On the Road to Greatness
A Habit of Hope - Issue 7
Welcome to A Habit of Hope — a weekly practice of optimism and joy. We get inspired, there’s music, and — at the bottom of the essay — use a set of tools for community and accountability.
This week’s Person of the Week is a case study in what you do when you plan to do something big someday.
First, the backstory: since my kids have been grown, every election cycle I keep myself sane by going somewhere and being a cog in the wheel of Democracy, getting out the vote or doing Voter Protection. In 2020 I volunteered both as a poll observer in Phoenix and as Out of State Help for Mission for Arizona (the coordinated campaign of the Arizona Democratic Party, the National Dems and the Biden/Harris and Kelly campaigns).
I was part of a small team who led zoom trainings on how to use an app called “Vote Joe” to do an old thing — “relational organizing” — in a new way. The idea was that since it was the height of the pandemic, we couldn’t knock doors so we had to find other ways for volunteers to talk to friends and neighbors — hence an app that organized their own contacts for outreach.
There are two kinds of political campaign workers: paid staff and volunteers. When you sign up to work on a phone bank, for example, the person leading you is probably a volunteer who answers to a staff supervisor.
In the Digital Organizing division of Mission for Arizona, my supervisor was a young Navajo Harvard grad named Damon Clark.
He was a wonderful supervisor: calm, focused, funny, caring. Sometimes he was zooming in from his hogan, sometimes the Dem office in Window Rock, sometimes he was picking up the free wifi from a McDonald’s. (The lack of decent cell service in the Navajo Nation is its own reddit topic.)
Our group was a dynamic bunch. We were the usual assortment of enthusiastic young volunteers and middle aged empty nesters from across the country, plus one young woman who had been a McCain staffer, doing all she could to honor his legacy by electing a man he respected very much.
And I have to say: we were a great team who accomplished a lot, thanks to Damon’s steady leadership. You can tell by his LinkedIn that he was proud of what we pulled off:
If you know me, you know that I paraphrase Rebecca Solnit all the time: “a vote is not a valentine, it’s a chess move.” I am coldly strategic, and I wish more people would be like me. If I like a candidate as a person, that’s just the icing on the cake.
During the 2020 campaign I thought, about Damon: “This guy is gonna run for office someday, and if he does, I’m gonna volunteer for him.”
After the election, I stayed in touch for awhile with Damon via Facebook, seeing that he got a job at the Office of Management and Budget in DC, and also got married back home in a beautiful Navajo ceremony. It made me smile.
Recently, I thought about that year and got curious about what Damon is up to now. Law school, it turns out! I got to thinking about the other folks I’ve chosen for this weekly newsletter. And it occured to me that Damon Clark is a case study of someone who is in the process of becoming great. From his first job working as a summer camp counselor in Santa Fe, to summer internships in DC at the Department of Commerce and the White House, to a Bachelors Degree from Harvard with all kinds of leadership awards including President of Native Americans at Harvard College, Damon’s fascinating resume shows an ambitious person who is constantly embracing opportunities to expand his ability to work on behalf of his community.
I don’t know if Damon plans to use his law degree to run for office or to do some other work, but I’m excited to see what comes next!
Music
It’s gotta be a Navajo artist this week! The late John Trudell’s AKA Graffiti Man is one of my favorite albums of all time. (He lived in my neck of the woods at one point too.) A track from that record, “Rockin’ the Res,” was featured in the film Thunderheart. It’s a great song.
Evolution of “A Habit of Hope” Gatherings
I’ve had a bunch of people express an interest in gathering via Zoom, but it hasn’t been coelescing into a regular weekly group. So I’m going to let that idea go for now. Instead, I’m going to do what I’ve been planning for a while — an in-person gathering to do something creative, together.
More on this in the next edition, but mark your calendars for January 27th at 5:00 pm PST. If you’re in Ojai, I hope you’ll join in person. If you’re elsewhere, you can join by zoom!
Also, don’t forget I have this draft of a little planner I’m developing that explains my concept of A Habit of Hope. You can use it as the basis for a daily or weekly journal practice, if that’s helpful to you!
Thank you so much for subscribing, and please feel free to pass this on. And if you’re interested in my work as a performer and songwriter, come visit my website!
xo Rain