Red Cedar

there are so few quiet moments in a convention – so few times where there is no one else around….. so few times when we are sober of socializing or of drink (for every convention recess starts a new bout of drinking and politics off the floor)….. i forget everytime what these events are like for me, a person easily caught up in the excitement and plans of others…. and also a person desiring of my own objectives and goals in the process.

so tomorrow is the election where i will be running and given some of the conversations i have been having, i think there is a good chance for me to win my seat at the regional council. i apparently have a reputation that has preceded me here – from the 2004 strike – and influential people on my side (surprising to me since i’m not exactly known for keeping the peace in organizing circles).

it’s always at this point in the no-sleeping-meeting-drinking cycle of political organizing i start to feel a little bit manic…. so current judgement of my chances may be way off… but i haven’t done anything outrageously anti-social yet — and i’ve had nothing but positive support since arriving at the hotel thursday night (and at coffee this morning i was offered the local presidency of another worksite should my job role change…. strangely enough). i think – for good or bad – even as an out-radical in a very conservative environment – i am memorable to people and that usually works in my favour.

it was odd today – looking over the ndp-candidates list in a morning meeting… i recognized three people on it from my student organizing days. it seems ironic in the small labour movement bc really is – we might eventually sit at the same organizing tables again, but in a very different context. i think of all of us, i might be the only one with most of my political ethics still intact – simply because it’s easier as a shop-floor union activist to be honest to one’s true feelings. if i move up the union-political ladder, the ability to say that will become increasingly more difficult which is why i have always maintained i couldn’t see myself in such a role.

but in this context, where i am courted and advanced, where every psychological need for attention and conflict is simultaneously being addressed – the idea of running higher and higher seems that much more plausible. i’m sure, no matter what happens tomorrow, after about 24-hours i will come back down to earth, once again released to my quiet home on the sunshine coast, needing a couple days of sleep to wind myself back into my own body and just ground out.

no photo today – instead an image from one of my favourite graphic artists – eric drooker – which i have used in my election-campaign letter handout for this weekend.

on my way in today, i was thinking about the concept of vocational “calling”. the last guy i dated felt “called” to his profession as a forester, which is something i had never really encountered in someone i knew before. mostly the people i know have just got into jobs without thinking too much about it – they needed money, has some baseline interest or skills, they took a job or some training, and got employed mostly out of necessity.

in my case, i was a good talker, a decent writer, and a musician – so a degree in communications and subsequent employment in the field seemed to fit – but i have never felt that it was a “calling” per se – more like a convenient proclivity towards a certain skill-set. and while i suspect i may spend my lifetime doing communications work (because i am good at it, and skills like these are in demand in the hyper-media world we live in), it’s not because i love it – but because it pays a professional salary which allows me to do other things like activism and travel.

which leads me back to the concept of calling – because when nathan and i were discussing this back in the fall and i was preparing to go on strike – it occured to me that i do have a calling…. and have since i was very small.

(to be clear – i don’t think that a “calling” is a mystic, preordained or fatalistic sort of thing – more that very early life circumstances and certain inborn personality traits produce certain interests or leanings in young children that may or may not develop into a calling in later life)

i honestly believe i was called to activism and social justice organizing – i cannot remember a time in my life where i did not feel the need to resist injustice at home, at school, and in our neighbourhood – which lead me into my first protests and campaigns by the age of thirteen. many times i have decided to “quit” the movement in order to pursue different things in life – but although i may leave organizations, i find them quickly replaced with others. and one major thing i learned this fall when we went on strike is that all those years of organizations, and actions and demonstrations and legal problems have left me with the ability to step into the middle of a large campaign and lead it with total confidence. i had never really had my entire skillset tested all at once like that before (event organizing, media work, membership relations, public speaking, propagandizing etc.) – and the experience left me realizing that even though it is stressful at times, organizing is what i do best – and what i will always do best of anything else in my life.

and it is in clarifying this for myself i realize that communications is just an outgrowth of that activist-calling, and it is likely in my own psychic interest to pursue either work for the union movement, or running for higher office rather than staying in the federal government because it’s convenient. that doesn’t mean i’m leaving my job anytime soon – just that i recognize the privilege of having many options on the table, all of which i’m quite confident about at the moment….

anyhow – to wrap-up this post – what all that thinking lately has meant is that i’m taking my union-career more seriously these days and i’ve decided to run for higher office at the psac regional convention this weekend. i mean, this is nothing major – just a geographic rep. position – but every position is one step closer to the next…. or one step closer to a communications job inside my union (so i’ve been told). i am including in this post a copy of the campaign letter i wrote and laid-out this morning…. would you vote for me? 😉

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i really like my blog better when each post is preceded by an image – so i’m going post a new photo every day even if it means going back in my photo archives and finding ones i haven’t posted before. they may or may not be related to the writing of the day, so don’t look for any pattern in what photos i choose. the one above is from my recent trip to the desert with aaron – all day i kept trying to get a photo of one of the hundreds of butterflies alight around the canyons, resting on a flower or something – but was unsuccessful. upon returning from our hike i noticed several dead ones stuck to the grill of our rental car – and there it was – the butterfly shot i wasn’t really looking for.

so (in case you were looking for the update) – the meeting this morning turned out not to be a termination meeting, but a “fact-finding” hearing…. meaning there are allegations being made and we had to respond to them. it’s a very complicated set of circumstances, but essentially i did some listening, a little advocacy, and followed-up with a dose of advice-giving. then i got back to my desk and had 2 other union-related (stewarding) phone calls, and then the director involved in the first case came to see me at my desk (about the hearing we had just had, which digressed into a discussion about work and the future of the public service). all of this made me late to meet my friend megan o. for lunch.

all this running around (and too much coffee) has made me a bit hyper in any case…. i’m waiting for the mid-afternoon crash which hasn’t come yet.

normally my stewarding load is not so high – but at the moment i have four cases which is a full-time job. even though we have other union reps in the building, i seem to be the one people come to most often which i chalk up to my ability to make even really stressed out people laugh (it’s my special superpower). that, and i sometimes even win my cases, which seems to inspire confidence in my ability (funny that).

today at lunch, i realized how crazy-full my life has gotten again, and how even though it makes me a tad manic at times – i much prefer to live like this than i have been for the past year and a half…. i get to be me again 🙂

i have lots of other stuff to post about but i also need to get some work done before i leave today….