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2001-09-30 / 7:10 a.m. ~Demonstrations and Desire~ **IMPORTANT!!!!!!!! Folks, this is a public diary, it is open to anyone with internet access and too much time on his/her hands, but is a FUCKING DIARY, it is not a public forum for discussion, it is not a newpaper column, it's a DIARY, do you understand? Am I making myself clear? I don't want to know what you think if you have nasty thoughts. If you have something positive to add, great, if not, keep it to yourself and don't read this, it's my DIARY. Understood? - 9/30/01 7:49 p.m.** First, to anyone reading this, if you haven't seen it already, "Beneath the Veil" is on CNN, TODAY, that's TODAY, Sunday, Septermber 30, at 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, and I HIGHLY recommend you see it. A fascinating documentary on life in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime. Yes, it's early, and I've actually not been anywhere near a computer since Friday. I didn't really miss it, although I wanted to crash on a sofa and watch television in a bad way Friday night. Instead, I tried to sleep on the van, to little avail. I suppose I got about 15 minutes sleep, max, on the way to D.C. I don't even know how to begin this story, what the past two nights and a day have meant to me, exactly all the people I met, all the things I did, and saw, and heard. I was riding on the van on the way back, last night, and I had an intense desire to write. I would've written by moonlight, but I couldn't find my pen and most folks were asleep. I wanted to write this: She is sleeping in an awkward position, bathed in the light of the nearly full moon, and she looks beautiful to me, in this moment. The Russian girl is driving, and she's been swerving for hours, drifting over the center line, back again, and when she drifts across the line on the right she hits grooved pavement and we all awake to the sound, the peculiar whining sound of a van gone astray. One of us will shout out, "Are you okay?", but she never answers, and I can't remember her name. Diann fell asleep in the front passenger seat long ago, and even she is not aware of how seemingly close we keep coming to a certain death. Saeeda asks Carlos to drive. The Russian girl will barely back down and I wonder if it's pride. Earlier, I lie in a near fetal position, the best one can hope for, sharing a benchlike seat with a fellow demonstrator, for me it's the lovely college girl who now lies bathed in moonlight, fingers curled delicately lying on her waist. Lying there, curled up in my little ball I'm thinking of desire, of wanting two of the men who rode up in our van (there were 3 vans total, two holding ten each, I think, maybe all three had ten), thinking how I wasn't going to the protest to meet men, but I wondered who would be with us and these two stood out to me. Over the course of stopping, them stepping out for cigarettes, the brief getting to know you chats we engaged in, the one blonde with tattoos on his legs and arms, long hair, intense big blue/green eyes, vegan, radical, articulate and intelligent, from Florida, the other golden brown hair, high cheekbones, lanky, South African with an intensely beautiful accent, ten years younger than the other, absorbing like a sponge, seeking out answers, and new experiences, a college student. At different times I fantasized about each of them, spoke to each of them, separately, together, introduced myself, the one introducing himself first actually, the young one, and by the time I lay in my curled position, wanting to sleep, hoping finally, after all we'd done and seen that sleep would take over my weary body, I fantasized of a sandwich composed of me in the center, the young one in front of me, spooning, the older, yet ten years my junior, one behind me also spooning. I could see us sleeping that way. Instead, the blonde ex-skateboarder radical with the chipped front teeth, the beautiful big eyes and lips, the intense desire to make a difference, the activist of activists, had stayed in D.C. and only the young and slightly cynical one remained. I imagined going back to him at his place in this huge, but way too small van, touching his arm, pressing my body against his, us lying together, sleeping together, kissing, hearing him breathe, sigh. I became consumed, as if the whole rally/march experience was nothing but an aphrodisiac, and now every young male protester was the most good looking man in the world, and I wanted to love them all, but this one I'd spent a good portion of 24 hours with, and here we were in the moonlit darkened interior of a passenger van, swaying and rocking with the bad roads and the Russian girl who couldn't maintain her lane. I'd tried to sit with him earlier, for the ride back home, asked him, told him I wanted to sit with him, was bold, was forward, even thought I was irritating him or frightening him, intimidating him, not sure at all what he wanted, and he was no longer standing outside shaking with the cold of night, smoking his cigarette, he was sitting, not knowing how to respond to me, not all day, not seeming to know what to say to me. That's only one part of the story. That was the desire. The desire that woke me up once I realized I'd finally managed to sleep. I put on my Walkman, listened to Moby's "Play" and Jeff Buckly again, and the line in Moby's song, "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?.....why does my soul feel so bad?" made me cry because I was once again so filled with something and there was no one to share it with. I sat there filled with the intense emotion of the past two days, all of it coming to a head inside of me, and I had to let some of it out, all of it ending with this feeling of wanting to be physically close to the ones I'd been with. The beautiful college girl, the one of Indian descent, the one who spoke so well, who promoted her school so thoroughly to Keya, slept beside me, and every so often her leg would reach all the way out, her foot would kick my leg, and I would let her stretch. I would sit, rocking and swaying with the movement of us on the road, watching the view out of the front window, the van skipping over the lines, then straigtening out, nothing but black pavement and white broken lines, and I let out the tears. I thought, This is good, no one will know, everyone is asleep, even the Russian girl driving us, and I will cry, just a little, because he is all the way in the back, next to Keya instead of next to me because I felt claustrophobic when she sat between us, when we thought we'd be three to that seat and I'd moved, and if it were me, sitting there next to him while he slept, I'd reach out and touch him, and when he would wake I'd just hold on to him all the more tightly, pull myself to him and we would sleep together. I took photos of him, of both of them, of us, of the march, of our spontaneous excursion to the Capitol, pre-rally, and the Museum of Natural History to see dinosaur bones, and when I get them back, on disk, I'll send him some, via email, and he lives close by, and I will try to find out if he feels anything, if I'm in my own world, or if maybe he would join me in this. If he thinks I am too old, or if he was surprised to learn my age, or maybe if he'll just say my name, and not forget it like he forgets everyone's name. To see if he can laugh when I poke fun at him for forgetting, or if he is really mad when I do that, if he was pissed at me for being silly with sleep deprivation and coffee, or if he felt anything, all day, aside from the rally, aside from marching and operating the puppets. Sofia turned to Laura and said, "Your neighbors met at a protest, and now they're living together, right?", and I felt hope, earlier, sitting on the grass beneath the huge old oak trees to the side of the Capitol, thought maybe I could meet someone too, but no one gets to meet the right person when she's looking to meet the right person, but then again, I wasn't looking for that, not at the beginning. Laura left her purse on the van and we only discovered it once back at the train station, 10 hours later. She stayed in D.C. We found her driver's license in it. We wandered, sleep deprived, and the weather was cool, the wind blew, the sky was blue with puffy clouds which blew aside and away over and over throughout the day. And the helicopters flew overhead, the police in riot gear, the police on horses and I chatted them up on street corners when we asked where this was or that was, or what building is this one? The museum is free?, we asked the guard. I talked to the man on the street setting up the plastic drums he was about to play, I was excited, I was a citizen of the world, and we were all one global people, one spirit, and once we marched and we saw the occasional pro-war person on the sidewalk, there to taunt us, we flashed him a peace sign with our fingers, we smiled, we danced to the drumbeats which were constant and happy, we carried our signs, we waved them to the beat, we chanted, "War is NOT the Answer!", and other, longer, more complicated chants. People stood and watched us go by, flashing peace signs at us in support. It was the '60s, it was Viet Nam, it was 2001 and the Middle East, it was hatemongering and love, it was us coming together, united, some 25,000 people, all with one thought in mind....peace and compassion. The rally lasted three hours, at least, and I had lost the 18 year old and the 20 year old in the museum. We'd synchronized watches, but we separated and it was time so I thought they'd left me, and I left them. They'd searched for me another 20 minutes and I had no idea. I loved being with them, me and the boys, me old enough to be their mother, me wanting to be their lover, the whole day, the breeze, the heat of the sun, the cold when the clouds covered it, the people, the police, all of it was one giant prelude to lovemaking that would never happen. I saw them again, at the rally, and the 18 year old wanted to be with me, to stay with me, but he and the other were succumbing to proselytizing by a woman selling books, and I didn't want to listen, didn't want to read. I left them and stood in the plaza, Freedom Plaza, listened to speaker after speaker, raised my sign, applauded, shouted in support, and everyone listened while they talked, we absorbed, absorbed, absorbed, united. We were one beautiful people, New Yorkers, Minnesotans, Atlantans, Washingtonians, people from South America, Central America, Middle Easterners, all colors of the rainbow, 2 years old to 80, we all felt the same, we all want a peaceful solution, we all feel lied to, we all want our governement to listen to us. When we marched we were one large mass of tens of thousands of demonstrators, we were loud, we had signs, we were colorful, it was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced. And now I'm home, taking time to write all this in my diary, taking time to try to put it together in some cohesive order, but it's still scattered, the most recent feelings of desire for my comrades, and elation from the experience of uniting with my brothers and sisters. There are plans for more demos. Something at the SOA, School of the Americas, and I have research to do, and Carlos wants to go too. I will try to go with him, try to know him. October 27th is more nationwide demos, local demos, there will be more, Diann will organize more, because that is what she does, what she has always done, since 1967, and she has taught me so much, and we have so much more we can be doing. This is the beginning of the new anti-war movement and to be a part of it at this stage was one of the most fulfilling and positive experiences of my life so far. Now, if I can, I will sleep, in my bed, with my cats, my cats who seemed to fare quite well on thier own. There are some demos here, in town, later today, but I may sleep instead. I need to figure this all out, I need to come down, and I need to be feeling him, with me, but my desire, as always, remains unfulfilled. This took me almost one hour to write and proofread. Cost of the War in Iraq
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