YEA-YUH (2017)
“It is at a large family brunch that my dear Uncle Pete calls me from Jersey:
My grandpa died.” — Tally Ho!
I leave the truck at Jim’s commune and fly home. At the JFK subway station, I see a bird on the platform in danger of being trampled, not flying to escape the human traffic. I make space for the bird, and cup them into my hand. They are mostly willing, eventually trusting me. I miss a few trains, but hang with them before putting them atop a wall facing the open air. On my way to my grandpa and uncle’s place, I realize my mom and grandma and I similarly saved a bird from vehicular traffic in Rome. A friend I made on the road tells me the bird is a yellow common throat:
At my grandpa’s wake, I share the story about our living together for a year, and his unfamiliarity with vegan chocolate (“May. Contain. Milk!”). At the funeral, I finally get a better photo of the stained glass window he funded for his local church, which I had been wanting for years:
Afterward, I again go through my suitcases at what is now just my uncle’s home (he lived with my grandpa). Again, I wonder at how my attempts to create a new future continually bring me to my past. Again, I reduce the number of things I own, this time down to a single suitcase. Again, I feel free.
I only have so much time before YEA Camp begins, so I stick around, keeping myself busy until then. YEA Chef Amber and I protest at Ringling’s last ever performance, where we are interviewed by a former elephant trainer who now works at BBC — and does not like animal rights activists.
I attend the Patriotic Millionaires’ pre-2020 event, where I learn of VoterPal, an app that helps register folk. I download it for my travels. Not used it yet, but excited to.
Fellow CISV director Bill invites me to Project Citizen, an event he is organizing to get students involved in community issues. I am brought in as the resident “expert” judge in social emotional learning. My corresponding group is working on a peer mediation initiative. They rock.
And I finally (finally!) attend a People’s Supper event, organized in part by Hollaback!, which organizes against street harassment. The People’s Supper is a dinner campaign in which folk from different communities have structured conversation about the personal and political. Part of its success, I believe, is its being rooted in the personal experience of those issues, rather than debating political ideology (which absolutely has its place). After a wonderful bonding experience (and great food), I realize an event like this would serve YEA Camp well. I talk to the program folk about organizing this. It turns out they are trying to reach a number of new pledges, and the campers/staff added will go a long way. We set up a plan to incorporate Peoples’ Supper into YEA.
YEA Camp
YEA Camp goes very smoothly. I help plan and facilitate our first workshop specifically in politics, which ends up being one of my favorites. We discuss voter suppression, campaign finance, and government spending. If everyone in this country studies this one image, I like to think it would do a lot of good: (but who knows these days?)
After Massachusetts camp, YEA Nurse Lindsy and I go to Grassroots Festival in Ithaca. We had met the previous summer, where I was tasked with waking campers. I woke them with my alarm at the time, which was the song Rich Girl, by Bear Fox. Lindsy and I are looking through the band schedule, when I begin to hear Rich Girl in the background. It takes me a moment to realize it is neither in my head nor from a speaker. I look at the schedule, and I see Bear Fox on the list. I tell Lindsy, in line for her food, to meet me there, and I run to the corresponding stage.
I have woken up to Bear Fox singing this song for months at this point. I woke up an entire activist-education summer camp to this song for a whole summer. They loved the song so much we played it to close the camp open mic. I first learned about the song when I asked fellow Resource Generation members (whom I absolutely adore) for music suggestions by native folk. And here she is, singing on a stage with bleachers meant to sit hundreds of people, performing for maybe two dozen of us. She has her woman’s singing circle with her, whose album I also have. It was truly a special moment for me. And yes, I got to meet them backstage afterward, and I told Bear Fox about using her song as the camp alarm.
After California camp, I do the math, and we added 137 new pledges to the People’s Supper, campers and staff alike. It provides a channel to explore questions about personal relationships to privilege and discrimination that we had sought for years. It was a lovely bonding experience. Win-Win-Win.
Every YEA summer is different. Every YEA camp is different. The demographics over the years are especially interesting to monitor. A vegan camp, we have long seen animal rights as our most popular cause. In the four summers I have worked with the camp, that group is getting increasingly intersectional. The environmental crowd is getting more into the vegan/food justice scene as part of their work. The anti-sexist activists are increasingly incorporating queer and trans issues. And, every Summer, we are seeing more campers dedicated to anti-racism. This community really is an emotional resource. This particular year, we also had campers into making their own media. Two videos below:
After spending some time with the Cali staff in LA and San Diego, and meeting YEA Staff Andina’s totally radical dad, I meet Lindsy again in Atlanta, where we pick up #VeggieMonster to travel for the solar eclipse. We manage to reach perfectly located Andrews, NC the same day and set up a picnic spot. The total number of people in Andrews on this day is likely greater than the people who have ever passed through this town, total. Over an hour or so, the moon traverses the sun, and light gets fainter, the air colder. In itself an experience, and then we reach totality:
My friend Chris interviews me for his new podcast. I am honored to be his first and third interviewee.
Once home, I am ready to get back on the road and move. But I read Shaun King’s Expose the Quota series, about the NYPD’s corruption in harassing young folk of color to make quotas and extort communities for profit and sexual pleasure. I also read about private detective Manuel Gomez and his work to expose this. I reach out to him on Twitter, first just to ask how to donate (his page did not have this function at the time). We talk about the potential to organize an event or campaign, and that prospect keeps me in the NorthEast for far longer than I intend to be.
To bide my time, I march for animal rights with the YEA community in NYC. I hang with my Uncle Pete and our friend Dan, who happens to be looking for an RV. We talk about life in a vehicle, and the challenges of a pickup truck compared to a van. Seeing some of his options gets me thinking about my own…
I also attend my first live recording of Democracy Now! at the studio, on the day that Amy Goodman is interviewing Naomi Klein, both of whom inspire me deeply. They even have an post-show interview, where the audience is allowed inside the recording room itself.
I visit Lindsy in Syracuse, and among other things, we participate in a zombie run, chasing marathon runners, to fundraise for a search and rescue program. Pro-tip: Chlorophyll water makes for good green foaming mouth bile.
Eventually though, the event with Manny Gomez does not pan out, so I head back to Georgia. I am itching to get back on the road, but also wondering if the commune is the perfect place to hang while I look for, modify, and move into a van. Life on the road is great, but some of those little things like standing can make a big difference. Still, I do not like to be tethered anywhere for too long. I make it back to the commune, excited, and roll my luggage up to the main house. I chat with Dre, a friend from high school, and Liz, a newer member of the space. I reference my thoughts on traveling, the pickup truck, and where I will be sleeping.
“Oh don’t sleep in there!” she says, referring to #VeggieMonster. “It has bedbugs!”
