The Lumber Jill: The antidote to fear

By Jen Jackson Quintano
Reader Columnist

MAGA flags flapped atop their twin flagpoles as we chatted amicably with our clients. They showed us to their riverfront beach, provided chairs, invited us to return with our daughter to swim during the warm season. They’d love to have a little one playing in the sand and shallows, they said. They miss their grandchildren.

Every time I drive by, I think we should take them up on the offer. Despite the flags. Or perhaps because of them. While the beach is a sweet proposition, the connection beneath the opposing army’s banner is a more fascinating one.

Those flags have always felt like a battle ensign.

Turns out, they’re simply decor.

This is a good reminder as we barrel headlong toward Election Day 2024. I’ve dreaded this year since the last presidential melee, when our community felt to be on the brink of something ugly. That year, I was perpetually on edge, flags and banners and bumper stickers screaming from all spaces, asserting one team’s superiority and the other’s need to eff off into the sun. And die there. Forever and ever. Amen.

That year, my commute along Highway 95 felt like traversing a war zone. However, the concept has since been redefined because of the recent and very real aggressions in Gaza and Ukraine. We do not live in a war zone. We live in a banner-festooned idyll.

Jen Jackson Quintano. Courtesy photo.

It turns out that a flag is not a mortal threat. And the standard bearers are not our mortal foes. We are simply neighbors with strongly worded political opinions. We may not always agree, but beneath all the slogans, we might just be able to enjoy a small Pack River beach together.

Over our years of tree work here, we’ve been gifted honey and garlic and praise while Fox News blares. In garages full of Gadsden flags and Second Amendment slogans, we’ve shared beers and stories. It’s only when conversation veers toward the political that discomfort ensues. When we stay free of that trap, we connect with our clients as human beings. Which we all, incredibly, are. In a land that is not, actually, at war.

In the past year, though, I’ve become more outspoken. My identity is more tied up in the political. To some, I am “The Lumberjill.” To others, I am “The Pro-Voice Project” (my all-consuming side-hustle for reproductive rights and health care). 

I’ve wondered when hostility will ensue. It’s felt but a matter of time.

A friend recently told me, “Yours are the only events at which I worry about my personal safety.” Another person mentioned wanting to attend one of my abortion-story stage productions, but worried that she’d “get shot” if she showed up. She stayed home.

An acquaintance, upon hearing of my upstart organization, shared stories of harassment and intimidation as experienced by an outspoken friend. She suggested that I reconsider the entire enterprise.

I’ve been told to purchase a home security system, to find someone to monitor online threats to myself and my family, to be more careful who I trust and where I walk alone. It’s dangerous to have my address online. It’s dangerous to respond to unsolicited texts. It’s dangerous to be so outspoken.

It is also dangerous to run a chainsaw 75 feet in the air, to feed a massive wood chipper. 

And it is now more dangerous to be pregnant in Bonner County, what with a total lack of obstetricians. Hence the need for my seemingly dangerous side project.

It is a dangerous world, yet, we navigate it in our search for meaning and sustenance. We have to. Or the dangerous world becomes an all-too-small one.

At a recent gathering of area progressives, two themes emerged from the audience. One was the sense that each of us is the only liberal/Democratic/sane person in our neighborhoods. One dot of blue surrounded by a churning cauldron of red. The second pervasive idea was that speaking out in said cauldron would leave one shot and bleeding. Not metaphorically. Really.

Many Bonner County progressives believe themselves entirely alone and in mortal danger for holding certain beliefs. They — we — believe this to be a war zone.

What a terrifying space to inhabit.

There are means of escape. One? Sit beneath a MAGA flag and find that your perceived assassin is actually a doting grandfather with arthritis and a love of model trains. Two? Make yourself and your values visible within our community so that your tribe might find you. By emerging from your bubble — and living to see another day — you bolster your courage and the courage of those around you. 

The antidote to fear is community.

A visiting Idaho legislator recently shared that, during her first run for office, she dreaded door-knocking in her deeply red neighborhood, but campaigning required it. At the first door, she was pleasantly surprised to learn that the resident was, in fact, a Democrat; he was just afraid to put up yard signs announcing it on such a conservative street. At the next door, this neighbor, too, was a Democrat concerned with riling up the neighbors. And so it went at the next and the next and the next door.

It turns out, her neighborhood was full of progressives hiding from perceived militant conservatism. It turns out the boogeyman, though it might sprout from seeds of reality, flourishes to epic heights in our imaginations.

This is not to say that there isn’t a real threat of political violence in our region. A woman in our community commits herself to tracking those threats every day, and it often leaves her queasy. Extremism in North Idaho is real. Yet, those of us brandishing the powerful armor of white, cis-het privilege tend to overemphasize the potential consequences of our speaking out. We tend to see the boogeyman everywhere when, mostly, we’re just jumping at the shadows of our neighbors. People with hearts and lives that look like ours.

I believe there are ways to be cautious about militancy while also remaining open to the vast majority of people calling this place home. I truly believe that we live among more humans than villains. The villains simply sound more numerous due to their volume.

At the end of the day, most of us can be found cooking dinner, chatting with our families and not scheming to shoot our dissident neighbors. At the end of the day, most of us are worth knowing and understanding. Most of us want to be known — beyond what our flags say. The flags are the dragons at the gate.

Our community is as big as you’re willing to make it. This is not a war zone. Expand your bubble. Make an apple pie for the neighbor you never speak to. Then speak to him. Or be boldly passionate about an issue of importance in this community — schools, reproductive health care, human rights, affordable housing — and witness how your boldness helps your sprawling tribe to find you. Witness how your boldness empowers others to be bold. Witness how the boogeyman withers and our community widens and thrives, forming a bulwark against future boogeymen — both real and imagined.

Jen Jackson Quintano writes and runs an arborist business with her husband in Sandpoint. Find their website at sandcreektreeservice.com. See more of Quintano’s writing at jenjacksonquintano.com.