The Courage to Be Your Own Advocate

The candidate herself is standing in the dirty subway, a few days before the election, handing out flyers?
 
This never happens. I get flyers on the subway all the time, but I’ve never gotten one from the actual person running for office.
 
I naively assumed they had people to do that for them.
 
Realizing that Ede was Ede and not a representative for Ede, my eyes welled. Moved by her courage to stand halfway underground and hand out flyers to the seemingly disinterested and rushed people repeatedly disregarding her efforts, I let out an unexpected heave-sob.
 
I thought about all of the humans in my universe – friends and colleagues and clients- who are doing the difficult and important job of sharing their work, summoning the fortitude to put themselves out there, regardless of whether the world has emailed them to say: Hey Star! You’re #killingit! Send me your materials Plz!
 
I thought of my own Mom. My mom is a professional musician and has successfully run her own music ensemble for over thirty years. In the days before social media when she was growing her ensemble and I was growing up, she would bring a tote bag with flyers everywhere we went. Anytime we would stop at a local business, she would hand them a stack of flyers and let them know about her work.
 
I hated this.
 
I idolized the other kids who got to be “regular” customers. Dressed exclusively in The Gap (what to me at that time was the pinnacle of fashion) these moms and families leisurely walked into the ice cream store looking easy and effortlessly breezy. But we were different. Adorned in gems from Philadelphia’s finest thrift store The Second Mile, we would march into any establishment – the dry cleaners, the ice cream place, my school – and ask if we could leave a stack of flyers advertising an important upcoming concert of Renaissance music. Sometimes, people agreed to display her flyers. Then my mom would tell them more about her group and invite them to a concert while I tried to make myself disappear.
 
Other times, people would say no. For me this was even more embarrassing, but it didn’t seem to faze her. My mom would smile, thank them, and cheerily take us to the next place.
 
She was a woman on a mission and I longed to apologize to everyone for being who we were – scrappy, lacking a good PR agent, telegraphing to the world that we were struggling and needed help – so I would try to blend in with the furniture and fake plants, praying we didn’t run into any of my schoolmates or ballet friends.
 

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I felt a strong urge to go back up to Ede and say something. I hadn’t researched her politics so I couldn’t honestly say I was yet a supporter. I also didn’t vote in her district. I felt unworthy of her attention and inadequate about my own small political involvement; who was I compared to what she was doing?
 
At this point the tears were streaming and the heave-sobs frequent and audible.
 
The shy kid in me really didn’t want to, but I knew I needed to go back and acknowledge her in some way – to at least look into her courageous eyes and say thank you.
 
Nervous, I noodled my way through all of the people coming down the stairs, and stood awkwardly beside her while she continued to hand out flyers.
 
Thank you.
She turned to look directly at me.
 
For….for what you are doing. For standing here. For handing out flyers. I don’t vote in your district, so…but I… I am so… thank you.
 
I felt the least I could do for this shero was offer a beautifully articulated affirmation, but words felt impossible and the tears wouldn’t stop.
 
Ede’s compassionate eyes looked straight into mine. And then, ever so slightly they welled up a bit, too, and she said:
 
It’s really, really hard.
 
Stunned, I knew at that moment that I was behind this woman, whomever she was. Women in positions of leadership willing to do what it takes and also be honest and vulnerable about their process are the women I want to support.
 
(And the women, I believe, who will save us.)
 
I also got it. I had never run for office but I understood the challenges of self-promotion in my own life. I got it because of all the amazing people I support in promoting their own work. And I got it because of all of those times my mom schlepped me around to hand out flyers.
 
At this point people were rushing past me to catch the next train and I didn’t want to prevent her from what she had come halfway down the subway platform to do. I wanted to hug her and champion her and ask if she, too, ever gets nervous and shy and fluttery in her stomach but she is Ede Fox and who I am, so I said:
 
I can only imagine. Thank you…again. We need you. 
 
She looked at me once more and this time her eyes seemed to make it all the way to my ventricles.

Then Ede Fox smiled warmly and went back to handing out flyers.
I ran down the subway steps weeping.
Breathless.
Grateful.
 

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For too many months, I have had an unfinished article on my computer called: How to Advocate for Yourself When You Hate Advocating for Yourself.
 
Below the title, the page is blank.
 
I am the captain of the team of people who hate advocating for themselves.
 
(Hands up if you are one of my co-captains)
 
At team practice we say things to each other like :
 
I just want to do the work I love, I DON’T want to have to tell people about it
It’s soooooooo uncomfortable for me to tell people what I want
I hate talking about what I do
I want to get where I am going all by myself
If only I had someone to do it for me
“Selling myself” is gross. I’m going to wait to be discovered.
 
We corroborate about how awful and exhausting it is to be seen and heard, bathing each other in empathetic and understanding looks. Then we decide we’ve done enough for the day and skip off to eat orange slices.
 
I am captain of this team and the article has no words because I was so wrapped up in the angst of not being an easy breezy Gap Kid that I had failed to realize I was raised by a captain of the other team.
 
The It’s Okay to Advocate For Yourself Team.
 
My mom never pressured me to join her team because that wasn’t her teaching style. The common thread in her teachings is that they are 100% excellent, but they can be so humbly and subversively presented that sometimes it takes 33 years and Ede Fox to realize their scope and power.
 
Like Ede, she had done the difficult work to make showing up for her cause more vibrant than her fear about it.
 
It was really really hard. It was the opposite of easy and breezy. But my mother cares deeply about Renaissance music and Ede cares deeply about fair housing and criminal justice reform so they did it anyway.
 
Even though people were consistently disregarding them.
 
The biggest fear of me and my co-captains is that people will think us shameful or needy.
 
We don’t always tell people what we’re up to and we hide from opportunity, because we are afraid that we will somehow lose our status as The Person Who Has It All Together and Needs Absolutely No Help. 

(by the way the definition of this person is a Robot).
 
We are afraid to say:

Hi, this is me.
Period.
and this is what I’m doing.
Period, no apologies, because it feels vulnerable.
 
We tell ourselves the story that being vulnerable means being weak.
 
But Ede Fox and my mother are the opposite of weak.
Ede Fox and my mother are warriors.
 
(Also they are super smart and have capitalized on the power of flyers. Another moral of this story: Do not underestimate the power of flyers)
 
I thought about the hundreds of times I’ve dodged saying who I am and what I’m doing to somebody and instead just asked them a bunch of questions about them.

Or the times I did and then immediately followed up with a verbal, energetic or physical apology, downplaying to ensure they knew I didn’t think I was too big for my britches.
 
I thought about all of the people I’ve watched do that, too, whose patriarchal tiny terrorists tell themselves a story that they are bragging or being too much, every time they do something or share something or proudly hang up their little sign to say hi, this is me, and I am here.
 
We so relentlessly obsess about the chorus of perceived naysayers saying things like:
 
Who does she think she is?
 
that we forget it’s possible that:

a. we have conjured some or all of those naysayers in our imaginations
b. there is a whole other group of people.
 
The Liz Kimball to your Ede Fox group of people. The people who are so touched by your bravery and your showing up unapologetically for who you are that they have meltdowns in the middle of subway platforms.
 
Every time my mom walked out of one of the neighborhood establishments, Little Liz would look back to the person at the desk, eyes mouthing I’m sorry on the way out the door. I was ashamed and for years I had been telling myself the story that my mom was ashamed, too.
 
But she wasn’t.
I made that part up.
 
When I replay the memories I realize that I never once saw her apologize to the person at the ice cream store, or the receptionist, or the dry cleaner clerk.

I should have walked out of those establishments saying you’re welcome.

You’re welcome, because you just witnessed a woman in her power.

There is a part of me that would like to stay captain of my team and maintain a facade of being shiny and glamorous, needing nothing from anyone.

But what if…

What if every time I have the opportunity to risk the vulnerable act of making myself known, seen, and heard, I step into a lineage of women standing in their power?

The story of feeling ashamed or like a burden because we were born is the tiny terrorist’s story.

This is no longer my story.
This no longer has to be your story.

When will we stop apologizing for our own magnificence?

Hi, I’m Joan Kimball, and I would love to tell you about a Renaissance Concert that is happening this weekend. 

Hi, I’m Ede Fox. I’m running for City Council.

Hi, I’m Liz Kimball, and I wrote this story for you.

We may have to hand out 100 flyers before someone acknowledges us.
Or 1000.

We are not annoying.
We are warriors.

And today, on my birthday, I am switching teams.
If you are inspired, you can give me one or even two birthday presents :: 

1 :: Bravely share something of yours or some truth of yours, somewhere, to someone, even if it feels uncomfortable.

2 :: Voice your support to someone else bravely fostering the courage to allow themselves to be seen, heard, and known.  Maybe today will be the day they really really need to hear it.

Here’s to you and who you are and what you do.
Period.
No apologies.

With big love and encouragement,
LK