Postcards from the Edge

Does it really make a difference to write these political postcards asking people to vote. I’m really not sure. I assume it has to have even the meagerest of influence, but am not so sure it’s anything significant.

However, I do know, it makes me feel better. There is something about writing out the message on the back of a postcard reminding a voter to vote that feels right, that assuages some of the anxiety I feel about the political process (or lack thereof) right now. I feel almost as if I am connecting on some energetic level with the person to whom I am writing. Their name rolls around in my brain. I wonder about them. Who they are. Where they stand on the political spectrum. How they are doing in isolation. I have been writing postcards to Michigan voters and know Michigan fairly well and so I picture the town they are from, wonder if they know the people I know who live near them, if they have gone to that coffee shop or that bookstore, if they have gotten gas at that gas station. I wonder if this postcard will encourage them to vote. The message is, afterall, hand-written. I sign my first name. I wonder what they will wonder about when they receive this card. I wonder how I would respond if I received one of these postcards. I think about the post office sorting these cards and the mail carriers who deliver the mail. And then I’m on to the next postcard.

Then there’s the activity with JB who places the stamps on the postcards. We talk about dinner, the garden. We drink mint tea from mint that voluntarily grows everywhere in our garden. We sit on the back porch and look up occasionally from our work to see the birds at the bird feeder. Gentle, engaged, cooperative activity- both the birds and us. It’s peaceful and purposeful.

So here’s to Brian and Shequita, Berg and Bathia, Timothy, Alana, Rachel, Joshua, Wafa, and Maria! Here’s to Ypsilanti, Dearborn, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Ann Arbor! Here’s a reminder that it is all of our responsibilities as citizens of this country to have our voices heard and counted. As the world around seems to exist in a parallel universe of untruths and half truths, as democracy itself seems to be fighting for its very life, these are my postcards from the edge.

NB: Postcards 2 WI/MI is a project of Indivisible Chicago Alliance