Today is my friend Penny’s birthday. She and I met in the first days of college, a lifetime (or two) ago, and she’s always been a friend who makes me feel cooler than I am. One of the things I love about her is that she has a clear compass on people; the fact that I make the cut, and that I have for decades, has become a measure of my own. I must be doing all right.
In those early days, over card games in the hall of our dorm, we discovered a shared interest in activism. In the next few years, we made that a part of our friendship, priding ourselves on the adept way we could pass slower movers during the AIDS Walk; taking the subway together to volunteer at feminist organizations. She helped me put into action some of the things I wanted to do, and the lasting impact of that has been to see myself – in part – as someone who has a voice and can use it.
This morning, I’m temporarily putting off something else to write this post, and that’s something I think Penny would appreciate too – she’s got a respectful relationship with procrastination. But the something I’m putting off is exactly in this arena: though it’s always a bit uncomfortable for me to make calls to strangers, I’ve signed up to volunteer for Kamala Harris’s campaign today. It’s not the first time I’ve made calls and I’ve raised my hand to do so at least once a week until the election. It’s just one of those introverted corners of myself that sometimes makes it hard to step out of my comfort zone.
I believe so much in the Vice President’s campaign, though, and am so horrified by the alternative, that it’s one of the times in life where deferring to someone else’s action is simply not good enough. And it’s Penny’s birthday. So I’m thinking back to the times when we would journey together to a somewhat-deserted office after the actual employees had gone home in order to call people and talk about womens’ rights. That was out of my comfort zone too, but Penny – in the way that wonderful, soul-friends can do – made me braver than I was.
We live a continent apart from one another, we gaze now at different oceans, but again and always, I am so grateful for this incredible woman in my life. And though I could procrastinate all day, here’s where I stop doing so in order to honor her in the best way I know how: by picking up the phone and trying to change the world.
The Wandering Introvert 