You’re probably wondering how today’s meeting with the American Civil Liberties Union went, aren’t you? Well, I think it’s pretty safe to say that my new favorite issue has reached a new high. Ugly little words, like profiling, discrimination, and racism, have contributed to making the last three weeks (to the day) of my life the most challenging. In case you couldn’t tell, I’ve been losing sleep, feeling sick, and fighting fierce waves of depression and hopelessness/helplessness about the whole thing. I mean, how does one go about feeling better about the ugliest side of man’s nature? Surrounding myself with friends and family, and talking to anyone who would listen has helped. However, sitting down with four complete strangers and spilling my guts out (and I mean all of them) is certainly not without its charms.
I’m rambling. Sorry. Let me start at the beginning,
I started this morning off much too early. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, my head was filled with questions regarding the incident at the Ballard Locks. I was really hoping that the people at the ACLU would be able to tell me that I wasn’t just imagining how badly I was treated, or that I was making an entirely inappropriate fuss out of nothing. I was wondering if anyone I knew wrote a letter in to the editor of the Ballard News Tribune in response to last Wednesday’s article. I’d arranged to have today off of work, so I was also working out my priorities, hoping to justify the day’s loss in pay.
Leaving Mary to sleep in, I got my first cup of coffee from our neighborhood Tully’s just after dawn. (FYI: That’s at around 5:00a.m. right now in Seattle.) I looked in the vendor, but there was no paper. I dropped Mary off at work after another half cup a’ Joe, and tried to kill time, but there was still no paper,. Got the idea?
At around noon, after an anxious morning laced with domestic distractions, I finally got my brand new copy of the Ballard News Tribune. I flipped straight to the Letters to the editor, only to find a thoroughly insensitive rant regarding the fatalities at a prominent neighborhood park involving trains. I don’t know if I was really expecting to see my neighbors responding to the exposure of racism in their own back yard, but I was certainly hoping to. I wasn’t upset, mind you, I just took it as a clear sign that I haven’t made nearly enough noise yet. (You know that scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Andy finally gets books for the library? Yeah. Me too.)
Anyway, today is another one of those two job days for Mary, so picked her up from Part-time Job #1 and took her out to lunch at Vera’s (our favorite neighborhood diner). As always, we were kindly greeted and seated by familiar faces, and then I caught my girlfriend up on the lack of public response. She was in the middle of playing devil’s advocate, asking, “What if this is what it all comes to in the end? What if you can’t get anyone to pay attention?” when our waiter walked up.
“Man, I read your article,” he started. (Whew!) He went on to ask some general questions about how things were progressing, and I told him about my upcoming 2:00 meeting with the ACLU. I know that it’s easy to take these simple, kind exchanges for granted, but that’s the type of thing that I love about Ballard. And his timing couldn’t have been better.
I dropped Mary off at Part-time Job #2 soon after lunch, and then I took some time to get quiet before my meeting with the ACLU. As you can imagine, I had plenty to think about. I spent time thinking about how important it was to be listening. I thought about how important it was to continue to keep things from being personal, and to continue to pursue something constructive as opposed to responding with personal anger. I thought about my family, and my friends, and my neighbors. And I remembered why I’m doing what I’m doing.
I ended up driving downtown, taking my photos, contact sheets, camera and bag. I was sure to wear the same shorts and bad Hawaiian shirt I was wearing the day of the “event.” (Nope, still need a better way to refer to it. Anyone?) The parking garage promised $4, but I soon realized that that was only for a single hour, and that anything after that would cost a minimum of $9. To add insult to injury, I turned off my car to let the valet park it, and it chose that moment to pull its little “I won’t start until I feel like it” stunt. In retrospect, it never even occurred to me that these might be bad omens. I just thought the timing was genuinely funny. I mean, who else but me, right? Anyway, I took the photo of the Haug building (home of the ACLU) before going up to the third floor for my 2:00 appointment.
OK. Normally I’d love to give you an exhaustive narrative of the whole discussion, but I think it’s a lot more important in this instance to let some of the details work themselves out. I will tell you that the meeting lasted for over two hours
