Holly Via Gorski

Last week I did this thing – this big thing, which I was anxious about, and had to psych myself up for – and it was hard. I hated it. When it was over, I felt a sense of accomplishment and relief. A few people congratulated me, or said they were proud or impressed. A friend asked me to write about it.

I didn’t do anything important or impressive.

I went without food or water for 15 hours. I participated in a one-day fast with other non-Muslim folks in order to experience what our Muslim friends do every day during the month of Ramadan. That part was cool. Joining others in a new experience, learning about Ramadan, taking another step towards human understanding (regardless of religion or culture) – those things are important, and it was a valuable experience for me.

But my one-day, voluntary fast? I can’t be proud of such a meager feat. I chose to go through my day without food or water, but I was surrounded by it. I could have poured myself a glass of filtered water in my air-conditioned office building at any time. My huge accomplishment boils down to skipping a few meals and resisting snacks from the staff table, for one day. During Ramadan, Muslims do this for 30 days. In a row. In some countries women do it wearing burkas in 100+ degree heat.

I’m not saying it was easy for me. The hardest part going without water; I have never been so thirsty. Physically, the biggest lesson I learned that day was I need water. I don’t need snacks, or the second breakfast I typically eat at my desk, or even (though I hate to say it) coffee, but I need water. By the afternoon I found it very difficult to concentrate. If I couldn’t drink or eat, then all I wanted to do was sleep. It was a hierarchy-of-needs experience. My husband called to see how I was doing and at the end of our conversation, he said, “I’m guessing Ramadan is not a real productive time.” (If my one-day experience is any indication, no, it’s not. However, I’ve heard that once your body adapts to fasting things go more smoothly.)

Intellectually and emotionally, the biggest lesson I learned that day was what real hunger and thirst feel like. When I say, “I have never been so thirsty” it’s not a figure of speech; it’s literal truth. Before last week, I had never, not once in 38 years, gone 15 waking hours without a beverage. Before last week I had never gone 15 waking hours without eating. On and off throughout the day I thought, “There are people who live like this every day.” At 2:00 PM when my brain was foggy, I thought about kids in school too hungry to learn and I almost cried. Now I have an inkling, just an inkling, of what that must be like. This is why schools in poor areas have free breakfast programs – or did, the last time I paid attention. Maybe they’ve been cut from the budget.

I’ve never been against school breakfast or free lunch programs, but I’ve never been actively for them, either. Suddenly now I want to make sure my taxes go to these programs. Please, take a little bit of my money and use it to feed children so that they can pay attention to math and reading.

For 15 hours last week my empathy muscles got a workout while my stomach took a break. At the end of the day, a good friend who had also fasted and I broke our fast in an Italian restaurant. We talked and laughed, drank and ate together until past closing time. She kindly drove me to my car so I wouldn’t have to walk five blocks alone in the dark.

On Twitter I’ll sometimes see the hashtag “#firstworldproblems.” It’s a joke; a self-deprecating nod to how good one has it tacked on to the end of a tweet complaining about the barista messing up one’s coffee order. That’s what having to walk five blocks alone in the dark after a restaurant meal with a friend is: a first-world problem. That’s what a self-imposed 15-hour fast is, too.

Yesterday I spent too much time reading articles online about the fact that Mormons worldwide are in an uproar over Big Love’s plans to depict their temple endowment ceremony on TV. Today I spent about an hour trying to write a thoughtful blog post about it, but I kept veering off-topic into my own experiences as a former member of the LDS church and that’s really not what I want to write about.

A few minutes ago, reading more online, I stumbled upon an apology from The Salt Lake Tribune to its readers. The paper is apologizing for running a photo yesterday of a Big Love cast member in costume for the scene alongside its article about the controversy. In this photo, the character is wearing LDS temple clothing. In reality, an actress is in costume. I’m going out on a limb here and assuming that the Big Love costume department didn’t raid an LDS temple for actual temple robes, OK? Someone made an approximation of the real deal. It’s called theater.

But oh, no – in response to reader outcry, The Salt Lake Tribune has apologized for running the photo in its print edition and pulled it from not only the web version of the story, but from the newspaper’s photo archives. Here’s what they said about it:

Forget whatever else I might have had to say — this is the most outrageous part of the entire foolish melodrama. Now we’re so sensitive to the possibility of offending people that a newspaper can’t even run a relevant photo along with its story? A photo of a fictional character in costume?!

I guess it really is true that freedom of the press is dead. Long live the Theocracy, Utah. 

In honor of the upcoming Inauguration, here’s a post I wrote on February 14, 2008 after seeing Obama speak in person. Once you read it, you may be able to imagine how shocked I was by his victory on Election night. I didn’t believe it was real until the next morning (and I walked around all day November 5th with a gigantic smile on my face).

Barack Obama Scares Me (in a good way)

A little over three years ago the tiny green sprig of hope I had for this country’s future was ground into the dirt by a traumatic nationwide event that shall not be named. (You may remember it; it begins with “E.”)

Shortly after this event I chopped up the remains of the green sprig of hope, turned over the earth, tamped it down and sprayed it with weed killer. “Nothing shall grow here again,” I said, “it is too painful.”

In the time since, my daily dose of NPR news has supplied the weed’s former spot with a steady source of salt and moss-be-gone. No hope here. I became accustomed to the constant dull ache of my barren political heart. My despair wasn’t alarming on a daily level, just present. Yellow-alert despair.

Nearly one week ago I attended the rally in Seattle where Barack Obama spoke. I didn’t go as an Obama supporter, I went as a conflicted liberal. I didn’t like Hillary Clinton and I felt guilty about it. After worshipping at the Clinton Altar for so long (“You’re sure Bill can’t have a third term?” I had asked in 2000, “Can’t we at least discuss it?”) I knew that I should like Hillary, should support her, should be thrilled at least to have a woman in the White House be a possibility. But I didn’t, couldn’t, and was, but . . . did she have to be the woman? (Couldn’t we at least discuss it?) So I went to the rally on a whim, tagging along with my friend just so that I could say I had done it and maybe to see what this Obama guy was really like.

Governor Gregoire spoke before him. She had just come out publicly in support of Obama, either that morning or the night before, and it had been a top news story on our way to the rally. She spoke openly about having hope as a Democrat in today’s world. She said that it was okay to hope, because this time we really had a chance for change. The old regime was on its way out. (She and Obama both spoke about this as if it were 100% guaranteed and while that may seem obvious, that third-term idea has come back to haunt me lately. Funny how it sounds good from one side but not the other.)

I’m used to hearing my friends complain about how horrible things are and we’ve all talked about whether or not it’s safe to hope for change (consensus: not). This is old news. But there was something about hearing the Governor say it — maybe because she’s a woman in a position of power, or a local-and-therefore-real public figure, or more of an “adult” than me and my slacktastic friends whose “drinking and bitching” to “political organizing” ratio is about 100,000 to 1 – whatever the reason, something about her saying these things touched me. It opened me up to the possibility of hope and this scared me, so I cried a tiny bit, tamped the dirt back down hard and backed away.

When Obama took the stage I was resistant and critical. He was clearly a skilled speaker, but I could see through that. His opening remarks sounded like a list of everyone whose support he needed; an Oscar thank-you speech in reverse. Then he started on the issues and it was unbelievable. 98% of the things he said were right on. (There were two things where I paused and thought, “No, that’s a little too far for me . . . well, okay.” I was swept up in the power of his words.) Critical thinking time was over. The man was promising a liberal’s paradise. I screamed, clapped, jumped to my feet, and just about the time I first thought the words “liberal’s paradise” came back to earth. He couldn’t do these things. They wouldn’t let him.

As if his speechwriter were reading my mind, Obama then launched into specific rebuttals of all his recent criticism including the idea that these things were not possible. I wish I could remember exactly what he said because I know I won’t do it justice. He said that he’d been accused of being a “hopemonger” and that was fine with him – somebody had to bring it. He said that anytime in history people have made a difference it began with one individual daring to hope for a better world. He said that he couldn’t do it alone; no one person could possibly ever do it alone, and that was why he needed us. He said all these things and more and he was 100% right.

So nearly one week ago in the Key Arena a tiny green sprig of hope pushed its way up through the blighted soil of my heart. It hurt. It still makes me cry. I’m scared and I’m vulnerable and I am ready. Because we are the adults now. No one else is going to take care of this for us. Three years ago a good friend told me the answer was Revolution. Before I take that route I’m going to do a lot of gardening and give democracy one last whole-hearted try.