Susanna Speier

The news kept showing protesters.  Seemingly masses of them.  All Republicans.  So we drove to the Colorado State Capitol to observe the phenomenon.  We being Mom, Karen (the family delegate) Cindy (Karen’s sig other ) and me.  And we drove and we drove.  Passing through the police lines as Karen waived her credentials.  Credentials, btw, are the ID badges they wear at the DNC.  And no, we didn’t actually see any real, live, Republican protestors.  Well, maybe a couple P.U.M.A.’s crossing the street (just learned the acronym for these Hillary purists stands for “Party Unity My Ass”) and then something like four absurdly courageous McCain supporters convening at a park bench in t-shirts, baseball caps and signs.  While we saw no Rebulican protestors, in the proper sense of the word, it counted for something, I guess.  Karen was able to get us into the new Denver Art Museum, which was not yet open to the public but available for convention goers.  And there were these laser projections of lucky numbers on mirrors and laser projected bubbles you could stomp on and totem poles and masks used in rite of passage rituals.  My personal fav was “By June, When the Light Begins to Breathe” by Keith Jacobshagen.  It reminded me of those summers that mom and dad and my brother Alex and I would drive cross the great plains of Nebraska flatness where the cornfields touched the sky to visit the family in Iowa and Omaha.  In fact, on the topic of Omaha, it was that night (or was it actually the day before that—think it was) Cindy and Mom and me watched Alexander Payne’s “Election” to get in the spirit of the thing (also, because Mom and Karen grew up in Omaha which meant the experience of watching them watch the film was something akin to observing a coupla kids do some kinda secret handshake–or a couplea prominent political figures do a fist bump) and then, of course, Michelle’s kick-off on TV.  Should I have postponed my return to a menial yet stable temporary auditing job in order to prolong whatever transitory state of financial stability the job promised to bring in deference to the far flung hope that the postponement could’ve optioned me a shot at scoring a ticket to Obama’s Thursday night speech?  Although Karen wasn’t able to score me tickets for it, perhaps, perhaps…  Should I postpone this return yet another day in order to jump on the opportunity to watch history being made???  Mom and I talked it over and concluded ‘nay.’   I didn’t see a reason to postpone my return to LA cause of the DNC, given that I needed the work and all.  I’d requested and was granted two days off.  That was enough.  Why should I ask for more?  Mom, in compliance with and in support of my choice to reinforce the work ethic, woke me at 3:30 a.m., actually cooked me pancakes with peaches and real maple syrup so I could take a crack-of-dawn jet back to LA on a full stomach.  Subseuqenly, reconvene my finite temp gig (the internal audit, btw, is the dayjob I do when the impovrished novelty of sustaining myself through sporadic acting and writing gigs, starts to wear thin.) Would that I had known just how very finite the gig would actually be!!!  Alas, I promptly learned that the gig was over due to the fact I’d been working too damn fast!!  Okay, so I’d waived the option to fight for the opportunity to possible get a ticket to see Obama and then flown back to LA-LA only to learn that the project was fin and I’m left w/ nothing but a the bitter pill that had I known this in advance, then I could’ve extended my stay in Denver.  Hung in for the duration of the convention, caught site of another Republican protestor or two, spent more time w/ family and been part of history.  I was alone Thursday night, listening to Obama’s speech on the radio (I don’t have a TV) and it was then it clicked into place.  Obama is explaining how his mom would get him up at 4:30 a.m. everyday to do his homework.  Of course he hated it.  It’s why he is who he is today, though.  That was his work ethic.  The thing with Obama —what I hear on the radio as well as from friends— is that people see themselves in him.  And it was that aspect, that really humbling notion that you gotta colonize the witching hours in order to do what it is you need to do, that enabled me to see myself in him.  And no, that night I wasn’t there with the masses who’d arrived at the stadium six hours early for this once in a lifetime expereience or left afterwards, infused with that energy that people later described as other worldly.  I was, however, following an age old work ethic.  And investement in something larger than myself.  And investment that, in the particular circumstance I am describing, fell through due to circumstances beyond my control.  Another practice, though, in maintaining professional integrity.  Like in the old Sun Tzu sense, you lose with honor because it maintains your spirits so that you can recover, return to battle again and be victorious.  So many people said this happened for a reason.  Given how broke I am, how bummed out I am about missing the end of the convention (not to mention the loss of several additional days that would have otherwise been an oh-so-rare vacation for me) I do hope that this context falls into place.