Because every time counts
From D.W.: Tomorrow is election day. It was both one of Rachel's favorite days of the year and, particularly in the last decade, one of the most anxiety ridden and frustrating. It's become redundant and almost tiresome to keep saying that "this is one of the most important elections..." but, you know... it's important.
Rachel saw elections not just as a way to express preference and/or dissent, but as an opportunity to love. A documented record that proves your values, and one that should put the needs and safety of others before our own. Despite how hard our and jaded our discourse has become, election day was a time to remember that we live in community with each other, even when that's prickly and heavy and downright maddening.
Go vote.
Facebook. January 21st. 2017
For millions of women and people of color and poor people and all sorts of folks who do not have the privilege to claim that their lives will go on, getting 'over it' is not an option. And it is cruel to suggest otherwise. If seeing dissent and discomfort and hearing the voices of those making their feelings known makes you feel uncomfortable or feel feelings that you'd rather not be confronted by, you are going to have to find different places to look. Because, for the sake of those who are being directly threatened, targeted, or otherwise marginalized, and for the sake of Jesus who asks me to remember them, I refuse to stop speaking, acting, and loving. And no one should be getting over this and acting like it is all ok and no big deal. That is why we’re sitting here at this moment in history.
We all have to do better, dig deeper, and love as big as we can. This is not normal. This is not the same thing that happens every time the Office of the President flips from red to blue, or blue to red. Do not believe that revisionism. This is different. And you know it in your bones.
We are sick, and love is the only cure. Now get out there, and love as much as you can, wherever you are, to the bottom-most depths of your scared or scarred or worried or bleeding or made-of-stone hearts. It is time to take our medicine.
Facebook. November 5th. 2018
I remember, way back in my babynerd days, how excited I was the night before my first ‘real’ election. I turned 18 right before the registration cut-off for the 1996 general election.
Although many of my understandings and choices have changed since I started voting, I’m still just as freaking stoked to vote tomorrow as I was 22 years ago. It is never not magic to me.
Because my parents raised me to be a political junky, I used to beg to go into the booth with whoever seemed most likely to crack that day, but secret ballot was sacrosanct.
One time, I remember Momma let me place her ballot in the box...I couldn’t tell you if it was an electric charge from walking across carpet in kid shoes and touching a metal box, or if I really did feel a tingle as I pushed the folded paper into the locked box. Every other day, that room was a classroom in one of the buildings on the public high school campus. But on election days, especially the ones I remember going to with my parents, it was like the narthex (vestibule, lobby, gathering area, what have you) at church—murmurs, pages and papers whispering, an occasionally very loud greeting between friends or colleagues or your cousin from across the County you hadn’t planned on seeing until the next funeral. In short — it was an ordinary place where special things get started, sometimes awkwardly.
My favorite memory of voting was with my grandparents in Alabama. On a visit to see them one summer, we stopped at the polls to vote before we drove out to Ezell’s Fish Camp, so Granny and I could attempt to eat our combined weight in fried crab claws.
I read all the public information bulletins on the walls, and they did their civic duty. On our way out, we were greeted by a man I had never met before but had heard about all my life. I am ashamed to say that time has stolen his name from me. He said a hearty hello to my grandparents, and then took my hand. ‘Is this Bill’s baby?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘I am Bill’s oldest baby.’ ‘You look like him. Your daddy was a good man.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’m so pleased to meet you.’
‘Blessings to you all!’ And off we walked back to Papaw’s truck. He rumbled at me from the front seat, ‘That man is why you’re alive, sweetie. Remember the story of how Little Bill (that’s mah dad) fell into the log flume at the mill? That was the man who pulled him out. Your daddy said that man’s face pulling him up out of that flume was the most beautiful one he ever saw.’
That man, this man who is known only to me because of the profound way he snatched my father from death by industrial wood chipper, showed up to vote—a black man in a very small, rural county, for a local election. You read some news articles from reputable sources and tell me THAT isn’t bravery and dedication to your community. And he shook my hand. For a hot minute in the wet-hot-pine scented wool blanket that is summer in West Alabama, I held the hand that fished my lanky, bookish, clumsy prince of a father and teacher from serious injury or death, someone who saved my dad’s life and mine, and my brother’s and his babies’, just by acting like a human person, by showing up even in the face of danger. That man who saved my father’s life could have fallen in after him, could have stayed away from the polls, could have justifiably not showed up either time.
But he did. Both times. All the times. Because every time counts. Thanks be to God. I hope he knows how much his act of kindness toward my family means to us, even now. His bravery in staying engaged and showing up means more to me with every passing election. God bless and keep him.
Please go vote tomorrow — take a friend or ask a neighbor if they need a ride. If you are unable to vote and have the time and desire, please help other folks get to the polls to vote.
Be nice in line. If you don’t know how to be nice, just be quiet. If you don’t know how to be nice or quiet, I am available via phone to talk to you or text you social cues until you have obtained your ballot/entered a booth/realize you can be nice without help because you are a marvelous and magnificent human person capable of kindness, compassion, and civic love.
I’m going to wait until at least 4pm, EST to listen to news, and after that: i’ma put on my hoodie/footie pj’s and talk to Jesus, drink coffee, and try to contain either my joy or rage, depending.
Text me every five minutes.
Love,
Rachie
Mixtapes From Babylon. November 1st. 2020
Sunday Night Prayers, #1
V: May the Force be with all y’all.
R: And also with y’all.
V: Let us offer up our what the fucks, how the hells, and are you actually kidding me's to the Lord. Lord, hear our prayer.
R: And let our cry come to you.
V: Lord, we pray that you would calm our shit down in the midst of great uncertainty and upheaval. Make manifest your great love and set it as a seal up on our hearts and across the economy size box of Oreos that we are saving for Election Day. Lord, in your great mercy:
R: Calm our shit.
V: Lord, we pray for all your precious children in all places, and especially for the healing of the biggest, most inflamed buttholes among us. Teach us how to better care for them, that we can see beyond their awful, puckered tightness and act with grace and soap and water rather than scratchy, cheap airplane one-ply. These buttholes are starting to ruin all our pants. Lord, in your mercy:
R: Heal up these stinky cracks between us.
V: Lord, you have given us salty and sweet, milk and dark, hot and spicy, and all manner of flavor profiles. Please remove the taste of adrenaline from all of the everything, so that we might at least enjoy all this shit we are eating to try and cope. Praise ye, the Lord:
R: And pass me the Cholula or Sriracha. Whatever is fine
V: Lord, have mercy.
R: Christ, have mercy.
V: Lord, have mercy. Please put your Mother on the phone.
V: Hail, Girl
R: Hail, Mary.
All: Hail Mary, full of grace. Save us from the Orange Face.
V: May the Force be with you.
R: And also with you.
All: Amen or whatever.
V: And may the God of peace who continues to make a way out of no way help you in all manner of things, but most especially bless you and keep your chin up and your ass down for at least the next 48 - 72 hours. Remember what Saint Coach Eric Taylor always says: Clear eyes, full heart, can’t lose.
