His name was Peter... I think. But after 48 hours of fasting, my memory was shot. I was having trouble even remembering the names of the people I know well who were with me that night. Peter, if that was his name, was sitting on the sidewalk with his guitar, playing songs from the 60’s – from back when songs about peace were on everyone’s lips and on every radio station. I listened to the once familiar sounds of I Ain’t Marching Anymore and Blowing in the Wind and it seemed like the 35 years since I last heard them never happened.
We joined together in the choruses, a group of about 30 people, aging hippies and a few precious kids with rings in their noses and orange hair, who only know about the Vietnam war from history class. No one could remember the verses to some of the songs, not even Peter... or whatever his name was. Only a handful of us had been fasting, so they couldn’t use that for an excuse. For a moment, as I looked around our group of peace activists standing on the corner, struggling to remember songs of another time, another war, another battle we thought we won long ago, I fully understood the philosophy that time is all-present. Enduring two days of bitter cold and no food can bring that kind of clarity...
The Peace Fast, March 26 - 28, 2007, San Diego, CA, with Fernando Suarez del Solar
It’s been over a week since I joined Fernando Suarez del Solar in front of the Federal Office Building in San Diego to fast for 48 hours for peace. I’ve struggled to write about the experience since returning home last Wednesday night to my safe, cozy bed. Where do I start describing an experience that left a deep and profound imprint on my psyche? How do I explain that enduring some of the worst March weather we’ve seen here in San Diego (it even made the front page of the Union Tribune) and living on the sidewalk like a homeless person, and going without anything but chamomile tea for 48 hours, has somehow restored my faith in humanity and my hope for the future? What an inconvenient time for writer’s block to set in!
The email about the Fast for Peace came into my inbox on Saturday, March 24th. I was licking my wounds from a relationship that had fallen apart as quickly as it began – he realized before I did that he wasn’t right for me, that he just didn’t care about the same things I do and accused me of having a Joan of Arc complex. I realized, with a certain sense of glee, that I was free to make a spontaneous decision to join Fernando Suarez del Solar, in this fast honoring the memory of his son, Jesus, who died in Iraq. I wanted to support Fernando, whom I love and admire and I needed to do something – ANYTHING – that would bring us closer to peace. Nothing Joan of Arc about it at all – she was a warrior and I am a peacemaker.
In the days ahead I would learn to face my biggest fears: being cold and homeless. I would discover that there is tremendous support behind the peace movement. I would witness the magic of non-violence. And I would open my heart to someone new. And maybe that’s why it’s so difficult to write about this – because the personal is so intertwined with the communal. I kept a journal for those 48 hours, when my hands were not shaking so much from the cold that I couldn’t write. I give up trying to condense it and it's much too long to put in this email. So I've posted some of the thoughts I recorded in those 48 hours, along with some photos, on the BringTheirBuddiesHome.com website. I hope you take the time to read and enjoy it and perhaps share some of the sense of renewal I took from the experience: