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  • A Letter from a Stranger

    I received a letter from a stranger today. A gentleman named Larry who lives in Oregon. When I picked up the handwritten, personally addressed envelope, I recognized the name Vote Forward listed in place of a return address. I smiled, thinking of Larry writing at his kitchen table or perhaps a local cafe, throwing paper and ink and hope into a nearby mailbox. I smiled because it reminded me of where I was five years ago.

    (Psst. Avast there. It’s too late to alter course. This post and blog are about to get political)

    I wrote for Vote Forward during the 2020 election. It’s a national progressive organization that coordinates letter writing campaigns. Folks write strangers in swing states, or where special elections are being held, to encourage them to vote for liberal policies and candidates. When I learned of this organization, I was hunkered down in quarantine, hungry to write and even hungrier to propel change. To feel like I was doing something, anything, to make a difference. I needed words. Even more, I needed casual connection with strangers; the connection I only missed after it was long absent from my daily life. A nod at the grocery store, an awkward conversation with a shop clerk, overhearing insane gossip from the people sitting next to me at a bar or movie theater. To this day, I get itchy if I do not experience at least one of these encounters in the course of a day.

    I know I don’t need to wax poetic on those isolated moments of 2020 because you, dear reader, lived them too. And I especially know (or certainly hope) that I don’t need to outline the even greater fear and anxiety that emerged from recognizing that the federal government was pushing America in the direction that brought us to where we are now.

    So I did what I always do in a crisis: write. I wrote and mailed a total of 75 handwritten letters to folks living in Midwest and Southern swing states, mostly Kentucky and Ohio. I implored my anonymous readers (I’m pretty sure their addresses were just gathered from phone books) to vote for democracy and my friends’ right to exist, not to mention my rights as a woman. I had no idea if my letters would reach their intended addressees. I did not know if my words would move anyone. I fully expected them to be tossed in the trash.

    Yet doing nothing always guarantees nothing will happen. When November 8th, 2020 rolled around, I smiled a bit brighter than if I had saved my ink and stamps.

    Proposition 50 is set to go for a vote next month in California. Given this post, I’m sure you can deduce how I’m voting. But Larry doesn’t know that. Larry mailed me a letter (undoubtedly getting my address from the Vote Forward records) for likely many of the same reasons I lifted my pen five years ago. We are scared. We are angry. We know collective action and community mobilization are the answer.

    “I’m an old guy, so I vote to leave a better world for my California and Oregon daughters,” wrote Larry in my letter. Larry, whoever you are, I have no way of writing back to you — but as a daughter of California, I promise to not let you down.

  • Chrysanthemums

    It is remarkable how the smallest things can reframe your outlook. The other night, after a long day of mental whirlwinds and worries, a lovely individual who I have long called friend (but only semi-recently could call mine), brought me a bouquet of chrysanthemums. Small purple fireworks with green rocket streaks.

    Slowly — ever so slowly — the day’s frenzy and boredom and frustrations reduced to the background. Because we had wine and soup and chrysanthemums. Admiring those delicate blossoms reminded me that there was a time not that long ago when sharing these simple pleasures together was an unattainable luxury. There was a time when receiving flowers was more of a signifier of grief than joy.

    I felt an impulse to call to my past self to reassure her that we navigated every obstacle to reach this moment, to receive her first bouquet of chrysanthemums. In the Victorian floral tradition, chrysanthemums symbolized friendship and happiness. They are also the official flower of Salinas, after John Steinbeck’s famous short story. As I’m writing this post, I’m realizing that he became one of my favorite authors after I read ‘The Chrysanthemums’–a poignant short story I better understand now as an adult than I did as a teenager. Steinbeck described this hearty flower as “a quick puff of colored smoke.” I still maintain that they better resemble bursts of light, holding far more energy than a smoke cloud.

    I hope to carry the memory of these little blossoms as I look toward my next expected (and unexpected) journeys; a reminder to commemorate and celebrate the everyday.

    These are the first sentences I have written for pleasure since the beginning of the summer. I’m realizing that is all too easy to fall into the patterns of daily life, cooking just to eat rather than savor, writing just to communicate rather than to explore new avenues of expression. I look forward to joining my avian-themed writing partner, Goose, in writing many more sporadic posts for this blog. I hope that by re-activating this challenging yet rewarding practice of writing without aim other than personal fulfillment that I not only improve my skills and reignite my passion for the craft, but keep a better eye out for moments of wonder like these mighty chrysanthemums. Readers (if they are any), I encourage you to bring flowers to a loved one today.