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2008-01-25 - 10:15 a.m. Communication Gaps Had to drag myself out to a potluck last night. "Had to" -- funny way to put it. "Chose to" and it was a lot of efforting. Got there right in the middle of the 40+person introduction circle. Roommate and I, sneaking in, went last. I stood up and tried to excuse my energy, explain (in half a stunted sentence involving more gestures than adjectives) how fragile and internalized I was feeling and therefore how difficult it was for me to stand up and speak. No one seemed to hear that, and when we spoke more intimately (one or two people at a time) later on, everyone seemed surprised by the adjectives I was (finally) using to describe my state of Be-Ing. Processed this with a roommate on the way home. Good insights on her part, but nevertheless frightening ones, for their implications that authentic interaction may be difficult for me to secure in my life just because of how I present myself and my energy. That frightens me. There are so many times when I feel as though all the walls are falling in on me... okay, not SO many, but every few months when something big-ish happens... and it confuses me to know that some of my closer acquaintances and less-close friends won't be able to spot those times or respond to them in ways that feel supportive to me. I'm feeling quite devastated over the closure of Roots and the imminent change-over of my place of work to a crappy retail place (instead of the lovely community-building space it is currently becoming). I'm disgusted at how difficult it is for ethical business to survive in Edmonton's current fiscal climate. I'm at a loss for how to make a difference when all these Rich White Guys (race and sex are, of course, negligible, but it's the power- and gender-performances to which I refer) are ultimately the ones who can pull the rug out from underneath anything beautiful. I can buy a house and stop that from happening but I can't buy a business at this point in my life, and yet I see them slipping through the cracks and leaving the economic climate of Edmonton barren and that-much-less magickal. Is this what an Oil Boom does to a culture? I need some reassurances. I know Roots is going to reopen, and that they're taking back their power in the process, and that is beautiful. Maybe I'm just feeling sorry for myself and "my" beautiful business?* It just seems so unfair that people without a clue have so much power to make so many decisions. *I hadn't originally put the quotation marks around the possessive pronoun, then went back and changed it, and it feels wrong still, because it IS my business -- I'm the one putting in 50- to 60-hour weeks and making choices and watching it grow into beauty -- and also it belongs to my clients and regulars and the other staff... and it just DOESN'T belong to the person who owns it but rarely eats there and knows so little, and has so little interest in knowing, about it save the numbers, and even those hardly. In the meantime, I'm stuck shopping at MegaGiants whose stocking policies I don't agree with, and being more put-upon to make ethical food choices (particularly while I'm still working Saturdays, which means I can't make it to the Farmer's market)**. I remember talking to FGB once and making a joke about sitting down together in a grocery aisle and holding one another and crying, how it would be so much less lonely than the crying-on-the-inside we both do each time we are asked to choose between two equally garbled and unclear food-package labels, or the mangoes from Chile vs Mexico (politics versus transportation imprint?) **I am reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and it is simply reinforcing the notion that there is so little choice in our myriad of choices at the supermarket, although (thankfully!) the knowledge has not shaken all of my faith and I am still comfortable with the majority of my food choices. There is room to make positive choices -- I bought a portion of a cow from a friend's family that is now in my freezer, free-range and lovely and SO tasty and economical. I dug out lots of beds in the back yard and have been heaping the (mostly-organic) compost atop them all winter, so they will be ready to plant lovely veggies and herbs come spring. I bought a large house to reduce that imprint (one appliance for 6 people, lots of organic-bulk shopping) and to foster community and togetherness -- we read aloud on Monday nights snuggled on the couch, we watch Sesame Street episodes from the 60s***, we drink lots of tea together and share food and laugh and cry and support one another, and we nourish the plants and other animals in the house also. I've bought a car, but it's good on gas. No, it still sucks to have bought a car and I'm wishing I used it only for out-of-town trips, and that's another place where there's room for me to grow in my choices. I support Earth's General Store because I believe in their products as well as their business model, and I trust that their staff will never try to 'shit me into buying more than I need or want. ***I cry to Jesse Jackson's recitation of "I Am Somebody" and wish I'd seen that episode when I was 6 so I could have asked my parents to educate me on racism and ageism and classism at a younger age. Come over and watch it some time with me. There is room for choice, there just isn't room for a particular choice on the particular issue of my current job. And that's where I get to play with my non-attachment, and that's where I get to play with my humility, and that's where I get to play with my welling sense of gratitude for the last 5 months as an opportunity for myself for learning and growth. And when the place caves in financially (which I'm convinced it will do, as it is not set up for the business model he wants to try) and socially (as I am also equally certain that many clients will be gravely disappointed in the change and will shift their energies, as well as their dollars, elsewhere)****, I will be free of association with it, energetically as well as in name, and that is a boon for me as a being of light. I now know how to successfully manage and grow a restaurant -- that is the coolest thing in the world. When/if the time comes around to open a place (in Edmonton or in the Slocan Valley or in Nelson or elsewhere), I will have this experience under my belt to draw from, along with the lessons in patience, wonder, and preparedness that I have gained from it. ****Even if this isn't the inevitable outcome, it's obvious that the changes are so discordant with my own vision that I would bring only negative energy to the enterprise. In the meantime... I'm still saddened, and the humility-gratitude-love-patience-nonattachment package is still a process and a journey and not some place where I am actually AT in my Be-Ing. So any words of support or reassurance that could be offered to me, either personally or regarding the city or the culture as a whole, at this point would be great-fully appreciated.
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