Activism: two stories

“Don’t let the system beat you down!”

My daughter and her team of Lego Robotics friends looked confusedly at the older gentleman who called out the earnest advice as they left the building. Then with the fickle attention span of most 10-year-olds, turned around and went on to chase each other in the parking lot.

As part of their Lego project, the kids had testified in front of the Washington County commissioners and were petitioning to get the county to start composting food waste. After a presentation at the Cedar Mill CPO, this gentleman had seen merit in their activism – ahem – perhaps more than the kids did.

The 10-year-olds in their cuteness and enthusiasm and research (forced on them by their coaches), seemed to have ignited a small spark. Several adults seem to want to see this happen, want to help the Epic Pineapples (team name), and have circulated the online petition which now has over a 1000 signatures.

So is that all it takes sometimes? To simply start a little spark and let it catch on through the imagination of others? The gentleman at the CPO who said he’s been wanting to do this for years, friends and other adults circulating the petition, are all interested in making this happen.

Even if the ten-year-olds may not completely understand the scope of their citizen participation and activism and impact, others do and will possibly help them carry it forward.   

Is it easier to be inspired by the not-yet-beaten-down-by-the-system enthusiasm of these kids? Is it easier to join in the energy and enthusiasm of those not beaten down by the system?

Will they someday, understand their civic participation and the impact it holds?

Will they not get beaten down by the system?

***

I never started a petition as a kid. I did however stand five years and three feet tall under the second floor window of an elderly lady, shouting out to her, asking her to return my kitten.

I did however collect a few neighborhood kids to rally forces, when she refused to return the cat.

“Apte Ajiiii…,” we shouted from downstairs (Apte - her last name, aji - grandma in Marathi).

Several faces peered out of several windows of the apartment complex.

“Give back the kitten…” we yelled.

Several faces disappeared, not wanting to get involved. But Apte Aji stayed. And she stayed put in her stance that she had found a stray on the street.

Now in her defense, the kitten wandered about the large yard and alleys, and came in and out of the house as she pleased – quite like her owner – moi. For both of us had reasonably unsupervised parenting – by the standards of today.  

When the boy next-door saw me wandering about, calling out to the cat, he told me that their cook had seen Apte Aji pick the kitten from outside our gate. Now this was reliable intelligence for the two detectives and we set off to set things straight.

But the woman refused to return the cat to its rightful owner.

We were determined. We continued to create a ruckus outside her building.

Apte Aji was determined. The kitten was hers and it was staying with her.

In a day or two, the other kids lost interest in creating a commotion outside an old lady’s home, and moved on to better things. The boy next door left (he was only visiting his grandma, my neighbor).

I refused to give up and spent several afternoons inside and outside the lady’s yard. I may have lived in my house, but all my attention was on the house down the street.

I circled her house, hid in her yard, sat on her neighbor’s fence…  I had the image of my kitty jumping out of the window, or wandering about, as I knew she liked to… Of course, I would be right there, to rescue her from the evil clutches of the villain in my story.  

It didn’t happen.

I saw that the summer was slipping away, and eventually I moved on to other things. But I had that same strange feeling inside each time I passed Apte aji’s house. Of sadness, of injustice, of defeat, of failed activism.   

My cat was happy in her new home. That traitor. Sometimes she paid us a visit in the manner of dignified royalty visiting the commoners. And despite my delight at seeing her, as I put out a bowl of milk for her, I had that same strange feeling inside. Of sadness, of injustice, of defeat, of failed activism.

A cluster of moments

Have you ever noticed the froth of foam that borders ocean waves?
As they lazily lick our feet on the sand, have you ever peered into the cluster of assorted-sized bubbles that make up this foam?

If we look closely into this gathering of unsteady bubbles, we notice our reflection in them. Yes. Each one of those bubbles - tiny and miniscule, carries our reflection – tiny and miniscule.

As long as I can remember, I have squinted into this cluster of bubbles to find my replications - head larger, body elongated, eyes curious, staring back. Tiny ones in the tiny bubbles, slightly bigger ones in the bigger bubbles - always in the center, always somewhat stretched out.

Each time it awakens a sense of wonder, a sense of infinite, a sense of being part of nature, a sense of being part of a larger whole. And trifle as it may be, I have experienced a sense of being everywhere in nature. I must be – if I am part of even the most trivial foam on the waves. 

And as quickly as my sense of importance rises, it disappears with a quicker pace as the bubbles burst and the waves disappear die their slow death in the sand, taking with them all those tiny me (mes?). But when I stare at my wet sandy feet, I know another wave will caress them soon, with more reflections – reminding me that I am still a part of all this.

The cycle never breaks. The bubbles in their effervescence and impermanence, continue with permanence, to contain a tiny part of my existence and then wash it away.

We were at the beach some days ago. I smiled as I stared at the tiny “mes” and pointed them out to my girl. We gazed into the foamy bubbles at our feet.

All at once and for the first time, I realized that my life was really no different.
My life was nothing more than a cluster of moments – good and bad, easy and hard, joyful and sad. Oddly enough it made me feel better.

I had been trying to wrap my head around a recent diagnosis – turning it into a huge giant sized mutant bubble. Perhaps those exist too. But nature was telling me different. Sure, some bubbles are larger than others, some bubbles burst quicker than others, but the bubbles all had me, and they were all going to be washed away. There was no holding on to the good ones, and the bad ones skulked away in the same manner.

A lot had happened over the summer and my head seems to be reeling from all of it. Yet, nature was telling me it was all just one bubble.

“Okay Nature, it was more like a hundred”, my mind replied indignantly.
“What is a cluster of a hundred bubbles in the larger scope of things?” nature seemed to ask back.

We are made of nature. We are a reflection of nature. Nature is made of us. Nature is a reflection of us. And the proof lay in the foam on my feet.

In that foam, was the bubble containing the sadness I felt about a recent diagnosis… next to it (the big one, of course) was the worry I felt about my future and that of my loved-ones…next to it was another bubble containing the laughter I felt watching a ten-year-old’s mad antics in the water…next to it was…

Yes. I was in each of those bubbles and my life was all there - in that cluster of bubbles. And each bubble got the same treatment from nature. There was comfort in the cyclical nature, there was comfort in detachment, there was comfort in moving on, there was comfort in impermanence and all clichés about impermanence being the only permanence.

And despite the comfort I found in this wisdom, I also knew that this bubble of wisdom would also soon burst, and another bubble of worry or groundlessness or sadness was likely to show up.

So, is that all we have? A cluster of bubbles? A cluster of moments – fickle, fleeting, beautiful, ugly...

So, if all we have really is a cluster of moments, then that is all this blog should be. That is all this blog can be.

I’m not convinced I still have the sunny optimism of years ago that will look only at the happy bubbles - iridescent with refraction and tiny rainbows inside as the sun hits them. But from what nature tells me, there also aren’t any black scary giant bubbles, even if they may seem so.

This blog is a cluster of moments. Of intense-noticing, of quick jottings, of sensory overload, of thought, of emotion, of laughter, of bubbles… and they are all the same… quick, effervescent, evanescing… filled with so much, filled with nothing…