Occupation

As the sun went down last Saturday, I pulled a floor-length backless thrift shop evening gown out of my closet and ironed the wrinkles out of the skirt. I dug through my jewelry box and found a heavy sinuous silver necklace and a pair of earrings to match. I pulled on red stockings, high-heeled button-up boots, and black gloves up to my elbows. I felt around on the top shelf of the closet until I found a burgundy stole shot through with gold. I walked down to the light rail station and boarded a northbound train, amid throngs of cheery, green-clad Sounders fans. 

I was headed downtown for a gala auction, where I hoped to represent the museum, support a good cause, and build community connections for an upcoming exhibit. Unfortunately the lovely woman who planned to accompany me and facilitate those connections had been struck down by a migraine and was in no shape to sit in a crowded, glittering room with an auctioneer rattling off bid numbers at high volume. I was on my own.

Upon arriving at the fancy hotel, I wandered through the silent auction, bidding on a couple of items that caught my eye. I chatted with a few people I recognized and a few people I didn't. When we sat down to dinner I listened with interest to the speeches from the organization's director and supporters about the fine work they'd accomplished in the last year. But when the live dessert auction started -- with a chocolate cake going for well over $1000 --  three things became clear. First, this fine organization would be bringing in boatloads of money that night. Second, my own participation in the bidding would not be necessary -- or even possible. And finally, those of us who found ourselves outpriced (by several orders of magnitude in some cases) would not be permitted to talk amongst ourselves by the importunate auctioneer.

And so, after an hour of surreptitious conversation with the people at my table (including a charming 17-month-old who uncapped and recapped my ball-point pen about thirty times before she finally noticed that it made funny marks on the table cloth) I decided I had accomplished about as much community connecting as I was meant to that evening. I whispered my farewells, slipped out of the ballroom, and ducked into the restroom to adjust my somewhat fluid neckline. Then I marched down the front steps of the hotel, past the parking valets in their red jackets, and out onto Sixth Avenue.

As I pulled my long black gloves back on, I decided it was as good a time as any to go see what the Occupiers were up to in Westlake Park. Josie has dropped by the local chapter of this national movement several times in the last couple of weeks, and between her entertaining dinner table reports, news stories ranging from dismissive to inspiring, and the dramatic photos and videos dominating my Facebook feed, my curiosity has definitely been piqued.

You see, I'm quite sympathetic to the basic tenets of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I'm disturbed by the widening gap between rich and poor in this country. I'm dismayed that our political system has become virtually impenetrable to people without means. It seems clear that our government's decisions increasingly tend to benefit rich people and corporations over those in need. Our financial system is so deeply f*cked that it has -- just for instance -- rendered it "economically rational" for banks to demolish foreclosed homes rather than sit down with the people who live in them and negotiate loan modifications.

It's hard to see how writing letters to our senators and signing online petitions will fundamentally challenge any of this. And yet (as regular readers have probably gathered by now) I have a longstanding romantic fascination with the idea that ordinary citizens can change things.  Lord knows I have spent many sleepless nights wondering why every parent in Washington State isn't camped out on the steps of the capitol in Olympia demanding adequate school funding and -- yes, Mr. Eyman -- the tax reform that would make it possible. If enough of us were willing to abandon the daily routines and obligations that keep us tethered to this screwed-up system, surely it would crumble in the face of our righteous (but peaceful) indignation? I can't help looking at Occupy Wall Street and thinking: Is this it, folks? Is it time? I'd hate to look back and realize I was at home folding laundry when the revolution finally came.

As I walked Seattle's streets hugging my stole high around my shoulders against the chill, I remembered another sleepless night I once spent -- on the sidewalk outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, wrapped in a mylar emergency blanket that, if memory serves, made a damn fine kite when my companions and I got too bored and cold to sit still. The purpose of that vigil -- vitally important at the time, of course -- has since faded away in my mental tapestry of obsolete worthy causes. (Was it Divestment? Nicaragua? I honestly can't remember.)

It all happened right here.
(Thank you, Google Streetview!)

I'll never know if my presence on Chestnut Street that night hastened the day Nelson Mandela walked out of prison by an hour, or brought peace to Central America a day sooner. But whatever its global significance, the experience certainly blew my 18-year-old mind wide open. Partly it was the exhilaration of communing with a dozen or so other people who shared my passion for peace and justice, and were willing to endure (admittedly random, self-imposed) physical hardships to prove it. Partly it was the thrilling, unnerving discovery that you don't actually have to get up every morning and go to class like you're supposed to -- that you could conceivably pack up some clean underwear and a toothbrush one night, shove a copy of On the Road in your backpack (or Walden, or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or whatever dog-eared paperback is making the rounds the year you turn eighteen), leave your dorm bed empty, and follow some crazy uncharted course in life that might lead you... Anywhere. (I did go back to class the next day, but I never lost the uneasy knowledge that the beaten path is a choice, not an inevitability.)

At about three in the morning, a tall, wild-haired man walked by our little mylar-clad encampment, grabbed me by the shoulders, and demanded to know, as his eyes burned into mine: "Where do we go from here?" He might have meant anything from, "What strategies can we employ to effect political change?" to, "So you had your mind blown open, little girl -- what are you going to do about it?" Either way, it's a question I've asked myself many times in the years since.

I must have been pretty wild-haired and fiery-eyed myself the next day when (after chipping in my last $3 toward a shared cheese omelet and some terrible diner coffee with one my newfound friends) I made my way back to campus and accosted my roommate with a detailed account of my overnight adventure. She fed me ramen, listened attentively, and later presented me with a Tom Robbins novel featuring the same burning question: Where do we go from here? I remember sitting in my English professor's office babbling the whole story all over again; she immediately recognized the classic symptoms of Collegiate Bildungsroman Syndrome and encouraged me to keep reading, talking, and writing about all these exciting new ideas -- and to keep coming to class, if at all possible.

Arriving at Westlake Park on Saturday, I found myself in the middle of a whole lot of people who seemed to be having their own possibly similar mind-blowing experiences (though I certainly won't presume to project my eighteen-year-old self on anyone else), along with a few who seemed to have packed up that dog-eared paperback years ago and never looked back. Instead of a dozen mylar-clad protesters, here were thousands -- union folks, anarchists, pacifists, public school teachers, artists -- all talking to each other, making connections, discussing shared issues and areas of disagreement, drumming and dancing, enjoying a beautiful Seattle Saturday night together.

I'm not sure what the protesters made of me, clambering up on a marble plinth in my evening gown to take pictures of the sea of tents to the north and the drumming circle to the south. I realized at a certain point that I didn't really care (one of the benefits of being 41 instead of 18, I guess); I was having a fine time.

At the sign-making station I wrapped my stole around my waist like an apron so I wouldn't get paint on my skirt. I stood for a long time trying to formulate a six-word slogan I'd be willing to hold high as I walked through the crowd. I wanted to get at the idea that inequality hurts all of us, even the people who ostensibly benefit from it -- and that a just, equitable, healthy, sustainable society will be better for everyone, not just the people currently stuck at the bottom of this one.

The sign I made Saturday read, "INEQUALITY HURTS ALL OF US."  I was never satisfied with that one, and wound up leaving it with the folks at the "Occupy Sukkot" hut when I finally took off for home. This is my second attempt -- better, maybe? Still working on it.

See, no matter what percent I'm in, I'd rather live in a world where everyone can see a doctor when they're sick, and all the kids go to great schools, no matter where they live. I'd rather know that everybody out there gets paid a living wage to do a job that makes them proud (with time off to care for their families), and that we can all retire knowing our final years won't be spent trying to figure out which prescriptions we can afford to fill. I'd rather not have to close my eyes to Chinese labor conditions every time I use my iPhone, or ignore industrial agriculture's environmental consequences every time I make supper. I don't want to have to wonder, as a parent, why every child doesn't deserve the opportunities I'm trying to give mine. When I start my car in the morning, I don't want to be complicit in the deaths of soldiers and civilians in wars across the globe, or ruined fisheries and communities in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd rather do-gooder organizations didn't have to resort to exclusively-priced gala auctions to fund the work they do on behalf of the needy. An anarchist pamphlet I picked up read, "From where we all sit now, our personal freedoms and any wealth we can accumulate is done on the backs of someone else or at our own expense." I have to admit it sure feels that way sometimes.

Just to be clear: I am in no way comparing my own middle-class mental anguish to the psychic and physical harm suffered by -- say -- Chinese factory workers. I'm simply pointing out that a huge burden would be lifted from me too if they got decent wages, health care, and the right to organize. As Danny Glover told the crowd at Occupy Oakland, "This is about taking back our humanity."

These union guys offered to take my picture in front of their tent. When I said "Sure!" and plopped cheerfully down in the unzipped doorway, they seemed slightly taken aback. "I like you," said the fellow holding the camera, as his friend raised a fist in the air. I liked him too.

The heading of my anarchist pamphlet asked, "Are We An Occupation or Just a Gathering?" I appreciate the distinction: if we're just getting together and talking, if our protests happen only by permit, if we are "occupying" the space only until the Mayor decides we've had our fun -- then we're operating comfortably within the system, not challenging or threatening it. This question came to a head two days later, when the police cleared 150 tents and their occupants out of Westlake Park, and the Mayor offered City Hall as an alternate -- smaller, less visible -- site. (More on that later, maybe.) But last Saturday, as midnight approached and strangers from all walks of life came together for conversation, communion, and maybe a little mind-blowing, the power of a Gathering seemed like it might be enough to fuel the coming revolution.