»Democracy   Burning«

I guess you could say I was always looking for something like Occupy, but after a lifetime of searching, it found me first. 

Summer of 2011.  At the time I was living in Greenpoint and working part time at a yoga studio down the street.  My routine was to wake up at 5:30am, practice ashtanga yoga for an hour, then work the desk from 7-9, then head to work in the city and look at charts and spreadsheets from 10am until about 7.  Doing social media metrics analysis at a desk in Manhattan for a whole day left me with a strong urge to totally myself from my own personal social media.  It was a calm, serene, and introspective summer.  Exploring the mysteries of the universe through yoga & meditation had turned my attention away from worldly and political matters.  I don’t think I had heard anything at all about Occupy Wall Street, until the day I found myself right inside it.

September 22nd was the day after the International Day of Peace - the day they killed Troy Davis.  And the people were ready to rage.  The five-days-old movement called for people to take the streets to outcry the injustice.  I was walking down Broadway, near Washington Square Park, still dressed in office attire as I casually ambled without a care in the world with my iPod blasting in my ears.  I wish I remembered what song was playing, but I do remember hearing a roar beneath the music, and lot more people on the street than normal.  As I turned around, pulling one headphone out of my ear, I hit me.  The sound, the fury, the sight of thousands taking over the street.  They just kept coming - pouring out from Washington Place on to Broadway.  That alone had me spellbound.   I was just staring at the seemingly endless flow of people coming around the corner and into the street.  By the time the stream finished, they were thousands.  Broadway was completely overtaken by this passionate mass of people tearing up the concrete.  I didn’t who who these people were, or where they were going.  But I knew I was joining them.

I said, where are we going? 

And someone said, “To Liberty Square.” 

To Liberty Square it is, then. 

{{to be continued…}}