Swarm

From our section up on the third level, the DCU center was buzzing like a hive.The gaps in the diversity spectrum I'd noted last night were filled. The whole hall was filled. Supporters of different candidates had different Tshirts--light green, blue, red, orange, dark green--which gave the crowd the appearance of a garden seen from a distance. The day was a drama in three acts.

The first task was checking in the delegates, which was at first a chaotic process. A persistent but overwhelmed black lady had the task of calling out all the names of the delegates and ascertaining their presence. A roll call. Simple. No, not simple. First, her voice was weak. Second, loud percussion driven music was coming from the stage. Result: nobody heard anything. An impromptu call transmission system was set up: the initial 'Pe...Du...ney', followed by a big black guy calling for 'Pat Need', then someone bawling for 'Pete Doon' and so on, until I realized it was me. So it went all through ward 18 delegate name list.. By the time, they got to ward 20, the music had stopped, but it still, it took an age, and the final books for all the sections in the hall were turned into the sergeant at arms and finalized about two hours behind schedule. Still, for all the absurdity of the situation, people were relatively relaxed. Once officially signed in, I took a tour around the concession zone that ringed the actual arena where business was busy.

Then the speeches. Four contested positions, 14 candidates, 10 minutes per candidate. It was a bit like the play marathon I usually attend in May (but missed this year) when 10 hours evaporate in a blur of bit-sized dramas (Bet you can't watch just one.) except that this is where I had to work, to really listen and watch videos and speeches so as to pick one of three, or two, or five. They all sounded so good, and, in fact, I'm sure we were lucky to have so many very able, very passionate people trying to get these jobs. I remember the last shot of Maura's video, her intent gaze at the camera, with a basketball spinning on her finger at arms length;  the fly-away smiling fury of Juliette's eyes (others said she was nervous and spoke too high; but I fell in love with those eyes) as she pronounced, 'Bold today, better tomorrow'; the naked, aching sincerity of Don; the persistent ploddingness of Steve; the studied clicheity of Martha. As they spoke crowds of colorful supporters stood in front of the stage and waved placards. For she with the flashing eyes, I did too.

Many promises: many pugnacious (guns on the street, I'm coming to get you; poverty, just you wait; Charlie Baker, be afraid...) , many improbable, but all based on a conviction that something can be done to ameliorate and advance the situation of this commonwealth, that what it's like where we live can be affected for the better by the ideas and efforts of the people who will hold these offices, and the activists inspired by them.  Repeated words like 'fairness', 'equality', 'community' drew their power from that fundamental conviction. Politics matters, was the implicit message. I took it like blows to a boxer's jaw. I started reeling.

It was when a candidate for lieutenant governor, Leland (Chinese last name), spoke that I had the moment of enlightenment I had been waiting for (since last night). This former Cambridge city counselor, after telling about the immigrant background of his parents, spoke of visiting cousins in Beijing and thinking: 'I could participate, participate, in a system that made a positive difference for everyone, and they could not.'

I understood: freshly that our common space is not for anyone to give us; it is for us to shape ourselves. We do it well, we do it badly, but the job ours to do. To be allowed to do something for ourselves in the common space, but to not be allowed to take responsibility for that space (but rather encouraged to ignore any responsibility) is to make us children, simple and shallow. ( I resonated, by the way, with his mission to advance and distribute high-tech innovation throughout the state.)

The last act of the drama was something new for me. The teller again, but this time with an older man at her elbow with a stentorian voice, the pair surrounded by a team of tabulators, polled the delegates one by one about their choices for each of the four positions. Each delegate in turn was asked to give four answers. There we were, ward 18, me and my neighbors, up at the top of the nose-bleed section, teller and team on the stairs, delegates all around leaning in, paying attention, the trumpet-voice calling out our names, and we publicly announcing the decisions that we'd reached after listening to all the presentations. No secret ballots, no (or only a little) coyness. We were all in the same scrum, being honest about and registering our opinions as decisive votes, and so winnowing the field for the September primary. At that point, there was no maneuvering or gaming. We did our job. It felt like kitchen table democracy writ large.

On the way home, we got a tweet: our favorite had not made the cut.