Caution: working draft.
Prologue - I’m Coming Home.
I’m
coming home, I’m coming home. Tell the World I’m coming home. Let the
rain wash away all the pain of yesterday. I know my kingdom awaits and
they’ve forgiven my mistakes. I’m coming home, I’m coming home. Tell
the World I’m coming.
I
felt exhausted as I drove along the freeway. Spring rang fresh as I
drove through Ohio, the first hints of the forested Appalachian
foothills spasming with green. The scene was reinvigorating after
spending four months organizing in North Dakota during the heart of
winter.
I’m coming home... I’m coming home...
The
radio was playing a new song of coming home, echoing my feelings as the
miles ticked by as I grew closer and closer to Northern Virginia. I
grew up in the same household there my whole life, went to college at
Virginia Tech, and soon jumped headfirst into the world after graduating
and traveled across the country to hone in my skills for community
organizing.
Tell the world I’m coming home...
I
felt nearly defeated. I was still reeling from almost being fired from
my job several weeks earlier as I couldn’t deliver ‘the metrics’
desired, despite fighting -50° fahrenheit wind chills and an unforgiving
ultra-conservative landscape for an idealistic organizer. Since I was
limited in what I could do for my advocacy-driven metrics, I organized
with the small progressive community a statewide conservation issue
summit. Several dozen people came, though only a fraction attended my
breakout on my campaign for livestock marketing fairness. Two in the
breakout group were spies gleaning information about me and how much of a
threat the campaign was.
Let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday...
While
I reveled in the feeling of a homecoming, I also felt a impending sense
of loss. I felt like this would be one of the last times I would have
this feeling. My parents recently purchased a home in upper Michigan to
retire in, planning to move for the first time in my life. The move would be tasking for both of them, but especially
my father. My father hadn’t been healthy for many years and even the
most trivial tasks proved enormous for him. In recent phone
conversations, he seemed impatient and constantly irritable.
I know my kingdom awaits and they’ve forgiven my mistakes.
The
road started to rise and fall, soft curves turning faster with the next
wave of the mountains. Pennsylvania state line. Back-to-back
tollbooths. I glanced at the navigation: four more hours. With a sigh,
I lean back in the drivers seat and loosen my grip on the steering
wheel. I could feel the shadow over me of a turning page to a new
chapter of my life, uncertain where the the story of me will go.
I
thought back to last summer after graduating college. While wading
through the pristine New River on an early summer day, I found myself
climbing a jumping rock in the middle of the river I’ve seen others use
and hesitated on the edge. The water was tumultuous, and I was unable
to see the bottom. Afraid of the unknown, President Roosevelt’s words
entered my mind: “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.” I smiled
to myself, closed my eyes and jumped.
Tell the World I’m coming.
I
was 22 by the time I found myself driving home early that spring. In
my youth I was extensively teased and bullied. I watched in horror the
events unfolding at Columbine, and soon I found myself being carefully watchd by
my teachers. Walking between classes in middle school I heard the
distant sirens wailing on their way to the Pentagon on September 11th,
2001. I silently feared the Cessna planes flying above our neighborhood
were dropping anthrax. We stayed inside during physical education
because unknown deadly snipers were targeting fellow students. Friends
looked me in the eye to tell me they were going to shoot up our school.
I
easily fell obsessively in love. I fought and won against having a
label of being learning disabled. I spent years embracing a potential
career in engineering, with construction internships leading up to
working at the Pentagon renovation for a summer. I had joyrides with
friends throughout suburbia, seeking for the darkened corners for a
glimpse at the starry night sky.
In
lockdown, my class was escorted by an officer with a shotgun to the
library after a stabbing. Three news helicopters hovered above when we
were released. Several times over the years in high school we were
evacuated and watched the bomb squad come to sweep the building. Once,
someone blew up a quarter stick and destroyed several lockers.
Toward
my senior year I began to see the interconnectedness of the environment
to our everyday lives. I was shocked by the ignorance of the issue in my community,
and got involved by volunteering hundreds of hours, planting dozens of
trees and removing invasive plant species in regional parks with a
Buddhist nonprofit group.
The
first day of my college classes were canceled because a convict killed a
police officer and escaped custody within a mile or two of campus. My
new friends and I threw a football around outside, willfully ignoring
the lockdown in place.
I
engaged more and more on environmental issues, attending a statewide
youth energy summit and taking my energies to organizing on campus.
A student murdered 32 and wounded dozens of others on campus.
I ran for town council my senior year in college.
I graduated and traveled the country while organizing.
I pulled into the driveway. Finally, I was home again.
