Thoughts on a walk through downtown Denver

Taking a walk in a once-familiar place is like reading one of those layered books showing changes over time. That’s what I felt yesterday morning when I made a rare visit to what was once the center of Denver, the “overgrown cow-town”, as some called it when I arrived here in 1976. There was no 16th Street Mall then, just a busy downtown street with department stores, restaurants and offices, and sidewalks filled with people. The long-gone May D&F department store created a large ice rink in the winter, and the street looked like an auto parade route on Saturday nights.I worked for a time in the Petroleum Club Building near Broadway and Colfax, a short walk from the small central library and an art museum that looked like a castle. I stayed for a decade and more as changes came and visited during my Japan years. Following the construction of the mall, skyscrapers came to dot the town, and the library and museum grew new additions. 

And so I remembered these things when I went downtown yesterday, a warm December morning—three tasks in mind. I walked  from the Cultural Center parking garage adjoining the library down to a pharmacy on the 16th Street mall, blocks away. And during that walk I saw and felt the changes of recent years. A microcosm of the US, as the year rolls to an end. A familiar sight in many cities, only with different names.

As I walked along the perimeter of Civic Center Park, sandwiched between the Courthouse and the Capitol Building, I immediately saw the fencing keeping everyone out, put up in September to evict homeless campers and control trash and drug activity. One path leading to a small cluster of tents, the Christkindl market, looked like a mirage in an urban desert. I walked on. The library was fenced off too—a construction project no doubt timed by pandemic closures. 

I continued, crossing into a street bordering the mall, and came across a bunched sleeping bag on the street, wheelchair by the side of the person who was probably inside. I paused, uncertain, but decided not to disturb.  As I walked further, it took me a few moments to start seeing what wasn’t there on the streets—crowds of shoppers, tourists or workers heading to their offices, days before Christmas. There was very little traffic as well, and it was easy to cross against the light. Just a few pedestrians on their way to somewhere, workers hosing down outdoor tables on the 16th Street Mall, and a solitary waiter wiping tables on the patio of the Hard Rock Cafe. But there were signs of manufactured cheer, like this merry-go-round, no kids in sight.

Walking along the mall, I saw the empty storefronts, a few covered with murals promoting a Denver that once existed—snow-capped mountains in the distance, packed restaurants, city attractions. 

Department stores were few, and the open businesses tended to be franchises, a few fast food places, and the two pharmacies I was headed for. I was in search of a rapid covid test kit, and an online listing led me to believe that the downtown CVC had them in stock. In reality, no luck and no need to enter the store. Leaving the pharmacy, I encountered a woman in a wheelchair, asking for a dollar. I gave her the cookies in my bag and she seemed pleased. As I continued my return journey down 16th Street, I passed several other apparently homeless people, seeking donations. I sometimes carry protein bars to hand out when I think I might encounter those in need, and I regretted not having done that on this trip. 

I turned around and headed toward my next destination. Approaching Broadway, I saw well-kept thriving institutions—the real success stories of these past two years—banks and lending institutions. Starbuck’s was also open and well-tended. I passed by, aiming for the RTD office where I bought a packet of discount bus tickets. I haven’t been on a bus since pre-lockdown days, but I expect to hop on when necessary this coming year. Then my major destination of the morning appeared—a rally on the West steps of the Capitol. 

                                        

It was a rally for justice on behalf of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos , a 26-year-old truck driver who was recently sentenced to 110 years in prison for a 2019 crash  on I-70, that led to the deaths of four people. You can read about it here—about the mountain-inexperienced driver whose brakes failed and who missed the runaway ramps. The result was a crash that killed four people, caused by a man who was not reckless or impaired, a man with no criminal record or intent to harm, an immigrant from Cuba. Just about everyone agrees the sentence was wildly unfair, the judge included, but apparently required under the state’s mandatory sentencing laws. 

When I arrived, the rally had already started, a bilingual one, aimed at organizing people to understand what mandatory sentencing laws have created. Originally designed to eliminate racial disparities in sentencing, they have instead led to more injustice, in the opinion of rally speakers, particularly former State Rep Joe Salazar. Salazar gave a fiery speech, lambasting the misuse of power by prosecutors who often use the law to browbeat accused criminals into a plea bargain. Rogel’s mother, who spoke in Spanish wept through most of her speech, her pain so obvious that words were unnecessary. The crowd broke into chants of Justice Now, justicia ahora!. The crowd was small, perhaps 100, and there were several TV cameras. 

In just a few days this has become a high profile case. More than 5 million people, including me, signed a petition asking Gov. Polis to grant clemency to Rogel—either setting him free or reducing his sentence. Attendees were encouraged to call Gov. Polis’ office to request clemency, and there are legal moves underway to reduce Rogel’s sentence. Gov. Polis’s legal team is considering this as I write, and a decision is expected soon.

I returned to the parking garage, walking past History Colorado and the Denver Art Museum, both of which appear to be thriving. claimed my car, and returned home. And I thought of how easy it is to let the what counts as legal reform in one decade—in this case mandatory sentencing—lead to a whole new set of abuses unless underlying causes are addressed.  I had the feeling as I listened that this was a kind of George Floyd moment—an individual case that was so horrendously unjust that it might take us closer to creating a more just law enforcement system. A year past the Rallies for Black Lives Matter, we see that change can happen, but it’s often limited or non-existent in places, and will remain that way unless the patient work of nurturing change continues, both inside and outside the system.

Aug. 26, 1970: Don't Iron While the Strike is Hot

 Fifty years ago today, I was standing in the (then-named) Civic Center Plaza in downtown Chicago, listening to a plethora of speakers talk about women and equality and the need to end the war in Vietnam. As is so often the case with my early adult life, I have no photos--only a button from the event and a memory of the slogan, "Don't iron while the strike is hot." I've had the button in my collection for the past 50 years.

I was working at my first real job after college--as a staff reporter for the Lerner Newspapers, a  chain of community papers in Chicago. I have no clip from the event, as not working was a key idea of the strike. My boss, Terry Gorman, a young man who considered himself progressive, did not object. So off I went--on my own, as I recall, to an event that did not...leave a strong impression. I don't remember any particular speech or speaker that day. The documentary She's Beautiful When She's Angry has a brief scene of the Chicago event showing hundreds filling the plaza.  I could blame my faulty memory for this limited recollection, but it's more a case of my feminism being in its nascent stage then. I had yet to join any group, and in 1970, my mind was more focused on Chicago politics and the continuing, tragic war in Vietnam. The shooting of student demonstrators at Kent State University by National Guard troops had occurred just a few months earlier, and with my colleagues I tried to find stories about the war protests with a "local angle". Meanwhile, another important strike was happening that August in California: Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers were striking for better wages and working conditions in the fields. My roommates and I were honoring that strike. An incredibly eventful year it was.

Although I had graduated from a women's college just two years earlier, I had not yet internalized just what discrimination and systemic sexism meant and would mean for me as a woman. But I had read Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, credited today with being one of the sparks of second wave feminism. I also knew about the stirrings of the Women's Liberation Movement all around me; I just had no personal entry point yet. The abortion I needed and almost didn't get in the pre-Roe v. Wade era--was still two years away. That experience later brought me to my first feminist collective, the Emma Goldman Women's Health Center, a free well-woman clinic on Chicago's North Side.

Thanks to digital archives, I can revisit the Women's Strike for Equality on Aug. 26, fifty years ago. An article in TIME, a couple of weeks later, called it the largest demonstration since suffrage was won in 1920.  The main event was in New York, where 20,000 women and men marched along Fifth Avenue, chanting and waving banners. TIME wrote: "In nearly half a dozen cities, women swept past headwaiters to 'liberate' all-male bars and restaurants. At the Detroit Free Press, women staffers, angered because male reporters had two washrooms while they had only one, stormed one of the men's rooms, ousted its inhabitants and occupied it for the rest of the day.

"In Manhattan leafleteers collared brokers at financial-district subway stops early in the morning; teams of women activists made the rounds of corporations whose advertising "degrades women" to present them with "Barefoot and Pregnant Awards....In the nation's capital, 1,000 women marched down Connecticut Avenue behind a "We Demand Equality" banner....Los Angeles liberationists were confined to the sidewalk during their march, which drew only 500. Seven women dressed in suffragette costumes stood a "silent vigil" for women's rights during the day at the Federal Building. Easygoing street theater and speeches marked demonstrations in other cities. More than a thousand women and men sympathizers attended a noon-hour rally in Indianapolis, where they watched guerrilla theater."

For some visual imagery of the event within the context of suffrage and other women's struggles, a 3-minute student presentation is worth a watch. And for a broader understanding of the feminist movement of the 60s and early 70s, I highly recommend the documentary, She's Beautiful When She's Angry. It's available free online. 

From these archives and my limited memory, it's clear that voting was not a demand in 1970; voting rights has been a centerpiece of the Civil Rights Movement, and I remember how satisfied I felt, just months after I went to Selma, that Pres. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On Aug. 26, 1970, observance of the suffrage anniversary was an entry to a new, second-wave women's movement. In the following 20 years the concept of equality was taken to every field: business, health, politics, literature, the arts, many more. And since then, we've seen third and fourth wave feminism come into being. The latter, according to a Wiki, began around 2012, focusing on empowerment of women and intersectionality, the interconnections of categories such as race, class and gender.

And now on Women's Equality Day 2020, a century after the 19th Amendment was ratified, voting is once again center stage in the struggle for justice and equality. Voter suppression is evident as the current occupant of the White House tries to manipulate his way to a second term. Perhaps we could argue we're in a fifth wave of feminism, which will challenge us to help make all of the gains of the past century a living reality for all and protect the gains we once thought we had won for good--reproductive rights being at the top of the list.

A little more than two months away from the Nov. 3 election, in the middle of a pandemic, I have no plans to protest in person. But I'll be phone banking and writing letters for the Democratic ticket, making sure my ballot is in on time.  To quote suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, "To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in the distance, Give yourselves."

Montgomery, Alabama, 1965: reflections on my first protest march

It's been more than a half century--a fact that still startles me--since I took an overnight bus trip with a group of Catholic nuns, lay teachers and students to join the last leg of the historic civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The late John Lewis, a very young man, was there with Dr. King and the march leadership, though I never saw or heard him. His death and funeral service this week brought back this time to me, so writing this is a way of reliving and reflecting on these experiences.

I was 18 years old, a freshman at Mundelein College in Chicago in the fall of 1964, a rather naive young woman who had never attended a Catholic school before. I was surprised to learn almost immediately that nuns and students were planning to join the march the following spring and plans were already underway. I knew immediately that I wanted to join it. Did I really understand much of what was at stake? I like to think so, though my understanding must have come from news reports of the growing Civil Rights movement in the early 60s: the fact that freedom fighters were working for basic human rights, that many Negroes (the word we used then) could not vote, that change was underway. And there was a book: John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me. Griffin, a Texas journalist and deeply religious man, had darkened his skin (with drugs and sun lamp treatments) so that he could tour the South and experience it as a Black man. The book was published in 1961 when I was in high school. I remember reading it, surprised and saddened by his account of racial injustices in the deep South.

For my trip to Alabama, all that was needed was $20 for the overnight Trailways bus trip to and from Alabama--and parental permission. The latter was surprisingly hard to get. Both of my parents were strongly opposed, being more aware than I was of the dangers involved. I persisted in my attempts to get them to sign--showing defiance for the first time in my teen life--and finally they relented. Perhaps they were mollified by the fact that the trip was sponsored by the Catholic Interracial Council, and a number of nuns would be on the bus with us. Mom and Dad would not pay, however, so I got a part-time job typing a textbook draft for a nun, and was ready to go when the time came the following March.

It may seem incredible today to say that I have no picture of myself from that event--no pictures at all. I didn't have a camera--they were large bulky things in those days. However, some photos existed from our group (taken by one of the nuns), including this one now in the Loyola University archives. I am not in it (Where was I?) But other classmates were. 

Actually, there is one photo of me which appeared in the college newspaper, The Skyscraper, a month later. You might not recognize me, however. I occasionally worked as a hair model, and had dyed my hair black the previous week.

I have no photos of the 6 religious faculty who joined us on the trip. They were members of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVMs), and they wore a habit identical to the one in the photo below.  This BVM, Sister Leoline of Kansas City, was photographed wearing an orange vest showing she was one of the original marchers who had walked the entire 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery.

Lacking photos,  I took notes--fortunately!-- as I was a reporter for The Skyscraper. The stories we published then are an invaluable memory aid these many years later. 

I can confidently tell you that we left one cold March afternoon from Chicago, arriving 20 hours and 800 miles later. "Welcome to Montgomery, "Cradle of the Confederacy" we saw on a Highway 80 billboard. We knew there would be tensions if not danger: angry locals and members of the Alabama National Guard who would line the route of the march the next day. But first, we'd gather for a briefing on safety and later a rally. As Brenda, my co-reporter, and I wrote, "Drive, warmth and easygoing humor" greeted us when we went to the St. Jude campground on the outskirts of Montgomery. Our bus driver left, to stay safely outside the town and to park the bus in a safer, less open spot.

It was humid and hot, as we ate picnic-style on the grounds and were later treated to a fried chicken dinner by a local resident. Other volunteers fed marchers and offered encouragement.  "Late in the afternoon", we wrote in our news story, "residents and visitors began pouring into the field and taking places in front of the makeshift stage....The dark field, lighted only by spotlights and the repeated flash of photographers' cameras, revealed a standing crowd of thousands. Dozens clung to the trees overshadowing the stage." By 9 pm., Harry Belafonte, the host of the rally, welcomed other entertainers: Nina Simone, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Dick Gregory, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennet and Shelley Winters. Would that I would have had 21st century technology to record the event!

Of course,  the rally included speeches: Dr. Ralph Bunch, UN undersecretary for political affairs, and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. King's top aide. Dr. Abernathy urged us "to assemble at this same spot tomorrow and join the greatest march ever held...and when it takes place, Alabama will never be the same." Prophetic words, definitely.

The march began the next morning with ranks of marchers, six deep, and marshals yelling, ."Let's have a man on the outside", as they ran along the line. Those were pre-feminist times, and that didn't phase me then. No one near us, male or female, was forced to fend off an attack, as we moved forward singing and chanting. Songs are the lifeblood of any movement and several are still alive in memory: "This Little Light of Mine", "I'm on my Way to Freedom Land,""We Shall Overcome".Another popular marching song, "Can't turn me around" is in this 3-minute YouTube video, which also includes march scenes, words by Dr King, and commentary by Harry Belafonte.

In our campus newspaper story, we wrote, "During three-fourths of the trek, which cut through a Negro section of the city, onlookers cheered and joined in singing the freedom chants. Others watched expressionless. Several offered water to the marchers. An old Negro woman shouted that it was the greatest day she had ever seen." I felt a sense of exhilaration that I had not felt before, and a sense of gratitude that I could be there for this amazing event, like nothing I had ever experienced.

"Turning onto the downtown section a different mood confronted the marchers. Quiet heckling from a few white observers was emphasized by a large sign on one store showing Martin Luther King Jr. supposedly at a Communist training school. Confederate flags waved by bystanders, worn by some troopers and flown on top of the Capitol building itself seemed to indicate the real feeling behind the civil rights opposition."

As we reached the Capitol we were urged to sit down and rest, and the four-hour meeting opened with the movement classic, "We Shall Overcome".  The crowd raised American flags to the National Anthem led by Mrs. King. The optimistic tone of the previous night's speeches continued continued through the hours. One of the initial speakers declared, "This is a revolution that won't fire a shot....Our aim is to love the hell out of the State of Alabama with all the power of our bodies and souls." Other speakers spoke to how this march was only a beginning. Urging a continuation of the voting rights struggle in the South, Dr. King stressed that the "aim of the movement is to seek a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." The struggle won't be smooth but it will succeed, he told us, "because no lie can live forever."

The event ended with another chorus of "We Shall Overcome" as my classmates and I made our way to 

our bus which had returned to pick us up. A day later we arrived home.

And then I went back to school for another three years, and the effects of the march continued to play out in my life then--and then in ways hidden or not, over the coming decades. Part 2 of this story to come.

 

What's a girl to do as the big dance approaches

It may seem frivolous to compare the upcoming US presidential election and election to a high school homecoming dance, but please bear with me. This dance metaphor speaks to an important point about electability: we look to a candidate to inspire us, to bring us closer to our goals and dreams. Barack Obama could do this, as did the late John Kennedy. Arguably, Bill Clinton too. We usually chalk it up to charisma but that concept isn't quite broad enough. We need inspiration married to possibility. Homecoming dances are all about that.

Exploring the slippery electability issue, one column I read recently suggested that given all the uncertainties this time, we are better off looking at how candidates make us feel, as opposed to parsing polls and platforms. And that's just what I plan to do in this blog, as I explore my hypothetical dilemma: finding a partner who can take us to the epitome of Homecoming: the election of a king and queen, the biggest prize of a school's biggest football event. Like election campaigns, it's so much spectacle, but much is at stake. My vote counts, and I want to have the perfect partner for the top spot in the Homecoming parade.

At first, as I looked for my perfect dance partner,  I thought I should go for the sensible choice--class president, Joe. We could get the most votes, I thought--surely the most important thing in a campaign even if he would not shake things up in this Homecoming world--a world that most of us agree has become dysfunctional. But then, nice a guy as he is, I just couldn't get excited about him. Maybe it was the frequency of slips, his forgetting my name. Sigh. His loyal supporters--let's call them his would-be court--told me to pay no mind. That's just Joe, they said. Don't forget how much support he has!  But then my eyes turned to the one who was about to capture my heart and mind--Elizabeth.

Perhaps she made me feel so good and proud because she's my better self: like me in age and background, but, unlike me,  one who really applied herself to become a champion debater, a Harvard professor and member of Congress. And now she was expressing a plan, one that would take Homecoming to a whole new level--one that kept the tradition while solving long-standing problems at our school. She didn't want to centralize Homecoming, as the campus radical proposes; she has a more developed and nuanced view. If elected, she would be the first woman to become Homecoming King. What a thrilling thought--how I'd be at her side on the big night.

But then....her campaign slipped. The plainspoken campus radical started surging in the polls. He was becoming so popular--even among the younger students.  (How is he still in school? I wondered privately.) Still, what a good, progressive school we could become if Bernie and I became a team--an enticing thought. Then too, he's such a good, consistently honorable man, a fighter for fairness. And together we could win! His court assured me of this, pointing to various polls. He's like Elizabeth--but stronger, they said. I was tempted, but then....I thought about Amy. Yes, why not Amy? She could also become the first woman to hold the top spot.

The polarization in our school had become intense. What we needed at the front of our Homecoming parade was a well-spoken, experienced person, one who has gotten things done during her years in school. One who was once overlooked, but was now being noticed. Yes, I thought, we could win! Her court says so and our school's top newspaper endorsed her, along with Elizabeth. I imagined going with Amy, visualizing her calm smile and assurance, calming my nervous excitement and the fears of fellow students put off by the campus radical.

My thoughts were interrupted by a student passing out Bloomberg flyers, talking about this candidate's accomplishments and large donations to many progressive causes over time. I paused, and then two African-American students walked by, raising their eyebrows. Suddenly I found myself humming a tune, "....You can't buy my love with money 'cause I never was that kind...." I walked on, deep in thought.

Thinking about my philosophy classes, I remembered Plato and his belief that democracy could not survive without a philosopher-king in charge of things. I began to consider whether I should choose the candidate best suited to this exalted state, the kind of person our school could really be proud of. An image of youthful, smiling Pete came to mind. While only a freshman, he had a shot at the top prize, that I could see.

Such a paragon--a veteran of conflict, an accomplished concert pianist who speaks 7 languages. A man who can listen, admit mistakes, who understands the incremental nature of change; a person about whom there is absolutely no whiff of scandal; a gay, married man who knows that love is love, regardless of gender. A communicator, a bright young man with a stake in the future. Lots of people had come around to appreciating his virtues recently. Surely he should be my partner, and in my mind, we waltzed together for several days. Inspired by him, all students would surely become better versions of themselves.

Still....as I fantasized through my choices, I kept coming back to how these hopefuls made me feel. They all sought my hand....I pictured all of them in turn and paid attention to what I was feeling. I also kept focusing on that intersection of inspiration and possibility--the blossoming of charisma. I looked at Elizabeth's and Bernie's platforms again.* I returned to my feelings. For awhile the images blurred, and then one became clear. Elizabeth held out her hand. My heart-mind said yes, and I knew: While I will applaud the winner of the final vote, I will dance with Elizabeth as long as I can.

I hope to tell her so on Sunday, Feb. 23. She will have a rally at The Fillmore Auditorium, Colfax and Clarkson, at 3 p.m. I plan to be there.

*For a discussion of the differences between Bernie's and Elizabeth's platforms, see this recent article in The Atlantic.

The crumbs of one woman's year: 2017

"Slung as though in a hammock, or a lull, between one Christmas forever over and  a New Year nearing full of relentless surprises, waywardly and gladly I pry back at those wizening 12 months and see only a waltzing snippet of those topsy-turvy times, flickers of vistas, flashes of queer fishes, patches and chequers of a bard’s eye view….

‘Look back, back, the big voices clarion, look back at the black, colossal year,’ while the rich music fanfares….(but) I can give you only a scattering of some of the crumbs of one man’s year, and the penny music whistles."  —Dylan Thomas in The Crumbs of One Man’s Year

Sitting here in front of my window this warming morning, in this lull between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I see the last melting patches of snow in City Park, as I try to channel Dylan Thomas. I think I have. Though the news feeds are full of “best of’s” and “most importants” of 2017, I sit back and see, as Thomas did, a few “waltzing snippets” that stay in memory. Start with a memory, any memory will do.

I’m near Mudbiscuit, my cabin in Florissant, one June morning, walking down Ranger Station Road with Linda and her two dogs, Belle the Border Collie and Hop the Corgi, breathing the crisp, high altitude air, grateful that I can still return to this beautiful place every summer. I’m watching the dogs, sniffing the history of the night with the focus of a rookie detective. I’m distracted by Hop’s butt, long white and gold hair swaying in the wind. An icon of my country life, like the hummingbird feeders, always my first task when I arrive to open the cabin, filled with a vague anxiety that these tiny birds, having made their home in a nearby cottonwood tree, altitude 8,800 feet, will not survive if I stop providing a daily ration of sugar water. Here's Hop and Belle with their human, Linda, that morning.

Then it’s  time to check the greenhouse. Linda planted early and the greens are thriving. Sunlight on the red-stemmed chard, the park choi, lettuce and peas. Back to the cabin to wash, chop, serve, eat. The day passes: I putter, read, answer email, all a blur until the sky colors change, the great magnificent sky, that surprises me every season I return after being away.

Is it any wonder that the Japanese word for nostalgia, natsukashii, has the root, natsu or summer—where memories wander first? But I have winter memories too, this winter of our resistance following the 2016 upset and deeply upsetting presidential election in the US. So many of us then were frightened, disoriented, still disbelieving.

Jump to Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration of the Divider in Chief, and I’m about to join thousands of Coloradans at the Denver Civic Center for the Women’s March. We don’t know yet that it will become the largest protest in US history, with nearly 5 million taking part around the globe. It’s early, I’m anxious, as full buses pass us at the stop near home. A neighbor gives us a lift and within the half hour we’re walking toward the 16th Street Mall. Then I see it—a steady stream of pussy-hatted women, men pushing strollers, kids, a stream of signs, and I can feel the energy and anticipation of the day. I’ll soon see many more that day. But it’s that first glimpse, as the sun appeared over the heads of those early arrivals, that brought both a thrill and sense of relief. We’re all in this together….

A season of protests reminding us of our unity across race, gender, class and generations. On Valentine’s Day, also known as V-Day--observed by the global activist movement to end gender violence--I was again on the Mall with friends and celebrants, dancers, chanters, and speakers--all pledging to work for justice. Images of red and movement and words, but the image that stays is this one of the young STEM women, remembered partly because I learned what STEM meant that day. We’re all in this together....

The year moved into spring, and I see more images of actions: The silent procession around the State Capitol on International Women’s Day, Climate Action on Earth Day, also a March for Science, notable for its creative signs and the youth of many of the participants. A march and rally in support of “our Muslim neighbors”. In my senior building here in the city, we’re writing postcards to our representatives. Having just moved in the previous October, I’m getting to know my neighbors. So much to resist and encourage. Yes, we’re all in this together….

Delicious moments—cooking being the most ephemeral art, its appreciators also its destroyers. Sitting at a long table at The Mercury Cafe with dear friends on my birthday, eating a pagan vegan plate (greens, tofu, veggie green chili, fried cornmeal), perhaps my 100th plate of it, the menu item I order there  most often….An exquisitely expertly-prepared plate of sushi, a birthday gift from a friend, at Denver’s premier sushi restaurant….Another dinner treat from visiting friends in August at a local artisan restaurant, probably my prettiest food picture of the year.

Summer also brought disillusionment. I watched the Rachel Maddow Show nearly every evening with country or city friends, the stories flowing by, marking the damage this hobbled and flawed democracy brought about by electing the current president and Congress. Then one evening, I was sitting with neighbors in the lobby of my apartment building, not distracted by the slivers of visible sunset, and realizing that there can be no giving up. Maybe it was after 45’s insulting speech at The Boy Scout Jamboree or after his refusal to support more safety measures for football players, saying they  would ruin the game. Not the worst he had done, but the gratuitous cruelty and ignorance struck me viscerally. Remembering, I feel again that shiver of fear, then a calmness, a resolve. We simply cannot give up. Elections are coming in 2018. We’re all in this together….

Moments of joy: that’s what my laughter yoga friends call those moments when we look around us, fully present in the beauty that presents itself, perhaps always there if we just bother to notice. Burying my face in a blossoming tree in City Park across the street from me here in Denver; handing out water bottles to exhausted and grateful marathon runners in City Park, probably my most rewarding volunteer experience.

In October, gazing at a sea of student faces at Metro State University. I was on a panel with 5 other women who had worked on Big Mama Rag, a feminist newspaper published in Denver in the 1970s--more than 40 years ago. We were talking to students in the women's studies department, telling them so many important things--about our passion, our mistakes, what we tried to do and what still needs doing. I remember the expression of the transgender youth in the 2nd row who was really listening, as many others listened impassively or took notes; never doubt the importance of the audience's role in a presentation. We hoped they were listening too--not enough time for Q & A before their next class. Afterwards, as we panelists sat around a table in the student center, I remember a relaxed pleasure and pride: remembering this time we shared and our gratitude for being a part of what is now history!

Death made itself visible to me this year, not exactly a next door neighbor, but more like a silent and solemn newcomer who has moved in down the block. In the spring two women died, members of one of my groups (OLOC), one suddenly and one from cancer. Both were honored at one of our monthly meetings in a ceremony led by another member--who herself passed away later in the year from cancer. In early March a former neighbor turned friend—Joanne, age 85—died from complications of cancer and an accident. A day earlier, Gerry Starbuck, my first employer in Denver in 1977, passed away. Later, a good friend from my days in Japan, Kim Oswalt, passed away. Not long afterwards I was telling a neighbor about these deaths. “ It will be more and more like this,” she told me matter-of-factly but not without sympathy. She didn’t need to explain how aging brings knowledge--the sense of one’s own vulnerability accompanied by increasing losses. The image I call up most often is the one below from the Day of the Dead exhibit and celebration at the Denver Botanic Gardens in early November. I paused for several moments before this altar where the artist explained her story and art to a group of children. In the past few years I’ve seen this holiday grow beyond its Mexican roots into a developing North American holiday, with numerous events around town. We need it to recognize the role of death in human life and honor the lives of those no longer with us.

Moments of auditory joy: sitting on the stage of the Grant Park Orchestra in Chicago, listening to a young woman play Bach’s cello suite No. 5 on her viola, the lights of Millennium Park behind her.
The Sound Circle a cappella chorus, singing beneath the stained glass windows of a Boulder church.

This fading year of 2017 will always be the year I discovered song. In September I joined my first flash mob where more than 100 of us sang Holly Near’s "Singing for Our Lives", as we peeled off jackets to the surprise of onlookers at the DCPA. Yet the scene that returns is the short concert we gave on the Mall afterwards, becoming celebrities of the hour to passersby. One solitary older man caught my eye, watching silently and then finally, slowly joining in on a song. World Singing Day came a month later, and I was there, on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, where anyone who came by got a lyric booklet with tunes ranging from "Uptown Funk" to "Imagine", and where we sang our hearts out, in one big outdoor karaoke session. Instead of an electronic screen, we had various small choirs lead us, and instead of a room, the sunny, chilly outdoors. In December I was back on the 16th Street Mall in Denver, singing “alternative lyrics” to popular Christmas carols, all aimed at mocking the GOP tax bill, It  passed the Senate the following day, unfortunately, but the singing helped sooth and energize.  I think we’re on to something as we head into Resistance Year #2.

And then Christmas and the company of friends, and some slow easy days with time for reflection.

“And one man’s year is like the country of a cloud, mapped on the sky, that soon will vanish into the watery, ordered wastes, intro the spinning rule, into the dark which is light.” —Dylan Thomas

Some Mother's Day thoughts on "good mothers"

One of the useful things about being old is that age can give us a really useful perspective on our mothers. I'm now 40 years older than the 30-year-old woman who gave birth to me and then spent decades giving me care and love. She passed away in '94, and there's not a day that passes that I don't think of her in some way, an imagined conversation or just a simple awareness of her place in my life.
In adolescence and early adulthood, I spent way too much time grousing with friends about what I saw as her shortcomings, but now decades past that period, I find myself amazed at all she did at each stage of my life: food on the table, nursing me during illnesses, helping with homework, and in general, encouraging me to learn and grow.

During my early-feminist days, the shortcomings I faulted her for were lack of assertiveness and failure to be a feminist role model. At the time, that meant she didn't teach me to go to demonstrations or build a life that was not economically dependent on a man. She did, however, encourage me to get an education--one with a practical side, such as a nursing or teaching degree. She valued education for itself and also as a backup in case one "had to work." Growing up in the 1950s, I knew that both of my parents were proud that my dad could support the family on his earnings in construction. My mother had been happy to retire from secretarial work and be a stay-at-home mom and homemaker. She had once wanted to be a nurse, but that dream didn't materialize. Whether she later regretted that, I don't know. I was more self-absorbed during the times I could have asked her.

Recently, I found myself wondering again about the gifts and problems inherited by children of activist mothers--the kind I once thought I wanted. During the past month or so I heard the children of two different moms--ones who put their commitment to social revolution ahead of or on a par with mothering. The two mothers were Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the National Farmworkers Union, and the late Carol Andreas, a woman I knew briefly in Denver in the 1980s. Their stories show there are no easy answers, and at the end of the day, we can see that each mother-child bond is different, that what might nourish one pair might harm another.

Huerta, who I remembered from the 1970s and 80s when my friends and I boycotted grapes and supported the struggles of frameworkers for a union contract, spoke at the Sie Film Center in early April. The occasion was opening night of a documentary about her life called Dolores. Huerta, who is 87 now, is still going strong. In addition to decades of work on behalf of farmworkers, she has been an activist in other important ways, especially in the women's movement. In 2012 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Pres. Obama. Today the Dolores Huerta Foundation works to strengthen community organizations in California.

Huerta has a vibrant demeanor, and I enjoyed hearing her Q &A. This stock photo captures her persona.

In January--a day after Huerta joined one of the many women's marches held around the country in resistance to Trump's inauguration--she was interviewed by NPR. You can find that interview here. Scroll to the middle of the article, and you can read her reflections on mothering--her belief that her children turned out strong and resourceful, despite living with other families or being "dragged around the country with me."  A few of her 11 children are quoted. One son talks about it his childhood being "tough"; another talks about scars; another talks about crying when she had to leave a loving foster home to rejoin her mother. Later, the film talks about a healing time--during the late 80s when Huerta was hospitalized following injuries inflicted by San Francisco police during a peaceful demonstration. The family came together and reinforced their bond.

In the interview, Huerta does not dwell on regrets: "And I want to say to mothers out there, you know, take your children to marches. Take them to meetings because this is a way that they can become strong, and they understand what politics is all about because they are actually living it. And so there are, of course, regrets that my children did have to make so many sacrifices, but at the end of the day, they turned out great."

It's likely that that Carol Andreas might say something similar. After her death, her youngest son Peter, discovered her diaries and used them to write the story of his childhood with his mother. The book is called Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution. Peter Andreas read from the book last week at Tattered Cover Bookstore, and just today, an essay about his mother appears in The New York Times Sunday Review. It's called "Thanks to Mom, the Marxist Revolutionary." It's quite concise, summarizing how his mother, radicalized by 60s social movements, kidnapped him and took him to South America after losing a custody battle with his father. Peter writes: "From ages 5 to 11, I traveled with my mother from Detroit to a Berkeley commune to a socialist collective farm in Chile to the coastal shantytowns of Peru. Fleeing marriage, coups and arrest warrants, my mother joined street protests and picket lines, and wrote passionately about the oppression of the poor and powerless. With me by her side, we battled the bad “isms” (imperialism, fascism, sexism and consumerism) and we fought for the good ones (communism, feminism and egalitarianism). When we secretly returned to the United States, we lived in hiding in Denver, where my mother changed her name so that my father could not find us."


Through all this, Peter yearned for stability, and in the end, did not choose his mother's revolutionary path. A political science professor and writer and a very engaging speaker, he talks about his choice
to be an academic and "policy Democrat" as one way for a child of a revolutionary to rebel. His path way to academia--a college education--was financed by his father, who had put aside the money for him. Peter's assessment of his mom today is a very nonjudgmental one. She may have done some "bad mothering" but was never a "bad mother". Why? Because she loved me, fought for me--even kidnapped me, he told us in the Q&A after his reading in Denver.

It was that last thought I took away with me, and which I would like to explore with Huerta's children if I could. That absolute conviction that we are loved and emotionally safe with our moms--that's the bedrock of it all, I believe. Yet, there is still each child's temperament and way of processing childhood. Had I been born to a mom like Carol Andreas, I think I would have withered and run back to my Dad. As a more risk-averse girl-child, I don't think I could have survived well--and because I was a girl, may have been exposed to more risks than a boy would have been. I imagine that among Huerta's children, there may be many differences in their memories and experiences of their childhoods.

And then again, there's the rebellion factor; my different choices in life could be rooted somewhat in that. Though my lovely mother was never an activist, she gave me the strength and confidence to become one. Thank you so much, Mom.

Jan. 21, 2017: Pride and power in a sea of pink

It's been 10 days since I joined the Women's March on Denver, one of many sister marches to the massive gathering in Washington D.C. Altogether it was the largest protest in US history and it was a global event: nearly 700 sister marches were scheduled in more than 60 countries, and the estimated number of participants is nearly 5 million.

The terrible first week of the Trump Presidency unfolded after that, and I know I'm not the only one who carried the strength and determination of that march with me through the following days. I'm writing today about why that was so, and how that was so. I know I'll draw on that energy over the coming months and years.

On Friday, the day before, my friend Roberta and new friend Suzanne drove down from Boulder to stay overnight with me. We enjoyed dinner with some of my neighbors and then had a sign-making party. Suzanne, a novice to marching, came with a very clever trick of the trade: take a poster board, fold it in half and tape it, leaving room for a hand in the center. When tired of carrying it, it slips easily in a backpack. Two different messages on front and back. Here you see one with Suzanne and the other later with me. Organizers had asked participants to make signs with the C.A.R.E. acronym--another reason for the gentle vibe of this event. I didn't make my own sign, guessing correctly I'd have no trouble finding one. Suzanne later left her sign with me.



Here's Roberta with her sign: the rights of Mother Earth played a strong role in this march.



In the morning, we breakfasted and donned our pink hats, a gift of Roberta's sister, Bunnie, and Jackie, a friend in my square dance club. We joined others in the lobby of my building--neighbors as well as 3 other friends who wanted to start the day with us. A minute later we were at the bus stop, naively expecting to hop on one heading toward Civic Center Park downtown. We soon learned that full buses were passing people by further up the line. Thanks to neighbor Sid who offered to drive, we arrived downtown in 15 minutes. As we joined hundreds walking toward the park along the 16th Street Mall, we got a preview of the joyful, peaceful event this would be.

I was delighted by the signs--by their creativity and also the range. Though history shows achievements can be reversed, the underlying connections among people are less easily changed. The signs were so diverse. Some visual images in collage form, thanks to Roberta's work with my photos:



And more...



I don't often say I'm proud to be American--shame being the first feeling coming to mind these days when I think of this country's impact on other countries under the Trump administration. However, that morning I was proud, and it was oh, such a good feeling.

The march snaked through downtown streets--there was a shorter and longer option for walkers--returning us to Civic Center Park. There were an array of speakers and performers, all women. I didn't hear all of them, as we left early that chilly day. It was also not easy to hear everyone, the crowd being much larger than expected. (115,000 the latest estimate). But I was impressed by the accomplishments of these women, listed on the march website here.

For me the memories were in the walking, the spirit of being "for" rather than "against", waves from onlookers. There were no counter protesters that I saw. It was easy to walk on that sunny/cloudy morning, chatting briefly with sister/fellow walkers, enjoying our energy, reminding ourselves that we are not alone in our belief that America could become great--not again, but perhaps for the first time.

Finding a ride back home with two friends, we continued the event online. Roberta, Lauren and I watched speeches at the Washington rally; we talked all afternoon about ways to resist, to continue work important to us, to keep our lives in balance. It was good we did this, as we did not yet realize how many civil liberties and constitutional issues would be challenged in the coming week.

We talked more over dinner; it grew dark, Lauren headed back home, and Roberta and I continued on to our monthly square dance event. I laughed to myself, thinking that the day was the political equivalent of a visit to Lourdes. I threw away my metaphorical crutches (fears/limitations) and drew on an energy I didn't know I had. I didn't dance every tip that night, but I could have. The important thing then and now is that I know how to pace myself.
(NEXT: Post-march resistance)

Standing Rock and Big Mountain: two issues, two eras, same movement

Just a few days before the Dec. 3 Standing Rock victory--the decision by the Army Corps of Engineers to reroute the contested pipeline segment--I discovered an old photo from another battle for water rights. I was standing with friends in front of Safeway one November afternoon in Denver, circa 1980, and we were in costume, handing out flyers about the "true story" of Thanksgiving. Here I am (right) with Marty Mathers (center) and Kim Womantree, dressed as pilgrims and Indian, ready to talk about our interpretation of the Thanksgiving story as one of continuing oppression. That oppression was then taking place then on Indian land at Big Mountain in the Four Corners region. A lot of Indian water was being used there to transport coal in slurry pipes.



I don't remember that we had too many real conversations with Thanksgiving-dinner shoppers that day, but we enjoyed the event and felt we were contributing to the support work local activists were doing at Big Mountain, also known as the Black Mesa coal fields. There corporate interests, especially Peabody Coal Company, were exploiting land shared by Navajo and Hopi tribes, to mine coal at Black Mesa. The precious aquifer, the only source of water for the tribes, then became the source of water to carry the coal in slurry pipes to feed power plants in Arizona and Nevada. Billions of gallons of precious ground water.

Of course, there was no Internet then, and like the struggle at Standing Rock, this was hardly a story that made mainstream news. Nevertheless, there were stories in counterculture papers and some of our friends travelled to the area to oppose the exploitation of the land. But then the issue dragged on in the courts, as such often do, and our own political work continued on in other ways. A line from a Judy Grahn poem, "A Woman is Talking to Death", ran through my mind: "(W)e left, as we have left all of our lovers, as all lovers leave all lovers, much too soon to get the real loving done." Substitute "causes" for "lovers", and you see the parallel.

Finding these photos in my friend Vickie Barriga's collection, I wondered what had become of the Big Mountain issue, 35 years later. I found some answers in a 2014 review of Judith Nies' Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West. "The Indians were not the major players" in the deals taking place on their own land, Nies writes. "The real story was about energy and resources, about how coal was going to be used, and about who would make money." The leases the energy companies got from the US Interior Department violated every guideline the department had set up and the royalties were outrageously low. It was all done legally, Nies wrote, and Black Mesa became a "crucial resource colony for the expansion of the New West". By the late 1990s, the company strip mining Black Mesa was sold to a British takeover specialist,  Lord James Hanson. The review of Nies book reports, "At a 1996 stockholders' meeting in London, Hanson is surprised by the arrival of a delegation of Hopi and Navajo Indians who proceed to describe the effects of coal mining on their desert home: polluted water holes that kill their sheep, skyrocketing asthma rates caused by coal dust, and land stripped of vegetation that will never grow back thanks to desertification."

The parallel to Standing Rock seems obvious. Again, Native tribes--and the rural poor surrounding them-- are likely to pay the cost of our energy policy, still based in fossil fuels. There is reason to believe that Sunday's victory may be a mirage. A day later, the company building the DAPL announced they plan to continue building without rerouting. The pipeline, one of many crisscrossing the country is already more than 90 percent complete. The validity of 19th century treaty rights has long since been set aside in constitutional law. The President-Elect is an investor, and even if private gain were not an issue, he is advocating privatization of Native lands for energy development. Meanwhile, pipelines crisscross the nation, spills continue, the nation continues its dependency on fossil fuels.

Yet, there is reason to believe that Standing Rock can succeed in ways Big Mountain did not. I believe it is truly a victory, whether or not the pipeline is rerouted. As I write, about 10,000 protesters are camped at Cannonball, North Dakota, where the weather today is 4F and more snow is on the way. Clearly they have resilience and staying power. Tribes have come together. Millennials and their elders have come together, US military veterans have arrived to assist the water protectors. Thanks to social media, support has grown and mainstream media is now involved. A new generation is learning about Native American history, the risks of pipelines, the alternatives to a fossil fuel economy. This learning is all part of a movement that will certainly grow. The indefensible violation of civil rights by law enforcement on the land in recent weeks may be to this movement what attack dogs and beatings were to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s--a galvanizing force.

I think back to the struggle to save Big Mountain in the 70s and 80s with sorrow and compassion for all of us who gave up too soon, who left our causes (lovers) too soon. Protestors have tools today that we didn't even dream of: the power of Facebook as a truth-telling arena and a decentralized media, the understanding of and growth of opposition to climate change, the growth of alternative energy worldwide, and best of all, a belief in their ability to succeed. Perhaps my generation, those members who became history teachers and taught a different version of Native American history can claim some credit in the process.

Last month I attended a rally on the University of Denver campus in support of Standing Rock. I think these two photos, one of students who spoke and the other of the audience, show something of the passion and determination in this movement. I look forward to finding new ways to support their vision and efforts in 2017. Here are the photos:

Loving: marriage equality circa 1965

I went to see the film "Loving" last night, and I was reminded once again of the many historical events that were once current events for me. "Loving" is the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, the couple who challenged the slavery-era laws that made their interracial marriage a crime in Virginia and many other states--until 1967. Today that seems almost unbelievable! I was 20 years old then, on the verge of adulthood, and I had grown up on a country with laws such as these.

1967. That year the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the ACLU, which had taken the Lovings' case to the high court. The process took years. Marriage equality--no one yet thought in terms of LBGT--became the law of the land when anti-miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional in a unanimous decision. The film follows the historical record quite accurately, a narrative for younger generations of a time when America had its own version of Apartheid. To read Ann Hornaday's excellent review of "Loving" in The Washington Post and to see photos and video, click here.

The topic of interracial marriage came up in my family, possibly in the spring of 1965, when LIFE Magazine ran a story on the Loving family and their case. This was one of the photos taken by Grey Villet, reproduced by the actors in the film.

Villet snapped this one of the couple's three children, along with numerous others showing their warm family life. 

Like millions of other families who subscribed to this magazine, my parents very likely read this story. I may have missed it, though, as I was in my first year at Mundelein College and right around the time the story ran, I was boarding a bus along with other students to join Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic march as it entered Selma, Alabama. I have no photos of myself from this time, but here is one of our Mundelein group which later appeared in the student newspaper, The Skyscraper.

There were many discussions and arguments at home before and after the march, as my parents struggled to understand this sea change in American politics and culture, and I struggled to unlearn the racism I absorbed growing up in  1950s white America. I had no doubts about the rightness of the Civil Rights Movement in the South, but I was struggling to apply it beyond voting rights and the right to sit at a lunch counter. I think I remember my parents talking about interracial marriage as being a personal matter, but those couples ought to pause before having children and condemning them to a difficult life. I'm not sure I had an effective answer to that yet, as I was still trying to work out "morality" and social change in that tumultuous, life-changing decade. My father always argued that "you can't legislate morality", but I was starting to learn in my political science classes that you certainly can. I lived in Chicago, a very segregated city, but I got a job on campus with the Upward Bound program--part of the War on Poverty--and met African-American students for the first time. I learned and thought and tried to act. Today I feel grateful to have come of age during that time. 

Today it takes my breath away that the Lovings endured the harassment and fear that they experienced for nearly 10 years before the Supreme Court's landmark decision. The film recounts their arrest 5 weeks after their 1958 wedding, when the sheriff and his deputies burst into their bedroom. They avoided prison only by pleading guilty to violating the Racial Integrity Act and agreeing to leave the state for 25 years. They moved to Washington D.C. and raised their growing family there for the next 5 years before returning home to Virginia--with the possibility of re-arrest always hanging over them. 

While still in the city, Mildred drew courage from The Civil Rights Movement, which offered promise of an end to their exile. She wrote to Sen. Robert Kennedy, seeking help, and he sent her request on to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The novice volunteer ACLU attorney joined forces with another lawyer who knew how to handle the case, and they took it all the way past two losing appeals to the Supreme Court. The film acknowledges the Lovings' reluctance to be in the spotlight during this process; they did not attend the high court hearing. In a 1966 interview in LIFE, they insisted they were not going forward because they wanted to be the ones to overturn discrimination.  "We're doing it for us--because we want to live here."

Seven years after the ruling, Richard Loving was killed by a drunk driver. Mildred, who passed away from pneumonia in 2008, publicly showed her support for the right of everyone to marry--black or white, gay or straight.

  

Dr. King's words about the moral arc of the universe being long, but bending toward justice, resonates with many, but especially with the Lovings' one surviving child. Peggy Loving Fortune said in a People Magazine article after the movie came out, that she is "overwhelmed with emotion" and "so grateful" that her parents' story is finally being told. This film touched me deeply as well. Don't miss it.

Moving toward resistance: the power of old women

Has it been just 10 days since our political frames were upended and Donald Trump became President-Elect? As with all disasters, it seems like I've been living with this knowledge so much longer. Like many of my friends and people around the world, I'm still somewhere along the continuum of grief*: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness/depression, and finally, acceptance. I supported Clinton, campaigned for her, and until her upset loss Nov. 8, expected her to win.

For the first few days after the election, the first three grief stages were dominant for me. Denial lasted only until late election eve, when Hillary Clinton's loss became a mathematical certainty. Anger followed--at everyone who voted for this ignorant, vulgar and dangerous man or who didn't vote at all. Bargaining didn't last long. I applaud those who are circulating petitions that the Electoral College be abolished or its members agree to vote for the popular vote winner (Clinton), and I would like to hope along with those who predicted DT would soon be impeached, yet I can't pin my hopes on either of those unlikely outcomes. So that leaves sadness, trying to move into acceptance, which of course is the precondition of resistance.

So why is grieving the word that fits our condition so well? I've certainly seen my candidates lose before, and I don't remember grieving. It was more like stumbling, picking myself up, dusting off my pants, and moving on. My string of losing candidates started with Nixon defeating Humphrey in my first election as a voter in 1968. A winner--a brief Democratic respite--emerged in the late 70s with Jimmy Carter, and then came a decade of Ronald Reagan, followed by Bush Sr.. We drew a winning ticket with Bill Clinton in the 90s, and then...George Bush Jr. for 8 years. Finally, Barack Obama won in 2008--the best win of all. I was in Japan then, and I remember calling my US election office to make sure my absentee ballot was on its way. A portrait of Obama hung in my office at school, the familiar one with the word "hope" printed underneath.

2016. The unthinkable arrived last week, which, when we parse out all of the factors, seems almost inevitable. The world turns, the backlash phenomenon reappears, and we are immersed in a media environment where truth and lies blur. "Post-Truth" was just named the Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year. (Click here for a discussion of that.) In earlier times, I recall recovering from defeat more quickly. One reason might be that for a big chunk of time, I put less faith than I do today in the electoral process as a source of change. Also, I was or felt young, with decades ahead to help turn the world around.

Like so many of my friends who are now old, I see my past as so much longer than my future. The likely damage from a Trump administration is frightening to contemplate. How much can be undone during my time on Earth? How much energy will I and my aging friends have to be part of the struggle? It was in that sad spirit that I drove to the monthly meeting of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), an event I join when I can. For the most part we're a support group, focusing less on marching and more on helping each other get through this thing called aging. We have potlucks, collect money for worthy groups, host visitors. Our most political effort recently has focused on activities helping us acknowledge and learn from differing communication and leadership styles. This Saturday we had set aside for a post-election discussion. "What would come of it?" I wondered as I walked in the door of the Northglenn Community Center.  This image below, which I found by googling "powerful old women, images", epitomizes my feeling about that day. I think it fits the tone of Saturday afternoon. We weren't smiling a lot, the two dozen or so of us who attended, but we took our places, looking into the future. And as this woman's hands show, we all brought a history of work in other times and places.

As our discussion began, our work on communication styles--as well as our long experience in different kinds of groups--paid off. We had excellent facilitators, Katherine and Trish, who guided us through three parts of the discussion: how we are feeling, why that is so, and what we hope to do. We agreed to guidelines: short speaking turns to allow everyone time to speak, respect for differences. Not surprisingly, our feelings were similar, and the grieving metaphor was invoked by many. We acknowledged fears and uncertainty about the future. Gillian brought information about the safety pin solidarity movement.

There was music: a song by Holly Near, and a Peter Paul and Mary old standby, Mr. Bigot. Brang brought copies of a short Buddhist text, which includes this phrase: "Greed, hatred and ignorance cause suffering. Let them go. Love, generosity and wisdom bring the end of suffering. Foster them." At several points, we remembered that we've gotten through hard times before, that wisdom and experience are valuable tools.

Moving into talk about what we can do, we were ready to begin the long work of resistance. Numerous ideas came up. One is to monitor and follow up on the actions of all of our Colorado representatives and senators in the US Congress, contacting and working with national OLOC, reconnecting with those working (still!) on the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), and focusing in a number of ways on issues we feel passionate about.

We left the community center that afternoon, still grieving but ready to carry on. For me, I felt much more powerful than I did earlier. We may not walk as fast as we once did or stay up into the wee hours, but our wisdom and experience count for a lot. And we plan to use those.

*The 5 stages of grief listed above were first identified by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying. For more discussion, click here.

Forty years ago: The Big Mama Rag newspaper collective

Forty years ago this fall I moved to Denver. In love with the natural beauty of the West and hoping to continue my fledgling feminist work in a newspaper collective, I joined the staff of Big Mama Rag in the fall of '76, just weeks after I moved here from Chicago. Ah, what a time it was! First of all, I was 29--gift enough, isn't it? And I wanted to live away from the Midwest where I had grown up, to start a new life in this high altitude city with its thin air, impossibly blue skies and open spaces.

I was still smoking then, often hand-rolled cigarettes. Here's what I looked like, circa 1980. Note my unlined face, blond hair (natural color!) and aviator sunglasses. Still fond of that style.

Within weeks of getting my first apartment, a studio at 16th and Marion, I was sitting in the basement of a large brick house on Gaylord Street, committing myself to working with women like me, those who saw second-wave feminism as the movement we wanted to join and grow. Big Mama Rag was a monthly newspaper, covering a wide range of feminist issues. We talked and wrote about so many things: the growing challenge and inclusion of women in many fields--law, literature, religion, politics; sexuality, violence against women and what should be done about it, racism, reproductive rights, a blossoming culture of art and music....So many others. We saw that patriarchy had controlled every aspect of women's lives for centuries, and we were determined to explore every aspect and to change it.

There were other feminist newspapers across the country, and we had exchange subscriptions with them, along with our sub to Liberation News Service, a wire service covering a range of progressive issues. We were part of a network, we felt, part of a growing movement that could make a difference. I have pictures and notes from that era, not yet organized, so let me share with you a photo retrospective of Big Mama Rag (BMR) by Julie Enszer, one that conveys the flavor of those change-driven days.

Here's what the paper looked like. An array of them, on display at a reunion of second-wave feminists in Denver this weekend:

Though we published just once a month, we met regularly, planning and writing stories. We kept prices low; we were all volunteers and we sold ads (usually from other movement groups and businesses) to cover costs. We were also a collective, which meant that we were committed to sharing power equally, although we all had different jobs, such as ads, the books, or distribution. It was the pre-Internet era, so once as month, we had a long production evening and night, cutting and pasting and huddling over the strip printer, a little machine that made headlines. The following morning, off it went to the printer.

Here's one photo from a late-70s production night; Vickie Piotter (looking quite alert despite the hour) with Deb Taylor in the background.

What made all of this possible was our youthful energy and the fact that one could live fairly cheaply in Denver then on a part-time or temporary job. (For a few years I did typing and reception for C. Gerald Starbuck, a lawyer. It was a laid-back office, and I remember having time to write stories for the paper between job tasks.) I stayed on the collective for about 18 months, then left, remaining a contributor.

I had friends on the collective, and by the early 1980s when the paper closed after 10 years of publishing, I had become disillusioned with BMR. Too much quarreling in the collective, I thought, and an increasing ideological rigidity that drove newcomers away. In retrospect, I didn't acknowledge the larger context: the Reagan years had begun, we were getting older and looking for new ways--more stable and responsible ways--of earning our living and making change; the well-known difficulties of attracting and keeping volunteers.

This weekend I had a chance to think about all of this again when Jackie StJoan, one of the first collective members , hosted a reunion of women who had worked on BMR or been friends in Denver during the late 70s. It was wonderful to see them again! I didn't know everyone well, as our time on BMR or other projects didn't always overlap, but there was such a shock of recognition. We had shared a common time and lived through decades of change. We were all older and wiser, quicker to praise than condemn.

Near the end of the evening, the poet Chocolate Waters, who had been part of the founding collective, cornered several of us to talk about our feelings about our movement work, then and now. She's thinking of doing a documentary, and this discussion was a kind of warm-up for that possibility. We had different memories and feelings about that time, of course, but a common thread it seemed to me was a kind of awe and pleasure that we had been active during this amazing time. For me, my criticisms of our mistakes or excesses took a back seat to our hopes and accomplishments.

Here are some photos from the reunion. Enjoying the company and potluck feast we created, from left:  Chocolate Waters, a long-time resident of New York City, continues to write and perform poetry; her best-known work from back in the day was a poetry collection called To The Man Reporter from The Denver Post. Next to her is Tea Schook, who did BMR finances in the late 70s and has been active in Democratic Party politics for many years. Third from left is Janet Yench, poet and initiator of Womanthology (1977), an anthology of Colorado women poets that she and I co-edited. At right is Gayle Novak, who lived with me in 1976-77 and patiently accepted the many hours I spent away from home and in the BMR office.

In this photo are two women active in promoting women's music and art in the late 70s/early 80s: Ronnie Storey (left) and Lyn Davis. Ronnie is a librarian in Colorado. Lynn was visiting from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she lives and teaches.

Here's our Big Mama Rag conversation group: from left, Jackie StJoan, a lawyer and retired judge living in Denver, Linda Fowler, visiting from North Carolina, Deb Taylor, a retired social worker living in Denver, Libby Comeaux of Denver, and Chocolate Waters.

Other women attended too, women who continue to do work that's important and close to their hearts. It was so good to spend Sunday afternoon with them, and as I write this on Tuesday evening, I'm still basking in the glow.