Tricycle | Awake in the World

On a windy spring evening last year, shortly after the 139th American soldier had died in Iraq and President Bush had declared an end to “major combat operations,” my partner, Brian, and I drove to our local Borders bookstore, met up with a bunch of strangers huddled around a truck in the parking lot, and signed our names to a petition on the clipboard someone was passing from hand to hand. Within a few weeks, I was standing outside a summer arts festival wearing a button reading “Howard Dean for America” and trying to give voter registration forms to passing strangers.