Angels Around Us

What is it about this world that makes you feel so alive one moment and wish you were dead the next? Today, at the UNR protest, I felt so alive out there with the good energy reverberrating from other activists. The protest was to spotlight the abuse and neglect of The University of Nevada, Reno's research and agriculture animals - a horribly sad story. Just google UNR + animal abuse and tons of stories will pop up on the hundreds of animals that have died because of mistakes and neglect in UNR's care over the past few years, most recently nearly 400 sheep that died when a field flooded, the same field that flooded in 1997, killing sheep then, too. But what do the bigwigs at UNR care about a few meaningless sheep?

I took this photo from the TV tonight. That's me, second from the right. I'm standing next to a really great guy named Joe. All great guys are named Joe, aren't they? I don't think he thinks he is great at all. I learned many things from him and his friends, Cam, Tress, Jakob, Josh and Josh, and Kate, last year when I volunteered with Food Not Bombs to cook thrown away food for the homeless. These people were so caring and compassionate and made every attempt to not waste one bit of food. What they didn't use, went into a compost pile. They obviously cared for each other and for this beautiful planet.

I was so touched by many of them. I liked them so much - I felt like I was in high school again wanting to be accepted by the "in crowd" except, here I was, very "average" looking and wanting to be liked by the grunge, punkrock, activist crowd. The bond they had with each other reminded me of the friends I had in high school back in New Jersey - Frank, Eddie, Gayle, Christine, Matt, Lenny, Shawn, Jim - names that flood me with warm and precious memories. I so longed to feel that sense of security again - I longed for my old friends, who I hadn't spoken to in years. After five excruciating attempts to fit in with the Food Not Bombs group and feeling more and more awkward each time, I stopped going. But, they opened my eyes to many things and I still liked them all alot. It struck me as kind of funny - for the first time in a long time, I really liked people and they did not like me. Talk about junior high flashbacks. After reading on the Web that many activists are watched by the FBI, especially more radical groups or groups with radical associations, it occurred to me that I must have looked to this group like a fed. I mean, here I was 30 years old, not dressing like a punk rocker and basically showing up out of nowhere, what did I expect and how could I blame them? It was funny, really, because how could they possibly think otherwise? Or, was I just neurotic?!

Well, yesterday, in a crazy search for last-minute protesters, I emailed Joe, Jakob, Cam and Tress about today's event. Joe showed up alone, without his pack of buddies I had expected to see him with. This time he was out of his comfort zone as I had been nearly a year ago, so my respect for him grew even more. After talking for a while today, I asked him if he and his friends thought last year that I might have been with the FBI or something like that. It appears I was on to something afterall. He said they had. I guess when I often feel neurotic because of paranoia, I'm probably just neurotic over possibly being neurotic, or something like that.

I know a lot about Joe. He is sincere and kind, a natural born leader, with wit and strength coming off of him. I noticed last year, that the others looked up to him. They respected his views and opinions. I read about him on the Web. I like to find out more about interesting people. I love to dig deeper and I was curious to know what made him tick, what made him so determined to save the world, so much like me on the inside. I love knowing so much about people, especially when they don't know I know. I can analyze them deeper that way - and I love to analyze people. Knowing things about them that they haven't told you, lets you listen to what they are telling you and match it with a vault of facts. Is this person sincere? Is he or she really letting you in? Are they just leading you along to see things a certain way?

Last year, I read a lot of things about Joe - about the record shop he owns, the band he is in, the peace and environmental activism he did and one interview that was online where he was explaining that he did not eat honey because it belonged to the bees. That was their food for their babies, he said, and not for him to take. I will never forget reading that, and the impact it had on me ... that he would care so deeply about something so small. I feel the same way about many things - like drowning bugs I save, the mice I can't bare to remove from the shop (dead or alive, it's their home, too) and spiders I allow to live in the corners of my house - little things that make people think I am ridiculous and over-sensitive. Reading Joe's interview, where he matter-of-factly spoke about this deep and tender respect for bees and their babies, helped me shed any amount of small embarrassment I still harbored for caring about such tiny beings. I saw a photo of him that showed his tatooes - doves of peace with "love" and "peace" written underneath. And, I thought to myself, "he is an angel."

Today, I expected Joe to be changed after not seeing him for nearly a year. Last year, there was a serious maturity to him and yet a major abundance of immaturity as well. I knew that would be gone today - and it was. I know it was gone because I know the horror he suffered last August - a horror that would take anyone's youth and innocence forever. He went with four friends to swim through Utah's Cave of Death, a freezing, black, narrow, underwater cave, leadng to a small tavern with limited air - a journey that had attracted thrill-seekers for years. His friends were just like him, angels on earth only wanting to bring peace and help others. Joe was the only one who backed out at the last moment and did not swim into the frigid darkness. He waited at the cave entrance as the minutes crept by in the early morning hours around 2 a.m. Fifteen minutes passed, then 30, then 45 and Joe was panicking. By the time rescuers arrived, Joe's friends were dead, all four of them drowned together as they were coming out of the tunnel. I read this and cried.

I couldn't shake the horror of what those beautiful souls thought in their final moments, disoriented and lost, underwater, underground. Nor could I shake what Joe was enduring. How do you move on after that? How many times does he replay those minutes he waited outside the cave in the dark for his friends? Did their spirits pass him by in the night, softly telling him to live, to continue his fight as they would have done - fighting to change the hearts and minds of people from something ugly to something good and beautiful? Did they linger and wrap him in their love to ease his pain?

Today, I saw that Joe is still fighting for a better world for people and animals. I suppose he must now work five times harder than before. The moment I first saw Joe over a year ago, introducing famed author and environmental activist Derrick Jensen at a UNR lecture, Joe seemed to me like he should have angel wings and a halo above his head. I suppose now he has the force of angels, his four friends, their spirits carrying him, spurring him forth to bring light when the world seems so dark sometimes, on days when he feels alive and on days when he must want to die, too.

I was so happy to see Joe at the protest. Even though he is younger than me by 5 years, he is stronger and wiser. He is one of my heroes - I file him away in my mind with Professor Hussein, Susan Juetten, Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie, Steven Biko, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others that I call upon when I need strength, meaning and hope. Today I felt hope. I felt Joe's hope, his love, kindness, enthusiasm and energy - oh, and his angels, whispering, ... softly.