This was my birthday present to myself, fresh from my Virginia-canvassing-and-family trip, and amped up–only a week later–by democracy’s powerful showing in the November 4 elections.
Notice I didn’t say Democrats (though they did well, and I’m glad). Nine months in to this presidency, people on all sides of politics–including no politics at all!–are starting to coalesce around the basic idea that things should work. And democracy, as Churchill famously said in 1947, is “the worst form of Government…except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…” [ellipses added for emphasis]
In other words, for things to work (fairness, food, airplanes–that sorta thing), we need democracy. And when you look at election results more focused on immediate outcome than on party, here are some promising signs:
Maine anti-mail voting measure loses
Progressive DAs in Philly and NYC win
Colorado funds free school meals and SNAP support with taxes on the rich
Detroit elects first woman mayor
Cincinnati rejects JD Vance’s brother after endorsement
GOP Redistricting in Kansas failed
Charlotte approves transit tax
Maine passes gun control
Turnout in blue district US House election in Texas higher than 2024 Pres (thanks to Common Power for this compilation)
See what I mean? I have a lot of company in thinking, the IDEA of democracy is having a moment right now. And for democracy to work, we need all hands on deck.
“Wait a minute,” I can hear you saying. “I loathe phone-banking, and I’m donating all I can to things like food banks and my church. And now you want me to do take on ‘democracy’ too? I am SO not that person.”
Au contraire. I maintain that if you are looking out for vulnerable people; if you are protecting green spaces or animals; if you are reading to kids, or making art to share, or donating to organizations that multiply those values, you ARE a democracy standard-bearer.
I mean–don’t forget (or underestimate!) voting! Do all you can to keep your loved ones from feeling that voting’s not worth it. Point them to this book if they need a little inspiration…
I’m giving this book to everyone who’ll take it!
On my walk today I stopped to make a roadside bouquet. November in Washington State = pretty limited wildflowers. But the low-rent, multicolor assemblage I collected reminded me, there’s so many ways to be a flower!
You can be bright, demure, prickly, robust, delicate, complex or simple–and you can still call it democracy. Just do SOMETHING, keep doing it, and keep talking about it.
As Joyce Vance says, we’re in this together. And as Gretchen Wing says, “For things to work, we need democracy.”
What are some of your ways of participating? Anything new, anything especially challenging or rewarding, or both? Please share as many as you feel like.
I came to Pitt County, in eastern North Carolina, to ask questions of folks who hadn’t yet voted.
Specifically: Greenville, where the Tar River meanders, in no hurry to be anywhere
“What are the top issues on your mind and heart, heading into this election? Tell me more about that.”
“Do you agree that the economy works better when everyone has access to opportunity?”
“Have you heard of Josh Stein? He’s running for governor.”
In four days of canvassing, I had probably 75 doorstep conversations: most short; some dispiriting, more uplifting. But in the process, I came to feel that my home state was actually canvassing me…ringing my doorbell, asking me these questions.
“What does it mean to be from a place?”
“How much of a Southerner are you, really?”
A: enough of a Southerner to recognize cotton; not enough of one to realize how much grows in my home state!
I combined this canvassing trip to NC with visiting my parents and my three high school besties, in Durham—the wealthier, more educated center of the state. But once I said goodbye to my dear ones, I was 100% in the zone with my blue-state teammates from Common Power (if you want to get involved w/ them yourself, now’s the time! Click here) in flat, cotton-fielded Greenville—a place as new to me as it was to my non-Southern team.
Seriously: was all that cotton here all this time? How come I never noticed it while driving to the beach in the 1970s? Answer: I probably didn’t recognize it w/o the white fluffy stuff.
Common Power’s model is to team with local organizations and become their worker bees. Our org was Advance Carolina,
…and our liaison was Ms. Danisha.
…or you can just call her Ms. Powerhouse
We rotated carloads of door-knocking teams each day. Here’s mine from my second day, taking our lunch break:
The guy who offered to take our picture cheerfully told us he didn’t think a woman was able to lead the country. Sigh.
Even though we were talking mostly to registered Democrats, we ran into some bummers. Bummer #1: Donald Trump came to town, to rally at Eastern Carolina U.
His merch tables were all over town.
Those folks sure like their merch!
Bummer #2: young Black men who told us, A) I don’t believe voting matters; B) God’s in charge anyhow, so whatever happens will be His will; C) some combination of A & B (which I personally took to mean, C): I don’t wanna vote for a woman, I just don’t want to say so).
Some neighborhoods were less well-to-do…
But after a day or so, I got good at turning those interactions into real conversations–by pushing back a little, with humor; by asking more questions; by remembering the mantra “Every conversation an invitation.” And every one of those men hung out and talked with me, so open, so friendly…like we were visitin’ on their front steps.
Because of those conversations, I’m 100% sure I “moved the needle” a little with at least one male voter per day. Multiply that by the # of volunteers out there, and there’s our “margin of effort”: the thing that will make the difference in this election.
…while other neighborhoods were much wealthier. I enjoyed the contrast between these houses with those ol’ cotton fields right behind them. Black families live in these homes.
When Team NC packed up and left, I volunteered to stay an extra day and a half to make up for joining late (because of my family/friends visit). And that’s when the tables turned a little.
Advance Carolina sent me even further east, to Bertie County, a place I knew only because I’ve ordered raw peanuts from this place:
There, in the tiny town of Windsor, I was supposed to be a poll watcher, not a canvasser. Only problem: there was nothing to watch.
In fact, I had a good long wait before we even went to the polling place…so I took myself for a walk along their cool swamp boardwalk.
More learning: this is a Tupelo tree! I never knew that’s where the word came from (remember: Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi).
Then, when we finally got to the polls, it was just a bunch of folks sittin’ and visitin’. No scary MAGA pickup trucks circling the block. Locals of both races were greeted, most by name, as they arrived, and thanked for voting as they left.
[not pictured: the polling place; I didn’t care to violate folks’ privacy. But imagine the shade of a nice, big magnolia tree.]
a sentiment most eastern Carolinians would probably agree with, MAGA or not
Me? I was as useful as a fly on the wall. At first I was frustrated. I drove all this way to get WORK done! I could be out there pounding the pavement, chalking up more doors! What a waste of time! Etc.
But as I drove back to Greenville, I considered: those folks were modeling exactly what I had found to be the most effective political work. They were visitin’. Telling stories. Asking how so-and-so was doing. Teasing, laughing. Doing community.
What’s your all-fired hurry? the Bertie County folks seemed to be asking (not that they were paying me any attention). What’s with all the checklists & efficiency? Can’t you see this is how we’ve survived all these decades, here of all places?
Photo from the NC/VA border, ca. 1970 (courtesy musicmaker.org)
Ten years ago, after driving across the country to NC, I wrote a song about my complicated relationship with the South. Most of the lyrics are on the dark side:
Gone to Carolina in my mind, but my heart’s gone mute
One look at a poplar tree and I’m thinking of strange fruit.
This red clay was my stompin’ ground—hardly a boast
When every cotton field is haunted by sharecropper ghosts.
Chorus:
Yeah, it’s another song about the South, y’all,
Just trying to sort my feelings out once and for all.
How can someone feel so in and out of place?
That sweet sunny south where I first saw the light,
If she’s my ol’ mama, I’m a teenager in flight.
Do I want to hug her neck…or slap her face?
big cypress dressed in flounces of poison ivy
But now, as I head home to my blue state, filled with new thoughts about my old red—no, purple!—one, this verse feels more appropriate:
The woods are thick with poison ivy and trumpet vine
More tangled up and twisted than this loyalty of mine
For a countryside that’s suffered more hardship per square mile
Than any place I know—sucked up with sweet tea and a smile.
I still doubt Kamala Harris will win North Carolina, even after all the efforts made here. But I do think she will be elected. And if that happens, I’m going to summon all my powers of visitin’ to help get us through the next steps.
This sign’s in Durham, not Pitt County, not Bertie. But we’re getting there!
For the past couple of weeks on this beautiful island where I get to live, I’ve been enjoying the appearance of some rambunctious fellow inhabitants.
Foot included for scale. If this is a Fairy Ring, those must be some hefty fairies!
I would call them visitors, but it’s obvious that these Short-Stemmed Rusula have been here all along…at least in spore form. Underground. Waiting…for some signal inaudible to the rest of us, which must have been given—suddenly, urgently—about three weeks ago.
Come on up, the air’s fine!
I’ve been walking these trails for fourteen years now. Mushroom seasons come and go, but I’ve never seen anything like these: so many, so huge, so close together.
Hahaha, the forest is ours!!
These shroomy monsters come bursting through the crust of the soil full-sized—no cute babies that you get to watch grow or unfurl. And in their thrust, anything on top simply gets lifted: soil, rocks, even good-sized tree trunks.
Like this.
Which, of course, sets my brain along its favorite metaphorical paths.
Next week, I am heading to my home state of North Carolina to join a host of volunteer canvassers already spread out around the country. They—we—knock on doors, talk to folks, try to energize them to vote and help them over any voting obstacles they might face. Sure, we’d prefer them to vote like us, but the real goal is democratic participation, which is…
But my point here is how much CP is suddenly needing to act like the mycelia beneath those mammoth mushrooms: it’s calling for heavy lifting.
You mean like this? Oof.
See, before, when I canvassed in 2022, we knocked on “friendly” doors: registered Democrats. People whose only beef with us, if they had any, would be that they’re tired of being nagged, or maybe we woke up the baby when we knocked.
But these days, given the potential suddenly presented by the 1-2 combo of 1) Trump-fatigue (or outright revulsion) among traditional Republicans (especially women) and 2) the big-tent welcome of the Harris-Walz ticket (hey, they own guns!)…these days, I say, CP is being asked by its on-the-ground state partners to knock on doors of registered Republicans. Even homes with Maga flags out front.
Which means my time in NC might be more challenging than I was expecting. (See previous photo)
The other day I attended a training for folks like me, headed into the field. A handful of volunteers fresh from the white suburbs of Philadelphia and some even-whiter counties in Montana had this to say:
“This is about talking to people. We’re all Americans. We have to start there.”
“Every conversation an invitation.”
“After you knock—listen more than you talk.”
“Folks are looking for any excuse to vote for a person whose character they respect.”
They cited example after example of folks who might have appeared “hostile,” based on their yard signs or their vehicles, actually opening up and talking.* Maybe not agreeing to vote for Harris/Walz, but finding common ground on a certain issue with a down-ballot candidate.
*[Sometimes, if a woman answered the door, these volunteers said, she might murmur, “Come back when my husband’s not here.”]
I thought: wow.
That’s a lift I can handle!
I also thought, Not only is this good canvassing advice, this is good human being advice. This is the kind of human I want to be–able to knock on any door and hold a conversation with almost anyone. (Note the “almost”: folks who are outright hateful to your face? Nope. See ya.)
I don’t know where those mushrooms get their power. But I do know that when I head on out there next week, I’ll be using those volunteers’ advice as my own heavy-lifting mojo. Every conversation an invitation.
Hmmm. Turns out I’m feeling a little conflicted about this getting-back-to-blogging thing.
Seriously? After just two weeks? Why?
Because…I went on a road trip.
So?
So, I’ve always blogged about my road trips! I loved sharing pictures and stories. I think I’m secretly a travel blogger at heart.
What’s wrong with that? You love travel blogs.
Yeah, but I just made a commitment to blog regularly about some of the social causes I care about…making amplification my this-is-all-I-can-do-right-now “contribution.” I can’t just interrupt that for travel photos, can I?
Why can’t you do both?
Nah. It’d be weird.
How d’you know until you try?
*sigh*
Yeah, you’re probably right. Forget I suggested it. I don’t think you could handle the balance. I mean, it’s not like you’re studying writing right now or anything…
FINE. *deep breath* Listen up, people! The Mate and I just took a 2-week discovery jaunt through Wyoming and Idaho, two states that don’t tend to support the progressive political agenda I support. But they do have three things I DO support, wholeheartedly: mountains…
…wild critters…
…and flowers:
OK so far. Now let’s see you tie that promo in with your “progressive political agenda.”
Seriously? You’re just gonna shove Dr. Edwards’ talk into your post like that, then go back to the nature pics? Who’s gonna watch it?
You’d be surprised. I think there are a ton of folks out there like me, folks who love mountains, critters & flowers just like I do, but who also want to keep educating themselves about how to be effective anti-racists, like I do. They may not get to this video right away; I didn’t. But when they have time, they might come back and learn more about “history with eyes wide open”, as Dr. Edwards says.
If you say so. Can we see some trip pics now?
Oh, twist my arm. Ahem. On our way out of Washington, The Mate and I stopped to ride our bikes in Spokane, and marvel at the majesty that is Palouse Falls.
I was SO sad that the bike path bridge was closed for construction!
Our main destination was Grand Tetons National Park. But it turns out, one of the best ways into GTNP is through this place…
Yep, the Grandmother of all NPs: Yellowstone herself
We’ve both been to Yellowstone several times over the decades, and I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t even bother taking photos of their bison and elk any more. (Here’s an old blog post to cover that.)But I COULDN’T stop taking pictures of those prismatic pools.
No diving!
No words.
As planned, we only spent a day in Yellowstone, which was so crowded we remembered why we love traveling during the shoulder seasons (not Memorial Day weekend, for goodness’ sake! Who planned this trip?!) But when we drove across the park border into the Tetons, it was time for us to sit up and take special notice. THESE mountains were something NEW, at least to us.
Nary a foothill in sight. Just a sagebrush plain and then…BAM!
After a fews days of (rather WET) camping, we moved into a motel in Jackson, finally answering the question: what’s the difference between Jackson Hole and Jackson?
Answer: Jackson’s the town……whereas Jackson Hole refers to the entire region, the valley filled by the (not pictured) Snake River.Now you know. But if you’re from Wyoming, you probably don’t give a shit what the rest of us think.
The Mate & I were very favorably impressed by two other aspects of Jackson (besides its proximity to GTNP): its community bike path system…
We saw a TON of bikes at all the public schools. Kids and parents really use these paths!
…and its bakery, Persephone. (Aren’t bakeries and bookstores the best tests of a town, really?)
Just doing research for my own employer, Holly B’s on Lopez Island! 🙂
One more way-cool thing in Jackson: this vertical, rotating greenhouse built into the side of a very tall parking garage. Never seen anything like it!
The company’s called Vertical Harvest. The lettuces looked happy!
Our most prized hike of the trip came on a day when we got up early in order to be the first on the Tetons trails, and were rewarded with a moose AND a bear, in the same video! (You’ll have to take my word for it; it’s not YouTube quality so I didn’t bother uploading.) But here’s the moose:
Not pictured…barely!…is the bear that’s actually lurking just behind and to the right of Ms. Moose
Leaving Wyoming’s western side, we passed into Idaho and took a quick tour of Craters of the Moon National Monument.
I found the dead trees as entrancing as the dead lava.
Anyone else see a monster here?
Thunderstorms were forecast, so we decided against camping and added a night to our motel in Hailey, which is the cheap(er) town 10 miles from swankier Ketchum and swankiest Sun Valley. The Mate & I were pleased to find all three towns connected by bike path…
Heading over the Wood River, which was running HIGH
...and Liza and I rode pretty much every inch of it, including up & around a ski hill.
Definitely helps that Liza’s an e-assist bike! My knees are grateful.
But it wasn’t bike paths that led Liza and I to bumble into the most amazing “superbloom” of wildflowers I’ve ever seen outside the Cascades–it was a plain ol’ dirt road.
Are you for real, Idaho?!Yes. Yes you are.
Those flowers? They followed us into the Sawtooth Wilderness, our last spate of camping right smack in the middle of the state. I mean, yes, the mountains were just as striking as the Tetons…
Still reppin’ Holly B’s!
…but the FLOWERS!!!
I didn’t know Larkspur came in so many shades of blue!
We had more adventures than pictured, of course: elk and antelope and lakes and crags. But I think you got the idea. And I want to leave you enough time to go back and dip into that lecture of Dr. Edwards’, if you feel so moved. But whether you do or not–thanks for bearing with me all this way (or moosing with me). Here–I got you flowers.
“I was a typical young Southerner, born and raised in LA—Lower Alabama.” Meet Bob Zellner.
I got to do just that, last October, when Bob and his activist wife Pamela joined my Common Power Team NC canvassing group. Over big plates of BBQ, I got to ask Bob questions about events I’d read about in his book, The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. Like the time Bob was beaten badly on the steps of the town hall of McComb, Mississippi, in a march led by Black high school students. But in the New York Times article, they called Bob “the leader” of the march–because he was the only White guy there.
You could call Bob the White counterpart of Representative John Lewis; they grew up quite close to each other in Alabama, both poor, both country–but on either side of the color line. Which explains why Bob started life from a KKK-supporting family, before becoming the first White field secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s.
In Bob’s interview by Dr. Hasan Kwame Jeffries (History Professor at The Ohio State University, and, incidentally, brother of Congressman Hakeem Jeffries), you can hear him explain how, “That was the way you got accepted in SNCC–you go to the dangerous places and do what the people were doing.”
Bob’s a folksy guy; like a lot of Southerners, he’s not into drama. Just tells it like it was–and is. His mission today, he says, and for the rest of his life, is to tell young people: “You can be White, and you can be a Civil Rights activist, and you can survive.”
Come to think–that’s a pretty good message right there. Reading Bob’s story, not to mention rubbing shoulders with him, reminded me how ordinary these extraordinary “ACTIVISTS” can be. Maybe a teensy bit braver than I am…
I hope you listen to Bob or check out his book. Pass it on!
I’m not going to spend time talking about why I’ve stepped away from this blog for the past year. I’d rather talk about what brought me back.
Since Sandy Hook, since Trayvon, since Charlottesville, since [fill in your own moment of “whatthefuckishappeningtous”], I’ve been looking for people and ideas and groups which provide myself with hope and purpose. Along with my family; some dear friends; some small-but-mighty organizations within my community; music; nature, and writing, I found Common Power, and its educational branch, The Institute for Common Power, both of which I have written about.
For the last three years, I’ve gone deeper into action to protect and extend democracy, mostly through phone-banking and donations, but also writing letters to elected officials, and, last October, canvassing in my home state, North Carolina.
This is VA, not NC, but you get the idea–this kind of thing (photo by Charles Douglas, CP)
Dr. Williams is a History professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, and founder of their Racial Justice Initiative. It was his part of that 24 hours of teaching that got me back to Wing’s World. He talked about two “challengers,” starting with NASA’s Challenger Space Shuttle, which exploded live on TV in 1986 (which many of us remember all too well).
R.I.P. (photo courtesy Wikipedia)
Dr. Williams reminded us how Ronald Reagan went on TV to tell American children the tragedy:
“We don’t hide our space program. We don’t keep secrets and cover things up. We do it all up front and in public. That’s the way democracy is, and we wouldn’t change it for a minute.”
His message: Ron DeSantis, anti-“woke” Republicans–are you LISTENING? Democracy means FACING UP TO BAD STUFF. Like, you know…U.S. History.
Dr. Williams closed by talking about Muhammad Ali, of whom actor/director Ed Begley Jr. said, “Ali’s secret was that he was always the challenger.”
Ali in 1976, filming The Greatest (courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
And this historian/activist then looked at the camera and asked us listeners to find ways to continue to be the challenger. To do more than what we’ve been doing to help our country be its best self.
And I thought: okay. At the very least, something I can do is to expand Dr. Williams’ message.
So in the next few weeks, I’ll be highlighting some of the talks from that incredible 24 hours. I’ll be sharing, amplifying, extolling the messages I’m absorbing about how to help our country. And if just a few of you reading this decide to do the same, consider yourselves challengers too.
Now I’ve just returned home from a ceremony honoring those signs and moving them to their next home, as they were not constructed to withstand fall and winter weather. And I’m finally feeling moved to write again…about the limbo I’ve been in.
Limbo. Two definitions come to mind,* neither of them Biblical:
1) “an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution; an intermediate state or condition”
2) “a West Indian dance in which the dancer bends backward to pass under a horizontal bar that is progressively lowered to a position just above the ground”
(*both definitions from Google)
Things that seem stuck in limbo:
–since the COVID shutdown, millions of people’s education, jobs, projects, plans–hell, our lives.
–the forward movement toward racial justice that many of us deeply want to believe in , as the forces against change gather for counter-attack, and as weariness or fear threaten to overwhelm action.
–somewhere in all of that–me. And, very possibly, you.
I don’t want to go into the details of my own personal limbo, which has to do with my two creative passions, writing and music. I want to write about avoiding the “how low can you go?” part of limbo.
Here’s what I am doing to “stay high” in this uncertain period:
Wing's World 