And today my camera battery died right when I found one someone carrying one of my signs! (But the P-I had a pic of one!)
There's nothing like a march to re-charge me. I love being in crowds. Not concert crowds; I feel anonymous in those. (And also because after the music ends, what is there? Once fans have raved about the band and the lyrics, what is there left to do? Buy a T-shirt?) But march/rally crowds are always reassuring and heartening. Everyone's automatically like family. There's still work to be done afterwards, and legislation to get through the sausage-making machine. And it's always refreshing to re-find the people with whom I have instant and lasting connections.
I've also been wondering why I've felt so cynical lately. There are some overly obvious answers, but I think overall it's because I somehow lost my sense of direction. I don't think I ever really defined it post-college, but I do know it had something to do with justice and community-building and empathy and philosophy, and that my internal compass point can tell when I'm taking a detour from what I know makes me happiest in life. I think I've internalized the yuppie stereotype of the quarterlife crisis, while organizing with political disdain for it. The sad thing is, I can live both convincingly but not necessarily harmoniously.
Which makes for something of a bipolar calendar!
4 comments:
rock on with your bad self and the immigration protest -- i couldn't make it to the Chicago one (the ditching classes for a week in alaska did me in) but my heart was there, and at least three people said "i thought you'd be at the rally!"
Two things: First, Massholes are Massholes. I stumbled on right-wing radio yesterday, and an intelligent guy was on the phone talking about the protests, speaking cogently and calmly, and the O'Reilly-clone host was just abusive, saying "Send 'em back to Mexico" and "Do the terrorists take today off? (attempting to imply that all illegal immigrants are terrorists-- wtf?)"
Second, nice point about concert crowds, post-concert. I've been in the swarm, often at a decent spot in Saratoga, where the masses are cool and more or less friendly during the show, then, in the after show rush to the parking lots, it's all creepy and quiet and weird. It didn't matter if it was Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, DMB, or what (ok, those are the concerts I went to then...).
Dude, you ditched classes to go to Alaska? I all thought it was your spring break or something....
well, i'm taking 5 classes at the seminary in Chicago and 1 class at a seminary in Evanston (the mystics). so it was the spring break for the mystics class. so technically i didn't ditch ALL my classes. just most of them.
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