Postcards from the Bubble

Yesterday, I joined a group of women in my old neighborhood for a postcard writing and phone banking party. I knew many of them, from the days when what drew us together was the dream (and the toil) of raising kids in a safe place with good schools. Our property taxes were high, the carpooling schedules were grueling, but we seem to have, as a village, launched some pretty good citizens.

What drew us together yesterday was the collective state of shock and outrage that has overtaken the bubble, festering as the months tick by and the indignities and atrocities go on, unchecked. We women don't like feeling powerless. I turned in my hand wringing for hand-writing desperate pleas on postcards to folks outside the bubble, imploring them to vote. If I were to receive such a card, it would go directly into the recycling bin, as does much of my mail. If I were to receive a phone call, I would let it go unanswered. It felt good, though, to do something. I stayed the course, kept writing.

Was it any different when we were raising children? I often think -- and admit, out loud -- that I believe my three turned out well in spite of me, and not because of anything I may have done right. As they grew, so too did their independence, and, it seemed, my irrelevance. I wondered, sometimes, if it would make more sense to just sit back and hope for the best. But I stayed the course, and did what I could, as pointless as it might seem.  Not just because I loved them unconditionally, but because was my responsibility, my job.

The night before Stanley, my "grand pup," had a bit of a freak accident, I had a dream that something happened to him. I have since decided that I am possessed of some mystical powers -- and promise to warn my friends and loved ones to be careful if they ever appear in such a dream, rather than wait for the confirming phone call. Stanley, thank goodness, has lived to tell the tale.

Last night, I had a dream that there was an earthquake in D.C., a quake that measured over 100 on the Richter Scale. Whom do I warn? An earthquake in D.C. is highly improbable, but I take comfort in the idea that a seismic shift is afoot, creeping up on us as slowly but as surely as the imperceptible changes that led us to where we find ourselves, now.

Most of us did not see it coming, the train wreck. Just as when my pediatrician told me, when my first born would not relinquish her pacifier, that one day her preferred form of plastic would be a credit card, the thought seemed preposterous. I never saw it coming, for any of my children, as they moved through toddlerhood and adolescence and the teens. I never saw it coming, even when I had already seen it happen twice. And I never saw "this" coming, the racism bubbling back up from its latency, the lure of crassness and indignity and an "us versus them-dom" the likes of which I never thought possible. I didn't even know there was a "them."

The shift is coming. Even if nobody reads the postcards, or answers the phone. I have lived it, and I have dreamt it. No warnings necessary; just rest, assured.