Another Day in the Country
Speaking up, speaking out
© Another Day in the Country
This morning, I was cleaning bathrooms in my too-big-for-me house — all three bathrooms, plus the sink in the kitchen and utility area.
Ajax was flying, and Clorox was splashing as I attempted to get stains off whatever sinks are made of these days.
I was doing this with vigor, in celebration of the fact that our rural water has been clear for more than a month.
It’s been clear for so long that I’m beginning to take having clear, clean water for granted — like we all do until it isn’t.
I’ve been trying to remember how long I’ve been putting up with crappy water. (Excuse me, but there is no better word that can describe what it was like.) It went on so long that it became abusive. Then people started speaking up.
Maybe it was a surprise to the water board that people started complaining. What really happened was people were speaking up for their rights. In fact, when I went to a meeting of the board, one of the men sitting in front of me turned around when I was speaking to the board and said: “Where have you been all this time? Why haven’t you been coming to board meetings all along? Why are you just complaining now?”
Hmmm, I thought, would this good old boy have spoken to another guy like that? Did I not have a right to speak up now because I hadn’t been there before? Or was he just trying to shush a woman?
This woman cringes when I remember how long I put up with brown water coming through water pipes into my house.
Through the years, I’d become really good at remembering to test the water before I washed a load of lighter clothes, hoping that the water color wouldn’t change during the rinse cycle.
I became really efficient at cleaning orange residue out of sinks and more complacent about putting up with brown rings in the toilet bowl.
I made all kinds of excuses for not speaking up. We got used to dirty water every few weeks, and we just put up with it.
Most of us didn’t say a word for way too long. We kept thinking: This won’t last long. This has got to get better. Those who provide this service are doing the best they can.
The strange thing is, after the problem was brought to their attention and proper flushing of the pipes was done, we’ve had clear water in Ramona.
Yes, further work may need to be done, but for now, the water is clear, thanks to everyone who spoke up.
The lesson I learned was that we need to speak up sooner.
It seems like I should have learned that lesson a long time ago.
I was in a marriage for more than 30 years that got to be like the dirty water situation in Ramona. At first, it worked really well. Then, through the years as we changed and raised our kids, it got mucky.
My husband thought things were pretty much fine. He kept himself really busy in his job. If I raised concerns, he was too busy to notice for long until finally he took a new job on the East Coast, and I refused to move from California until we’d solved some issues.
It was like everyone showing up at the water board meeting, Whoa, why didn’t we say something before? I had said a lot of things through the years, but I should have acted sooner.
A week or so ago, they were having a No Kings demonstration in Abilene, and my sister and I talked about going.
We wanted to do our part, wherever we could, speaking out on important subjects. Was this a good time to do our bit?
“What are they doing at this demonstration?” I wanted to know.
I asked around.
They were gathering at a street corner in town where’s there’s a stop light and waving sign boards saying that our current White House resident was trying to act like a king.
I brought up the “age card.” Is this really dumb for any 80-year-old woman to be waving signs for two hours by the side of the road where you can’t sit down?
Then I had an idea.
“Remember that jack-in-the-box that we made in the bank window years ago when we decorated all the windows in downtown Ramona for Christmas?” I asked. “What if we made another jack-in-the-box, put a clown inside with a crown on his head, and made him jump up out of the box. Then we’d say, ‘No kings!’ and slam the lid on him over and over? That would get someone’s attention. That could be fun!”
My sister agreed that this could be a plan but that we couldn’t carry it out on such short notice.
I told a friend about the idea.
“I’ll find you a box,” my friend said.
Jess ordered a mask on Amazon for the king to wear. I’ll paint and decorate it all as soon as we get the box. We’ll be ready for the next demonstration.
Our job is to speak up — whether it’s about dirty water, hurtful relationships, or politics — on another day in the country.