In the fall of 2016, I stood on the concrete steps of a mustard-colored ranch house off the New York State Thruway in Ulster County, a broken red umbrella hooked below my shoulder. The mustached man at the door — 50ish, in a t-shirt and khakis — had the stern, dry look of a high-school science teacher.

“Hi, Thomas?”

He nodded.

“Hi, Thomas, my name is Sara, and I’m a neighborhood volunteer for Zephyr Teachout for Congress.”

Thomas didn’t tell me to go away, didn’t slam the door or scold me for interrupting his day. He stoically endured my spiel about why I was spending my Sunday afternoon doing this — because Zephyr has been fighting corruption for her entire career, and I believe she’ll go to Washington and represent the people of New York’s 19th District, rather than corporations and billionaires.

“Okay, thank you,” he said, closing the door.

“Would you like some literature?” I asked, proffering some rain-dotted pamphlets.

“No, you people have sent us plenty.”

You people.

But, this was the woman I had decided to be on that drizzly afternoon in Kingston, New York. Well, hello neighbor! I’m a nice middle-aged lady who cares about the community! Can we chat for a bit about how concerned we are about cleaning up the Hudson? I’m sure we can agree that it’s very important to protect the environment!

I was surprised by how easily I became this person, this pesky do-gooder, this purveyor of obviousness. My high-school English teachers had instructed me to avoid clichés — if you want people to bother reading you, then you must find an original way to tell the story. This became a guiding principle not just in my writing, but in my speech, too, as it was for all my writer friends in New York City, where I had lived until 2012. There, nearly everyone I knew tried to obey the golden rule of conversation: If you can’t think of something interesting to say, don’t say anything at all.

You can read the full essay at Longreads.