Can grown-ups have summer too?

Blue Hill, ME. A violist from Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival paints the view between rehearsals.

I bet you there’s a German word that describes the feeling of summer slipping by way too fast. It’s a feeling of unease that sneaks up on you as you chomp into a hot dog in July, takes on a tinge of panic in August as the car commercials multiply on tv, and explodes into full-blown grief in the fireworks of Labor Day. 

As a kid, the end of summer was the worst because it meant the beginning of school. I love learning but have never really cared for school. To add insult to injury, I usually procrastinated on summer homework (a horrible invention) until the last minute, which meant that I spent my waning freedom angrily resenting the otherwise-wonderful books that had been assigned. In those last days, I felt the shadow of the oppression to come and became resigned to my fate, the last phase of this German-word-feeling of a summer gone too soon.

By contrast, the summers were ultimate freedom. My favorite summers were those before teenhood, before summer school and awkward parties and the pressures of needing to make something of yourself. Back then, there was nothing on the agenda, except to be home by dinnertime so your mom didn’t call the cops (which happened exactly once). My brother and I usually went out to play with the neighborhood kids, roving the ambit of our suburban subdivision. We roved into neighbor’s houses to play with toys and video games, into yards and driveways to play basketball and kick-the-can, and into the creeks and bushes to climb trees and catch bugs and generally muck around. With permission, we roved down the road to the local rec center, toting towels for an afternoon of Marco Polo in the pool before traipsing back, wet flipflops slapping our raisined feet. 

Being home was fun, but even more memorable was going on summer trips. My dad being a professor, we had all summer to go places, so we did, as a family or with relatives and friends. Unless the destination involved an ocean, we drove, spoking out from Ohio via interstate into all corners of the United States - Florida, Maine, California. Our lodging being equally budget-wise, we camped. We’d drive until dark, pull into a campground, light up the propane lamp, and assemble our tent in the half-dark with tired but practiced coordination. If we were hungry, we’d boil some water on a butane stove and have some ramen - an electrifying salt bomb after a dull day in the car. Whenever we hit a city where we had friends, we’d stay in the lap of luxury, that is, a nice warm house with beds and proper bathrooms and sumptuous Chinese food. The contrast was ridiculous, but that’s how we rolled. 

Somewhere in New Hampshire with our trusty blue tent.

Whereas school made me feel like I’d been in a sleepy fog all day (though I swear I only slept through a fraction of my classes), summers were all about sensory experiences: the sweet juice of watermelon on my face as I spit seeds into the grass, the humid warm air that cushioned me to sleep every night, the flicker of lightning bugs in the dark, and the flashes of fish in the streams where we tried to hook them. Summer was when I finally noticed the world around me, and the earth I stood on. Only then, beneath lightless skies, did I contemplate that there was more, even, than Earth. The stars in a remote campground sky are startlingly bright, clear, and close, as if outer space is just a fabric wrapped around our planet. One day, I remember looking up and seeing a dusty grey-white amongst the stars. What a weird long cloud, I thought. Someone saw me looking up and noted how clear the Milky Way was tonight, and my head exploded - I could see the GALAXY WE’RE IN? I felt the enormity of time and space, and the insignificance of man, in that moment, while standing on a gravel road outside the campground bathroom, holding my toiletries bag. Perhaps there’s a German word for that feeling too.  

At some point, though, as school and work barged in, I stopped having a summer. I got a job after college at a consulting firm, a good job with good benefits, which came with a few weeks of vacation a year. A few weeks? I understood. As an adult, there is no longer any time to look at galaxies. 

I thought of all of this recently as I sat on my porch at dusk, trying to absorb the last rays of a sun that hit the hay sooner and sooner every night. I was on my laptop, working, trying to catch up after work hours so that I could keep up during work hours. My timer was the steady white-yellow glow of Venus; when it sank below the horizon, it was time to stop and go inside. As I raced against the spinning of the planets, I suddenly felt it again, that familiar sorrow. What was it? And why? I thought about it, now with the analytical and slightly hardened heart of an adult, and determined that what I missed most about summer, about a childhood summer, was two things: 1) the infinite possibility of unscheduled time, and 2) being outside. At that moment, I was hard-pressed to decide which I missed more. 

Can adults have a summer? We probably can’t have endless days of unscheduled time, nor our fill of all of the natural wonders of the world (if you’re living that life, drop me a line with some tips - thanks). But maybe it’s worth making more time for those kinds of moments. What I realized watching Venus in its downward arc was that I was most alive in those moments - when I was exploring without deadline; when I was gazing into a hot spring at Yellowstone and wondering how bacteria could create a Crayola-bright rainbow; when I saw meteors for the first time and was startled by their sudden brashness; when I found an author I liked at the library (never one that was assigned) and methodically read every one of his books on the shelf. Those are the moments that shine brightest in my memory, the moments that will make up the aggregate of my existence. In short, summer is when I best understand what it means to be alive, and to live a good life. 

I’ve found that it’s possible as an adult to have those moments, even if rare. One example comes to mind. It was during a summer I spent, in my 30s as a newly minted lawyer-turned pianist, at a music festival in rural Connecticut. I had been determined to spend my summer studying chamber music, and I got my wish. The days were busy, but gloriously so, filled with rehearsals and practicing and concerts, morning to night. The best part was that, as a pianist, I got my very own practice studio. It was one wing of a barn-like building set at the end of a very long driveway. My room had tall, white-washed wood walls, a Steinway and bench, and very little else. Since mine was the only piano studio there, and since pianists are the most maniacal instrumentalists about practicing, I was in the building by myself most nights. And being far from anyone else or anything else, I could practice as long as I wanted.

This space was mine, all mine!! (except for rehearsals with my groups).

It was in those nights that I found summer - hours to play through whatever music I wanted in the peace of a wooded countryside, with nighttime bugs piping up to fill the silence. When the night shone noticeably black outside my window, I’d break my reverie, pack up my bag, and walk through the trees back to my homestay to sleep and do it all over again the next day. I still remember the feeling of those nights - the joy of deep exploration, the freedom of open-ended time, the harmony of being alone in nature with just a white room and a piano. It felt, for those short hours, as if I had staved off the inevitable decay of summer, and in doing so, had found, instead, the essence of my life.  

Not quite totally outside, but closer than the usual practice spaces.

The year we learned to say I love you

Here’s a joke. How do you say “I love you” in Chinese?

Answer: 你吃了沒? (have you eaten?)

I know it’s not only Chinese mothers who fuss over their offspring by cooking multi-course meals (thanks, mom!), commenting on their caloric intake (Too much! Too little!) or interrogating them about their ability to feed themselves (even when said offspring has their own offspring ...). I also know that it’s not just Chinese kids who know the tender underbelly to the joke: we may never hear love expressed out loud. Nevertheless, we feel their love with every sip of tummy-warming soup; we taste their dedication to us in the labor, thought, and time that goes into every meal.

For me, one side effect of this upbringing is a physical discomfort when people do effuse their affections. I remember my very first concert as a member of the college orchestra. My dorm mates had all bought tickets and come to see me, already a mind-blowingly generous gesture, and afterwards, they presented me a card in which each of them had written a note about how amazing the performance was and how proud they were of me. I was genuinely embarrassed and not a little bit confused by the gesture. After all, I was just one of dozens of violins on stage. A SECOND VIOLINIST.

This skepticism only grew as I got older until it became in my mind a trait associated with youth. Foolish youth, to be exact. For instance, when I was an old fogey in the masters’ program at Juilliard, my colleagues were musicians in their mid-twenties. Babies, really. One of these foolish youth was Greg, a violinist. He was even more unnerving than most. “I love you!” he’d yell at regular partings, like in the practice room hallway on occasions when others might say, “Time for lunch,” or just, “Gotta go.” He’d text, “I love you!” after a discussion of rehearsal times. He became known for these heart-on-sleeve, spastic outbursts. Oh goofy Greg, we’d say.

I was quick to dismiss anyone ready to yell “I love you” as a goof at best, lunatic at worst. However, as I got to know him, I realized that under the goofiness was keen intelligence and drive. He could be extremely precise in his words when he wanted to. For instance, in our rehearsals, we’d have long discussions about violin technique, down to the muscles in the shoulder one needs to relax to get a better sound. He’d draw out stories about my time at the law firm like a skilled litigator. Most of all, he was specific in his affirmations. We worked together on his graduation recital, and when he would hear our repertoire in outside performances, he would text me exactly what he thought I had done better. Despite how weirded out I was by such positivity, I screenshotted those texts to save, because especially at a place like Juilliard, one craves any sign of one’s value as a musician. During my years there, I squirreled away positive comments or compliments, stashing them away in a mental treasure box to gaze upon whenever I felt low.

It wasn’t until we lost Greg last year that I realized his affirmations weren’t about my remarkableness, but about his. I wasn’t the only one upon whom he showered affirmations, about my talents, about my accomplishments, about my self worth. He did this for everyone. And Greg knew literally everyone. After his passing, a flood of devastated friends poured out their gratitude, both on his Facebook page and at his memorial service (held on Zoom), for the ways he lifted them up. I could say more about who Greg was, his signature combination of cluelessness and insight, self-deprecation and ambition, hope and despair, but what lasts for me was his love and how freely he gave of that to all lucky enough to know him.

I think about him as we finally put that awful year of 2020 behind us not only because he is one of so many irreplaceable lives we lost. I think of him because a life in the arts, always difficult, seems to have gotten even harder, something we talked about often. I think of him because losing a loved one to a battle with mental health is as devastating as losing one to physical disease. I think of him because it’s been a relentlessly crushing year, and we all need every last drop of encouragement we can get, like the kind of unencumbered encouragement Greg gave.

Perhaps his loss is even greater because the pandemic has cut off many of the ways we hold each other up. Consider the five love languages, a framework of different ways people communicate and receive love. Many of these languages have been silenced by COVID-19. Physical touch? Not from 6 feet apart. Quality time together? Zoom hangouts just don’t cut it. Acts of service? Difficult when we’re so disconnected from each other’s lives. At least we can still order gifts on Amazon?

Of course, the five love languages are just one attempt to describe the enigmatic concept of love, and they aren’t meant to diminish the care poured into a mother’s home-cooked meal, or for that matter, into a musician’s performance. After his passing, Greg’s friends across the world combined their instrumental talents into a video of Elgar’s “Nimrod” variation as a tribute for his birthday. Which “language” is that? Isn’t music a language of its own?

I guess what I’ve learned then, is that how we express our love to others is less important than the urgency with which we do so. My last texts with Greg were about music, about job prospects, about putting yourself out there personally and professionally, and about self-doubt and emotional setbacks. I wish they had been more about appreciation, affirmation, and unconditional support. 2020 taught me that the best time to say I love you was yesterday, but that the next best time is today. Tomorrow, we are entitled to nothing except our treasure boxes of memories.

Until the pandemic ends, not with a bang but with a whimper, it seems the best we can do is to say, as often as we can: I love you, I value you, I miss you, I will hug you when we see each other again. I’m doing my best to do so, and I think of Greg every time I do.

Rest well, friend. Hugs when I see you again.

To all the teachers

with our art teacher.

I think about quitting Mark Zuckerberg’s little social network every time the negatives get overwhelming -- the constant feed of tragic news, the despairing reactions to said news, the insensitive responses to said reactions. 

And yet, I haven’t, because once in a while there comes a positive that reminds me why social networks can be really great. One such positive is reconnecting to people from my past: activity buddies from college, classmates from high school, musicians from long-ago festivals or competitions. Often, we connect even better now, unhindered by the silly insecurities and superficial norms of youth. 

Few rediscovered connections, though, go back as far as the one I just found: my 1st grade art teacher, Mrs. Siegler! 

A funny thing about discovering people from your past is that you also discover yourself from the past. I forgot that I used to be a doodler. I doodled ponies in grade school, landscapes in the middle school artistically-talented program, and mandalas on my book covers in high school.

I doodled even though I knew I wasn’t great at it. My obsessive fussing only resulted in mundane drawings while my younger brother effortlessly threw off art that sparked with life: collage puppets that winked at you, clay pots shaped as wizened human hands, four-foot-tall papier-mâché figurines he set up in the driveway to shoot hoops against. Today, he does insta-sketches for his daughter, like this joyful little guy he dashed off at Christmas.

With permission from the artist.

As a first-grader though, ability doesn’t matter. I loved art class. I loved Mrs. Siegler’s art class. I often claim I learned nothing in public school, but I sure learned plenty of crafts: clay pinch pots and coil pots, wax batik textiles, yarn weavings on cardboard looms, watercolor techniques.

I loved the class so much I came back in junior high to volunteer with a student group called Student Action for Education, which entailed showing up to an elementary school class every week and trying to make yourself helpful. Not sure I was any help, but I did get a kick out of being back in that classroom. All kids need a happy space, and that was mine. 

Over the years, that doodler identity disappeared. Let’s just say doodling doesn’t come up much in corporate law or piano performance (unless you’re on a very long, boring, conference call). But this recent reunion prompted me to wonder: in an era preoccupied with cuts, curriculum, and costs, what is the worth of an early exploration of the arts? What was its worth to me?

Well, early exposure to the arts can have long-term effects, as I know from personal experience. I talk often about how my musical journey began with free piano and violin lessons in an urban magnet school for the arts. I am living proof that early exposure plus innate interest can be an explosive combination.

People also like to talk about how the arts build productive virtues: patience with a long process, discipline to prep and clean up, focus to visualize a result and go for it, resilience to adjust along the way, and (best of all) joy at completing a task and knowing that you made that.

The most important benefit, though, and the one that I remember the best, was the license to explore, free from the standards, tests, and pressures that would dominate school and life so soon after. How often do we get to do that anymore? I learned in that art class that exploring made time fly, maybe even reached that elusive state of total immersion that psychiatrists and pianists call “flow.” If I close my eyes, I can still see the sinks where we reluctantly rinsed our brushes at the end of every class, keenly aware that our time there was too short. Time melted away as we played, even if that included launching clay at the ceiling and squealing with delight when it stuck. Didn’t I become a science major because I loved playing with chemicals in lab? Exploration is the gateway to lifelong interest, or at least to another temporal dimension, removed from worries and cares.

These memories are particularly poignant right now because of all of the kids who can’t gather in art class, who can’t huddle around each other’s paintings of rabbits and ducks, who can’t sink their hands into a block of clay and lose themselves in the tactile delight of endless mashing. I feel for them, and I hope that along with all of the worksheets assigned through the internet that they are also given some ways to explore and create. 

These recollections also strike me differently now that I am on the other side. As an educator, I know how hard teachers are working in the shadow of COVID-19 to give their students as much as they can from a distance, to keep them learning, to monitor how they’re doing without the all-important cues of eye contact and body language, to maintain a semblance of normalcy when their own lives may have been upended. Many of you know all too well how this pandemic has added extra demands to workloads that already seemed maxed out.

To all of those teachers: I see you, and you matter, even and especially if you teach in that spiritual realm we call the arts, because you are able to give your students temporary reprieve from the realities of daily life. Your impact may not be seen today or even this year. Your extra efforts in this difficult time may pay dividends you may never see. But they will emerge across the span of lifetimes. It is entirely possible that, decades later, your students might be stressed, overwhelmed professionals who suddenly remember a sun-filled classroom, tables splashed with brush water, spools of yarn lined up like colorful cornstalks for the picking, the bright chatter of kids discovering their creative potential. They will remember these things and, in a time of trial and tribulation, be soothed. 

Thank you. Thank you for all you do.

Music in the time of Coronavirus

These are trying times. My heart goes out to all of the medical professionals on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as anyone affected by the disease. But the truth is that everyone is being asked to make sacrifices.

Musicians are no exception. Performances are cancelled, pay suspended, venues gone dark. Arts organizations are fighting for survival, and individual artists face the prospect of bankruptcy. At the same time, music is irrepressible — stories abound of people across the world under lockdown singing and playing to each other across deserted alleys.

In this time, I’m grateful for what I have — my loved ones, a versatile career, health insurance. More than that, I’m grateful to have a personal practice in music, which to me is a life-affirming and humanity-affirming pursuit. I’ve written about the importance of having a practice here on this blog before, but it seems even more important in times of crisis.

Such was my message in the latest post for my weekly column on the Tonebase Piano Blog. If you haven’t seen it yet, Tonebase is creating an online repository of video lessons and interviews from today’s most distinguished pianists, and I’ve been happy to add my thoughts to the mix.

Click here to read this week’s post, “Piano in the Time of COVID-19.”

Until we know this is behind us, wishing you all calm, peace, and health.

What I learned from the Iowa Caucuses

On February 3, Wayne and I took part in our first Iowa caucus. We had a unique, energizing, and exciting night, and then we went home.

It might have also been our last. By the time we got home and turned on CNN, it was clear that all hell had broken loose. In the following days, Iowa, typically basking in its once-every-four-years media darling status, became the target of the most condemning, snarky, disdainful commentary I’ve ever heard directed towards an entire state. Makes you question whether all publicity really is good publicity. 

That night, politicos waited … and waited … and waited for the results, nay, for a mere clue as to what had happened that night. 

I knew. I was there. And I’d like to share what I learned. Not because it matters to the outcome of that contest (if we ever get one), but because it seems relevant to the bigger vote coming down the pike.

First things first: if you’re interested in how the process all went down in our precinct (voting district), read on. If you’d rather cut to the analysis, click here. 

After first alignment.

THE CAUCUS PROCESS

My experience was colored by the fact that I served as a Precinct Captain for Mayor Pete’s campaign, and when I say “served,” I mean “had a clue what was supposed to happen.” As captain, I sat through caucus trainings. I phoned into weekly conferences where Pete and special guests like Michael J. Fox gave pep talks. I met with my precinct team to discuss strategy. I did worksheets on caucus math (not that hard, people. Andrew Yang is on to something. If we can’t do this math, America is really in trouble). 

So, we were ready. And what happened for the average caucus-goer at our precinct was the following sequence of events. By the way, I can reconstruct this rough timeline because all Pete captains were asked to report results in real-time via text. For those of you who wonder why Pete claimed victory that night …. Well. It’s because he had people in every precinct reporting everything as it happened. We sent numbers, photos of any reporting sheets, names of the eventual delegates, etc. Our local organizer had all of her captains on a mega-text-thread, so I also knew how neighboring precinct counts were going. I’m not sure if every campaign collected as much unofficial data; I know Yang had an app for his captains. It was certainly a good idea. 

Before 7PM: you arrive at your precinct caucus site. For us it was a school cafeteria. Thank goodness there were chairs (though not enough). I’ve been to too many campaign events where they expect everyone to stand for hours. You wait in line to check your name off of a voter registration list. If not registered, you do so on the spot.

7PM: everyone who’s in line at the moment can finish registering, but we get started. Democratic party volunteers who serve as Precinct Chairs and Secretaries do routine party business, like see if any elected officials want to address us. 

We do a count of everyone in the room. This turns out to be harder than it sounds with about 200 people, even if they are adults instead of squirmy kids. We counted twice. 

7:45PM. The chair announces our count and the number of delegates our precinct gets: 5. Because this is a normal-ish size precinct, our viability threshold is 15%. Every candidate must get 15% of the group to remain viable. 

Us precinct captains are given one-minute for a stump speech. I thought the “one-minute” was a rough estimate, but I was cut off before I had gotten through half of the micro-speech I’d planned. A one-minute speech about who should be President is tough!!

We do our “first alignment.” Which means all of us gather into corners based on our preferences. Team Pete had arrived hours early and festooned a corner of the cafeteria with our signs. We gather a good crowd but the frontrunners all seem to have equal-sized groups. I don’t see a Steyer or a Yang sign. A few undecideds sit nervously in the middle of the room. At least, they looked nervous. 

8:00PM. We count the groups twice, precinct captains first, and then the officials to verify. We are viable, thank goodness. Warren isn’t. Nor is she in the precinct meeting in the gym next door. She’s close, though. Steyer and Yang have maybe 1-3 people each. I wonder what will become of the delicious cookies the Warren organizers have brought. There are so many left. 

New this year: preference cards. If your group is viable, you fill out a card with your candidate’s name and you’re all set. This is the added paper trail that would serve to be so important. I make sure everyone in Team Pete fills theirs out because that serves as another check of our numbers.

8:20PM. Now. We do a ten-minute “realignment,” which means the Warren, Steyer, and Yang folks have to find a new group or go home without being counted. Most realign. We gain a few. Members of Team Pete approach the undecideds and ask them what their questions or hot-button issues are. Some have lots of great questions; others look like they will wilt from the pressure and just want to disappear.

8:40PM. We recount the second alignment groups. Pete, Bernie, Biden, and Amy are all viable. Pete has the biggest count and gets 2 delegates. Everyone else gets 1. Newcomers to our group fill out their preference cards and we collect them all. We have a result! 

It’s almost 9PM before we get to this point … and we’re not even a big precinct. People mostly leave quickly, with the rest of us electing delegates, checking the chair’s math, signing off on results, and cleaning up. After we left is when the chair had to do the doomed reporting, so I can’t say I had any visibility on that.  

I don’t know how CNN thought they were going to get results anywhere near 10PM Eastern Time. By the time we get home a half hour later, the complaining about non-results is already in full-swing. We leave CNN on even though I’m pretty tired from the day. There’s something exhilarating about knowing way more than everyone on TV. 

WHAT I LEARNED

Maybe my elementary school teachers did a good job talking up the U.S. of A, or maybe I’ve been to enough countries where voting is not a given, but every time I participate in the democratic process, I feel a little surge of hope. This was the same feeling, just amplified. 

For all of the caucus’s many faults, experiencing democracy in this manner really highlighted a few realizations that I’ve never gotten from just depositing my ballot into a box. 

Face-to-face meetings matter

There is more information on all of us than ever before floating around the internet, but what this experience has proven to me is that you really don’t know a person until you look them in the eye. We Iowans were so lucky to have every major candidate in our state multiple times. I got to see everyone except Bernie, to see how they presented themselves, how they responded to questions, how they interacted with staff, how they made each person in their town hall feel. And I have to say it added a dimension into their character beyond how they presented on tv. 

The same was true for those of us in the caucus. Do we really know our neighbors anymore? I see their comments in our Facebook neighborhood groups; I wave as they pull into their driveways. But do I ever gather with them to talk about our greatest fears and hopes for the country? The caucus was our chance to do just that. There is something about spending time together in a common pursuit that helps build a sense of community. In a world where many individual and societal ills are fed by a feeling of isolation, feeling more connected to the people who live where you live can never hurt. 

Issues matter

Talking to the undecideds was definitely the most interesting part of the caucus. We only had a handful of them. Of the ones I talked to, they seemed to want more information on particular issue. For one woman, it was whether Pete would ban assualt-style weapons (she joined us). For another, it was how Pete would introduce universal healthcare (she thought Warren and Bernie’s proposals too disruptive). For yet another, it was how Pete would deal with the costs of higher education, including student loans (it seemed important that any aid be targeted to those with lower incomes). 

I was surprised. I had heard that caucusing was a popularity contest, as in, the Bernie folks look the most fun, so I’ll join them! What I found instead were people deeply concerned about a certain aspect of our country’s wellbeing and wanting to find a position that spoke to them. Issues mattered, and nuanced, detailed answers, rather than soundbites, were expected. 

Another thing that made the difference, despite the protests of my friends on the urban coasts (I can hear them groan already), is who could best defeat Donald Trump. This seemed to boil down to a very practical goal of predicting who the rest of the country could get behind. I wondered if that’s why Warren didn’t move on, and why many people seemed to come over to Amy and Pete in the realignment rather than Bernie. Smear “electability” all you want. People in my precinct were worried about finding a candidate that most Americans could see themselves supporting. 

Getting involved matters

There’s been a lot of talk about voter turnout, and certainly conversations about barriers to participation will intensify as we hurtle towards November. These days, when millions of Americans can vote for the next American Idol via text while plopped on the couch, the caucus was no small ask: convene during the prime evening hours, come after a long day at work, find street parking, sit (or even stand) around for hours, and be mostly quiet and attentive. Even for an able-bodied adult, it’s an investment of time and energy, but there were people who brought their young kids, equipped with games, books, and snacks. There were old people who hobbled in with great effort. There were carpools organized by volunteers to ferry people without transportation back and forth. And still I know of many who couldn’t make it. This is clearly not the easiest way to vote. 

For that reason, I was grateful that I went because I could. I was even more touched by the people who had gone to much more effort. Showing up shouldn’t be taken for granted. And we need to continue working to diminish the barriers that suppress participation.

Getting involved also matters because you get to know the people in your community who take personal responsibility for the democratic process. For me, meeting fellow volunteers and seeing their ethic of service is definitely one of the most rewarding parts of being part of a campaign or election. For example, one woman on my Pete team works in the penal system, teaching classes to men and women convicted of domestic abuse to help them break the patterns that landed them in jail. Another was a public schoolteacher her entire life and now in her retirement volunteers for elections at all levels of government. Our precinct chairs and secretaries running the caucuses were volunteers from the Democratic party (one wonders how late they were up that Monday night).

I’ve lived in a number of states, and I’ve never witnessed the scale of this kind of effort before. In Iowa, democracy is serious business. There have been thousands of volunteers across the state giving up their free time for months, helping turn one little cog in the machinery of freedom. I’ll admit, there were nights where training was the last thing I wanted to do, but then I’d show up and there would be a single mother there, or someone who had to get up at 3AM the next morning for work.  Seeing their commitment to action was inspiring.

How we treat each other matters

The key question on every volunteer’s mind going into the caucus is, how do you convince someone to see things your way? In the current atmosphere where we are more apt to sling nasty articles and biased graphics at each other online, it’s an open question. 

I believed this before the caucus, but I believe it even more strongly now: the only way to convince someone of something (other than what he/she secretly already believes) is by your example, not your words. Basically, are you a person they know and respect? Then they will listen. Otherwise, your talk will at best do nothing and at worst alienate them.

I want to illustrate this to you using Mayor Pete’s campaign, not only because I know that campaign best, but because I really do believe in him as a candidate. As a Pete volunteer, one of the first things you are told about is the Rules of the Road, the values that everyone representing the campaign should embody at all times. These were posted everywhere in the field office and referred to in every meeting. Here they are: 

I believe these values are a huge part of Pete’s success to date. I say this because it’s true for me. I hear these values, particularly “belonging” and “respect,” whenever I hear him talk, and more than any policy proposal, I believe that these values are what we desperately need to get our leadership back on track. I particularly like  “joy.” I want to get back to a place of joy in our country, rather than a stew of nastiness and negativity. It’s been so many years of negativity. There are of course lots of reasons why I think Pete is the best choice (which I’d be happy to talk to anyone about), but for now I’m just focusing on the core values of the campaign.

The Rules of the Road are not just lip service; we were instructed in how to manifest them in every interaction. Some of the most actionable tips:

• Never talk down another candidate.

• On any issue, validate the concern, find common ground, offer why you think Pete addresses the issue, and invite the other person to engage.  

I’ll admit, I tripped up a few times on Facebook by airing my grievances with other candidates and I’ll tell you, it never, ever went well. As Pete gained ground and the Iowa contest became more intense, I respected how his organizers stayed upbeat, positive, and message-focused in what became a nastier game. We even received reports that other campaigns were planning to sow chaos and discord at the caucus as part of their strategy, but we were instructed to stay disciplined.

This is all good and touchy-feely you may say. But does it work, or just make us weaker? I’ll tell you what I saw from the caucus. I had made a decision that our team vibe was going to be welcoming, warm, joyful, substantive, organized, and never condescending. In my stump speech that night, I decided to emphasize the need for an America where all, regardless of skin color, economic status, or other background, feel they belong. And looking out into the crowd, I felt people listening. I think that openness, rather than admonition, made undecideds willing to talk to us at the same time they were unwilling to talk to other campaigns. I think it made our group a lively one with smiles that perhaps drew some people in. And I know it made an impact on the people who thanked me at the end of the night. 

Can I prove any of this? No. But the Rules of the Road made a difference for me. They gave me the confidence to engage with people in a way that I can believe in, that I can aspire to. All of my interactions at the caucus were positive because I was sure of my approach. Ultimately, I think the Rules of the Road should guide all of our political conversations. It sure beats the alternative. 

After the caucus, I am more convinced than ever that to be an influence, you have to be an example. It’s a high bar not only for our candidates (all of whom deserve respect for their public service), but for ourselves. Taking personal responsibility and respecting others is way harder than just posting snarky pseudo-news about candidates on social media. But I think it’s the only way we’ll get back to the America that I love. For me, America’s greatness is not about our GDP, our global corporations, our military might, our cultural exports. Yes we are fighters, but we also act for peace. Yes, we are individuals, but our demographics are diverse. Yes, we value hard work, but we also want to live joyfully. And deep in our hearts, I think Americans are optimists daring greatly to hope. At least, I think we still are all of these things -- I glimpsed some of it that cold Iowan night.