Learning how to sit still

Saturday was the first day of our prayer vigil at the governor’s mansion here in Austin. Every Saturday morning at 8AM, we will gather for two hours to pray and meditate for healthcare funding in Texas.

The mansion faces a side street that is closed to vehicular traffic. On three sides it is surrounded by a high white wall, and on the third side an iron fence. The gate is closed and locked, there is a cop car at one end of the street, and security cameras hang off the lamp posts. Apparently a few years ago, someone did firebomb the building, so I guess a little security is understandable. But we’re not here to bomb anything. Rather I kicked off my shoes, sat in partial lotus in the grass across the street, and focused my meditations on the front door of the mansion, which is wreathed in greens and ribbons for the season.

I have to admit, although I have been a yogi for years, I struggle with meditation. Perhaps it’s the constant presence of kids and pets in every space in my life. Perhaps it’s just my normally energetic, go-and-do personality. There have been few times when meditation was anything more than just a few minutes of quiet at the end of a yoga session. I’ve learned not to anticipate or judge the experience though, so I didn’t really have any expectations.

For sure I can’t sit for two hours, so I sat some, stood some, and sat some more. Took a quick run for the port-a-potty on the corner. Wriggled my right foot, which kept falling asleep. Sat some more. Eyes closed, eyes open, hearing the downtown noises, buses and bikes and acorns falling off the trees and sirens and somewhere a jack hammer. I thought about Texas. I am a Texan, but it’s been a love/hate relationship these past 20 years. I looked at the white columns of the mansion, so unlike my own modest little house in south Austin. I looked at the massive branches of the old oak trees in front of the mansion, and imagined children swinging from them. For my thoughts to be positive, I had to extend the passion of my heart to every Texan, including Rick Perry. I closed my eyes again.

I am Texas, I thought. My great-great-grandfather’s bones are buried here. My ancestors are part of Texas, and the atoms and molecules of Texas build the bones and muscles of my body. Texas is me. Every dry, dusty, poverty-struck corner of it. The dying trees and the stinking highways, the rolling hills and the slow rivers. I imagined rain falling on the hard earth beneath me, imagined the water swelling in a sheet of silver, bringing the life of love to everything it touched, spreading around the massive dark oak trees, splashing over the steps into the mansion, flooding every room and everything. Another acorn fell. I opened my eyes and was surprised to see blue sky above me. The acorn teetered back and forth on the bricks of the road and finally rocked to a halt. I noticed that my foot had gone to sleep again.

I don’t know if five people sitting in the grass in downtown Austin will really change the world. I don’t know if next week we will be three or thirty. I don’t know if Rick Perry will ever look out of his window with his morning cup of coffee in hand and wonder what the hell. I don’t know if the power of our prayers will somehow touch his atrophied heart. But I do know that to sit with friends and strangers and pray with all your heart for a common purpose will change us, will change me. I think that is the buried treasure in activism. It awakens our strength and sisterhood and focus, raises us from despair and apathy, sets our feet on a path to somewhere. And who knows? Maybe in time I’ll be able to sit in lotus without going numb.

We march....

the crowd starts and stops

the usual starting line confusion

a woman in a wheelchair handing out flyers

it’s so hot we use them to fan ourselves

we march and chant

among strangers

parting reluctantly

sore feet, grumpy children, wilted signs dangling from our hands

unlocking the car door and thankfully slipping off shoes

a small ember of hope

clinging against the wall of despair

Moderne Menschen leben allein

On Saturday I attended, for the first time, a reunion of my old Army Reserves unit.  It was a rather small turn-out, and the food was pretty ghastly, and there were only a few people there I actually knew. And yet, I had a great time. Old friends whom I hadn’t seen for 20 years embraced me, and the years melted away. New friendships were forged over a cold Shiner Bock and an album of faded photographs. We celebrated the bonds of friendship in a quiet fog of regret, knowing that the experiences we shared are not only past, but are a lost and unreplicatable piece of America.

As my daughter and I drove home again, I tried to find the words to explain. I’m still not sure I can.

Most of us were college students. Many of us joined for selfish reasons. To pay for college, to earn enough money to gain our adult independence. We were peace-time soldiers at a time when America was engaged in a cold war that no one really believed in anymore. We had been stationed in Europe, in Korea, in Hawaii. We spun the dials and wrote the reports and spent long hours lovingly maintaining the rusty old Vietnam-era trucks in the motor pool and went to the range once a year to qualify on our M-16s. We watched the Berlin wall come down and celebrated and believed. We got degrees in foreign language and linguistics and history and literature. Some of us ended up in the Balkans for a spell. Some stayed in until retirement. Many ended up in government service. None of us appears to be rich and famous.

From a distance, it would be hard to see the commonalities. How can you explain this bond that stretches across continents and decades without breaking? Is it an accumulation of shared experiences like basic training and sweating out long weeks of the summer at Fort Hood? Is that all there is to the mysterious thing the military calls esprit de corps?

I think it’s more basic than that, and more real. It’s not something you can create with a uniform and a song, no matter what your drill sergeant said. It’s not something that happens at work, no matter how many company picnics and happy hours are in the budget. It’s not something that happens at college, no matter how many late night study groups at Dominican Joe’s you attend with your classmates. It’s something that happens when people actually place their lives and well-being in the service of others. Even at the motor pool on Camp Mabry, or in the training facility at Camp Bullis, or in a big green tent in Fort Hood, in the middle of a peace-time exercise pretending to be at war, we each knew, without speaking it, what our responsibilities were. Standing in front of my platoon during formation, looking at their faces more familiar to me than family, I knew that my life belonged to each of them. Now, when someone posts an old picture on Facebook, those same faces compel my emotions across time.

I think most people never experience that. But I think, perhaps, that once this missing piece of human experience was as common as head colds and hangnails are today. In traditional human societies, the interdependence of each individual with the group, the demands placed on each to work for the survival of the group must have created a different brand of personal relationships than, say, my spending 20 minutes doing a peer-review of a colleague’s cross-functional process flow. Our society emphasizes personal  achievement and independence, a sort of post-modern daydream of  rugged mountain-man individualism that induces our tired brains to imagine that our end-of-the-day commute home in our little metal boxes down a baked ribbon of hot asphalt is somehow the triumphant ride home from our day’s labors and achievements in the world.  But we are alone. In our cars we are alone with our thoughts or the inane babble of the radio. At work we are alone in a crowded office, staring at a computer screen. At school we sit alone at a desk, working for a grade obtained by being compared to our peers. At home we sit alone or with our small family group, often alone while we are together, each absorbed in different activities. All of our need for connection, for love, for understanding and acceptance and joy, is put on one person, our intimate partner, if we have one.  One fragile human relationship to house all of our hopes and dreams, provide all of our nurturing and support, inspire all of our passion, and thrill our complicated human libidos? No wonder marriages don’t last.

I miss my comrades-in-arms from my army days. I miss the feeling of kinship and shared purpose. But there is no path back to that place. The military today isn’t what it was, and although I will come together with them once a year to share a few cold beers and reminisce, I can’t pretend that those old bonds have the power they once did. But there is something else, something new in my life. After many years of struggling with hard times, underemployment, and a severely depressed spouse, I have achieved some stability. And with a little bit of my time and energy free to give, I have started volunteering, marching, making posters, attending organizing meetings, making phone calls. In other words, I have become an activist. Me and a whole bunch of other people it seems. In the back rooms of coffee houses, at a battered table at Scholtz Garten, on campus, in a cramped apartment with cats in our laps, we meet and talk, and while we plan a rally or a vigil, while we make our lists and argue and discuss and recite poetry and drink ridiculous amounts of coffee, the stories begin to work their way out. As we share the markers to make our signs, we begin to speak, haltingly, as though learning a new language, we talk about love and marriage and children and abortion and jobs and lovers and dreams. While we work together, we’re moving towards something, and that makes all the difference. It’s a start.  

Herkneth, felawes, we thre been al ones. Lat ech of us holde up his hand til oother, and ech of us bicomen otheres brother.

Saturday Morning

It isn’t easy to set an alarm on Saturday morning, to haul yourself and two kids out of bed even earlier than usual, but a sense of adventure and purpose energized us. We picked up Cindy and Lori on the way, and arrived at the clinic shortly after 8:00am. It was easy to see that we were in the right place, because the narrow strip where a sidewalk would be, if there was one, was filled with about 20 people holding rosaries and signs, including one fellow in a cape and feathered helmet, who turned out to be from the Knights of Columbus.

We had to drive a bit down the street to find a spot to wedge my Jeep next to the curb. Out we tumbled, with our hand-lettered signs, yoga mats, bottles of water, and a folding chair and bag of books for my youngest, who at 10 is apolitical but always up for tagging along with mom. We positioned ourselves well away from the clinic protesters, right in front of the clinic building itself, which looks like a converted house well-shaded with a grove of live oak trees.

We stood in a circle, the four of us, and held hands for a brief prayer. “Let the spirit move within us and among us…” Then I found a reasonably flat spot on the trampled dust, lay down my yoga mat, and sat in half-lotus position with one of the signs leaning against my chest. Our signs read “Catholics for Choice” (one of us is), “We are Pro-Choice,” “We Trust You,” and “We Support You.”

Immediately a woman from the anti-choice protesters walked over to stand inches away from Cindy and began haranguing her. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my breath, but I couldn’t block out her ugly words. “What choice do you support? Dead, mutilated babies? You can pray all you want, but God won’t hear you.” Her voice went on and on, full of rancor. As we had discussed before we began the vigil, our only response is “I can’t talk right now. I’m praying (or meditating).” Cindy had a hard time maintaining her Hail Marys and began softly singing. After a few minutes that woman went away, and shortly after one of the clinic volunteers came over to us, ignoring the shouts of the protesters, to hug us each and thank us for being there.

After that, our morning settled into a rhythm. I found it impossible to close my eyes and remain in a state of peaceful meditation, so I focused my attention on the clinic, volunteers and staff members, the patients and families coming and going, sending thoughts of courage and love towards them with all of my power. Periodically the Knights of Columbus guy would stalk towards us, stopping behind each of us in turn, towering over my seated self with his plumed helmet. However, I am not easily physically intimidated, so he was pretty easy to ignore. One or two of the women took it in turns to verbally harass us; mostly they focused their attention on Cindy and her Catholics for Choice sign, which seemed to really infuriate them. My leg went to sleep so I stood up, pressing my bare toes into the dirt and gravel and stretching my spine long. Another clinic volunteer came to greet us, and a staff member, many hugs and handshakes. One of the anti-choice protesters, a man in a red shirt, took photos of each of us, waved his phone in my face with what he claimed was a picture of a fetus, speaking of abortion in gory terms. Since he was standing behind me and stretching his hand and phone in front of my face, he was really in my personal space. I felt hot anger in my stomach and chest at this ugly bullying, but I remembered my promise to remain non-reactive. I observed my emotions quietly, raised my chin and focused my love on the clinic. It seemed that strength and power flowed from the ground, through my bare feet, and streamed from me like the beacon of a lighthouse. The phone-waver eventually moved away.

The only time I spoke to any of the protesters was when Mr. Fancy Helmet began talking to my youngest daughter. Naturally shy and quiet around strangers, she said nothing and kept her attention focused on Two Hot Dogs with Everything open in her lap.

“Sir, that is my daughter, and I would appreciate it if you did not speak with her,” I told him. “If you have any questions, please talk to Cindy.” To his credit he left her alone and none of the other protesters approached her.

Every time a car entered or left the parking lot, or a staff member appeared to check the mailbox, the protesters yelled, waved brochures, tried to attract their attention. They stood right next to the driveway, trying to shove brochures at the passing cars. The older women with their shrill voices could hardly be heard over the sounds of the nearby highway. As soon as a car entered the parking lot, the clinic volunteers would rush over to open the door, to escort the patient and her family towards the clinic. It cheered me to see that no patient arrived by herself; each was surrounded by supportive and loving family or friends.

Towards the end of our vigil, the mother of one of the patients walked across the grass to us to thank us for being there. She asked each of our names, shook our hands, and wrote down the name of our organization, Faith Action for Women in Need (FAWN).

“I brought my daughter here today. She’s 15 years old. But she’s going to get a second chance. She’s going to go to college,” she told us. She stood there before us, ignoring the shouts of the protesters, strength and pride and love and grief living side-by-side on her calm face.

Around 10am the protesters began to pack up and disperse. It felt like we’d only been there a few moments, and I was reluctant to leave. Slowly we gathered our signs and materials. I slid my shoes onto my dusty feet and picked up my yoga mat. We walked together to my Jeep, not looking at the protesters. The guy with the cell phone was photographing the back of my Jeep, making a big show of focusing on my license plate. I opened the back hatch and we tossed all of our stuff inside and then piled into the front. I put it in reverse and backed up slowly. The guy with the phone was still standing behind me, but he moved out of the way, which is good, since I didn’t really feel like using my brakes. I did a u-turn and drove past the clinic towards the highway. Cindy rolled down her window to wave goodbye and call blessings to the protesters as they also loaded their cars to leave.

A few minutes later, we found our way to Genuine Joe’s coffee shop on Anderson Lane. As we settled into the couches with our lattes, my oldest daughter commented, “That was the best one of these things we’ve ever done.” She’s been my companion to a fair number of rallies, protests, and marches, but this was the first time we’d ever been thanked and hugged for being there. Of course, we weren’t protesting anything, we were supporting. Who knew it would feel so different? That evening, as I lay in bed reflecting on the day and on the ugly behavior of the clinic protesters, my mind drifted to the year I spent teaching junior high in an inner-city neighborhood. The words of one of my students echoed in my mind. “Haters hate.” It really is as simple as that, isn’t it?