A Thousand Sisters (6 page)

I'm thrilled to have a Congo partner in crime
.
We take off to a grassroots advocacy conference in D.C., where we chase policy wonks down hotel corridors, quizzing them about how to launch a movement. At the Darfur discussion panels, I'm the woman in the back of the room asking, “Why is there no advocacy focus on Congo?” After the conference, I continue the outreach effort and pick up the nickname “Ms. Congo” in the process.

Kelly and I return to Washington to meet with every Africa or relief or genocide prevention organization that will talk to us. We are also spinning plans for a trip to Congo. I leave Ted at home to fend for himself on these trips, and he doesn't object; we can use the space.

Kelly and I schlep our way up Pennsylvania Avenue, exhausted after wrapping up our seventh meeting of the day. The Capitol stands in front of us in its undeniable grandeur
,
but the beauty is lost on me in my end-of-day brain-fry. I'm sticky in my black wool business clothes and weighed down from the oppressive humidity. I want to shake off the day. Instead, we talk in loops, regurgitating and processing everything we heard in our meetings. Almost everyone we've met has their hands full with Darfur or HIV or debt relief. Some are very supportive, promising to do what they can. Others are quick to lecture us. “You need to get it: You can't save Congo.”

I'm so tired I can't even track what I've just said. I've all but checked out from the conversation when I hear Kelly refer to my efforts as “just pity.”

Just pity?
As a child of New Agers (bless my mother), I'm all for self-reflection. But given Kelly's quiet manner, I'm surprised at her quick jump from analyzing her own motivations to judging mine. It hits me like a slap.

So this is what it's like under the microscope: Now that I've stepped out, the pressure is on. I'm expected to work from the exactly perfect, most
enlightened and politically correct place in my soul. Flawed methods and motivations will be observed and noted. This is a problem; I have not spent semester after semester studying how to be an activist. I have no idea what I'm doing. Like a lot of people, I'm afraid I won't make a difference, but mostly I'm afraid of doing it wrong. In public.

Should I curl up in the fetal position and process? Do I need to stop and go see a therapist or spiritual guide to deal with my ego? Wait to be perfect before I start? What about effort polluted by ego and naiveté, buoyed by grandiose dreams? What if I can't save Congo, but I try anyway? Would it be better to do nothing?

Did the abolitionists really think they could end slavery?

Did the anti-apartheid movement really think it could ban apartheid?

Does Save Darfur really think they can save Darfur?

Defensive, I spit back, “I'm doing this because I care.”

 

WHILE I AM IN WASHINGTON, my mom calls to tell me that a batch of letters has just arrived from our Congo sisters. The letters are full of news about their children, their favorite classes in the program, their business activities, prayers and blessings, and their hopes for the first democratic elections in their country since 1960, which are scheduled to take place this summer. My mom faxes the letters to the nearest Kinko's. One stands out.

I march her letter over to Oregon Senator Ron Wyden's office, where he's holding his weekly meet and greet for constituents. I'm the only person who shows up, so we talk for a half hour about Congo. He reads Generose's letter.

“They cut off her leg!” he says, shocked. “There are so many horrific situations like this, but what makes Congo stand out is the brutality. When were you there?”

Embarrassed to admit it, I answer, “I've never been to Congo.”

I'm so tickled that a letter written by a woman in the Congo has landed in the hands of a U.S. Senator. I stop by Union Station and pick up postcards of Washington monuments framed with cherry blossoms and I write to Generose. I make rudimentary diagrams that outline the way the U.S. government is structured, so that Generose will understand how high up her letter has gotten. I suppose I want to offer her one of the few shreds of silver lining available after a loss, the modest comfort that a loved one's death has not occurred in a vacuum, but that something meaningful might spring from it
.

A batch of new sponsorship packets arrives around the same time. The photos of new sisters always seem to have the self-conscious look of those who are unaccustomed to being photographed, but these four portraits say something else entirely. Though their paperwork looks no different than that of other Congolese women, their furrowed brows and downcast eyes convey distress. They look transparent, beaten down. Something especially bad must be happening in or around the Women for Women center they all attend called Walungu.

Back at Women for Women's D.C. headquarters, Sumana, the group's media person, tells me she wants to pitch my story to national magazines. Later that day we hop across the street to rummage the magazine racks at Borders, hoping to spark some ideas. As I thumb through women's magazines, Sumana leans over to me and whispers, “I know that woman. She's with [a major national magazine].” Without blinking, she pounces on her long-lost colleague. They swap updates about the last few years, since their joint stint in the White House press corps. Then Sumana launches into her Women for Women pitch, motioning for me to join them. “You have to hear Lisa's story. Well, Lisa, you'll tell it best . . .”

Pitch myself ?
Ugh. I stumble—practically choke—while the reporter listens politely. When I finish, she turns back to Sumana. “We get hundreds of pitches for stories on someone who crawled across the country on hand and knee for some good cause.” She sizes me up. “Have you been to Congo?”

“No. Not yet.”

She turns back to Sumana and says, “We might consider a story on letters between women, but just make sure it's not who you'd expect. You know, not someone who looks like they eat granola.”

Sumana jumps in, trying to salvage the contact. “I know a sponsor who would be perfect . . .”

I retreat to the magazine rack, trying to hide out behind
Elle
or
Glamour
or
Cosmo
, wondering what part of this perfectly pressed, all-black suit from Saks Fifth Avenue identified me as granola. All I can figure is that my silver 1920s art nouveau choker, a collector's item, apparently screams “hippie” in this Ann Taylor town. In any case, I don't need to be told my story isn't suited for a national magazine. I never dreamed it might be until Sumana mentioned it.

Fortunately,
Runner's World
and
O, The Oprah Magazine
—and later,
Fitness
magazine
—
disagree. Nine months after the meeting with Sumana, they all publish stories about me and the run, and the timing couldn't be better. Congo legislation is stalled in committee in the House following a
unanimous pass in the Senate. It's cosponsored by Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback. (You can't get more opposite sides of the aisle than that!) But rumor has it the committee chair is holding it up so as to not aid Obama's rising star. I head over to D.C.'s Union Station, a couple of blocks from Capitol Hill, and stock up on as many copies of
O
and
Runner's World
as I can stuff into my bag, then I join the small constituency from Chicago, about six people total, for their self-proclaimed “Congo Lobby Days.” We lug the magazines up and down the halls of Congress, asking for support of the bill.

When we talk with a couple of Republican staffers, I give them the magazines in an effort to prove there is a national, grassroots groundswell of support for Congo. They scan the articles. “A million dollars,” says one. “How much have you raised so far?”

“Fifty thousand,” I say, then quickly change the subject.

Who knows if it helps, but a handful of Republican staffers promise to call to check the bill's status, which will put pressure on the committee chair to pass it through for a floor vote. In a week, I will get an email from a legislative aide. The last statement in the Congressional Record, just prior to the unanimous passing of the bill, will be praise for Run for Congo Women and the way it has blossomed into a global effort to support the women of the DRC
.

 

IF I SCORED POINTS IN D.C., I certainly haven't scored any at home. I had imagined that my drop-everything-to-stop-a-war behavior would recharge a relationship that has had no space for the past five years
.
But my all-consuming volunteer work schedule and my Congo-first, business-second attitude have gotten old for Ted. I see his point—I have put our financial goals on hold. But I think I've earned some flexibility after putting in years of sixteen-hour workdays and months-long stretches without a day off.

In any case, people have started to notice. Long after the event, my mom confesses that at the Portland run volunteers pulled her aside to report Ted's visible disenchantment with me. It was in the air that day. After the run, he
went out for beers with a buddy while a neighbor drove me home. In my post- 30-mile stupor, I threw up out the window (much to the disgust of her teenage kids sitting next to me!) and spent the rest of the afternoon sprawled on the bathroom floor alone.

At this point, there's no getting around it. Ted's icy silence speaks volumes. I'm in breach of contract. I'm not free to do my own thing until delivery of a French country home, a Ducati Supersport, and a new Rolex
.
Anything less is just selfish.

The slow burn of betrayal is mutual. I'm desperate for us to try to work it out
.
But as our relationship descends into a series of seething, resentful fights, I find myself on the defensive, snapping, “I'm a human being, not a lifestyle.”

On the June day that we were supposed to get married, I can't help but feel ripped off. In an alternate universe, I would be in the Val d'Orcia, dancing under a string of lights in the courtyard of a medieval Tuscan inn, overlooking ancient olive groves.

Ted asked me to marry him on New Year's Day. We don't believe in long engagements, so we set a June date, but in late March the Italian country inn cancelled our booking (something about an auto accident), and it was too late to find another venue. We said we'd do it next year. Maybe.

Now Ted is gone. He's taking an extended “break” in Berlin, while I've been bestowed the freedom to date whomever I choose. It is not a freedom I've asked for or want.

I'm sure he won't call today. Best not to wait around. Time to go for a run.

The phone rings; it's my friend Lana. “Have you checked your email yet today?”

“Why?”

“Just do.”

I open my inbox to find a message presumably emailed to our entire guest list.
Evite Reminder: Ted and Lisa's Wedding.

Just so all of my friends and family really, really remember exactly what is
not
happening today. Mercifully, none of the recipients ever say a word.

Why mope? I leave for my run.

I get out of the car at the trailhead and stretch next to the two-lane road sandwiched between the river and the airport. It's mostly used by truckers as a back route to industrial parks and freeways. I like it because the path is paved and flat. It's my “I don't feel like running” course.

I notice a man on a bicycle in the distance. I've learned how to distinguish recreational bike riders from the transient car thieves that comb isolated parking lots off this road. This guy is of the car thief variety so I stay near my car, waiting for him to pass. I don't want to lose my stereo.

He doesn't pass. He rides straight up to me and stops. He's normal looking enough, but tattered and greasy around the edges in a way that reads transient. He blocks my way to the path and thrusts out his hand for me to shake.

“I'm James.”

“Hello, James,” I say, keeping my hands to myself.

“What's wrong? You won't shake my hand?” he says in an unsettling, sharp voice. “What's your name? Why won't you shake my hand?”

Alarm bells start to blare in my head. Isolated road, no clear path forward or back. Truckers whizzing by, oblivious.

I hold up my hands and gesture towards the path as if to say, “Back off.”

This does not fly.

“What? You're too good to shake my hand?” He thrusts out his hand again in confrontation. “Just shake my hand and I'll leave you alone. Hi. I'm James.”

I shake his hand.

“I'm Lisa. Nice to meet you.”

He doesn't let go of my hand and barks, “What's my name?”

“James.”

“What's my name again?”

“James.”

“See? Was that so hard?”