Tanksgiving

An old white man comes by the office this morning before I could shut the door. I am trying to leave town for a few days. He wants to thank me for the work that I am doing.

I want to be polite. I want to be grateful. I want to nicely acknowledge his thanks, say you’re welcome.

But I’m an angry womon. I don’t want his thanks. I don’t want anyone’s thanks. I want your body. Period. Next to mine, on the front lines, behind the lines, over the lines – I don’t care where you are standing, I just want you to STAND with me – not thank me for the stand I am making.

I wonder about the original people on this land this day of tanksgiving – I can’t imagine them wanting ‘thanks’ from the white people landing on their shores, struggling to ‘make it’ in this land that they couldn’t fathom how to survive in.

These first people, who came along side white people, handing them seeds, holding a rake, opening their hearts, pointing out vale and vegetation. ‘Thank you’ was probably not even in their vocabulary – but stand by me, share the land, share the water, share the air. Live together side-by-side. Recognize we are all human beings, you are stepping onto my home, my land, my piece of heaven. Except nothing was ‘mine’ but just was.

Instead, we gave tanks and tanks and tanks.

I don’t want to be thanked. I want to be joined. I want that old man to lay down his schedule for the next few months, to erase clean his appointments with the TV, the store, his buddies. To step up, empty his wallet, grab a sign, and stand in front of the recruiting station, stand on the corner getting signatures, going door-to-door for his daily walk, signing folks up to participate.

I want to go to the mountains, to womyn’s land, to figure out how the hell will enough folks get motivated to care enough about our planet, our lives, our existence to prioritize saving life over our maintaining our lifestyles.