the trip begins

I’m at the airport, waiting for my plane to Portland. I’ve made it thru the congested clutch of the security checkpoint and am at my gate. The plane leaves in about 50 minutes, so we should be boarding soon. It’s so darn early, not quite six in the morning, and I’m barely awake. I’m not on the plane, but the trip has begun.

The cab came within five minutes of my call. I stumbled down the stairs with my stuffed overnight bag, and slid into the backseat. I’d imagined a quiet ride thru the darkness, but my driver was talkative. I’m a highly relational person, whose favorite animal is hands down the human being. Despite this, or maybe because of this, I like the indulgence of silence when in a cab, a salon chair, or dealing with dental hygienists. That indulgence was not to be. The cabbie didn’t pick up on my cues of giving short answers to questions, with no questioning reciprocation on my part. By the time the cab was coming close to Candlestick, mindful of how grouchy I was becoming, I decided to stop resisting and engage in active interaction with my driver. I also considered that he may have been up all night and talking to me might be a useful strategy for not falling asleep at the wheel.

By the time we pulled up to the departures curb, I was bemused at the riches that can be gained from not resisting, from going with the flow. The flow of conversation in that cab turned out to be one that moved me, which will no doubt be part of the current running thru this weekend. My cabbie came to San Francisco after graduating from Kent State. He was on the little rise of lawn when the National Guard started shooting. He was one of the protesters there, and he lost a good friend that day. We talked about this and my experience at the WTO in Seattle, about the addiction to adrenaline, tear gas, and jail cells that we’ve seen some of our friends get hooked on, the peculiar mix of hope and desperation involved in taking direct action, the scars that are left by encountering violence. The cabbie lives in the same apartment he moved into twenty-five years ago, paying a pittance for rent. He drives cab twice a week, and plays music the rest of the time. He does what he loves, and couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

So, I’m sitting here, waiting for my plane to board, and I’m thinking about resistance, and activism, and doing what you love. I’m returning to the coast of Oregon, where LeeAnn and I cobbled together a crisis center for women who were battered or raped, a crisis center that is still operating. I’m thinking of meeting up there with Michael McCusker, my friend who served in Vietnam, who then came home and served on the streets of Washington D.C. and Chicago, battling it out for peace. I feel tender towards us all, the cabbie, LeeAnn, Michael, and myself. We’ve been through a lot. The plane is boarding. Gotta go.