Why Canvassing Sucks and Other Things I Learned Today.

I am very shy in certain settings. My shyness borders on social anxiety. To be honest, it probably is social anxiety, but the whole cat-got-my-tongue thing doesn’t happen all the time. In fact, sometimes I talk too much. But that didn’t happen today.

Today my mouth was clamped shut so tightly that you would have thought I had something precious stored in there and was fearful it would fall out.

When I did open my mouth to speak—nothing, silence. My mind went blank.

This was problematic because I was standing on the doorstep of a stranger’s house with a very sullen looking man staring back at me. “Is Betsy home?” I squeaked.

“No.”

“Oh,” there were two other names on my list in addition to Betsy that lived in that house, both of whom I was told, would be interested in speaking to me. This man was not one of them.

“Well, I’m a volunteer for,” and my mind went blank. I looked down at the brochure I had crumpled in my hand and held it out to him. He just stared.

“She’s not interested.” His certainty came as a surprise. I was tempted to clarify—is she not interested or is she not home?—but changed my mind.

Lesson #1: Canvassing sucks because sometimes the people who “want to” speak to you live with people who don’t.

Lesson #2: Canvassing sucks because sometimes people will make claims for other people or speak on behalf of other people who are more than capable of thinking and speaking for themselves.

Lesson #3: Canvassing may suck because you have to interact with strangers. Canvassing will suck if you are shy and/or have social anxiety and/or aspire to live on a remote island or in a cave in the Himalayas.

Three houses after Betsy’s I started to shake a little and feel light-headed. I had decided to start my on-again, off-again experiment with intermittent fasting this morning.

It was now going on 18 hours since I had last eaten. This, however, was not my intention when I decided to forgo eating breakfast.

I had intended to eat lunch, but in my haste to meet my canvassing partner (who happened to be my mother) I had forgotten to bring it. Instead I had a packet of almond butter that I found flattened on the bottom of my bag and a few bites of an apple that tasted like the grease from the deli counter on which it was sitting when I purchased it.

Lesson #4: Canvassing sucks when you are not properly nourished or hydrated. In fact, everything sucks when you are not properly nourished or hydrated.

Lesson #5: It’s possible to walk for eight months straight from Georgia to Connecticut and people actually want to. (In purchasing my apple at the only store in at least a 50-mile radius from where my hunger pains started in earnest, I began chatting with a hiker who was taking a break from the Appalachian Trial, which runs through the sliver of Connecticut near where I was canvassing.)

Lesson #6: Taste is relative. There are times when eating an apple is like eating something divine. Then there are times when eating an apple is like eating a greasy apple because, well, it’s greasy. If that hiker had been the one eating my apple, I’m sure he wouldn’t have complained. After all, he had been walking in the woods for 8 months straight.

Fifteen houses after Betsy’s house I was sweaty cold—that feeling of being cold to your core yet, with some sense of surprise, finding yourself perspiring.

I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a light outer layer to protect myself from the wind. In hindsight, I may have piled on too many layers of clothing, but that was because I initially had too few on.

I did not, however, take into account walking up hill and walking into the sun. I also did not take into account having to keep up with my mom, who is a solid four inches shorter than me and who seems to have been training for a power walking marathon without my knowledge.

Lesson #7: People wear layers for a reason, meaning that if you find yourself wearing multiple pieces of clothing at the same time, you may remove said pieces as needed in order to regulate your body temperature.

Lesson #8: Re-evaluate what you do for cardio if you find yourself struggling to keep up with your mother who has two bum knees from falling at her Sunday night ice dancing lesson last week. (It was her first lesson and the focus was on learning how to fall safely.)

Lesson #9: Enjoy being outside—the golden color of the late afternoon sunlight, the deep blue sky, and multicolored orange, red, and yellow leaves—even if, no—especially if—you are sweaty and cold at the same time and feeling sorry for yourself for being so.

Twenty-six houses after Betsy’s house, we had more success than at all the other houses that came before.

My mom and I had been doing a second round of canvassing. The houses we were visiting were either deemed to have no one home or were overlooked during the first canvassing pass through. So, in theory there was a chance that we wouldn’t get many people opening their doors because either they had already said that they would be voting or they were still not home.

The front door of this house was actually opened by someone who was interested in speaking with us. He didn’t make us feel like we were inconveniencing him and didn’t seem to mind that he had to struggle with a door that was hardly ever used.

Unfortunately he was in middle school and didn’t take us up on our offer to leave candidate information behind.

Lesson #10: Getting out of our comfort zones might not feel life changing. We usually don’t get accolades or grand marching bands or ticker tape parades announcing our effort. But, it doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. It doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying, whatever it is we do. Election Day is Tuesday, November 6th. It’s worth it—go vote.

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