Clearer Vision, Clearer Purpose 2020

A year ago, I was still wrestling with the notion that my daughter was pregnant. This normally joyous time in a woman’s life was marred by the timing of this blessed event. I had not told anyone, but I was going to run for office. This urging had been in the pit of my stomach for months. Having just completed a short sabbatical to write an academic memoir, Not So Cookie Cutter Kids, I witnessed the attacks against our President and recognized one painful truth: the socialist agenda would not stop willingly, it must be stopped by force. So the nesting and support I should have freely showered my daughter with as she prepared to have her first child were overshadowing by the looming knowledge that my armchair activism would need to increase, dramatically. Ultimately, I was on the secret lookout for a political race to run.

Months into the year, my daughter, this same one that was pregnant with who would become my first grandson, got an inkling to volunteer for our local party. One thing led to another. My broad political volunteerism notwithstanding, this was a new experience the two of us were diving headlong into together. Our President still under pressure from the constant media barrage. America under the squeamish un-comfortableness that seamlessly occurred after every tweet. The nation slowly pulling apart from itself. There was no time like the present to become politically active again.

First the mass meeting: a high school cafeteria filled with coffee, donuts, and patriots. Patriots that were eager to become party delegates. This was a process my mother frequently obliged herself to but one I was intimately unaware of. My litmus test of latent racism meant I would be on the look out for any potential offense that might occur when a person of color drifts into uncharted territory. It’s one thing to declare your conservatism when you have nothing to loose. But for my daughter’s sake, I prayed and hoped there would be no evidence of racism, imagined, perceived or authentic, at this event. In this two hour meeting, I was greeted by many familiar faces, some relatively new, others were old friends. Seated by our precinct (my daughter, the future First Vice Chair of the County Party, and myself were all who showed up to represent our precinct) we completed the required formalities and speculated about 2020.

At the annual County Convention, we arrived literally minutes before the ten a.m. cut off, before the doors were locked and the chairman of the meeting pulled back the curtain to reveal all things Republican to this slowly waking crowd. My daughter and I were ushered to the registration table where, because of the differences in our last names, we were separated for the purposes of registration. She, a fair skinned pregnant girl, was immediately handed a lanyard and directed where she should sit.

I was directed elsewhere. I was told I had not registered. I was told I had not paid. I was told I needed to go to a back room and see the credentialing team.

This in and of itself means nothing. But what is interesting is how certain people reassured me that I was welcome and would sort this whole business out. Others, not quite as friendly. But isn’t this the kind of odds we experience whenever we interact with other humans. Some have customer service skills and others don’t.