The Escalade Honks for Occupy Boston

Friend, writer, and adventurer Anne Bowman was in town for the weekend. She went with us on our first foray to Occupy Boston in Dewey Square. We wanted to feel the vibe of this nascent movement for ourselves. Is it just children playing in the sunshine? Anarchists and discontents merely littering the lawn? Or are they doing, as the Rev. Dr. Robert Allen Hill (chaplain of Boston University) suggested is critical for our survival, “the foundational work that this era requires?”

We arrived in the lull between afternoon rallies, the air clear, the sky blue, and the temperature warm enough that we doffed our jackets. We stood for a while across the street in the shadow of the Federal Reserve Building. A young woman held a sign that said, “HONK FOR OCCUPY BOSTON.”

A black Escalade (is there any other color?) with Jersey plates honked. Anne said, “The Escalade? Really?” I stared through the open windows at the driver and passengers. On their faces I saw some amusement but not irony or sarcasm or worse. And yes, they’re the 99% also, perhaps further up the food chain, but not at the top.

After a few minutes we crossed the street and took a stroll down Main Street in the tent town of Occupy Boston and then stood on the sidewalk facing the Fed Building during the rally. We had cameras but didn’t use them; we wanted to be aware but not worried about curating the moment. News reports focus on yang qualities of protest–size of rallies, confrontations, flashpoints, demands, he said, she countered.

Here’s what I observed about some yin qualities of Occupy Boston. The women of a certain age who staffed the information table and passed out fliers and gently directed enquirers to people or places that they sought. The young man in a black mask who supported something strapped behind his back while he ran across the street, which in another place may have been an automatic weapon, but which was in fact a water bottle holder. He ran back to the rally with a case of Poland Spring water. His outfit suggested an element of playing at protesting, but his presence and role suggested that foundational work that Dr. Hill identified.

Other evidence of foundational work: the makeshift boardwalk across the muddy parts of Main Street. The Library. The Meditation Tent. The young man strumming a guitar who was showing another a chord progression. The man of a certain age whose two-sided placard (three lines on each side) offered a concise economic analysis and pinpointed doable economic reform. The man with dreads that gathered a small group for an educational session. The Logistics Tent that took in and distributed real goods and kept an updated list of needs. The logistics people who immediately showed up at the curbside when a car pulled over with donated blankets and such. The overheard conversation about planning for winter since most of the tents there wouldn’t stand up to a moderate snow.

That planning conversation impressed me the most, as it reflected the conviction, foresight, and faith in gathering together that can lead to fundamental change. A text I recently read talked about the yin qualities of water and how the relentless flow of the Colorado River created the Grand Canyon. I have faith in the stream of change being channeled by Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Together as observed in the tributary of Occupy Boston. I’m not worried that direct political action has not yet coalesced. “First in the mind, then in the body.” First in individual minds, then in the body politic.

Honk if we are you.