My First Political Act: — A Story of Love, Justice, and Worms
This past summer, I read Cicero for the first time and felt like Roberta Flack in Killing Me Softly. I bumbled through academic discussions of the text in frustration because — how do you tell a political scholar that an ancient philosopher has given name to your soul — and how do you do it without sounding cheesy?
Let’s take a trip in the way back.
When I was in first grade, no one would play with me at recess because, on rainy days, I’d rush to the front of the line, race outside and try to fling all of the pitifully writhing, pavement-bound worms into the safety of the grass before the boys could squish them underfoot. Boy perspective: spoilsport. Girl perspective: that girl touched worms. Willingly.
I’m from Oregon. It rained a lot.
By third grade, I’d moved up the totem pole. I played all the right sports and was in the right carpool and so I had it made in the shade with the cool kids. I’d walk up my dead end drive and down into the three story McMansions (or so my parents called them) and play Barbies with Jessica or Catie or Leslie and lap up the luxury of my good fortune.
But in fourth grade, those same cool friends became the popular kids and the other kids in our school cried a lot about NOT being friends with them — which honestly made little sense to me but still, it seemed unfair. What made us special? Pretty much nothing. It seemed like my friends must not KNOW what was going on. I mean, they were nice people. I was pretty sure they didn’t actually think they were better than other people and that they wouldn’t want people to be upset.
So I engaged in my first letter writing campaign. I wrote letters to all of the popular kids, explaining the situation to them, as far as I could tell. They were popular for no reason. Other kids felt bad about it. I wasn’t sure why this was or what could be done but clearly the popular kids had the power and so it was on them to do something about it. As the story was later told to me, I distributed individualized letters to all of the popular kids I could think of. Here’s the one I remember: Jessica was my closest friend of the crew and I remember giving her the letter and her reading it and crying and saying, “You’re the only person who can come into my house and make me cry.”
And I felt kind of bad — I mean, I hadn’t intended to make her cry — but also, I felt kind of hopeful that if she cared, she might do something about it.
My next memory of the situation was the first week of 6th grade when Jessica called me over to the lunch tables in our huge and possibility-laden new middle school. She asked me to sit on her lap — this detail seems important because it felt intimate at the time but later, sort of patronizing. Then she said that she had taught me better than to socialize with kids who were so uncool — I should mention that I had previously been sitting at a table with some girls who were trying to make the argument that they were witches. Anyway, Jessica was disappointed in me for “slumming it” and I was awestruck that she was so shallow. That’s the last conversation I remember having with her.
Fast forward seven years to our high school graduation. Sara P (the one who was so good at playing Pachelbel’s Canon — NOT Sarah P who had the tongue ring) came up to me at graduation and put a hand scrawled letter in my hand. Apparently, I had included her in my 4th grade campaign. She said that, ever since 4th grade, she carried the letter with her to remind her that she wasn’t better than anyone else and that she had a responsibility to use her privilege for good.
I felt kind of weird about it at the time, and I still feel kind of weird about it, but I think it pretty much encapsulates me politically.
I’m this awkward little ball of passionate love and rage who fiercely agrees with Cicero that “Man is born for justice” and cannot for the life of me figure out how to achieve that justice with poise and grace.
And so I push in the only way I know how, by venting unpolished outrage at the ever expanding circle of people I love, like some sort of political geyser, bumbling through conversations so critically important that I can never find the right words and trying to convince the masses to watch where they step.
