I had plans.
1.Get my VBM ballot from Pasadena since I’m in writerheadmode in dtla; 2.Or just vote on the 24th in person since usps has been compromised from the federal level if the push to vote early hadn’t relented. 3. Fast from Halloween into right before election day, across the Days of the Dead.
Only, after a second throttling week of working in writerheadmode & a second week of lead-in soft fasting and qi gonging out to purify my vibes, Saturday afternoon I heard something inside that startled me a bit.
“Everything is happening early.”
I felt called to fast the next day & obeyed.
Soon after that inner decision a friend that I’d postponed lunching with due to writerhead [who’d had lunch with someone else]contacted me. He said he and his young family were Quarantined because whomever he’d had lunch with tested positive. Not sure if he’s the carrier or just exposed. The added caveat? He was bringing me my VBM ballot.
Monday was spent ensconced in a book project.
Tuesday was all about whittling down my cases & storage swapping on nothing but God. Again it was “Take care of this today.” On the way back from the beach I was compelled to make my way to Norwalk, CA to vote the next morning, no matter what. Not even waiting until the 24th.
Turned out there was a straight-shot bus from around the corner. I headed out early Wednesday morning and rode an hour, standing most of the way. 98% had on masks. The two instances that didn’t were heartbreaking. One man got close to having the cops called on him, the entire bus of barely separated people on their way to jobs irate at the addled man due to the delay.
It was a lot of energy out there today that felt like it was all holding on faintly. And there were 4x more people out than I’d expected. Which would have been unnerving but I was focused on where I was headed. The bus emptied as we plowed east through nondescript neighborhoods but I couldn’t sit down. I knew I was supposed to stand. And study the propositions.
I stepped off the bus at volunteer & Imperial highway and came face to face with a mask full of puke that almost made me veer off course to follow in shocked suit due to that visual trigger but I snapped out of it and made my way to the registrar’s office.
Outside, beside one table stood a woman in what I did not recognize was a wedding dress until I had passed. Most offices were closed, but looks like they are still finding a way to allow that. Life goes on.
I got to the voting entrance, was escorted in by myself, whisked up in an elevator & went in to perform my civic duty.
It took a while.
Yep.
In an empty polling center.
In Los Angeles there are 27 measures & provisions your vote is asked for on.
And I feel that is something that really needs to be gotten across to new voters.
BE PREPARED.
Getting rid of cash bail is on the ballot, as is funding stem cell research, measures regarding forest fires, letting kids who will be 18 for the main election vote in the primaries, corrupt DA officers looking for re-election, Judges with no concern for rehabilitation trying to stay on the bench, making DNA collection mandatory for misdemeanors , cops trying to get more money to behave badly, folks trying to get all homeowners over 55 the housing protections only some have, the infamous Uber prop, dialysis center issues-
Like seriously~ It’s a lot but not one of the items you’re being asked to have an opinion on doesn’t matter in day to day life. Instead of the “voting doesn’t work” refrain we’ve been taught to bleat generationally in order for those who’ve gotten into power by only a quarter of those affected by the laws of the land participating…
I was moved by what I was being asked to give a fuck about.
Even city council members. Remember that video of that councilwoman who was online shopping while people were legitimately grieving over Breonna Taylor instead of listening to them? That small debacle helped get Breonna’s Law passed.
But even deeper?
We can vote them out.
Those are all the kinds of calls you’re being asked to make before you get to the big ticket.
The last time I voted in person was in nyc, on antiquated yet effective machinery, with the hottest cop I have ever seen in my Liiiiiife!
AND Yes- I bring that up every voting season because outside of finding ways to yowl “what’s it to you, coppah?!” for no real reason beyond pleasuring myself, I am not cop-ish at ALL- In NYC you Have to pick and I am Fireman through and through, baby- but I finally~ understood… the shall we say positive effects of…the uniform. Everything else since then has been absentee ballot, and every season I have sucked my bottom lip after licking that envelope in Appreciation of the only cop I have EVER flirted with. Flirted Hard. Like Filthy. And it was not just me. He had the entire voting body present aflame. Motherfuckers were shooting shots all over the place. If you saw him…and how he beamed out, you’d get it. He…did not need to be in that uniform at all. And I mean that every way that can be flipped. And ftr, a friend of mine shot the charity calendars for both gangs, so I … being who I was…saw the pick of the- I’ll stop here.
(Duly noted. Polling center on 3rd [or 2nd]and 15th if you wanna feel the way I feel and see the glory of the voting process in person. This ends my voting season toast TO the only cop I’d say “So~ What’s it going to take to get out of this ticket?” to, even tho he’d have had to remind me I wasn’t driving and had no license.)
I feel the weight of the process every season. But I Really felt the weight of it today.
The train was taken back because although my mind hadn’t processed the ride-out, my body had and was drawn to the Metrolink station as if on Autopilot. My innerchile kept chattering about sushi because she got what was up before I did. My inner kid knows sushi tends to cover most qualms with me.
I didn’t comprehend the sense of ‘overwhelm’ until I stepped out of Union Station.
This was deeper than the psychological band-aid of being hugged by the stoic chatter of old sushi chefs who’d adopted me earlier this year in Lil Tokyo, practicing my rusty Japanese with me sans umeshu. This was deeper than the waters behind the battleships always posted up out past the end of the Venice pier that no one talks about.
I had to pause.
A woman walked by and asked a nearby guard where the covid testing center was. He pointed. I looked at his finger and then up at God, who nodded. I shyly followed her.
As if by grace, you could make an appointment while you waited. When I looked at the curative website the other local testing places had No availability at all today or tomorrow. The one God pointed me to had 529 openings.
It… was my first covid test.
I’ve just avoided people, which I tend to do in writerheadmode anyway, and followed the protocols when I had to go out.
But a few times during this pandemic I’d been awkwardly hit with visions of people I know in doctor offices getting tested, like they were thinking of me to calm them down. Dear friends & what I call future friends, meaning we aren’t tight yet but theoretically could be someday if we all don’t die. They always looked cagey in the visions, which put me all the more on edge, seeing them. Because before the doctors & physical therapists that got me to get me back in order after last year’s back injury, to see me as a calming presence in a hospital situation would have been comedic.
Standing in that side courtyard at Union Station swabbing my mouth for the first time…
I finally GOT the spooked look my mind’s eye had seen coating them in those instances.
A wave of understanding drenched me.
But instead of calling to mind any face to yowl simmah down~ I’ve simply never felt so alone in my entire life.
Instead of shaking it off, I walked away in a daze. I couldn’t go home. It was not the placating comfort of sushi I needed.
I needed Chinatown.
I don’t even recall the ride there, just the shops that soothe me in a different way than lil Tokyo ever could and the masked people mostly coming up to my elbows, cheery, bustling, obeying the distance ordinances all the same.
I was going to get tea but in front of the jars I realized I wanted to finish my pu erh tea at home, that it appeals to me. That’s big for a teahead, making that choice as varietals are serenading you.
Then I ducked into a favorite store to grab more of something for my altar. The man remembered me & went
“Yes, you’re very lucky.” Today I fucking received that like a motherfuck.
I laughed “Yeah!,” thanked him and left.
That’s the closest I have to going home. The little Chinatown in Cleveland after highschool, Chinatown in NYC for twelve years, Chinese restaurants in Tokyo, suffering through San Francisco to get to the Chinatown there.
It’s a surreal equilibrium returner. And this isn’t airs. Naan an attempt at Mandarin was made. I was there, spent. And God knew it. So he filled me up best I would let him.
The faint recognition of me by the woman at my dimsum spot-said lightly, thousands of people call this spot their jam- didn’t even do it, tho the more I spoke in English the more she looked at me with this weird concern-
I don’t even know how to express the exchange beyond maybe people don’t forget a tall black woman happily butchering their mother tongue and may be slightly alarmed at her listlessly not even giving it a college try on a cloudy day. She’s usually gruff, which I like when it comes to languages.
Today she was gentle… and her eyes warbling concern snapped me back on line.
I was conscious again, my inner kid was smiling, skipping alongside me. God himself was chatty as the counterpoint to where I had been, reminding me he’s always here. I steadied. Climbed up to the urban plaza park that’s my favorite picnic spot, possibly in all of LA. Ate, meditated with the group through the phone a bit.
It came up as I headed back.
I was carrying ALL the weight of the insanity of 2020-
that’s been being very kind to me, mind you(I’ve been on my face in gratitude for the grace received this year)-
but THIS FUCKING ELECTION HAS HAD that grace IN A FUCKING CHOKEHOLD.
And voting early, in person made that hold HAVE to release.
Angel Brynner
The weight of all of their antics has just disappeared.
Completely dissipated.
GONE.
ALL of it.
COMPLETELY erased by casting that ballot in person so nothing they’d try could thwart my vote.
Why the Overwhelm, you ask?
Ever been wrestling with someone on your back that you finally fling off you and then you just stand there winded? All the energy they’d squeezed out of you on top what it took to free yourself crushes in as you see the face of what had been actually weighing you down before you hobble away as it bleeds out.
Spiritual Warfare is real as fuck in 2020.
2020 has ALOT going on.
Things we clearly have to deal with.
Fix.
But this election’s place in your life? That is something You can fling off of you.
You do not have to wait until October 24th or the 27th if you want to vote in person.
The call you need to make, the best &only thing you really can do… you can do Today.
This has been a bit of mise-en-scene-ing to get to that point.
Whatever is going to happen as a whole is decided by the actions we take honoring our own integrity on this shit.