Hope. Pleasure. Strength.
Welcome to Mommy’s El Camino.
Some housekeeping: Last week the newsletter seemed to get stuck in the ether, and I got an explanation from Buttondown about why it occurred that made no sense to me. It’s also Mercury retrograde and glitches are starting to surface. If you received last week’s newsletter late, I’m sorry about that. MEC is scheduled to arrive at 6pm Pacific on Sundays, and through no fault of ours, it may be delayed. Thanks for your patience.
PAID SUBSCRIBERS: There are two opportunities this month to attend FRONT SEAT OFFICE HOURS. RSVP for the Zoom link.
Thursday December 5th, 1pm-3pm Pacific.
Monday December 16th, 1pm-3pm Pacific.
We’ll check in at 1pm then co-work for 2 hours. You’re welcome to stay for as little or as long as you like, camera on or off.
This past week was the 25th anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle. I was 26 years old, so this event, which I was at, is about half of my lifetime ago.
I was there with my partner Pat. I have a handful of photos from the protests. For some reason I used black and white film—maybe it was around the time I was developing my own film? I can’t remember if Pat was actually carrying around their videocamera, which usually accompanied us on such excursions, covered in garbage bags to protect it from the rain.
My protective gear was made up haphazardly—I had swimming goggles, and my scarf. Pat had a bandanna and work goggles. We’d been to countless protests over the years together but I’d never been that close to tear gas as that protest.
Rather than go on describing what I do and don’t remember, I want to share a baby poem I wrote soon after the protests. The poem appeared in "Voices from the WTO: An Anthology of writings by the people who shut down the world trade organization in seattle 1999,” a magazine edited by Stephanie Guilloud. I call it a baby poem because reading it, I can see how I struggled putting into words what being at those protests meant to me, internally and externally, and maybe I failed at describing it adequately (and those line breaks! Yikes).
What I know now is that participating in those protests was the first time I witnessed in person the mandate police have to protect property over people. I’d seen it on television—the Los Angeles rebellion in 1992, for one—but I hadn’t seen it up close until I was in the streets with thousands of people (estimates put the crowd at 60,000 protestors). And that experience marked me.
Rereading this poem today I’m reminded of what it will take in the days ahead to survive what’s coming.
The poem, “Occupation,” is quoted in the “jail accounts and poetry” section of the anthology, where I am listed as a “poet and journalist.” Wendy C. Ortiz has lived in Olympia, WA since 1993. She is a writer and activist that frequently uses radio, video, and print journalism to get her point across.
Occupation
I
All I have to say is this:
The dreams.
Have you dreamt of
running and throwing things and clouds of
gas/fog/uncertainty?
Have you dreamt of
being chased/yelled at/warned?
Walking down the streets of the town I have
Lived in for six years.
Noise. I cringe.
I never used to cringe.
My partner comes running at me from
Across the street. Just running.
I look around, pained,
Figure out escape routes and
think, What are we running from now?
Then I realize it’s over.
But it’s not.
Now—
I’m from L.A. and I
know something about riot cops.
Riot cops: they circle the hollywood palladium
at punk shows.
Helicopters: everyday occurrence.
Spotlights are backdrops
in the Valley.
But I didn’t know about
Gassings.
Armored vehicles.
Civil emergencies over
Cracked glass and some constructive criticism
painted on store windows.
All I have to say is this:
The dreams.
Traces of trauma that outline
The places where I am supposed to be
innocent.
It wasn’t enough that they stalked us in the streets,
they now occupy
my dreams.
II
The waking dream merged with its twin, nightmare:
I was walking, on a rainy morning, down a hill
and closer to the central nervous system:
the patterns and paths people took as they wound
through streets
I walked through intimately, indiscriminately, like a
cell jogged from its tiny space,
pushed on a
long, continuous journey to be replaced.
I was walking
Surrounded by a starfish formed of people;
a being that undulated and color-changed and
Survived
various pockets of danger that threatened
and later seeped into sleep.
Witnessed again and again
a force so lioness that I
Couldn’t put the pride to bed.
Each cell in me remembers:
despite fingers on triggers, pepper-splash-happy
people in power drag, despite
hundreds of feet clamoring to escape from a wide,
car-less street and gas that did a number on
our lungs.
I felt safe. Hope. Pleasure. Strength.
The central nervous system
experienced a necessary
and rejuvenating jolt
that I carry with me in waking memory, like
a woman, smiling,
who carries a knife in her teeth.
III
You misunderstand if
you don’t find the love and hope and aliveness
in this poem. (check the shadowed doorways)
There is room for joy
and room for mourning. No either/or’s.
I can always trade a cup of constantly threatened
with a cup of safety-in-numbers.
I can trade trauma that goes back for centuries with
Healing that comes in a manner of days, in the streets.
I can trade nightmares for
Daydream
and the promise of
abundance
in between.