Today, after walking at the reservoir, solo halfway and with my friend Richard the last half, I was aware that I felt particularly strong and that my stride was more even than it was on Tuesday, when I last walked. My big brother is out of town this week, so there is a particular virtuous clarion that blows when I arise from my comfy bed at 5:15 to walk by myself in the dark. And another triumphant blow when I don’t feel pain in my knees for doing it.
This morning the Hunter’s Moon lit my path until the sky grew lighter around 6:35AM enabling me to not trip over the uneven terrain at the start of the walk.
After my walk, I went to the gas station on Cahuenga to fill up my tank. As I approached, I saw a man walking painstakingly on the nearby sidewalk, and I noticed that his feet were permanently fixed in the first ballet position. You may know this position well, or if not, here’s the definition.
According to Brittanica, “In the first position, the heels are together, with toes turned out until the feet are in a straight line.”
This seemingly permanent position of his feet didn’t seem to impede him other than to slow him down considerably, and he worked his way across the intersection and across the gas station lot over the course of my filling my tank and handing a few bucks to the young man who surprised me by popping out from behind the tank to ask for money for food.
Writers are susceptible to visual stimuli such as the man who walked sideways. Metaphors clamber into our brains with the alacrity of a wet dog climbing into your warm lap after a jump in the lake. Not always welcome, but even uninvited, alluring. I find myself particularly susceptible to metaphoric interruption in these last few weeks of the election cycle. Having found my niche of activity as a fervent post card writer, I am sidling into the last 18 days with trepidation, with a slow but assured intention of crossing the finish line strong but an unsureness about how I will get there. I attended my last postcard session last night with the Hopium Community and sure enough, the leaders of that group had suggestions about how we might participate going forward.
I’d already attended a Democratic Committee bootcamp earlier in the week to try to learn some new skills with digital media management. You may have seen my half-assed attempts this week to share compelling digital bits from the library of the Reach App. This new effort feels forced but hopefully will prove more impactful than phone banking which I abhor. As someone who rarely answers a call on my landline – occasionally my phone will announce “Dad” or a friend’s name, I understand the sanctity of coming home after a long day at work and not wanting to talk to another human being other than your friends or family. I think some people really enjoy it, but for me the moments before someone picks up their phone (you’re looking at the silly phone puns the automatic dialer displays so that you smile when they answer) feels like sitting at a slot machine having plunked $20 of quarters in without winning anything. And I acknowledge that I may not be my best self in that moment. So the potential voter won’t want to talk to me if I’m not my best self. I just cancelled all three sessions of phone banking I’d signed up for. Sorry, can’t do it.
No, what caught my interest at last night’s session was the discovery that there was a service that I could potentially provide to the individual voter – assuring that their vote would be it counted. This is a step I never knew existed in the electoral process, called Curing Ballots. I know, it sounds suspiciously fraudulent, but it is the process whereby voters are contacted after it has been determined that their ballot has been disqualified for some reason. I don’t know more than that and that there is additional training needed to understand different states’ rules about what makes a ballot legitimate, but I intend to find out. That sounds like a service that I would really like to provide and where I might be my best self. If you are interested, please check out the Vo-Pro Pros website to see how to get involved.
Other ways that I’m sidling along include a ferocious interest in property acquisition in someplace greener than Los Angeles. This competes of course, with the ever present ravenous hunger for cultcha that I’ve acquired after living in Los Angeles since 1986. My friend Norma just turned me onto a new website called Sold Out Crowd, which for an annual fee of $95 allows you to buy two tickets to any event listed for something like $4 each. Feels like being an Ovation Voter again. How could I not have known about this until now? Crazy. She and I are going to see I, Daniel Blake at the Fountain Theatre tomorrow night.
Back to my obsession with having a Walden moment – I’ve glommed onto this fantasy of having a Pied-à-Forêt or Pied-au-Lac (in the truest sense, a Pied-à-Terre) while maintaining my location in Los Angeles. This is financially beyond my means, really, so it will depend on some creative planning, but this is something I’m sidling toward as well.
Other distressing signs that you have become too sensitive in the election process.
I have been ingesting all kinds of substacks and podcasts, and the other day was listening to an episode of the Meidas Touch where he was talking about Donald Trump’s flatulence and soiling himself during an interview. I thought “I’ve really reached the nadir of consuming political content.” I switched it off. Last night, I got one of the gazillion fear-inducing-intentionally-so-we-will-stay-engaged emails from the Dems, the subject line of which was “Donald Trump Pissed his Pants.” It flashed in the upper right corner of my computer while I was writing postcards, so I didn’t read it because I don’t read so many of them at this stage – trying to stay optimistic. Instead, my head went into this weird protective mode where I thought they were going to show a clip of Donald Trump losing control of his bladder at an event and I was outraged on his behalf!!! Granted, it wouldn’t be a good thing for the world leader to do, but honestly, give the aging-man-who-should-not-be-presiden-again-but-for -other-reasons a moment of grace. Then I realized it was just another incendiary teaser to get me to open the email instead of deleting it. Which worked.
Deep breath – it’s almost over. Don’t get distracted. There is still much work to be done before November 5.
This election needs to wrap up so that we can all sidle into a more productive future.
So while we’re waiting, help me envisioning the Pied-à-Forêt or Pied-au-Lac and how to keep moving forward instead of sideways. Please be sure you vote!
lifeinthethe8tre 