This is Your Life - DTJ


Don't separate your life from political resistance.
Nadia of Pussy Rant

Note: The Russian punk rock group Pussy Rant spent two years in a Russian prison for their resistance to Putin and his government. They are still resisting.

From the mouth of babes. 

Donald Trump was elected president and I joined the resistance again. I had experience with resistance to Richard Nixon. And to save the mini skirt. Sounds funny now in the same paragraph, but saving the mini skirt was serious. For decades men had told women how to dress. Hems up and down, no white after Labor Day or before Easter. No slacks at school or work.

Our protests against Nixon, Watergate, and Kent State were more serious. The peace marches against the illegal Vietnam war and the draft were deadly serious. And behind the marches to save the mini skirt were the fights for the Equal Rights Amendment. It was a very serious time even if Time Magazine made fun of the marchers in mini skirts. And I sometimes believed we did those as comic relief. If you are protesting in front of the White House in December Maxi's make more sense, but there we were in mini skirts with two layers of panty hose to stay warm. ID, taxi fare, and emergency numbers in case of arrest stuffed into the top of our knee high boots. Nobody carried a purse in DC in that mugger haven and mini skirts did not have pockets.

Then, like now, I had friends who thought I was crazy. They were not friends long. Then, like now, I thought we could be friends again after the resistance was over when I would be able to talk about something other than politics. That was wrong. That is wrong. My friends became those I marched with. My life became the weekend marches, the week night manning of help lines, the lunch planning sessions for what else we could do, pouring over the editorials in the Washington Post on Sundays at the coffee house, whispering about what Nixon was doing.

When you get older you regret more the friends you lose, so when this began I told myself that same lie - when this is over. Yesterday at a resistance group brunch it dawned on me I like these friends more. They are more tuned in and more alive and . . . well, just more.




Comments

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f
Read more

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip
Read more