“I’m a constituent from Montana, calling with concerns for my local representative.”
“I’m a constituent from Montana, calling with concerns for my local representative.”
“I’m a constituent from Montana, calling…”
Is anyone listening?
In November, you came to my doorstep. I was napping while my husband mowed the lawn out back. The dogs heard you before I did and let me know through shrill barks, we don’t know this one.
But you didn’t know me either. After our conversation, you still don’t know me. And that hasn’t sat well. It’s festered like a sore you’ve been meaning to see a doctor about but continue to put off until one day, you can’t take it anymore and jump to schedule an appointment. “It doesn’t need to be my doctor,” you quip, “just anyone who will see me.”
Will you see me?
You asked me what issues were most pressing to me, with your politician’s lilt. I started soft with generic phrases like “affordable housing” and “equity,” to which you nodded in agreement, but didn’t offer solutions. The dogs barked at the closed door behind me, as if egging me on. “And what’s most important to me is protecting access to abortions.”
I should have been prepared with more statistics and counter arguments, but what would that have changed? You had your talking points ready and launched your tirade. You tried to ensnare me, to make me agree that this was a meet-in-the-middle issue, but I didn’t feed into your trap. While you rattled on, spewing sensationalized tales of abortion access allowing incestual uncles to get away with rape, I wondered how much of what you said you actually believed. There was something in your speech that felt–distant. Like going to a 3D movie and taking off the blue and red-lensed paper glasses; the film is still playing but there’s a shadow, like a second skin, haloed around each character.
I cut you off when you spoke about late term abortions, putting my hand up in front of me. “No one is having late-term abortions,” I corrected. I hadn’t intended to sway you; I simply wanted you to know that your neighborhood wasn’t as homogeneous as you might have thought. I lobbed one of your questions back at you, to which you retorted, “Well, I’m a Christian.” Did you expect me to bask in your piousness? Your holy posturing, your end-all-be-all of non-answers, did not have its intended effect. It didn’t make me think anything of you, really, but it made me think about myself.
Because, while you are a Christian, I am a Jew. Yes, they have those in Montana, too.
You’ve probably had that experience. The one where you think of the perfect comeback later and wish you had a rewind button for your mic-drop moment? What about the one where you have the perfect comeback, but you were too worried about your own safety to say it? It’s happened to me twice, in front of my own home.
The first time, my neighbor (who incorrectly assumed my political persuasion) shambled over to my yard while I filled my planter pot with flowers for spring. He stood above me, his gray wisps of hair matching his tank top that revealed more than I wished to see, and grumbled a saga to my husband about a “horrible liberal Jew” he once met in New York. Oh! One like me? I nearly said. I paused. I thought about the guns—lots of guns, some semi-automatic—that he’d previously told me were stashed around his house. I thought of the racial slurs I’d heard him use and terrible, prejudiced statements I’d heard him make. I kept quiet, feeling grateful—yet guilty—that he hadn’t discovered my background.
The second time was with you, in November. I had the perfect comeback. Ready for it? “Oh, so you believe the nation should make policies based on the beliefs of your religion? Did you know that in my religion the life of the mother is always prioritized during pregnancy, and that life begins at birth, not before, meaning the policies you support are actually against my religion? Are you saying that your religion supersedes mine?” Instead, my mind reeled. What if this politician knocks on the neighbor’s door next, and happens to mention he spoke with his Jewish neighbor? What if he tells someone else with a hatred for Jews, and happens to mention the street I live on?
“I’d like to invite you into the Republican party,” you cheerfully concluded. I’m not sure how I responded as I had tuned into the dog’s panicked chorus behind me. I wondered why you hadn’t mentioned the distressed barking, or acknowledged that your presence was clearly causing it. I’m sure I said something like, “Thanks, but no thanks,” when my genuine answer might have been, “There’s no place for me there.” I’ll leave the less polite responses to your imagination. But it didn’t matter what I said, you weren’t actually there to talk to me. You were there hoping that the person behind the door was an on-the-fence voter, or a conservative who hadn’t made plans to vote, so you could sway them in your favor. You couldn’t have guessed that behind this door, in a neighborhood where all the doors were the same, was a young woman who didn’t fit your mold.
You had no intention of listening to me. You know, that real kind of listening? The kind you do with your whole body, where you feel the words move through your ears and into your throat? They fill your stomach and knock up against your heart. The kind of listening where you wait before you respond and, as it was intended, let it sink in. The kind of listening where you time travel and see what came before, what made you who you are. The kind of listening where you briefly levitate above your own body, so you might understand another.
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