In the last three years, I’ve campaigned in three elections. Two bi-elections, 2022 Vancouver-Quilchena and 2023 Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, and the 2024 general election when I ran in the new riding of Vancouver-Little Mountain.

As an introverted person, campaigning is challenging. My preferred role is listening. Campaigning takes so much talking. Candidates must start unexpected conversations with people busy doing other things. In my work in emergency management, we scheduled conversations with an agenda, or an unscheduled emergency initiated the conversation, and in both cases, everyone involved expected to have those conversations.

During a campaign, candidates calling, or knocking on doors, are interrupting people who aren’t expecting to have a conversation about their hopes for the future at that moment. I hate interrupting. Knowing I’ll be interrupting makes picking up the phone to call a herculean effort, and to knock on their door takes the strength of Atlas pushing that boulder up the mountain. Like Atlas, whose rock rolls down every time he approaches the top, there is always another door to knock on.

If you were one of the many, many people who answered their phone or door this election to find a candidate or volunteer there, thank you.

If you were one of the people who said yes to conversation with them, a thousand thanks.

If you approached a candidate, or their team, after an event, a special thank you goes out to you too.

Your generosity, sharing your time and thoughts, is what makes all the effort of campaigning worth it.

Meeting people, listening to them share their thoughts on life, what’s important to them, and their vision for the future lights up my whole being. It is an honour that never tarnishes. The effort it takes to pick up that phone, walk up to that door, and knock or enter that event room, is entirely powered by listening and speaking with individuals.

During a campaign, the list of things to do seems endless. Candidates and their team could work twenty hours a day every day and still they will not get everything done. Then suddenly it is over, election day has passed, and the ballots have been counted. The work, long though it may have been just twenty hours earlier, is over. There’s some cleanup to do, signs to collect, finance reports to write, but the work, the calling, knocking, speaking, that’s all over.

The let down is intense. I don’t sleep well. I shake. I’m strangely clumsy. My focus fails. While I’m recovering, it takes extra effort to accomplish even little things. Today I failed at pouring water into my coffee pot. There I was, staring right at the pour, watching for just the right time to stop. I couldn’t process fast enough though, by the time I saw it was full and stopped, water and coffee grounds were everywhere.

Even toasting a bagel today was a test. I burned three bagels in a row, the first burned because I forgot to turn down the timer for bagel, and the next and next after that because I forgot when you toast one thing after another you need to turn the timer down (to account for how toasty warm the toaster already is). The third was my last bagel, so I ate the least crispy parts. And when making breakfast means cleaning up wet coffee grounds from failed pour overs, toasting three bagels and only getting to eat one burned one, and let’s not even talk about the spilt milk or jam blobs, getting up and accomplishing anything in a day takes effort where none was needed before.

So why do I continue to run for office, campaign during election after election? Of course, there are the things I want to change, the ideals I aim to direct attention toward and systems I’d like to shift. Those things I talk about during the campaign, and those are true and real reasons to run. Yet to accomplish the change I’d like to see in the world, I could back another. Why do it myself? Why put myself, over and over again, through the grind of a campaign I might not win?

First, I have to acknowledge, some of it is fun. I love conversation, listening to people speak about the problems they’re facing, and discussing possible solutions makes me genuinely happy, truly butters my noodles. Plus, waving signs is plain old-fashioned, good, clean, physical fun.

Second, there is always the possibility that I could, just maybe, get elected and be able to actually put in place the solutions we’ve been discussing. I believe it is possible the vision I bring for the future, the changes I see as necessary reflect the desires and will of the people. Being able to bring those solutions to life would be fulfilling, meat on my buttered noodles as it were.

Third, there’s democracy itself. Contributing to, helping sustain, the democracy we enjoy is revitalizing. For our communities, for ourselves, for myself, sustaining a free democracy, where ideas and selves are expressed freely and valued contributions to our society, nourishes my soul. That we make space in our busy lives to talk about important issues, to plan a way forward, and determine how we want to live together is to be treasured. Just as it takes many gems to build a treasure, having many voices and visions for the future makes democracy valuable.

A slate with one candidate isn’t a democracy and two opposing candidates doesn’t leave room for the complexity of problems, solutions and people I know exist in our real world where emergencies can leave people homeless. Finding compassionate solutions that meet the needs of everyone, now and future generations, requires many voices join and share ideas, methods and values openly.

For myself, being part of our democratic process is worth the burnt bagels, the work, the drain and the healing afterwards.

Thank you everyone, all the volunteers, the donators, the voters and non-voters who took the time to talk with me. Thank you, one and all, for being part of our democracy and helping to make our world a better place.