Election Day: John Woolman and the True Meaning of Liberty

At my son's Quaker school, Tuesday mornings begin with Meeting for Worship. The school maintains silence from 8:30 to  9:00—no ringing phones or talk in the hallways, the children gathered in their classrooms in meditative circles.

This morning, Meeting was different, though. My son's second-grade teacher had invited parents to attend. He led the circle as John Woolman, an American Quaker from colonial times who spoke out against slavery.

The second-graders have been learning about Africa and the roots of Abolitionism, and I found this connection with Quaker history revelatory.

It's also Election Day in Massachusetts. The Democratic primary will likely determine who gets Ted Kennedy's Senate seat, even before the actual Special Election in January. Yet pundits say turnout will be low. Whatever you think of the man's foibles, Kennedy's long tenure as a Senator made a difference to working people. So what if it's cold outside? This is New England; it's not too cold to vote.

All right, I'm entering into pundit land myself, which brings me back to John Woolman—although not in the way you might expect. I now know that Woolman wasn't your average political loudmouth.

My son's teacher, Chris Hoeh, had asked parents to wear the simple garb of Quakers at the time, usually black clothing with a bit of homespun white. Some of us did, but it turns out he was wearing an off-white shirt, white pants, even a white hat.

The reason why became part of the lesson.

Chris began the Meeting with a few moments of silence, then spoke as John Woolman might have in 1772, during his last trip to England, where he died that same year. Woolman was born in New Jersey and lived there throughout his life, but he traveled widely, testifying at various Quaker Meetings about his beliefs. (Click here to find out more about Woolman.)

He not only opposed slavery—at a time when some Quakers in the American South still owned slaves—but he spoke out against the injustices suffered by the poor. Chris, speaking as Woolman, told us about his life and why he'd come to feel what he did.

He explained that although many Friends dress in dark garments so as not to glorify themselves, he had decided he could no longer wear any cloth that was dyed. The reason? The dark dye (indigo) was produced on plantations that used slaves. Chris later added in response to questions from the kids that Woolman probably wore no cotton either, only wool.

I had never realized consumer protests went back this far. Perhaps that only reveals my ignorance as a non-Quaker, but it seems few on the American protest scene—from anti-sweatshop activists to Teabaggers—know of Woolman or his quiet testimonies.

William James referred to him as a Quaker "saint." Regardless of my uneasiness with spiritual terms and hagiographies, this wintry morning I felt illuminated by a bit of sunshine.

As a magazine writer, I'm fascinated by another tidbit: Woolman's Journal (published after he died) is sometimes called one of the oldest American serial publications.

Once I'd headed home from the Meeting, I hit the Internet. Here's an excerpt from 1772, after Woolman's arrival in London, courtesy of the Street Corner Society's online version of John Woolman's Journal:

I have felt great distress of mind since I came on this island, on account of the members of our Society being mixed with the world in various sorts of traffic, carried on in impure channels. Great is the trade to Africa for slaves; and for the loading of these ships a great number of people are employed in their factories, among whom are many of our Society. Friends in early times refused on a religious principle to make or trade in superfluities, of which we have many testimonies on record; but for want of faithfulness, some, whose examples were of note in our Society, gave way...

I confess, I'm not a humble truth-seeker. But I feel moved to point out that this is another dangerous time for Americans, one in which it's far too easy to give way.

The freedom to speak out in public—to "quake" with the power of one's beliefs, even if others are opposed—is something Quakers hold dear. Woolman spoke up years before the Declaration of Independence was signed, but these days I wonder if children sometimes have a firmer grip on the truth than adults.

The second-graders asked many questions during the Meeting. They were restless by the end, but they seemed unusually attentive. Other adults were there, including the Head of the School in a black Quaker-style hat; their teacher was acting the part of somebody else, riveting in its way. I wondered how much of this my son, part of the restless contingent, was really taking in.

But one story captivated them all. Chris described a childhood incident in which Woolman saw a mother bird and her babies in a nest. As Woolman told it, all he thought about at that moment was whether he could hit the bird with a rock. So he aimed and threw high into the tree, and down came the mother bird, who then lay dead at his feet.

"What happened to the babies?" one boy asked softly.

Their teacher shook his head. "They probably..."

"They died," the same boy said.

"Because their mother died," my son added, not looking at me.

For my restless child, an adoptee from Vietnam, this was not an idle remark. But it wasn't for any of the others either. In Woolman's story, he climbed the tree to kill the baby birds quickly, knowing they wouldn't survive without their mother, feeling terrible remorse.

No parent wants to make children feel such grief, but I welcomed this moment in a classroom of middle-class kids. This teacher was not scared of presenting the ambiguity. People can be cruel to one another, even Quakers who profess their own inner light, even children who like to throw rocks. And life itself is full of difficult-to-resolve questions.

"I have sometimes felt a necessity to stand up," Woolman wrote a few days before he died of smallpox. He was 51.

[B]ut that spirit which is of the world hath so much prevailed in many, and the pure life of truth hath been so pressed down, that I have gone forward, not as one travelling in a road cast up and well prepared, but as a man walking through a miry place in which are stones here and there safe to step on, but so situated that, one step being taken, time is necessary to see where to step next.

For more information on Quakerism, take a look at Quaker.org and Quakerinfo.com, as well as the link to the Friends General Conference from this post's title.

Post-election update: Martha Coakley won the Democratic primary.  Turnout was very low, as predicted. The Boston Globe's headline for one front-page story: "A lack of interest, time kept many away." [12/9/09] 

I Don't Mind Being Named Martha Anymore

On Embracing the Talking Dog—or Silly Girl—in Me

I'm almost fond of Martha Stewart. She's got chutzpah, rising from the ashes of securities fraud. But anyone who's seen the messy piles in my house would know that I loathe housekeeping and hand-woven flower wreaths. I lack that Martha's spit and polish and need for physical order.

I'm not embracing my inner housekeeper here. Yet a recent mention of a children's book called Martha Doesn't Say Sorry! in a New Yorker article got me thinking about my given name, my long-time ambivalence towards it—and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I'm growing into it.

According to Daniel Zalewski's article, the latest picture-book Martha by Samantha Berger involves a "stubborn" otter. It has a transparent moral message, Zalewski notes, meant to encourage discipline.

But my first reaction was to think, oh, no! Not another wacky animal character named Martha!

There's already Martha the hippo of all those George and Martha books by James Marshall; there's Martha the talking dog of Martha Speaks and other titles by Susan Meddaugh, now a PBS cartoon series.

To be fair, Zalewski's article is about a lot more than potential Martha-bashing; he argues that many "obstreperous" children's books today depict parents as wimps. He also cites a slew of other characters named everything from Olivia to Finn to Lilly. There's no nefarious trend in naming creatures Martha—I think.

But do other people second-guess their name, as I have since childhood? Some do, I know. For those crossing cultural boundaries, often in the most painful way, it's a serious issue. See The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, in which an Indian immigrant's son resists being named Gogol Ganguli. Or talk to any international adoptee, even one as young as my seven-year-old son.

Back in the day, I longed to be Miranda or Antoinette or Angelique. Instead I got stuck with a long-dead grandmother's name, somebody with whom I'd never shared a personal connection.

I hated being a girl named Martha in the 1960s and 1970s. It was right up there with "A Boy Named Sue." In my Bay Area schools, I was the only one among a swath of Kathys and Debbies and Sherrys. There were a few Martas and Maritas, but the Spanish variations seemed to have infinitely more soul than my Anglicized "tha."

Flashback to third grade: It's February. President's Day is approaching, along with my annual dread of what will be shouted at me on the playground: "Martha Washington! Martha Washington? How's George?"

A year later, I'm at Bridget B's pool party, a few months after the Beatles's White Album has been released. I walk into the B family's swanky new house in a new suburban tract of what will eventually become the outer reaches of Silicon Valley—she's got a pool!—and the other girls giggle, as Bridget plays, "Martha My Dear."

I've never heard it before. I'm blushing, and I hate blushing. I suspect Bridget is trying to humiliate me. "It's so cute!" she insists.

I was still a child, but my response then was more complicated than hating "Martha Washington." I was embarrassed by the idea that I could ever be anyone's inspiration. It was even more depressing when I found out later that Paul McCartney wrote the song for his sheepdog.

Flash forward: I'm an adult hanging out with my friends' kids—and later the friends of my son—and these children love to say to me, "George and Martha!" (downcast eyes, sly grins) or "Are you a dog?" (snort, snort). I laugh along, because the kids seem so delighted to meet an actual human being named Martha.

Not so long ago, a friend of mine shakes her head and tells me, "You really don't seem like a Martha, you know?"

I'm guessing that's a compliment. Various baby-name books and websites translate it as "lady" (from the Aramaic "Marta") or mistress of the house. It's a good fit for Martha Stewart but didn't stick to Martha "Calamity Jane" Cannary Burke, frontier hellion of the late 1800s.

By 2008, the name Martha was ranked 617 in popularity, according to the Social Security Administration. At least it made the top 1,000, but Martha has been on a steady decline for a century, with a few spikes around 2000. Emma and Isabella were the most popular girl names in 2008; Madison was fourth, and Olivia came in a hot sixth.

(I feel compelled to point out that, in addition to Martha, many animal characters have old-fashioned women's names like Olivia and Frances—a pig and badger, respectively—as well as Opal and Daphne of the Toot and Puddle universe—also pigs.)

Meanwhile, Namipedia users on the Baby Name Wizard site rated Martha as sounding smart and strong but not young or sexy.

Yet when I think about Martha the hippo or Martha the talking dog—and really take in those wonderful books—I realize that maybe the name fits me better than I used to believe.

Martha the dog can't shut up after she eats a bowl of alphabet soup and gets the gift of human gab. In Martha Speaks, she annoys her family by rambling on as they're watching TV or reading:

"There's a poodle over on Circuit Street I'd really like to play with. He's small, but what a dog! And speaking of small, I'm sure you're all curious about the early days of my life..."

Martha the hippo wears huge print skirts and is George's best friend. She's pictured smoking a cigar and playing a saxophone. In George and Martha Back in Town, she stands on her head on a surfboard. George, the lifeguard, has a tough time reigning her in:

"Very soon George saw that someone was disobeying the rules.
'No horsing around!' he called through his megaphone.
'It's all right!' shouted Martha. 'It's only me!'

By college, I identified with "Martha My Dear." It became an affectionate nickname from some of my closest friends, who would address letters to me as "M.M. Dear." Others still call me Marth or M ("Em").

The most famous of us—Martha Graham, Martha Stewart, the fictional Martha Jones of Doctor Who—make things happen. Martha may even have become cool because of that sexy Doctor Who character, at least in the U.K.

So is it possible that I actually like my old-fashioned, unpopular name?

This is a fate I never could have imagined at fifteen. But it's true. I can save the world with words, especially in the guise of the latest Martha Jones. I'm zany and stubborn and I refuse to apologize. I can't stop talking or writing, and what's wrong with that?

Even Paul McCartney has said Martha was his muse, not just a sheepdog.

When you find yourself in the thick of it
Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you
Silly girl...

Oh California...I'm Not Coming Home

In the 1970s, when I left the Bay Area to go to college, Joni Mitchell's "California" was my anthem. I was a wraith of a girl, a straight-A student. I was never a surfer, but Beach Boys songs reminded me of home, too. Back then, being from California seemed essential.

Here's Joni singing with all that youthful longing:

But my heart cried out for you California
Oh California I'm coming home...

I still love California. But I can no longer come home to it in a romantic swoon, and it's not just because the Golden State has been tarnished by economic and natural disaster. It's because I've lost the sense that any place can "take me as I am." My loss is personal and profound, and in it I recognize the calls for a return to an older dream of America.

I support the Obama administration, but this emotional recognition worries me. On Saturday, September 12, thousands will participate in the "Taxpayer March on DC." I hope White House staffers are paying due respect to the feelings under all the crazy talk. I fear they are not.

It's hair-trigger, the way so many leap from their own grief to political rage. I know my lack of security has everything to do with the fragile health of my parents. I'm outraged at the government, but letting my anger spill over to governors and presidents does me no good. Maybe it feels good for a few seconds, but then it doesn't, not at all.

If you look at websites for groups like the Tea Party Patriots, there's little content about policy. I tried to pull a quote with substance, yet all I found were references to "our Founding Fathers," "free markets," and "limited government." It's all about mobilizing, speaking up, resisting.

It's relentlessly personal. It's feeling-driven, just like a pop song, and what an irony that the language of lefty organizing—all that attitude about "Sunset pigs," in Joni's words—now does service for conservatives. Our supposedly lost country is a long way from 1971 and Laurel Canyon on her album Blue. Yet in that California dream, everyone wanted their own freedom, too. They wanted to sink into a reverie of pleasure.

No bourgeois values. No war. That was just a dream some of us had.

California has always had a libertarian strain. My dad the political-science professor understood this well, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan as governor in 1966. But I didn't get the zeitgeist shift earlier this summer, when my family happened across a "tea party" rally in Times Square. One block was suddenly packed with white skin, and there were exhortations about "not taking it anymore" from revved-up guys on megaphones.

I did feel the shift by the end of August, however, in San Diego. An old friend we visited in La Jolla says that on election night, when she ran out her door to cheer for Barack Obama the minute the polls closed, she heard only one other answering yodel blocks away.

There was far more cheering in the Bay Area and Los Angeles last November, but the aggrieved conservatism is also California. As a teenager, clutching both Blue and David Bowie's Diamond Dogs as identity totems, it was easy to sneer at Southern California. Yet its dreams of beaches and surfers and casual hook-ups most evoked what I called myself then.

We're all culpable in our desire for a metaphorical home. The longing for a golden past is easily manipulated by conservative interests, who use code words like "individual liberties" and "fighting change." But existential angst is what I'm talking about here—a complex brew that can send the strongest of us running to a cause. Progressive politicians reveal their own biases when they don't see how much the current dissent is animated by hurt.

Oh California. You symbolize more than you know.

My home is elsewhere and has been for years. But I visit the Bay Area often because my parents are both ill. My father, in particular, is slipping into the frozen darkness of Parkinson's Disease. On a good afternoon, he and I might spend ten minutes under the lemon tree in his backyard, an occasional hummingbird buzzing in the leaves. I smell my past there: the scent of the dry hills. I smell my dear father, in his baggy sweatshirt, as he talks about letting go, about having lived a good life, about his worries for my mother.

Yes, I'm scared that one season is ending as another begins. But to conflate my loss and fear with the state of the country would be to lose my soul—and these days, my soul is the thing I come home to.

Joni has lost her amazing young voice, too. But some would say she's attained something richer and more hard-won. Even by 1976 and her album Hejira, she was on the endless road again. Ron Rosenbaum's paean to her transcendent song "Amelia," about the "ghost of aviation," explores longing in a far more complicated key:

I was driving across the burning desert
When I spotted six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
It was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

As Rosenbaum notes of the many meanings of false alarm, "when used colloquially, [it] is more often taken to be analogous to—if not synonymous with—'false hope.'"

Joni was never a romantic swooner. In a review in NOW Magazine, Susan Cole complains of a difficult interview with her in 1994. Cole quotes Michelle Mercer, author of the biography Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell's Blue Period, as saying, “Joni Mitchell is not like us. She’s driven to recreate herself as an artist in ways that very few people do. She’s been through so many stages of regeneration.”

Last week in La Jolla, I took a walk to the beach by myself before heading to the airport. At the end of a cul-de-sac, among all these deceptively modest bungalows in a million-dollar neighborhood, I stepped out on a ledge between houses. There was the blue Pacific and the white sand and a watery haze in the air. I expected to feel a last "ah," a sweet snort of Southern Californian fun and sun to take back with me to the east coast.

Instead I was suffused by sadness. My eyes blurred. I watched several surfers up the beach, black crescents in their wet suits. The swells were large but orderly, and when one surfer stood, he or she descended into beautiful white froth, then paddled back out to do it again.

I kept watching them, counting seconds, daring myself to wait until they took another wave—and two did, cutting down the same swell and into the same sparkling froth—not graceful, but fully alive and present.

I thought of myself, getting up and roaring down another wave, of the need to keep getting up and splashing down into the cold froth. I thought of my father, who often needs a push to get started out of his chair just to take a few mincing, wobbly steps forward, who needs my help now to lift his legs onto the bed before descending into sleep.

Oh it gets so lonely
When you're walking
And the streets are full of strangers
All the news of home you read
More about the war
And the bloody changes
Oh will you take me as l am?
Will you take me as l am?
Will you?

Oh California. I will remember you. I watch the surfers and also feel ecstatic. The day I don't find myself yodeling down a wave is the day I die—or so I tell myself, under a misty blue sky, my body still brown and whole and able to lift me up.

Seven-Year-Olds Don't Get Star Trek

Here are two random facts my son Nick knows: Mr. Spock has green blood. The guys in red shirts always die. When the new Star Trek movie came out this spring, and my husband and I saw it, Nick became more curious. I thought--hoped--our seven-year-old was ready to hop aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, at least with the far less violent, 1960s TV series.

I envisioned us watching all the episodes together, me professing about them in mini-ethics lessons: the value of loyalty, respect for differences, a can-do attitude. Nick is an adoptee, born in Vietnam, and I thought Trek's inclusive vision might add an extra spark. I'd reminisce about when I first saw those episodes as re-runs in the '70s. In my ninth-grade geometry class, I had wryly picked them apart with my fellow nerds.

Imagine my anticipation, then, a few weeks ago, when Nick and I watched his first, "The Trouble with Tribbles." In it, a space station and the Enterprise get inundated with furry little creatures. The story is played for laughs, with one goofy fight, but nothing scary for any child (like ours) who loves Jackie Chan.

Nick wasn't scared. He was bored. Within moments of the opening credits, he was squirming beside me on the couch, begging to watch something else.

It suddenly became clear to me that, developmentally, my seven-year-old isn't ready for the complex system of obligations and loyalties that animate Star Trek. He didn't get any of the relationships among the crew. He didn't get the friendship between Spock and Kirk. He didn't get the notion of competing space empires, or why Captain Kirk was so snappily pissed off at a petty bureaucrat.

While what I like may rub off on my son, it does so in ways I can't predict. Nick holds up his fingers in the Vulcan salute, giggling as he says, "Live long and what?" Then I play earnest parent, "casually" mentioning that Mr. Spock is half-human, half-Vulcan. Kind of like an international adoptee, huh? To date, Nick's response has been a shrug.

If he doesn't get the social complexity of Star Trek, it's unlikely he gets the convolutions of adoption, either. I think I've known this all along. But when a boy is an only child who's used to conversing with adults, sometimes even this hyper-intellectual mom forgets he's very young.

We've talked openly about his adoption since he was a baby, trying to normalize words like "orphanage" and "birth parents." Just the other day, he made up the following riddle:

Question: "What do you call a baby elephant?"

Answer: "An El-orphan."

But in assuming all babies are orphans, my son has got a whole world, maybe a whole universe, of coming to terms ahead of him.

By the time Mr. Spock's bicultural dilemma begins to resonate with Nick, he'll have his own ideas about morality and ethics. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's plaid-pants version may appeal to him; or maybe he'll like Star Trek: The Next Generation's New Age spin, with the android Data who just wants to be human.

Nick was drawing cartoon ninja figures when "The Trouble with Tribbles" finally ended. He still sat with me on the couch, though. He kept close, and I finished the last of my wine and stared at the infinite sky outside our living-room window.

I felt sad; I felt cleansed of delusion for a few seconds. I saw all the questions Nick will be asking about himself as he gets older, and the many versions of him materializing out of dust and light and our imaginations.

He's already boldly going elsewhere.