Greetings to my tiny list of followers following my tiny adventures! Yes, life in the Airstream and all of its adventures didn’t stop when I left my Airstream. It just taught me to live life wherever you are.
In these times with our country heading towards facism, with an autocracy looming things have seemed quite depressing. In the last week I was hit with another round of the other thing that continues, COVID, and forced to slow down, be completely selfish and rejuvinate. And in looking back realized I still had some things to share here in this blog.
The onslaught of social media doom and gloom strolling, and the real doom and gloom looming above my head, had me thinking about my dual citizenship with Canada, again. But in all honesty, I’m a fighter, and I know that. So I’ve been taking the trailer lessons of knowing how to live life going with the flow, and uncertainty of the unkown, and have a plan A,B,C and sometimes D. So I’ve still have my Canada plans, along with some other countries it might be fun to just pick up and start over in. At the same time I live a parallell life, staying put, standing strong and fighting for Democracy.
The terror we have all felt thinking about what could happen and what is happening is real. I have found the best way to make it go away is to choose to face it and knock it out with action. Ironically there was a workshop in my neighborhood on safety at protests. I thought maybe I’d learn something. Little did I know they were actually recruiting for what we now call the East PDX Indivisible Safety Team. We scout out our area of protest ahead of time, noting, places to hide people, places to relocate people to, restrooms, driveways, bustops etc. And we communicate on walkies with practiced tools of de-escalation. We help folks do simple stuff like stay on sidewalks, providing simple medical help with folks who might get injured, bringing water etc. We keep an eye out for outside agitators, ICE and other unwanted guests. We all are trained in de-escalation skills. All the time we prepare for when it might get ugly and we will need to use strategic non-violent actions to make our point or civil disobedience that could land us in jail. I’m not sure how far I will go. I do know working with these folks, and the gratitude from the protestors who are not your average folks… or maybe I should say, they are your average folks…. folks in wheelchairs, elderly, young folks with kids in strollers, etc… has brought me a greater sense of community, a strength and courage to make me want to fight back more.
I have also gotten involved with the local Black Community meeting privately at a local home working on local issues that primarily are of interest to us, while navigating how the bigger fight intertwines with our issues and how we can benefit each other. I’ve been honing my skills at testifying at city hall, speaking out at school board meetings, writing letters to the governor and other leaders. If you are feeling overwhelmed by it all I highly encourage you to find some small way to get involved in resisting. Taking action takes away fear and anxiety and helps me see all of the good out there and realize I am not alone.
I heard someone say, don’t get overwhelmed with the doom and gloom, pick one thing that you are passionate about fighting for and use your skills that bring you joy to fight that fight. It has been too hard for me to limit it to one thing. I actually wanted to do something for the environment, as I felt, without a planet, nothing else matters. But getting involved with environmental politics in a way that actually makes a difference can be a bit more challenging. I’m still working on that. I have an art project on the back burner as a way to raise funds for some of the organizations doing the good work there.
ICE going after immigrants, or should I say kidnappers going after anyone black or brown hit home personally since a lot of my immigrant friends were living in fear, and to be honest, ICE seems interested in basically anyone black or brown, so that would include me too, and I don’t think I have the resources or connections to get myself out of a camp somewhere in the world. Plus, I’m just not the kind of person that can sit and watch injustice being done and not say a peep. A local church, Augustana Lutheran, was doing some real work, some brave work, on what nonviolent strategic action is, as well as designating their church as a true sanctuary. They started with a kickoff inviting surrounding churches to join them in their efforts, giving credit to the Black Church and all of the work done before in the Civil Rights Movement that they were modeling their work after. That has been fullfilling and interesting work to be a part of.
I supported my friend who is an author with the work she is doing fighting book bans here in Oregon and across the country. She also introduced me to work standing up for the Trans community with Oregon’s Equal Rights Ammendment. If you are an Oregonian reading this and haven’t signed the petition to get this on the ballot, please do. Its important we strengthen ourselves at the state level since at the national level, so much has been weakened.
I offered my professional skills free of charge helping strengthen my local entertainment industry union to be a stronger union with trainings and consulting on what it means to be a union, and I’m helping them see where they fit in to the larger fight. If fascism wins we won’t have unions.
I’ve joined the Oregon campaign for Health Care For All Oregon, seeing as I’ll be losing my access to affordable Health Insurance come January and watching a friend who when midterms come around and she loses her medicaide, because of her severe diabetes, she will literally die within a week without any alternatives. I had some experience helping on those initiatives in California so started exploring how I might help here. If you are in Oregon and interested in helping check out their website and take the Health Care 101 class.
I continue to read books to educate myself, go to protests, better understand how all of the issues are intertwined, and speak out and use my voice while I still can.
In doing all of this, I’ve met amazing people along the way. I realized I have lived with a lot of privilege in this country, not having to be involved in holding politicians accountable, just living life free of worry. In other words, I’ve been able to maneuver life without being accountable for being a citizen and all that is required of a citizen in a democratic society. I can also see how vulnerable our system is, and see how full of dysfunction it is. Something major has to change. Its not just what we are against that matters. More importantly it is what we are for. Because if we get rid of what we are against we leave a big hole. And the hole will be filled with whatever is out there. So we all need to be having serious conversations about what we think it should be filled with collectively. We need to find out what we are collectively for.
I found myself in a place where I was frustrated with the folks who seemed to not be doing anything, the folks who never spoke up about what was going on. Seeing their radio silence made me wonder, would they be there for me if I needed them? I knew doing something was easy. There are so many ways to stand up. I couldn’t understand why at the smallest level, they wouldn’t even talk about what was happening. There are so many ways to resist that take zero risk. It might be as small as letting your friends know in private conversations that you are not in agreement with what is going on. That is a start. So when people gave me the old “I can’t get involved in politics, because ….blah blah blah” excuse, it made my blood boil. It is was it is and I had to let go of expecting anything different from those folks. I had to be thankful for the new friends I was making who I knew would be in community with me and show up to fight by my side, and I had to think about what I could do, how I might have influence. Judging the radio silent was a waste of energy. I can be grateful for the positive things those people have brought to my life and acknowledge to myself at the same time they may not be the safest people for me to depend on. I wondered if this is how folks felt in Nazi Germany as things started changing or in other parts of our world history.
At the same time, there were so many people I was meeting doing so much good work. I decided I wanted to focus on and document these folks. So…. I started a second art project that I’m calling “We The People, Tiny Stories of Resistance”. I am painting small portraits and telling the stories of the ordinary people I am meeting along the way doing tiny acts of resistance. My hope is to paint 100 portraits that I will be showing in shows in very public places for the next year. I want folks to see it and realize they are not alone. I want them to realize there are a multitude of ways to get involved in resistance. Parents can partner with other parents, sharing child care duties freeing each other up to participate in the protests and local Indivisible Group actions. Folks can petition Lawmakers. They can donate to the ACLU or other organizations doing good work. They can make art. They can simply speak up and say what is happening is wrong. My second hope is that by having my art shown in major arts organizations and businesses around town I will be putting pressure on those pillars to have the guts to show my art even when they get push back from their patrons, who may see no problem with what is happening. My hope is my art will connect people, not just with the community but also in honoring our ancestors by doing something, learning from what worked in the past and using those tools. Its not about us individually but rather the story we all weave, those here now and those who came before.
Of course tiny living taught me to live a life of balance and keep joy in it too. It taught me the importance of balance. For me a good fiction book is a real treat. I’m adding a book recommendation…. “Grandmother Begins The Story”, a captivating debut by Michelle Porter. She uses her Metis culture’s storytelling traditions in an incredibly imaginative way, to tell the stories past and present of five generations of family, with focus on poetry and music. Ms Porter’s book speaks to the connections we have past, present and future, and how it is never about the individual.
If you know folks you think I should include in my exhibit, please reach out. I need at least a half an hour with them, as well as some good photos to work from. Here is how it works….
“We The People” exhibit! tiny acts of Resistance from Ordinary People.
If you choose to give a donation to help me capture my goal of 100 portraits for my exhibit, a donation of $100 or more will allow me to paint another person who inspires me in their activism. At that amount, your portrait will be yours at the end of my year of shows. (a painting that normally would cost you $600, as I currently get $2.50 a square in for my work.)
If you don’t want your portrait but want to donate, every dollar helps make this happen and is greatly appreciated!
Any extra money at the end of the show will go to help the legal costs of immigrant families, and local work done on behalf of local indivisible groups, and a local mutual aid group- Equitable Giving Circle.
food to Equitable Giving Circle
If you know of an ordinary person doing good work to resist, I’m especially looking for a diversity of action to inspire those looking at my show who may feel hopeless or not know how they can participate.
I currently have three shows set up, one in downtown Portland, one in the Central East Side and one back in Troutdale at very public spaces as a way to push back on the business pillars and arts pillars in our community to take a stand for democracy. I also have a few of my ussual coffee shops and tea houses I’d like to show at. If you have ideas of other places I should reach out and book my show locally, let me know.
Feel free to comment how you are resisting to give others ideas. There is no right or wrong way, and no action is too small. And I highly recommend taking selfish time to refill, rejuvinate, tune out the doomsday scrolling, find joy and read a good book inbetween your actions. If you have any fun fiction book recommendations or more serious readng for the cause, feel free to comment on that too.
Love you all for your continued follow and support!
Tiny Adventures of Elisa MG 