his style to the public. I have admired Mark Roberts for a long time due to his commitment to compassionate communication (NVC inspired by the great Marshall Rosenberg) and his own brilliance and sense of humor, as well as lack of ego and male dominance paradigm...he's just a stellar person who has made the most of his life experience and talents. He's a sweet one, restoring my sometimes tenuous faith in the human male animal. Anyway, Markalo dresses the way he wants and is quicksilver in his presentation. He is going to be a force of legend. It's fitting that there is no Eugene Celebration framing to lean on for him. He was not given the key to the city, as Bananita said so eloquently: he has to go out and find it. He's doing really wonderfully so far!

After the Coronation I was helping to clean up and happened to rescue his handwritten speech, which is essentially his promise to us, his people, and here it is. I love what handwriting reveals and he stuck to the script, promising even more between the lines.

I thought to make it into an art piece for him but used the Slug to make the headpiece instead. I bestowed him with his purple flower crown yesterday to our mutual delight and he has plans to make it part of his eclectic and ever-changing costume, which will fit his expanded role.He has already added el-wire to his pimp hat and the lovely green crown Kim Still made (she as First Lady-in-Waiting gets to make lots of Slug Queen Swag.)

  So there was that. He and I had a great chat about the Empathy Tent mid-day, mostly me reinforcing my belief that if everyone had even a little training in compassionate listening and communicating we would all make life more wonderful for each other without much effort, instead of all the self-and other-sabotage we enter into without knowing a better way to get our needs met. The Empathy Tent will have a sometimes-there presence at Saturday Market for the rest of the season, usually locating on the west block back by the south wall. Step on in with your questions and concerns. Get to know Markalo. He's Your Queen and Mine!

Lots of our members stayed home yesterday due to fears about the weather. Remember what I have said about fears and weather predictions before...there was very little rain and not much wind either yesterday, just enough to keep us on our toes. People did fine with just umbrellas, and there was no weight inspection or punitive actions and no booths went flying either. Most of the storminess went north of us although I was happy I was prepared. It wasn't easy to bring that 75 pounds of sand on my bike cart. With the repair of the fountain our longtime habit of putting one or two of our booth legs into the recess of the fountain moat is over; my popup is now skewed out into the aisle a foot on the southeast corner and I have to bungie it to keep it in place, and I'll probably need the fourth weight bag now to be in compliance with the policy. I like being in compliance with policy. I seem to have outgrown much of my rebellious bad-girl parts and given over to Miss Rule-Follower. (Not in every way, of course, but I'm 65...need a little more safety for my body.) I felt bad for those who gave into their fears and stayed home. We had so many tourists! I sold a lot of bags, too, and people were really happy to find them. I had several conversations about plastic bags and imported bags and lots of support for my line of locally made and dyed products.

There was even a moment I exchanged looks with a charismatic and gorgeous young man who turned out to be Casey Affleck, we think. He was not your usual good-looking young man, I could tell that. He had a quality of self-awareness and deep power that was either his good luck or something he has learned from being in the big world that most of us would never want to enter, if we're honest. There was a touch of fear mixed with the expectation that I had recognized him (which I didn't), and I imagine that the opportunity to live a normal day strolling the Market with his friends was very precious to him, so I'm glad I didn't know who he was. It's possible that I made up the whole story, as possible as the idea that I might have sold him a hat. I don't even know. I make stuff up, but somebody else was positive it was him and it was certainly quite possible.

Our local celebrity Rich Glauber came by to sing the almost-finished version of a new song he has written about the 1920's, another in a series of very clever and accomplished songs he seems to write with a magical access to skill and knowledge built up over years of practice. He makes it look easy but when you hear the process from the beginning you can see how he layers it up like any piece of writing. He starts with a musical phrase or an idea, and with sometimes only a note or two he can add a whole new aspect, like a little reference to a Gershwin song he threw in there. He captured the giddiness before the crash of 1929...we can look back and see it, but he doesn't foreshadow it heavily, just enough to make us think about our times now, as we see what is coming but still party like it isn't. Do people really believe we won't be able to drive cars and have plastic everything? No, they do not, but some of us are operating like this is already the case. Some of my alternative culture friends don't even accept a plastic bag, because they don't want to be part of that stream of consumerism when they decide its next use. They don't want to be the one to throw it in the trash. I'm getting to be more and more that way, saving my bath water to use for other things, cutting down my water bill and feeling like I can still grow flowers in the drought. Riding my bike even for the awkward and distant objects I do need to consume. Mostly it seems eccentric, but really lots of us hippies have always known the future will demand such skills and comfort with the less-consumptive patterns of our society.

We want to already do the right thing even before it is legislated. That's not an easy road to walk. The booth weights issue was a great example of that yesterday. Those of us who got with the program were relaxed, and those who have resisted were caught a little short. We all know that the future will catch us all short, and we recognize the human nature in avoiding and procrastinating and not working on the skills we need. When we have an emotional crisis, the same things happen if we don't gain some skills while we can.

The gossip mills were less active yesterday (or didn't reach my ears) and the Empathy Tent was well-used. Little by little we are improving, working things out. We're still getting used to life without Beth, as a community, seeing how much we depended on her to keep us together, do all the necessary counseling and keeping out ahead of our tendencies as someone who knew us so well. We commiserated yesterday about how much we still need a Mom down on the Park Blocks. Well, I don't want the position, and truly we are better off not having someone we put into that role. Everybody needs to grow up, no matter their age, not just in the Market/Fair communities but everywhere. There is nobody in charge of your emotional growth but you, though of course you cannot do it all by yourself. Look around and listen well to all the forces that are there to assist you in being a better you, having a better experience, making life more wonderful every day for each other. That was Marshall's legacy, and the unspoken wish of all those we have tragically lost in recent days from our collective society. Hurt people hurt others. Take care of your pain; get the help you need. Keep working together to work for positive change. It has never not been needed; it has never not been the way. It has always been The Way. Humbly yours and mine.

Old Ways

Ah, summer is winding down, long before I am ready. It might even rain on Saturday! Of course rain is really needed, but we also need the Saturday income flow...but Sunday, rain on Sunday would be fine with me. This past Sunday I actually stayed inside because of the smoke, reminding myself how much bad air we tolerate already, not so much here, where the smog isn't visible (yet) but in other places, cities mostly. One of the reasons I seldom drive.

Had an interesting chat yesterday with my neighbor at the Tuesday Market, a person half my age who is a woodcarver. He's very dedicated to the handmade ethic, thinking hard about how he can make things more handcrafted in his life, not less. I draw great hope from young people who take on the hippie values (which to be honest were probably just traditional farmer values that the hippies adopted along with all the other cultural appropriations of the alternative culture.) Certainly the direction away from more mechanized solutions to everything is my direction. I got rid of my clothes dryer at least a decade ago, and don't miss it. I have a clothesline and know how to take advantage of the weather, even in the winter. I enjoy the biking and walking and even how long it takes.

We talked a bit about the politics of the Markets and Fair and the things that have changed over the 40-year history that I know and it was hard to pin down any separation or real change. Visually, almost everyone uses pop-ups and most of the change has been so gradual it isn't noticed, but the hard parts are mostly hidden. The laser cutters and 3-D printers and other forms of automation have crept in, though thanks to the dedication of a few there is at least an awareness of it. Personally I think laser-cutting needs to be eliminated from the handcrafted market, but I can surely see how computers have aided and not always subtracted from the ways we do things. Defining "handcrafted" becomes more challenging with every meeting, for both Market and Fair, and it will be a long process to dial things back if indeed we can. He and I talked about how a person can only make so many things in a day, and prices can only go so high. I bought a cool little coffee spoon that I had been wanting, which will fit inside my coffee jar, but how many people will pay $25 for a thing you don't actually need? Maybe a lot, as the real handcrafted things become harder and harder to find. He doesn't even sand, but uses sharp tools to smooth the utensils, and they look and feel wonderful. I know I will get more than $25 worth of pleasure out of the spoon, and will have it forever. That means a lot to me.

My hope is that people value such things increasingly, but I might have to stay off places like Facebook to hold onto that hope. Every time I look there someone is saying things like the smell of line-dried sheets is amazing but they prefer the softness of those tumbled in the electric dryer. Walking is good but cars are convenient and necessary. Doing things by hand or in the old ways is too hard. We are too soft. I'm getting to be a crochety old lady about this stuff. Work is supposed to be kind of hard. Of course my work ethic is really puritanical. I do get lazy too, and there are things I will have to give up. I try to channel my fantasy Tillie Van Harken sometimes, the woman who lived here for almost twenty years and likely made many parts of my house be the way they are. She didn't even have running water until maybe the year before she died in 1942. That means she had an outhouse, heated water on the stove, and did all things inconveniently.

As far as politics go, apparently little has changed as well. I got the "while-you-are-packing-up-I-will-rant-to-you" lecture at the end of the day on Saturday. It seemed to be focused on the opinion that I am too nice and won't admit that there are people who are devious and evil and would kick other people out of Market. I am not inclined to ascribe evil motives to Market people, that is true. I make excuses for them, that they don't hear well or have good social skills or are too isolated and don't see the big picture. The gossip mills turned in an ugly fashion on Saturday and there are a couple people convinced they have to fight for their Market membership despite the fact that nobody said or is planning to kick them out and that isn't how we work. I insist on that. Like the fact that we try to work toward consensus in all of our efforts, which is largely hidden and not spoken about much, we also work very slowly when we sense important change or irrevocable actions. The whole fight for the handcrafted is a glacial, careful process.

I dislike the getting offended and going away mad thing people tend to do. It's human and happens all the time but I always feel the failure of framing that causes that reaction. These people need the empathy tent! They need to talk about their feelings and fears and shift their perspective to see the salient points and real problems and to not be caught up in those fears and emotions. It's common but not that hard to break through to better understanding. It just takes time and listening. My policy with the rants is always to listen as well as I can and point to the fears if I can, hoping to diminish them. Fears persist though. What happens is that people cause the exact outcome they fear most if they proceed to think that way. It's needless and sad.

So I hope the Slug Queen Markalo Parkalo the Empath comes back to Market this week and all of these people find their way to his tent. Empathy and good listening is needed, as well as a re-grounding in the nonviolent and compassionate. Yes, there is a problem, but yes, there are solutions still out there we haven't found together. No one needs to do anything rash or irrevocable. We are a process in motion. Wait a bit if you don't yet see it. Ask a few questions instead of making so many assumptions.

Yesterday Rich brought down his guitar for a bit of singing at the end of the day, and it was really fun. Let's all sing more. Let's look around and see what is great and working well and try not to complain so much. There is a lot of good happening all around and it is lazy of us to forget to celebrate it. It's our habit as humans to want improvement and progress but there's time to think about it a bit before we rush in and mess it all up without a solution in mind. Let's not break things we can't fix.

Like the old ways of hanging up the clothes and canning the tomatoes, things take more time to do in the traditional manner. I found it fun to get a chance to talk about the alternative culture as an old culture...it must have been something back in the mid-Seventies when the hippies gathered in Eugene and started to change things. I'm sure we were viewed with suspicion and dismay by many until the common ground was found. On that score little has changed. I'm certainly not convinced that the student housing developments and the prevalence of heat pumps and air conditioning is good change. I have to allow that some of the things I protest will indeed look sensible and elegant to me over time. I pitched my fit about the weight bags only a few months ago, but now I take my bags to the Market and strap them on, and I like them. Last Saturday it got pretty windy and people were holding down their booths, and the big one over at Farmer's Market almost went over again. I saw the usefulness, practicality and safety of the weight bags and I wanted everyone to have them. That's only one example of a change that only took me a few months, but one I couldn't imagine back in the winter when the idea surfaced.

So maybe some of the other things I fear and don't understand will become clear. Maybe I am indeed too nice and we have some devious forces that need exposure, some wrongs to right in our little community. I'll keep watching, but I don't see myself becoming less trusting of the good and honest forces among us. Help me out with your sensibility. Go to the empathy tent with your fears, instead of spreading them around all over the rest of us. Do your part to make us stronger.

And conserve water and power. We are going to need it, because that rain on Saturday might not appear. Predictions, like fears, do not always come true. Good thing.  

All of my art life is tangled up in one weekend!

Don't have time right now to write a full post, but did want to remark upon the second Radar Angel Slug Queen, Markalo Parkalo (aka Mark Roberts). He is a fine man with superb listening and communication skills and might be the most responsive Queen ever appointed. With his practiced skills at NVC and empathetic listening, many will be able to appeal to him for all manner of assistance and support. He came around Saturday Market yesterday promising all sorts of things...our heart's desires!

I plan to pitch the Kareng Fund to him to see if we can ride his coattails a little. A Market-grown nonprofit to help artists of all kinds (the low-income ones anyway) undergoing career-threatening crises. We give grants of up to $750 (soon to probably be raised due to a grant we received for $5000) and have given about $25,000 out in the past decade. He can help us with our outreach plans I think.

Mark has been running an Empathy Tent at the Market on occasional Saturdays. It's a neutral place where skilled listeners are available to all. He does this in honor of Marshall Rosenberg and it is a needed service.
I plan to use it myself next time he appears.

Singing for him was a blast. We rehearsed slightly the night before and didn't coordinate anything. Our costumes and styles are as always left to our own artistic inspirations and that is one of the keys to understanding the Radar Angels. We shine from within, and we try to help others unfurl their wings, so you never know quite who will participate and what they will do and say. We were asked to waltz if we wished and some of us did. It felt lovely to stand in front of yet another loving Eugene crowd and sing in public. I'm still surprised that I can do that after so many years of thinking I had stage fright. Maybe I still do, but when I dress in glittery clothes and wear Jell-O my inner glamour takes over and I am simply happy to be me. Like a bird. We were described as an "entourage of strangely clad hangers-on."

I suppose we could have been seen as outsiders to the Slug Queen Coronation, but that is simply not the case. Radar Angels have always been there. Radar Angels come and go from the active performance or art participation levels. We're like the Old Queens. You can't get rid of us, and you can certainly dismiss us (repeatedly in some cases) but we're not going anywhere. We are a shining thread of the Eugene fabric. We have our wings on and our fingers in every pie. So as the royalty we are, we find our shortage of photos and accolades amusing. At least Roger Rix and Kim Still recognize us. Not to mention Maude Kerns Art Center
(see previous blogs about the Community Partners thing.)

Have to go and picnic at the Country Fair site. Tra-la! Finally the picnic is held on a Sunday so craftspeople can make it before the food is gone, so I will go walk the land and love the community some more. This is a weekend full of heart. Love for everybody!

Coast Research and Fun Trip!

I took Saturday off to go to the coast, as I was really in need of a real day off, one with actual escape from responsibility and the super kind of relaxation that comes from leaving town. It was cold and foggy but divine, with the thoughts of how hot and smoky it was in the valley we had left behind. Seems like we enjoyed it! A huge thanks to Beth and Cathy for giving me such a fun day off.

One of the best parts was how easily dreams were fulfilled. I happened to mention my book project and the fact that there was a graveyard somewhere up by Newport with some of "my people" in it. Lemuel Eli Davis (5 Sept. 1832-22 March 1917) was the eldest son of Benjamin and Catherine Davis. He married Mary Jane Ogle Webster (25 July 1831-24 Jan 1913) in 1853, shortly after arrival in Oregon, and presumably lived on Lemuel's DLC next to his parents. I'll have to dig up and review all of the details of their lives but in 1866  they moved to the Yaquina Bay where they were among the earliest white settlers. They established a fishery there and ran a ferry across the bay. I have a couple of letters with more details. Cathy and Beth seemed to think it was a simple thing to drive on up to find it. I hadn't even brought a camera or any of my research but had enough in my memory to look it up on their phones.


We had a fairly good description of the place from an online posting 15 years ago, but that said the graveyard was derelict then, and it wasn't all that easy to find. The first wrong turn fortunately led us to a man who knew the place and pointed us to the correct hill in the distance. Following his directions, it was easy to get to the right hill and up some stone steps we found it! I was thrilled and tried to take pictures and write down all of the details. There were quite a few people buried there who weren't from the Davis family, but they were probably known to them or had some other connection to the old settlement. Unfortunately I wasn't as diligent as I could have been but it appeared that the oldest family stone was Mary's original one, and some had been replaced with newer ones, or the graves were finally permanently marked later. Mary's had been repaired. There were several fragments and I can make a few guesses about them. Lemuel's stone is a replacement, as is Zenas's, I think. I looked up the graveyard and there are about 30 people buried there, mostly early residents of Yaquina Bay. Another of the very old ones turned out to be their grandchild, Mary E. Copeland, (daughter of Catherine Winant,) who died just before turning three in 1881.


According to my records Lemuel and Mary had four children: Rebecca Catherine (1854-1936) Tracy W. (1857-1936) Zenas C. (1861-1907) and Fanny, who lived only three years from 1867-1871. The fragments might have been from her grave, as they were small, but totally unreadable. She is there and was probably the first burial. The other three children were there.

Tracy Davis and Catherine Winant had graves marked with identical stones set at the feet of their parents in the fenced family enclosure, and Zenas was to the side of his parents. I think Mary and Lemuel's stones had been replaced in a reversed position facing away from the graves, as they were right up against the metal fence and didn't face in the same direction as Tracy and Catherine. In fact an older photo of Lemuel's shows the fence behind it as it should have been I think. The children both died in 1936 and the stones were fairly modern-looking. I can't believe it but apparently we didn't get photos of them, although I have some from the internet. You can see one of them standing at the left of this photo, Catherine's. It is facing away from her parents. Tracy's was closer to us, even with Catherine's and in line with his father's.

 The shot with the view is from above them looking downhill. The graveyard was near the top of the hill, and the graves scattered around at the feet of tall trees or tucked into the woods. The metal fence seems the same age as the ones at the Masonic cemetery in Eugene, from the 1930's maybe. Further research is always needed for the details.

But here we have the Lemuel Eli Davis family buried so long ago. It was a satisfying search and set the mood for our later stop down the coast at the scene of the drowning of our young friend Jack Harsongkram only a few years ago. I hadn't been to the scene yet and it was heart-wrenching as I had expected it to be. Still, life and death are a part of our emotional landscape and they are not as easily escaped as valley weather. They stay with us as we walk through our lives and when we stop to mark them, it is gratifying to have a time and place set aside to do this. I am grateful to those members of the Davis family who made this little place and to those who documented it for me to find. It renewed my excitement about my research and I want to dive back into it and fill in the details of their stories.

Mary's obituary and her photo were essential details for me as she changed little in appearance over the decades. I have had a photo of the "Davis women" that I have been working for years to identify and she is clearly the person standing behind the other two. With my subsequent discovery of photos of Iantha Davis (thanks to Peter Steelquist!) I am now completely certain that the person on the left is indeed a young Samantha Davis Huddleston, and by carefully dating the details of their clothing I have convinced myself that the photo was taken on the occasion of their father's death in 1858, making it a historically significant photo and the only one I have of Samantha. As soon as I can I will take up the quest again to find more photos of Samantha and fill in more details of her life.She was one of the most long-lived of the early Eugene pioneers and arrived here when she was still a child in 1847.Putting together some kind of story of her life seems really important to me, although her direct connection with my house is a slim one. She did own the land, and sold it off eventually, but whether or not she even set foot on my little spot is a big speculation. Still, I know enough about her to think of her every single time I walk on the west side of our town. My search for her, fueled by the sweet look of her in this photo, is one of the things that warms my heart. Finding the resting place of her oldest brother and essential sibling was a very good day.

All in Good Time

I should write. It has been a month, a month of Big Things. I suppose the one that was the most fun that I almost missed was going on stage at Art in the Vineyard to receive the Community Partners award for the Radar Angels. I had so many reasons why I couldn't go, from sheer overwhelm to not being in the Jell-O Art season to a reluctance to put together a costume for a three-minute occasion. What I learned for the zillionth time is that I never know how something is going to actually be and the more I get wrapped up in my imaginary scenario for it, the more I miss. I threw a costume together two days before it, and that turned out to be the best part, not a chore at all. We sang a song without a rehearsal and that was embarrassing, but the bar was low for the Queen of Jell-O Art and apparently I was easily forgiven for not getting the lyrics right. I kept trying to hand the mic back to Kitty while she gamely sang and danced. I got to see the fireworks and hanging out with Indi, Angela and Joanie was really great. At one point Indi said "We are so lucky to have each other!" That summed up the whole Radar Angels/Jell-O Art/ 40 years in Eugene/artistic life equation neatly, and I hope I never forget that moment, with the glorious summer evening sky, the old folks hopping to the Sugar Beets, the multiple-generation Radars shining, and me in my cute red petticoat and 4th of July shoes. I only wish I would have thought to take the moment to get the Mayor to wear some Jell-O Art on her head: what a missed opportunity that was.

The main reason I tried to get out of it was the pre-Fair overwork and that's just my usual excuse for missing the beginning of summer every year. I never think I can fit in a single additional thing, having my holy workload all lined out right up to the minute. Because once you get to Fair your fate is sealed, in the retail sense; if you didn't bring it you won't sell it. So much focus is on the retail: selling the new stuff, getting rid of the old stuff, having enough of all the items people will want, based on thirty years of experience and a lifetime of people-pleasing and hard work. I really get deep into an obsessive state that doesn't lift until all the items are dusted off and stowed again, though it slows down considerably during the post-Fair week. I always dream I'll get a vacation then, but I almost never do. Summer is t-shirt season and I sold out of lots of the popular hats, so both me and my printing customers needed stock built up again right away.

I do lose the anxiety of the deadline and all of the dread that comes with Fair. Will it rain? This year the chance of rain on Thursday evening was 80% (the mixed blessing of smartphones) so we put up the giant tarp over my selling area and my sleeping area and there were a few drops. About midnight it rained for an hour, keeping me from sleeping but lulling me into a relaxed state that lasted. Fair is a slog of  hard work, though, getting up early, staying up late, keeping on task for six days with the involvement of lots of people. I rarely look up and enjoy it. This year we did do some fun hanging out on our decks out back and I got to see more of my son and his wife than usual, but I didn't really dance much. The lovely Radars came by on Sunday for a couple of songs on the path! I even had a Jell-O Art Show t-shirt on that day so the moment was sweet. I had a walk in the dark around the property on Tuesday or Wednesday night, listening to the birds and insects and the ramping up of the energy as the event launched itself on it's bumbling way to euphoria.

One afternoon I was coming back from lunch at the Avant Gardens when I happened upon the Rabbit Hole and tiptoed in. A tall man was in the center of a tight group of singing people, and he seemed to be teaching rounds parts. I stepped in closer and picked up a second-soprano part and watched and listened while it came together. The song was a simple one about teaching children the songs so they will know. It spoke of deep values and the many senses. When everyone was singing the tall man told people to listen to each other, and everyone started walking around the circle, singing and hearing. I started crying, kept singing, and just let the tears come. Later that day the man came into my booth and picked up a hat, the Nuthatch. I immediately told him to please take it as my gift, and explained how much I had loved the moments I spent singing. We talked for awhile and almost in passing he told me he led grief workshops. I hadn't even realized I was grieving.

That's what Fair often is for me, the place where I grieve and find the deepest joy. It really is a sacred place and a central point in my emotional and physical year. So many passages are marked then and there. I miss the dead, I mourn and celebrate my youth and growth. I rest easy about the future. Yes, the year will come when I am not there. My art and my goods and my booth will be no more, and a few people will notice and perhaps miss me. It's a big place, though, with a gigantic populace, and it will all most certainly go on without me, and not miss a beat. I like the humbling aspect of that. I like that I can be and feel so important in such little ways, with the knowledge that so many others are of equal importance, and none of it matters when Monday comes and we all go back to town for another year. It's never over really, since Fair itself is more than the event, but the event part of it is certainly over-the-top and spilling out, way too much to hold onto.

I suppose that is why I don't seem to take any photos. They'd look ordinary, probably, people eating things and dressing up slightly weirdly, smiling a lot and hurrying off to somewhere and something else. They'd be the same as many other photos of many other years. It's hard to separate the memories. We often speak of them in regard to the ages of our kids, who grew up there. It is always good to have the kids there together, still friends, still family. Family was good out there this year.

But now it's over. Lane County Fair is over too, and again I didn't go though it is less than a block away from my house. I always think I will, but it's too soon for me. I'm still washing tarps and drying rugs. There are still many boxes and tubs to sort through. I had to get right back to Market and Tuesday Market, as the tourist season is great this year! I'm still on a high that has lasted since the spring. I hope I never come down.

But I do think hard about my sister and her silent house. So glad she has a dog...maybe I need a dog. She's going through the parenting pain of the later highschool years, such a painful time to be a parent for most people. You wonder if your child will ever love you. You are pretty sure you still desperately love your child but you do hope they will turn back into a person you recognize. You slowly let them slip away from your arms and you long for them. This goes on for years. It's a harsh passage, and I understand why people get so silly over grandchildren and cling so tightly to their old and balding husbands. I sometimes think a husband would be good for me, or even a cat, but I do have the birds in my yard and the mama and baby possum under my deck to keep me from getting lonely. I don't get lonely, but I do feel the limits I impose on my life. If I had someone making it impossible for me to avoid taking a vacation, or even a walk after dinner, I would rest more and not work so much. Perhaps. But she needed her husband for this part, and that must be so much harder. I think of her all the time. I hope she hears me.

However, it is Monday and there is work to be done.  Getting up for Tuesday Market has been hard, which means I have to go to bed earlier tonight. No watching old Antiques Roadshow. No sitting around on the deck until I have to scramble to get dinner made before it gets dark. No putting off what is on my list.

Truth is, I even stopped making lists this summer. They were always the same lists: paint the porch, stain the wood, replace the roof, clean the shed, dig up the garlic, wash the windows. Fix the plumbing. Sweep the sidewalk. I know what there is to do. I don't have to tell myself over and over. I just have to do it. One job at a time, one print at a time, one plant at a time. I love the ordinary summer. I'm happy it finally got here after the rush that was spring. I feel like I can finally write again.

So Many Plans

It's a slug.

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. My little sister's husband died. Really sad, devastating for her, and the first death in our generation of siblings. A sea change, a major shift.

And I was so busy working. I was already sure I would not accomplish all of the things on my list, but I thought I had a good chance at it. The calendar kept confusing me...that last week of June, what was it for? Would I find the time to print all of my stuff, the little gaps in my stock that ought to be filled, the new hats I planned and already needed more of, the hoodies I dyed? Would I do that special bag design that everyone would want to buy? I dyed all the bags, and have the design in my mind, fairly well worked out. I still have to iron that major stack of bags.

Most of my custom work is finished, with just five small jobs and one big job left to do. (Edit: this was last Tuesday.)  Most of those materials are here as of today, ready to print. Tomorrow, Thursday and Friday were open and those were the tasks I was set to accomplish. Two sets of overdue minutes still to type, something I should be doing right now as I monitor the washer as it agitates the purple hoodies. Then the time to finish my own projects and organize the many piles of stuff that go out to the site right after the Fourth of July.

But no, I am not going to be the person who doesn't go to the funeral because I had to work. I'm speculating about all the sales, all the money, all the pleased customers who please me in turn. That is all wishful thinking, put to the test by real life. I will fly to my sister's side as all of my instincts tell me to do, pack and go. Set things aside. She may not need me, but I am called to be a part of the family I have been part of for 65 years. That isn't something you set aside.

I'll get the custom work done. I'll work super hard tomorrow and maybe Thursday and get it all done, if not delivered. I'll jet away for the weekend and return with some days left to finish it up. If I go to Fair without a few things, no one will even know. I'll sell what I have, and catch up later with the other stuff. Maybe I'll take it the next year, or make a new plan for it. It doesn't matter.

 I don't have reservations yet and don't know if I can even get them, with Bach Festival and the Track Meet and all, but I will try, and if you don't see me at Market that is why. Life happened, one of the tough parts. I haven't even figured out how to grieve yet. I'm sure I'll get to that.

I wrote that last week and now I am back from it. I decided not to post it since I wasn't feeling grounded, but it still rings pretty true. I don't suppose I am grounded today either, but I flew 3000 miles and back and my house is the same and my piles of work are the same and my deadline is the same, and though I feel rather derailed I also had a giant dose of life/death/reality and that goes along with Fair anyway. The last time I saw my sisters was at Fair.

They all showed up, with my Mom and a brother and sister-in-law, for my son's wedding, which we held at the labyrinth on Friday of 2013. We sang for the rest of the day. Then just a couple of months ago my Mom and I jetted to Australia and back for my brother's wedding. Both of those were peak experiences with all the good feelings, while this one had some grim moments as you might imagine. Still, we siblings and Mom spent the day together, and it rained and rained and rained so much so that the whole main street of the Maryland town where my sister lives was flooded and out of electricity. At home people were begging for rain, and we had way too much. I felt confused.

I still do. I'm caught up on emails but I can't quite face the shop and the decisions I need to make. I have tomorrow and the rest of the week to make phone calls and excuses and get the rest of the work finished. I know how to do Fair. It has happened so many times I don't have to think that much about it. I will get back to Market on the Fourth and swelter and sell hats and I know I can do that without much thought as well. It will be okay if I am confused for awhile

.

I can sort out the emotions as they catch up to me. The good part is how present everyone was able to be. Say what you will about addictions and recoveries and religion and dogma and sin, there is a joy embedded in being in the moment and feeling the emotions as they come, without holding fear. I know there will be more deaths, but if they include spending the day watching the woods drenched with rain or sunbeams or birdsong, they will be bearable and learning will be gained. I saw fireflies. I lay in my childhood and teenage and post-teenage room and felt my old self, that young woman and girl who had so many thoughts and tears and laughs in that house, and I was still her. Yet, though I could feel her (seemingly) unloved self  with all her angst, I knew when I returned to my home where I feel love around me all of the time as my 65-year old self, I would be still present, even more so.

Ahh, this fulsomeness of summer. When I go, may I be this full, and may someone gently pick my blueberries and eat them one by one.

There Was a Train

I guess I want to write my way back to my comfort zone. People were disturbing this week, hurt people making life harder. It was a hard week that made me want to quit all my organizations, but instead of even thinking of that as a possibility, I immediately took whatever actions were in front of me, which all consisted of writing things. Explaining things, reassuring, soothing, stopping, mending, attempting to divert, hoping to prevent, and always composing sentences. Clear, careful sentences to convey belonging, good intentions, higher purposes, bigger pictures. I really wanted people to understand.

Not me, really, though my view, certainly. I wanted complaining people to hear the ways they were hurting and making things worse. I wanted vulnerable people to be shielded, giving people to be valued, loving people to be appreciated. I wanted all my organizations to work better, to remember their values, and to work harder toward their goals. I expected them to be steadier and not need so much guidance, so much effort. Maybe I hadn't been paying attention, maybe I hadn't been doing my job, keeping the sails trimmed on the ship I'm on.

It is true I was in a work trance. I was so obsessed with making that deadline with those 2543 shirts that I printed them in three and a half days. It's still amazing how fast those 37 boxes were emptied and filled, starting out as t-shirts, getting counted and counted again, getting piled and piled a few more times, in gigantic piles. Seven hundred t-shirts in a day is two tables full, piles higher than your head. (Well, I'm short, but you get the picture.) Maybe you get the picture. I wish I had taken some photos. They started out as t-shirts, became a vehicle for working with kind people, and ended up as keepsakes and working gear for 2543 lucky people who will have a piece of Spirit in the big sense. It was a wonderful thing to do and a lot of work and three and a half days really doesn't describe it at all. Pretty much any description trivializes it.

Just to state it publicly one time, I printed OCF staff shirts for the volunteers. I have been doing half of them, the other 1800, for a few years now, the first year with my broken foot, and oh, that was hard too. But this year I did both halves of the contract, because Bryon nearly died and I took on the job. It was what needed to be done and it was the right thing to do, and right away I decided to do their work but not take their money. I knew they were counting on that money. Bryon and Spirit are craftspeople, and I know almost everything there is to know about the life of a craftsperson after 40 years of it. I know it is a hand-to-mouth existence, and if your hand isn't working, your mouth is empty. I know how hard it is to be a screenprinter and to drive to Portland Market while your partner is selling at the Eugene Saturday Market, to come home and fill in the stock you sold, to maybe get an afternoon off if you force yourself, and to do it every week of the year except the lovely offseason when you do other work. I know even harder ways to do it, like holding down a regular job and still selling on the weekends, or doing it with a child at home, and so on. But the point is that I knew they were in for a rough time and needed that money.  It was in my power to give it to them so I did. I could have used it I suppose, but it wasn't money to me, and it never was mine. And the work, well, I love work, as I've said before, and I wasn't sure I could do it without hurting myself, but it was in front of me so I took it on. It hurt a little, I'll be honest. Fortunately, pain doesn't generally scare me that much. There are other, much scarier things, like seeing someone else in pain. I can take it, I'm tough, but I cry right away when I see someone else hurting. I really have to try to fix it when I see someone who needs help. That's probably why I don't go out much.

I don't know how it is to practically die and to have your partner do CPR on you in desperation and prodigious presence of mind, successfully, and to come back from that and resume a normal life. I know it takes a long time to get back from that. Just my broken foot has been a big deal for the last three years and my life has been changed by it. Bryon has a way bigger challenge, and Spirit has the same one, bigger maybe. They are both still in shock, by my guess. It will take years to wear off. I doubt you are ever the same. But so goes life, it's full of things like that. Me printing massive piles of shirts was a profoundly important thing for a week, but it was nothing compared to what they have been doing.

So it was good to hug them, good to know the check arrived, good to have the feelings of doing a very kind thing, good to shed the tears of it. I did want to get something back, of course, because I am a human and have an ego, so it was nice of Colleen to tell about it at the meeting. I went blank when she did it and don't know what she said, but I'm glad people know. I guess what I wanted was to firmly set in stone that I am a good person. That way, all my past trangressions are forgiven and all my future sins will be overlooked. No? Darn. I'm still just a regular, flawed person who just happened to do one good thing because it fell in my lap? Darn.

I don't know. I'm a better person now. I've never  been particularly generous. I'm actually pretty selfish, and hold on pretty tightly to my stuff and my money and my time and my attention. I don't even give much eye contact. I am not competitive though, that is true. Technically Bryon and Spirit are my competitors. I have probably lost customers that they got and since they're younger, once they do get back on their feet they might get all my customers, since I am going to have to stop printing at some point. Not yet, though. I didn't even know I could work that hard still. It was surprising to even me that I could stand there for six or seven hours straight and just do it, and then go back after eating something and count and box them for a couple of hours. I didn't even take breaks. It seemed like I got stronger and stronger. I thought I would hate chatting with people all that time but even that turned out to be fun. I am very grateful to my old friends and my new friends who helped me do that. They got nothing as well, though I gave them as many tote bags and t-shirts as they would take. I'll continue to give them whatever they will take. I suppose I have my generous moments. I kind of like to give stuff away sometimes.

People actually do kind things and generous things constantly. It's a river of kindness that flows for lots of people and probably the bitter people are that way because they know about the river and they can't seem to find it. They'd like to feel it or they're afraid of it, or they hate it because it makes them feel things, but I personally really want to stay in that river a little longer. It reminds me of the Brownie Ways where you do secret good things for people and you try not to get caught doing them. Come to think of it, I have been doing that all my life, then, because I was a Brownie when I was six and I have the scrapbook to prove it. I know I was a good Brownie and yes, I admit it, I know I am a good person. I don't need to be told,  or recognized. About all I want is a pie, I'd kind of like to treat myself to a pie. Cherry I think. It's almost cherry season so maybe I will.

So yeah, the work trance, the river. I experienced a dynamite metaphor this week and that's what I sat down to write about. I took a quick drive in my car to drop off some junk at the Free Tree and get some soda ash fixer down on Railroad Ave, and what do you think happened? I got caught at the train crossing. It was a classic. It was a really, really long train. This probably happens every day to people who live down there, probably at the same time, and they know to avoid it. I turned off the car and settled in, thought about turning around but I like graffiti and thought it might be good (and it was, really great graffiti) and as I waited and waited I was smiling because it's uncommon to just sit there in a car like that. People are generally in way too much of a hurry for that, and I was having a busy day. But the train just rolled and rolled and finally it stopped and blocked the street and then it actually started going in the other direction. I knew just how long it was, and here it was going by again. I was smiling even more, of course, at the silliness of me sitting there waiting when I could be turning around and would have been home long ago if I had, but I just had to wait it out for some reason. I had invested my time in it and I wanted the full value of my investment. I don't really understand it and the metaphor isn't really even clear to me, but there it was, an interlude in my day when I was just sitting and waiting, unnecessarily, for the business of the train and the dead trees upon it, all neatly sliced and stacked and labeled, with the cryptic messages of the trainyard travelers on the boxcars in the middle. Finally the gates went up and we all proceeded and were not much changed, but it was amusing. It was amusing enough that later that day, I went into the bank and the tellers were bored. The teller practically grabbed at me when she saw me, just for something to do at 4:30 to get her to 5:00. So I felt that she needed to hear something amusing. I felt it was my duty to tell her something amusing.

Fortunately, I didn't have to tell her about the train. Just a few moments before, as I had approached the bank, a long, long white stretch limo went by and a young woman with long blond hair stuck out her head and said loudly, "Have an amazing day." She didn't say it to me, especially, or even joyfully, especially, though maybe I was the only one on the street right then, but it wasn't particularly personal, and I was already having an amazing day, so I didn't take it personally. And I had plenty of joy from the train, so her lack of it didn't bother me, though I noticed. But I did give it to the woman in the bank. I tried to amuse her with it. We had a little chat about it. She thought maybe the young woman in the car, on a weekday, must have been having a pretty amazing day, but I disagreed. If she was having such an amazing time in the limo, why was she hanging her head out yelling to me? Why was she actually hanging her head out telling me what to do, when in fact I was already doing what she was telling me to? I didn't get too far into it with the teller, since she quickly got bored again with my somewhat trivial story, and our business didn't take long, and I was going to be late for a meeting, so I left. She told me to have a good day as I walked away, but I corrected her. "Have an amazing day," I said. I hoped that she was grateful for my effort to amuse her, and made it to 5:00 with ease, and that it had all added up to a win for all of us. I know I made it to the meeting on time. But I doubt she got an amazing day out of it, probably just had an ordinary Wednesday night at home with her cat. Maybe she washed her hair, and watched reruns of CSI. Then again, she might have seen something amazing online, as many of us do pretty much every day, being amazed, amused, being taken out of our ordinary existence with the wonders available on Facebook.

Because an ordinary day just isn't good enough. We're really not supposed to have ordinary days. They're all supposed to be amazing these days, with peak experiences, big plans, meaningful encounters with incredible people doing unbelievable things. This is what Facebook tells me anyway, and women in expensive limos. I don't agree, of course. I really like the ordinary days. I like the ones where I just do my work, eat dinner on the deck watching the regular birds, wear the same clothes, hang the same laundry, watch the same garden plants do their incredible but ordinary things, know the answers on Jeopardy. I guess that is why the ruby-throated hummingbird gave me such a piercing look today. I think I was supposed to snap out of my ordinary self and realize it was an amazing day that I was having. Like all the others. I think I'm living a very special life. I think I'm lucky to be here. I think I had a moment as an ordinary hero, and it was good. Now I have to get to bed, and back to work.