Embedded with Occupy Maine
A week in the life of the Lincoln Park protest
By Claire Turlo
I’m one of the lucky ones. Millions are unemployed, with no prospect of finding work. I have a full-time job at Whole Foods. More homeless people than ever are seeking beds in local shelters that are packed to capacity every night. I have a roof over my head — a seasonal rental on Peaks Island — for which I am very grateful.
But at the end of each month, I can afford to pay rent, my cell phone bill, and the cost of commuting by ferry. The rest of my money goes to buy food. I have no savings. Notices and calls from debt collectors arrive daily. In the past three years I have lost two jobs and been forced to couch-surf with friends and family from Farmington to Waterville to Richmond to Portland.
I’m 57, a single mother and grandmother. I am the 99 percent.
On my walks from Casco Bay Lines to Bayside last month, I watched the tent community grow in Lincoln Park. One day I decided to bring pizza to the protesters. The next day, I brought cookies. A few days later, I brought my tent and stayed there the rest of the week.
This is my diary of those days and nights among the occupiers of Occupy Maine.
Sunday
5:15 p.m. I stop by Lincoln Park after work and walk along the bumpy asphalt path to where the largest cluster of people are talking and smoking. I ask them whom I should speak with about setting up a tent. “No one,” one of them says, chuckling. “There are no leaders.” A couple others point their cigarettes in the direction of two men standing just outside the main encampment.
“Oh, I forgot,” I say, fumbling through my bag and pulling out two plastic containers. “I have cookies.” A man with a white beard and piercing eyes shouts, “Chocolate chip cookies!” I set them on a table as hands dig in, then walk over to the pair who’ve been pointed out to me.
I introduce myself and ask about tenting, explaining that I’ll be sleeping here at night but working some days this week. Alan, tall and angular, with clear blue eyes and a kind face, welcomes me. “We’re all here to get along,” he says.
The other man, younger than Alan and even taller, tells me this is a safe place and I can pitch my tent wherever I choose. We talk for a while. He tells me he’s planning to join an intentional community in Cape Elizabeth. “This doesn’t bother you, does it?” he asks, nodding at his smoldering cigarette. I shake my head. “If you stick around long enough, maybe you could join the commune too.”
A young woman — long, dark hair tumbling around her face, dark eyes — interrupts to ask for a cigarette, which he provides, lighting it with his own. I tell them I’ll be back in the morning, then head over to Monument Square, where a general assembly is held every night at 6.
6 p.m. About a dozen people have shown up for the meeting. The facilitator begins by reading the speech Charlie Chaplin delivers at the end of The Great Dictator. Another man reads a couple poems he’s written, then the meeting gets underway with a review of the procedures, including hand signals the group uses to communicate. Proposals are introduced and discussed, votes are taken, groups in charge of various tasks give reports, announcements are made.
There’s talk of the Portland City Council meeting tomorrow night, during which members of Occupy Maine will ask for a resolution of support. Someone shares that the National Lawyers Guild is a great resource and supports the movement. Fingers are wiggled at different angles to express strong agreement, tepid agreement, or disagreement. An “X” made with the forearms indicates an idea is in total opposition to your belief system.
I realize I need to catch the 7:15 ferry to Peaks, so I leave early. Tomorrow I’ll be back to stay.
Monday
5:15 a.m. I awake, nervous, wondering if I can really do this. I recite my affirmations, do my stretches, meditate for an hour, then practice assembling the single-person L.L. Bean tent on the living room floor. There are three color-coded, collapsible tent poles, the tent itself and a tarp, but I can’t figure it out. I call L.L. Bean for instructions. The poles go through the hooks, not the loops — that was my problem.
9:30 a.m. My four bags are packed and I’m ready to go. I’m bringing the tent, a sleeping bag and rain gear (waterproof pants, jacket and poncho); four shirts, two pairs of jeans, two pairs of socks, five pairs of underpants, and a pair of fleece pants; thyroid medication, flashlight, five pens, two writing pads, eyeglasses, cell phone, cell phone charger, and ID. I forget to bring my air mattress, so I’ll have to borrow a sleeping pad from my daughter in town.
10:30 a.m. I walk into Camp from the Federal Street side and see Alan. I let him know I’m setting up my tent, then heading to work, and will come back tonight. I’ve noticed the play of sunlight on the park during my morning walks to work. I pitch my tent on the south side, facing Federal Street and those sun rays, then walk over to the hub of the encampment to get a feel for the place.
A handmade sign at the entrance to the common area reads: “Welcome to the Occupation. This is a safe place. We are all Leaders here. Clean up after yourself and help others. No drunkenness. No hard drugs. Quiet time at midnight.”
Beneath two freestanding canopies there are milk crates, shelving units, boxes, bags and several coolers — all overflowing with donated food. Hot meals are prepared on a double-burner Coleman stove and a larger camp stove nearby. Another set of shelves holds books and board games. Garbage and recycling are stored around back.
On long tables beneath other canopies I see boxes overflowing with donated clothing. One table is covered with sign-making materials: box cardboard, poster paper, markers of all sizes and colors. There are folding chairs scattered about and a round, white plastic table.
Jonah Fertig, a founding member of the Local Sprouts Cooperative, is sitting with his daughter in his lap, talking with some campers, including Alan and a couple who’ve just returned from the Occupy Wall Street protest. Jonah has drawn up a floor plan to make the haphazard common area more efficient, but one camper, an Irish veteran named Seamus, says he feels marginalized that someone like Jonah, who doesn’t live at Camp, can come in and start moving things around. It’s decided that any major changes need to be proposed at the GA meeting.
A woman walks into the camp and asks us what we need. There’s cold weather on the way, and she’s worried about us. Alan shows her the erasable white board that lists the camp’s current needs, prioritized with capital letters from A to B to C, with AAA denoting the most urgently needed items.
blankets AAA
propane A
ice C
water A
eggs (freeze dried) B
utensils A
shelving AAA
A male camper comes into the common area and shouts: “Mic check!” This alerts fellow campers that an important announcement is imminent. Everyone within earshot stops what they’re doing and shouts in response: “Mic check!”
“The reason we’re here is to protest down at Monument Square,” the man says. “If we don’t get our butts down there, we’ll be shut down. So let’s get going!”
A few campers scramble around and walk off in the direction of the square. I have to go to work.
9 p.m. When I return to Camp, I leave the borrowed sleeping pad and my personal bag in my tent and head to the kitchen area, where people are sitting and talking, milling around the two-burner stove.
“Mic check!” someone yells.
“Mic check!” everyone responds.
“Security Check. Who wants to do a run?” A few people volunteer and wander off to make the rounds.
“Garbage run. Who wants to help?” Several others grab garbage bags, look around for trash and then go off to find a dumpster.
There are various groups in Camp in charge of different duties: the Security Group, the Sanitation Group, the Kitchen Group, etc. Anyone can be part of any group at any time. A mic check might announce a Security Group meeting, which anyone can attend. Or a member of the Sanitation Group will call a mic check to order a clean-up. Most campers will pitch in immediately. Anything that anyone considers important to the common good can be mic checked, and often is.
I bundle my coat and sit at the round plastic table. Heather Curtis, 42, is there, wearing a hat and loose-fitting sweater with baggy pants tucked into big boots. Nearby sits Nick, a slight, dark-haired 22-year-old, his head tilted slightly downward. “I just don’t get what this is all about,” he keeps repeating, to which Heather replies, “But you’re still here. There must be something about this. You’re still here.”
Nick rocks back and forth in his seat. “I’m scared,” he says. “I’m scared that they’ll come after us, the banks.”
“It is a scary thing,” says Heather. “That’s why it’s good that we’re in it together.”
Heather has four kids and lives on Munjoy Hill. A longtime advocate for affordable housing, she’s an active and vocal member of Occupy Maine. Camp is “a safe place for humans to be honest,” she tells me. “I feel more myself here. I am happier here.” At GA meetings, she’s constantly imploring the group to embrace flow, the merging of everything and everyone into a cohesive force.
Macy Lamson is also sitting at the table. She’s 19 and has long, dark dreadlocks, a warm smile and an easy disposition. She’s the Camp Mom, a chef who works seasonally on windjammers and is now using her cooking skills to feed fellow protesters.
Macy had been couch-surfing before she moved to Camp. She feels a connection here. “I want a better future for our children,” she says. Macy and her fiancée, Shane, hope to have kids someday and a home of their own. “It’s not about material things. It’s about a better way of life,” she tells me. She plans to stay here “for as long as it takes.”
“I’m here because I love this country, I love this planet,” says a camper named Evan, 26. “I see the way the world is heading. We need to embrace the idea of a human family. We’ve been only thinking of ourselves. There’s a whole world we need to protect.”
T.J., an attractive 37-year-old, is angry. “Bank of America took money from me and my wife. That’s why I’m here.” T.J. says B. of A. charged them overdraft fees when his wife’s bankcard was stolen and maxed out, even after they reported the theft. “We work hard for our money and these rich people don’t have to worry about overdrafts.” His wife and two kids are staying in an apartment. T.J. says he sleeps at Camp most nights because he believes in what folks here are doing.
10:30 p.m. I crawl into my tent, take off my shoes and coat, place my glasses and cell phone to the side, unzip the sleeping bag and bundle in with my clothes on, too tired to change.
I look up at the star-studded sky through the mesh in my tent top. I hear sirens on the streets and muffled voices in nearby tents. I’ve had real conversations with real people today. It’s satisfying. I begin to understand why Heather feels more herself here.
There are footsteps outside my tent — one of many security checks throughout the night. Every half hour, two volunteer guards walk the grounds and patrol the park’s perimeter.
I hear the 11 o’clock church bells, and the 2 o’clock, the 3 o’clock and 4 o’clock bells. I’m woken by the laughter of a couple camping next to me, by a hacking cough coming from another tent, by headlights that sweep and flash through my tent. Each time, I fall back into a fitful sleep.
Tuesday
5 a.m. Already?
I hear the church chimes. I look up through my tent screen and see a waning quarter moon and watchful Orion, the mighty warrior, making his rounds overhead.
I recite my affirmations, then get into my coat. I pull my rain poncho out from beneath my sleeping bag, where it’s served as a ground cover, and back out of the tent on my hands and knees. I lay the poncho on the dew-covered grass and do the morning stretches I need to ease my arthritic back.
When I’m finished, I gather my bag of personal belongings and tiptoe between staked tents in the dim light of streetlamps, heading toward the light of the gas lantern hanging in the common area. A man there is sitting upright, eyes closed, bundled from head to toe in a thick blanket, a hood covering most of his face. He hears me and opens one eye, then closes it again. One of the night guards?
There’s a woman dressed in flowing clothes and a sheepskin coat, a kerchief tied over blonde dreadlocks, nibbling food and sashaying around the kitchen area. I ask her where I can go to use a bathroom. She gives me directions to a portable toilet several streets away, then realizes it’s been removed and suggests one of the homeless shelters. She sashays the whole time, never making eye contact.
Someone else says Starbucks has a restroom I can use, so I head into the Old Port. The streets are quiet, save for a few trucks being unloaded. A friendly barista directs me to the restroom. I lock the door behind me. The restroom feels spacious, and it’s warm. After relieving myself, I wash up and brush my teeth, then head back to the counter for a coffee and a muffin, and sit and write.
7 a.m. Back at Camp, I join a small group sitting in the common area. Among them is the sashaying woman in the sheepskin coat.
I learn that her name is Heather. She’s 42, originally from Limerick, and was staying with a friend in South Portland before she set up a tent here a week ago. She has several disorders, she says, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and dyslexia. When I ask her why she’s here she says, “To actually occupy.”
She rambles, her pretty face expressionless, her eyes shifting focus from the ground, to passersby, to someplace else. “We need to handle the volume of people and not sacrifice the values,” she says. She thinks of Maine as the Giant Blueberry. “I love Maine,” she says. “Maine is a big chunk of gold. We’re losing a bit of our values, and making the Giant Blueberry into a trash can.”
John, 18 and unemployed, sits next to me. Originally from Utah, he came to Maine four months ago to be near the ocean. “I think we’re doing this right,” he says. “This is one of the most righteous causes. People standing up for what they believe in is the most powerful thing in the world.” He’s been tenting for two weeks and has no plans to leave.
More campers are waking up. Someone’s brewing coffee in a pot at one of the gas stoves; another’s heating up leftovers on the other. Macy will be flipping pancakes soon, and people are already gathering in anticipation.
T.J. comes over. He tells me the Treasury Group is setting aside money to rent office space, but he’s not sold on the idea. “Why not take that money and rent a hotel room every once in a while at Motel 6 and have people go in four at a time and take showers?” he asks. “They don’t care, as long as they get their money.”
“We already have a place to meet and talk right here. What do they need an office for?” he continues. “These guys go home to their houses and already have their own showers.” These kinds of disagreements between campers and protesters who live elsewhere are a common topic in Camp and during general assemblies.
I notice Alan standing on the outskirts of our conversation and invite him in. Alan is an arborist. He says he got laid off and hasn’t been able to get a job or an apartment since. He has enough money to cover first month’s rent, but landlords turn him down when they find out he’s unemployed. He concedes that he should probably pursue another line of work. “What’s a guy my age doing still climbing trees?” he says, shrugging. He’s 45.
Alan is here because he believes the system is broken. “If we don’t come together, if we do nothing, what’s the alternative? I want to see change.”
Seamus, the 56-year-old Irish vet, is sitting near the pancake line. It’s chilly. He’s wearing a cap over a black-and-white scarf wound around his neck and ears, and a military-style jacket. “What impresses me most is that it’s happening everywhere,” he says of the occupation. “But I worry about where this is going.”
“They could send the army,” says Seamus, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. “I was in Ireland in the ’70s.” He brings up Bloody Sunday, the day in 1972 when British soldiers fired on unarmed protesters in Derry, killing 14.
A woman shows up with three bags of clothes that she’s laundered for campers. Then a tall, thin man wearing a plaid shirt walks up and patiently waits to speak.
His name is Carlton Albert, a 65-year-old Marine (“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” he chuckles) who’s driven over 300 miles, all the way from Fort Kent, to say what he has to say. He stayed at a relative’s house last night and says he’s driving back to The County today.
Carlton says things went bad when we invaded Iraq. While we’re rebuilding that country, we’re neglecting our own. “We’ve received no return on our investment there,” he says. “We should be paid back in oil.”
Meanwhile, someone else walks up with a cash donation and is directed to Alan and Heather Curtis. Soon after, a woman arrives with three containers of warm applesauce. She wants to know the best time to bring soup for dinner on Thursday.
I’m struck by the number of people, from all walks of life, who show up to lend support. Most have their own hard-luck stories to tell, and campers willingly take time to hear them, offering a chair and a coffee to warm up.
“Mic check!”
Alan announces that no one is protesting in Monument Square. At least one of us should be there at all times, he says, because “technically, if there’s no one up at the square, they can get us here for loitering.”
Someone responds that we should be able to protest here, in Lincoln Park, because the occupation has evolved in the days since activists tried to occupy the square overnight and were redirected to the park by city officials. This is becoming a common sentiment at Camp, but several of us prepare to go.
There’s rain in the forecast, so I zip up my tent and secure the tarp over it with some much-sought-after stakes. Then I make a protest sign. On one side, I write, “We Are The Voice of the People.” On the other: “Can You Hear ME/US Now?”
10:30 a.m. – 1 p.m. The signs are lined up on the grassy strip at the base of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Anyone is welcome to grab one and hold it in protest. The largest one has the simplest message: “Occupy Maine.”
I stand on Congress Street, across from the library, next to a cement bollard. On the other side of me stands a statuesque African woman with long, bleached-blonde braids and a baby in tote. She’s T.J.’s wife, the one whose bankcard got stolen.
“I want a better future for my kids,” she says. When she explains the occupation to her 17-year-old son, she tells him, “It’s one drop at a time. You might not see the change, but you’ll look back on it and know you were part of history, just like the civil rights movement of the ’60s.”
More protesters join us. One is a young man who hasn’t been to Camp but is looking for a place to live. Another is a teacher who took part in the squatters’ right movement in Manhattan in the ’70s. She says she’s been waiting for this — “a people’s revolution” — for a long time.
It’s getting warmer, so I take off my thermal hooded overshirt and tie it around my waist. Steve, 27, stands beside me, waiting for the bus. He’s from Auburn, between houses, and hasn’t had a job in “forever,” so he spends his days reading. I encourage him to pick up a sign.
“I’ve been pissed for years,” he says, grabbing one. “I’m glad that people are agreeing with what I’ve known all along. It’s fucked sideways!”
“What is ‘it’?” I ask.
“Corporate partnerships, the military industrial complex, medicine for profit, the pharmaceutical companies. ‘It’ is endless.”
Every so often a car horn beeps, eliciting a cheer from the protesters. A protester named Mo shouts out the first part of a chant — “Banks got bailed out!” — to which everyone responds: “Banks got bailed out!”
“We got sold out!”
“We got sold out!”
I try to make eye contact with people in passing cars. Some give a thumbs-up. Many ignore us. A few shout insults. “We hate you!” “Get a job, lazy bums!”
3 p.m. Back at Camp, a woman named Karen has arrived from Belfast bearing apples and other items. Upon seeing all the apples we already have, she keeps those she’s brought and says she’ll return on Thursday with apple crisp instead.
Karen has had cancer for 18 months. It’s in remission now, so she’s had to find work. The only job she could get is a very part-time (nine hours a week)
position at her doctor’s office in Falmouth Foreside. She makes the four-hour round trip to work two days a week. She has no health insurance, but she’s worried about us. She talks about getting hay bales to shore up tents on the windward side of the park come winter. I swallow back tears.
6 p.m. At the urging of campers, the GA meeting is held for the first time at the fountain in Lincoln Park, rather than up at the square. It’s dark and cooling down. Seamus brings his gas lantern and places it on the ground in the center of the circle. There are about 20 people in attendance. It’s an extremely lively meeting and lasts 90 minutes, hand signals flying and flickering around as people express hopes and fears, frustration and exuberance.
8 p.m. “Mic check! Call an ambulance!”
A young man is crouched over in his tent, complaining that his ribs are aching badly. Several people help bring him to the curbside of Franklin Street, where he sits on the ground, hunching over, tears in his eyes, obviously in pain. I keep my hand on his shoulder as I crouch and talk with him.
Two men run across Pearl Street to the fire station as a cop in a cruiser pulls up, asking questions. Asked if he’s eaten anything out of the ordinary, the young man says he stopped by the shelter to grab a bite. “That’ll do it,” the officer says. People chuckle in agreement. An ambulance arrives and he’s taken away with one of his friends.
“Mic check!”
Everyone wants to know what’s happening, so I explain. “He has a lot of rib pain. He fell from a ladder about a month and a half ago. He has an upper-respiratory infection. The pain is much worse than usual. He’s heading to the hospital.”
“Yeah, respiratory stuff with bad ribs — not good,” someone remarks, then everyone heads back to their clusters.
10 p.m. I climb into my tent and decide to change into fleece pants and a thermal shirt. My clothing — even the pores of my skin — smells like cigarette smoke. Almost everyone here smokes cigarettes. There are large bags of tobacco available for group use, and rolling papers, though most smokers just bum butts from others.
The rules against alcohol and hard drug use are strictly enforced, but if someone who’s been drinking shows up and needs a place to stay, they’re usually given a spot to sleep it off.
I have another restless night, kept awake by talking, laughter and sirens. At one point I hear a security guard loudly ask, “Is anyone in the L.L. Bean tent?”
“Yes,” I shout back.
“No, not that one. Sorry for waking you.”
Wednesday
5:30 a.m. Awakened by my cell phone alarm, I climb out of my sleeping bag, exhausted, get dressed and crawl backwards out of the tent. I walk over to the common area, where Heather is standing in her sheepskin coat along with J.B. and Mo’s mom, Margery.
J.B., 50, is talking about cutting and hauling wood up north back in the day. I tell them how I used to watch lumbermen jump from log to log on the Kennebec River, loosening the jams outside the Scott Paper mill.
Margery, an attractive, petite blond, fondly remembers riding in the cab of the semi her son used to drive. “You know he’s ridden a tractor trailer for 30 years?” she says proudly, puffing on a cigarette. She’s staying in a local shelter while her son camps here and looks for housing for her.
The morning air is crisp on my walk to Starbucks. Once inside the restroom, I strip down, lay four paper towels on the floor, and quickly wash myself, drying off with more paper towels. I change back into my clothes, brush and braid my hair and brush my teeth. I feel refreshed as I walk out to order coffee and a breakfast wrap.
3:30 p.m. It’s pouring rain when I return, reluctantly, to Camp carrying two 20-packs of cookies. While at work, I had debated whether I should bypass Camp and head instead to a quiet, dry, warm place to write.
I’d had cart duty in the parking lot. Most days, rain or shine, I sit outside during my half-hour lunch, but today I sat inside at a café table. As I was gazing out at the rain and thinking about the campers, I saw Margery walk by. She stopped to speak with a well-dressed blonde woman, apparently to ask her for directions. I thought, Why is it that only one of them can afford the comfort of a warm home, good health care, reliable transportation, stylish clothing and trips to the hair salon?
I decide to stop by Camp, where Shane, Mo and another man are adjusting a makeshift pole to hold up the leaking, sagging tarps. Boxes of blankets and clothing are soaked, as is a sleeping bag draped over a chair. I help with that project for a half hour. Someone has made a big pot of potatoes, with hot dogs and buns on the side, and a self-serve line is forming.
A supporter arrives carrying ponchos and a couple of umbrellas. We invite her to sit and chat. Her name is Dee Dee, and she does energy work. She says she’ll come to the event at Monument Square on Saturday and offer her services for free.
Just then a young woman, pale, with dark hair and eyes, wanders into the park. She looks dazed.
“I’ve been walking for three days,” she says, but no one seems to hear her except me. “I’ve been walking for three days to get here,” she repeats more loudly. Seamus and I and several others rush over to her. Someone hugs her and she starts sobbing. Seamus clears a seat for her, another bundles her in a warm blanket. Seamus finds her some blueberry juice.
I ask if she’d like to eat, but she just stares blankly ahead — she must be in shock. We open a few cans of food, dump them together and heat it on the stove. I offer her a cookie, which she devours, then another one. “No one would pick me up,” she says. “Even the fucking police went right past me.”
Her name is Katey. She’s 19. She’d been camping here earlier in the month, then had to go to Auburn and tried to hitchhike back.
In the midst of Katey’s story, a woman arrives with a hot pizza from Whole Foods, and everyone graciously thanks her. Another person comes by with sweatshirts, and one is offered to Katey. She puts it on.
7:30 p.m. There’s a festive feeling in Camp after the GA meeting, lots of lively discussion and laughter. The rain is loud on the tarps. Tim, Seamus, T.J. and I are talking about the pros and cons of incorporating Occupy Maine as a non-profit.
Montana, a bulky man in his 50s wearing a green plaid coat, joins the conversation. A self-proclaimed “vagabond,” he’s traveled all over the country and first came to Maine about three months ago. He talks about living in Pinellas Hope, a tent city for the homeless in Florida run by Catholic Charities. Years ago, police came into another tent city, in St. Petersburg, and slashed the tents with box cutters. He thinks that could happen here.
T.J. talks about looking for work, and says his wife wants to move back to Africa. He thinks some of the cash donations should be given directly to campers. “Give ’em 10 bucks so they can go to a movie or something,” he says.
We try to fortify the canopies in anticipation of high winds tonight. At my suggestion, we also place buckets beneath the places where water is pouring off the tarps, to use for dishwashing, hand-washing, and general cleaning. We sit and listen as Seamus recites Mary Elizabeth Frye’s famous poem. “Do not stand over my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep …” Then it’s time to turn in.
9:15 p.m. I discover that my tarp is leaking. The lower half of my sleeping bag is wet. I call my daughter, who lives on the Hill, to let her know I may stop by in the morning to use the dryer. “Why do you want to stay in a leaky tent?” she asks. I don’t have a good answer. I stumble over words, say good night, hang up and turn off my phone. I get teary-eyed.
I’m here in solidarity and in honor of those who’ve been chewed up and spit out by the system. I am the 99 percent — we are the 99 percent. I get it.
I undress and climb into my wet sleeping bag, warmed in minutes, and fall fast asleep, waking only once in the night to voices and footsteps and chimes, the rap of rain on my tarp.
Thursday
6 a.m. I awaken before the alarm goes off. Rain is pouring down my tent and dripping inside. I have to go to the bathroom so badly that I don’t even change out of my fleece. I scramble to put more shirts on, don my raincoat and rain pants, and hobble down the street to Starbucks, relieved to find the restroom empty.
10:30 a.m. The rain is subsiding as I walk back to Camp. Young people are standing in line, waiting for the spaghetti and meatballs that Heather, in her sheepskin, is heating on the stove.
Someone yells from Congress Street, and I look to see a man dangling a large plastic bag over the black-iron fence. He motions me over. The bag is filled with at least 30 bagels, still warm, and two containers of vegetable cream cheese.
There’s a reporter here from the Associated Press. I overhear a male camper whisper to Macy that he wants to be called Captain while the press is around. I tell him I’m working on a story for The Bollard but won’t use his real name.
He takes me aside, and I think he’s going to ask me to leave. “I’ve been watching you,” he says. “I’ve watched how you are. I know you won’t reveal my name.”
Captain, an unemployed veteran in his late 30s, is the only remaining member of the original Occupy Maine group that tried to sleep in Monument Square. “I’m not in it for the fame,” he says. “I’m in it for the change, as long as it takes.”
4 p.m. After showering at my daughter’s place and drying my sleeping bag, I walk back to camp, the sunlight glistening the raindrops in the trees.
Captain and Alan are there. They look beat. They stood out in the rain and protested in the square all afternoon. They were the only ones there.
I look for lines to hang the wet clothing and blankets strewn around the campsite, then try to organize the pantry, labeling crates: ramen, pasta sauce, soups, canned meats and fish. The table is covered with fresh vegetables — potatoes, onions, carrots, squash, daikon radishes. There are boxes and boxes to be sorted through.
9 p.m. I decide to call it an early night. Though it’s cold, I don’t cover my tent with the tarp. I change into my fleece pants and a thermal shirt and nestle into my clean, dry sleeping bag.
I think about all the stories I’ve heard and all the people I’ve met and the mixed-up jumble of personalities and opinions that make up this occupation. If we have one thing in common, it’s that we’ve all been disillusioned and disappointed by a set of systems (political, economic, educational) that are supposed to protect us and work in our best interest. We all want the basics of life: food, shelter, a sense of belonging, and a means to secure those things. The occupation feels like a step in that direction.
Friday
5:30 a.m. This is my last morning here. I have to work in two hours, and after work I’ll come back to pack up, say my goodbyes and ride the ferry home.
I linger in my tent, feeling the coolness of the morning on my face and the ache in my arthritic joints and muscles. It’s still dark as I dress, back out of my tent, and walk to the common area.
David, 61, is sitting at the round table drinking coffee. I’ve seen him around, at Starbucks and the GA meetings. He’s been looking for housing since April. Before that, he’d always owned his home. He says landlords won’t rent to him because he doesn’t have a history as a tenant. “And nowadays, they want first, last, and a security deposit,” David says. “I’m on Social Security and my check doesn’t cover that.”
“So do you know what this is all about?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he says. “Occupying and corporations and banks … A lot of people are afraid, afraid of change, because change usually happens for the worse instead of the better.”
“This change is definitely for the better,” I say.
We are experiencing the birth pangs of a new community, a better society, one for the people and by the people. It isn’t always pretty, but it has value beyond what banks or governments or the media tell us it has. There’s bickering and complaining, there are messes to clean up, and no one knows how long this camp will last. But there’s also shared laughter and tears, and hands held out in support. I’ve never experienced a stronger sense of community in my 57 years on the planet.
When I met Macy, the Camp Mom, that first day, she described the occupation this way: “It’s like fireworks. There’s light and stuff all inside this small container and it’s been holding itself inside for a long, long time,” she said, cupping her hands together as if packing a snowball.
“Then, all of a sudden,” and she stretched her arms out above her head, “the light is everywhere, released.”
