Right here right now

Tonight, after living here for several months, almost in a fever I scrambled through forgotten boxes and unwrapped my candles.  I didn’t even take them to Fort Wayne with me—which surprises me.  In the past few years, wherever I’ve traveled, be it Africa, California or Albion, I’ve taken my candles with me.  A good friend of mine shared with me the power of atmosphere, of setting the scene with music and lighting.

But these past few months I’d forgotten.  Felt too disconnected from everything we said goodbye to when we took off our robes on that absolutely frigid day in May.  From taking time in my hands to listen to what my soul has been whispering.  Too engulfed with my past and future to connect with my present.

It seems I’ve been spending a lot of my time remembering the days when I could run down the hall to ask your opinion of something or drive off to Taco Bell in mutual frustration.  Nostalgic of the zeal fueling me when I woke up every morning determined to build a school in Africa.  Sizing up graduate programs like I search for a good outfit, trying to find that perfect fit, holding up everything in comparison with those days before the evacuation, before I had more questions than answers.  Wondering if I can ever recapture the synthesis of passion, personal growth and empowerment–while secretly fearing that I manufactured the memory of purpose, of being on the right path, of following my north star.

I keep spiraling round and round this job I have.  You see (if you’ve been keeping up with the past few posts : ) from the beginning this job was intended as a substitute for a future, a stand-in for a real job, or as we like to call it, an in-between.  And I was vehemently against letting this job become my life.  Yet it is happening.  The lines are blurring and I’m loosing sight of following my dreams–because lets be honest.  The reason I didn’t apply to grad school this Fall is because I don’t know what degree I need to follow my dreams!

These past few weeks I have really started to embrace the everyday moments of this job.  As a community organizer I am a part of a community that stretches across our nation.  Every day from 5-9pm I join hundreds of other organizers in different cities and states as we knock on doors and empower individuals to become a part of the solution through petitions, fundraising and supporting democracy via contacting their representatives.  The people drawn to this work are my people.  We are the hippies of the 21st century, the tree-hugging vegan minimalistic high-as-fuckin-kites children with dreadlocks, a grudge against the man and an idealistic almost naive faith in grassroots organizing.  Oh and we listen to good music.  And although I’m blonde blue-eyed meat-eatin sorority girl from Bloomfield Hills, these are my people.

I keep thinking I need more experience in the nonprofit world in order to figure out my next step, the degree I need to achieve my dreams.  But now that I am taking these people and my position seriously, every time I think of leaving these people I know that I’d be heartbroken.  Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, this job and these people became my new home.  And here’s the thing.  Even though I know that I am not zealous about the work–I’m a damn good organizer.  This is so damn close to what I want to be doing that it feels wrong to move away from it.  But how can I move forward if I settle for less than my dreams?  How can I stay and not be drawn in further and further until I loose sight of my future completely?

Today I lived every single moment.  Usually by the evening I am tired and ready to be home and eating dinner.  Driving home for an hour results in a zombie-like state where I end up at home not remembering how I got there, and where I immediately eat dinner and watch tv, continuing to zone out until I fall asleep.  Tonight I kept myself company with my thoughts, aware and alert.  I ate dinner and had absolutely no desire to watch a television show.  And upstairs I came, ready to prepare a briefing for the office tomorrow, and as I pulled out my information sheets I found myself pulling out my playlist titled ‘Candles *on est ensemble*’ mix, and placing my candles around my room.

The warm glow of the big candle with four wicks holds the energy of my parents, sleeping just a room away, and Zach so far away lost in Hollywood.  The steadfast and unwavering flame of the candle the color of my soul brings each of you here with me.

Again I cannot believe that it has taken me this long to bring you here since I moved back with my parents.  I waited until I came back home to the present to share my today with you.  Thanks for being here tonight; I’ve missed you in my everyday moments.  I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but this moment right here right now in my dark candlelit room-feels good.

~on est ensemble,

Alexandra Marie

Same old same old

Today I woke up and braved the shower in the basement with a canopy of spiderwebs, put on black leggings under jeans, three shirts, one sweater, arm warmers and a pea coat and tupperware lunch in hand drove to work.  So easy, the drive.  It’s a straight shot, turn left, turn right and bam there the office be.  I still missed it even though I got there yesterday fine, and found myself passing a Catholic cemetery and realized I’d gone too far.

Listening to Alexi Murdoch…he’s telling me he’s on the edge of some great truth, finally in his place.

I miss that.  It seems each day which separates me from Albion provides another glimpse into the way that it shaped who I am.  And how I feel like I’m on a one way street, driving parallel to my true path.  Everyday I head to work I rack my brains for another reason to enjoy what I’m doing.  To turn negatives into positives, to take this experience and suck it dry.  I turned around and turned into the non-descript office building and made it to work three minutes early, and proceeded to create busy work for myself for the next forty-five minutes.

I’m going in the right direction.  I’m certainly moving.  Adding to my resume and skill set, putting pieces to the puzzle of what I want to do with my life.  But growing increasingly uncomfortable being aware that this is not the right fit for me.

Finally, I was able to do some training and then our office’s lobbyist arrived.  I need to back up for a moment to give you a real picture of who this man is.  Mind you, my campaign back in Ann Arbor is to pass the federal climate and energy bill.  I get paid an extra bonus each day that I bring in 18-24 letters urging Michigan senators to strengthen and support this bill.  The office here in Fort Wayne opposes this legislation.  I heard this man speak at canvassers conference-personally I found it hard to see past his aggressive sarcasm and blatent loathing of corporate america to the true nature of the bill.  It was this man that arrived to speak about nuclear weapons.  He gave the same presentation he gave to some political body considering nuclear weapons.  Of course in his words, it boiled down to investing our economy in nuclear and restarting the cold war.  Not that he doesn’t have valid points.  But his slanted perspective makes it difficult to consider his words.

I have been volunteering four hours a week to our campaign back home.  And now I am committed the next three weeks to gathering letters demanding Indiana senators and our president withdraw their support from the same legislation.  Hypocritical much?

But it gets better–the last few days, working on a completely issue that I have no investment, that if anything I have reason to disagree with, I have raised an outrageous amount of money.  My fundraising efforts have been so successful that I have astonished and impressed each member of the staff, including the regional director of the umbrella corporation of canvassing offices across the US.  The director here, after giving me a hard time about having the wrong position about this bill, commended me for my canvassing skills.  In her words,

‘If you can canvass both sides of an issue, you know that you are a good convasser.’

To me, if I can canvass both sides of an issue it tells me without a doubt that my success has everything to do with my abilty to smile and charm the pants off whoever opens the door and looks me in the eye, and nothing whatsoever to do with my connection to the cause.

Tonight was staff night, as every thursday has been for the past thirty years in canvassing history.  We went over to the office manager’s house and played poker in her garage.  The office manager is the founder of Save Maumee, she has incredible random knick-knacks around her house, including the skull of an enormous sloth, an oven plastered in grassroots bumperstickers, and pictures of her son everywhere.  In the garage as we listened to anything heard at woodstock and I learned poker on a long card table covered in-you guessed it–a tie-dyed table cloth as we passed around a joint and chugged beer.

I had fun.  But it didn’t fit.  And here’s why.  On the way home I asked Mary, my boss that I’m staying with–who mind you I have everything in common with–(we both love the same murder mystery novels, studied abroad in Africa, spent time in Albion and the coincidences keep coming)–if she loved canvassing immediately.  She said yes.  And again the disconnect.

I don’t love it.  It works.  Just like Mary and I aren’t immediate friends just because we have a lot of common interests.  Just like I don’t smoke pot anymore and they all wonder why.  They can sense it too-as I question them about their passion and try to absorb their enthusiasm, they can sense that I am not enthralled by this grassroots organizing or impassioned by damning the man.  Who would’ve thought?  Turns out I’m really not a hippie guys.  Took me to be surrounded by vegan pothead green loving quirky fabulous people to realize I have too many pairs of shoes and wear too much mascara to be a hippie.  And I’m ok with that.

Again…it took me a while to put this into words.  It still feels like nothing much is goin on with me.  All thats happening is that I’ve figured out that nothing is happening.  As always, I miss you all.

on est ensemble,

Alexandra Marie

Laughing so hard we can’t breathe

I was talking to my boss the other day-she was cutting out fish from bright colored paper.  At my job, whenever you raise over 300 dollars in one night or get ten or more letters, you receive a fish.  We talked about the transition post-diploma.  And we found a commonality–we both chose to work as a canvasser during the interim.  And twenty years later, Emily is cutting fish.  She’s moved up-is married to the director and is responsible for the functioning of the office—but she is still here.

I’m not sure what I’m doing or where I am going.  I do know where I’ve been.  What I’ve done.  A sense of who I am.

Right now I am on my couch in my house that I’m subletting for the summer in Ann Arbor.  Four years ago when I was applying to colleges I held a grudge against this university.  Although from childhood U of M had been a source of family pride-from both my parents–the intention of all my peers in high school to go to the same university tainted the entire city.  I find it slightly ironic that I have graduated from Albion, small liberal arts school in the middle of a tiny low income township and several cornfields–and have moved instead to the college town that wasn’t good enough for me when I had just a high school diploma.  Now with a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies with a focus on Africa and a minor in French, this college town is perfect for the summer.

But I keep waking up and questioning what next.   Really, I’m scared.  I’m scared of choosing what I want to do.  Of what kind of person I want to become.  Of what kind of man I want.  Of which path to take.  I’m also aware that choosing not to choose a path will not leave me where I want to be.

In twenty years I don’t want to be cutting fish.

I looked at my first blog entry.  It was two years ago-the last summer I spent in Bloomfield.  After sophmore year when I was so absorbed in the moment, so completely charged with momentum that I couldn’t see straight.  I spent the last year finding my perspective.  And right now, at this standstill, I’m looking around myself wondering where to go next.

I know I want to find direction.  To pursue a career and a cause that I am passionate about.  I want to travel to different parts of the world-with friends and by myself.  I want to live outside of the US at some point.  I want to live in a place that is warm more often than it is cold.  I want to be near to my parents or my brother.  I want to fall in love-more than once.  I want to feel those different nuances of love that I have seen in my friends lives.  I want to make bad decisions—risky ones that leave me with unforgettable lifechanging experiences.  I want to find someone that is worth my time-worth toughing it out together through the good and bad.  I want to have children-especially a daughter.  I want to show her the world and watch to see who she becomes.  I want to have my sisters in my wedding.  I want to have a puppy that I come home to every night that loves me.  I want to be happy.

These are things I know I want.  Here’s one thing I know.  We-sisters-will be lifelong friends.  And I have spent some of my best and worst moments with you guys.  I know you better than I know any one else–and you me.  It’s where I learned to laugh so hard I can’t breathe-those moments when shared joy convulses us and the world is a better place for whatever ridiculous reason we found hilarious.  And thats something that I want to define my life, no matter which path I choose.  We will be together, and we’ll be laughing so hard we can’t breathe.  Finding those moments of joy and sharing them-thats what I choose.  Just gotta take some time to figure out which path I want.

~on est ensemble

Alexandra Marie