To Be of Use

. . . I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

Who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

Who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

Who do what was to be done, again and again.

                                    --Marge Piercy, excerpt from Circles On the Water, Knopf, 1982.

             

            “Step in time, step in time,” marks the passage of our sweat when I bother to go to my local Curves for exercise.  However, how much step-in-time do we owe to the consideration of worthwhile goals?   It seems important to me to plan on spending my time on earth in the best possible way.  That is why we have to consider the day and the job.  How vital is the work we're willing to undertake?  I am using the time this month to consider what goals are worth setting, what work is worth doing and what time is well-spent. 

As I was puffing on the machines and chatting with my friend, Betsy, about her difficulty in getting precinct workers for her political party, I thought of this experience my friend Christina S. shared with me:

            Last week I attended a meeting of the League of Women Voters by invitation.  My good friend and colleague, a fantastic attorney who specializes in domestic abuse cases, attended with me.  Part of my new job entails helping women in rural areas gain access to many types of services and voting accessibility is within the range of needs.

            Upon entering the reserved Garden room of a local banquet hall, I became instantly aware that I had underdressed for such an occasion.  Everyone was spiffed up and decked out in full regatta attire, with matching hats and personas.  (In fact, I had to check to make sure that I wasn’t crashing a meeting of the League of Republican Women’s High Tea).

            The president of the chapter of Women Voters, after we had introduced ourselves, greeted us warmly and quickly launched into her spiel.  Since my friend and I were new, she felt she needed to give us some background about who they were and what they were about.  She began by pointing out who they "were not." 

            “We are not women who, as in the old days, picketed and paraded about with signs, or who chained themselves to the voting booths,” she intoned seriously with a small condescending smile.  “We prefer to work discreetly, more tastefully.”  The other twenty or so Stepford wives, er I mean, members of the League nodded in agreement.

            My friend and I looked at each other, knew we were thinking the exact same thing and gave each other a small nod.  My friend stood up with a polite smile and asked seriously, “Could you tell us where the meeting of the women who chain themselves to the voting booths is being held, because that’s the one we want to go to.”  Dead silence.  I could see the word “ANARCHISTS!” screaming from their eyes.  We showed ourselves the way out.”

Some of the time I have been ‘thinking about’ getting ready to live has been spent in learning that it is OK to chain oneself to a voting booth. It’s OK to rattle a few cages and upset a few apple carts, if that will accomplish your purpose .   I was raised in the '50s and heaven knows those were days when we still wore white gloves and had tea parties.  It was a time of discretion and a search for refinement.  It was a time when we lower class folks were trying to prove that we were the great Middle Class that followed World War II by displaying good manners, good taste and by not rocking the boat.  It was a naive waiting period between World War II and the Civil Rights Movement.

 However, while we were waiting for the 50's to end, we were suddenly dumped into the 60's and saw what power there was in sitting at counters where we were not wanted, and taking seats on buses which, previously, we had been too polite to demand.  Nothing has been the same since, and we have begun to question whether one can do meaningful work in a discreet and tasteful manner.  I do believe it is getting harder and harder.