I haven’t published anything for ten days, now. I have been writing, but much of it feels like drivel, or lists of thoughts and actions. Some of it is poetry, which can, in its round-about way, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” (Emily Dickinson) yet even poetry has been escaping me.
My silence here includes some days away in a place where a clear river runs through back yards, trees grow tall and close together, the air smells like pine resin, grandchildren can play in treehouses and sandboxes, and family meals are simple, delicious, and easy. It includes leaving home in one role, and arriving “elsewhere,” physically and emotionally changed. It includes coming home, (I love coming home,) where Luna waits, and tomatoes crowd the countertops; where basil needs to be turned into pesto, garlic can be made into confit, compost needs sifting before it can be applied, and the potatoes need pulling out of the soil.
The powers blunder and bomb on as the natural world broils and burns around us. The cowardly use civilians as decoys, and their deaths as numbers on some made up tote board of who is most powerful.
I voted in Connecticut’s primary yesterday; I voted for progressive change. Neither of the people I cast my ballot for won, though I am used to that. I do live in “the land of steady habits,” after all. Still, I voted for the world I want to see: a world where women’s and younger voices are more central to the conversation; a world where healthcare is a right for all people. A world in which the wealthy actually pay taxes instead of tax attorneys, and those taxes are used to build a stronger, healthier, more educated, just, and resilient society for “we the people."
I know I have written this, or maybe written around this, often before today: it is time to imagine and live into the world we want to see.
Do you want to see more equal representation? Stand up, say so, vote so.
Do you want lettuce (and all other types of food) that do not give you a serious case of “the trots?” Eat hyper-locally when you can, grow what you can, shop at local farms instead of supermarkets, put your feet in local shops, and your hands in the soil of your own backyard.
Do you want cleaner air? Plant trees. Plant shrubs. Plant anything in every corner you can. Walk more. Drive less.
Do you want community? Say hello. Put big tables in the shade under your front yard trees and have a neighborhood potluck. This is an idea I am going to try early this autumn. Maybe some folks will actually accept my invitation … I will keep you posted about this.
Look, we have the power to make change. We always have had. The questions are: Do we have the will? Are we willing to change, and to be changed, and maybe even transformed? That is the true work of change. It is good work. It is natural and human work. It is often the quiet and daily work of life. It is always quite simple, though seldom easy or comfortable.
I know we are tired. This is because we have been putting our energy into trying to change others, which makes us quite like Sisyphus. None of us can change any other of us. Each and all of us can only change ourselves: first our hearts and our minds; then our homes, our gardens, and our communities, by showing up, paying careful attention, noticing what needs healing, mending, listening to, and then stepping up and into those spaces and doing what we can because we have become the ones we have been waiting for.
Do you see?
Courage my dears. So simple. Seldom easy. Love one another.
