Last Thursday, as I sat on Library Mall eating my lunch and soaking up any sun able to penetrate my ubiquitous seasonal shield of SPF 45, the Stop the War protesters marched past.
When they did, I got rather defensive. For though I may have an affinity for militaristic jackets and impractical red shoes, I'm no warmongering capitalist whore. But isn't that what they'd think, seeing me sitting there?
I suddenly wanted nothing more than to run up to the nearest dirty hippie drumming on a plastic bucket and explain why I rationally decided not to participate, though I shared in the essential sentiment.
\See this button on my backpack?"" I wanted to say. ""The one with a picture of a pretzel that says 'Vive la Resistance'-I made it after the election because I think Bush sucks! Come on, people, it's a freaking button-do you know how huge that is for me?""
It is rather significant. I compulsively remove visible labels from my clothes with a seam-ripper. The very conception of buying a bumper sticker or getting a tattoo utterly terrifies me. I have a profound, neurotic aversion to T-shirts that say things. (Well, except for my ""I dig scrawny pale guys"" shirt, but that one never leaves the apartment.)
I don't like people knowing where I stand on even the most trivial things, because when I get down to it, I don't really know myself. And overt symbols give complete strangers the power to read one tiny cue as a compendium with a mere glance.
That's the thing about laying your views of the moment out for consumption, whether in attire, in protest, in art or in writing. As soon as they're out there, they effectively become you, as misleading, incomplete or downright contradictory as they may be. I can't imagine what it's like for fiction writers who have to go through life knowing at any given moment, there's probably an English class somewhere equating their beliefs with their characters'.
Opinions are just too nuanced and shifting to ever adequately ensnare. For some reason, we're abundantly aware of that when we talk, but not so much when we listen.
Many of us who speak just want to start or contribute to a discussion. We don't claim, desire or presume we're able to give the definitive word on anything. We like to pose questions, perhaps explore a few avenues??-we leave the answers to the wiser or more foolish.
So we're scared to death of committing ourselves to slogans and icons. Occasionally we play along because the world forces us to, but we resent it, because there can never be enough space on the canvas, words in the chant or time in the conversation.
That's why I wish someone had asked me why I wasn't marching that afternoon, because I would have been forced to try and figure it out.
In response, I probably would have selected something about how transposing complex views into the basest possible terms to reach an audience either causes the voices of protest to harmonize with those they target, or paints them to listeners as loose threads on an already unruly fringe.
And how in a country where the contents of the president's iPod spark more public chatter than the contents of his policy, something within the basic protest paradigm has to change.
As for what that may be, I don't have any simple answers-those are for suckers and Republicans.
Holly Noe's last column will run Monday, May 2. She can be reached at flamingpurvis@yahoo.com.
