i don't know when i let my guard down but utah became home sometime around the presidential election. i will always be from somewhere else but i think i officially became "from" here when i saw the women's march on the utah capitol. i wasn't there. i should have been. but seeing that happen and seeing the capitol full of women... i realized something that i have known before but didn't understand. i am always lamenting how small the valley is. all of utah exists in one valley, it seems, which makes me feel sometimes like i'm suffocating. but i never realized that it was also a great opportunity: we are all right here. we are all thrown in this together and close by and there are a lot of us that care. utah is a community where things truly happen the grassroot way. utah is a lot of things, and a lot of them aren't good for me, but that community i am beginning to suspect is unlike many other places.

i am excited by this but also sad. sad to realize i have missed out on years worth of events and opportunities to meet people like me and build a political and friendship network. there may not be a lot of states where you could meet the amazing and pivotal people because they are your neighbors, your acquaintances of acquaintances, and they are interested in the issues as much as you and have a background like you do. it's almost like i see this other version of me that could have been: a woman involved in the community, a woman who couldn't be further from politics but who has become politicized. a woman willing to do the grind work of revolution--even if it's a tiny one with small victories.

at the same time i am exasperated by the movement here. i can't get to slc and back in order to be on time for work, if i can make it at all. slc is close but not that close--two hours round trip. a lot of the events and meetings are midday and i feel like there is a lot of privilege in that: how do all of these people have time to be there in the middle of the day all the time? on the one hand, the legislature meets during the day. on the other hand, i may never be a meaningful part of the slc public because i literally can't afford to be there.

whether i can show up in the end or not, though, i learned something from utah, which is the value of grassroots work and community. the world is smaller here than where i'm from, much smaller, but there are still opportunities in that, even if they weren't the opportunities i was looking for. i will try to make it here but if we end up somewhere else i hope i can do the same thing: make the world smaller and make neighbors mean something to hopefully make the world a little better for people.