Seeds of Change

The fall of democracy started small, just a scattering of pebbles down a steep hill: a bigot in power here, a draconian law there--until the trickle became an avalanche of hate.

It was the same with Mr. Donohoe’s garden. 

He started with just a couple of rose cuttings given to him by a neighbor. When he went out to water the lawn in the evenings, he enjoyed seeing how the rose cuttings grew and changed each day. By the time they burst into bloom, he was hooked.

As the evening news became more-and-more grim, Mr. Donohoe watched TV less and gardened more. 

As human rights protections fell, Mr. Donohoe put down fertilizer to help his plants build resilience. 

Under the threat of war with former allies, he planted flower bulbs to fill his garden with hope for the future. 

To honor the memory of the neighbors and friends snatched from the streets, Mr. Donohoe cultivated marigolds, nopal cactus, and poinsettias.

As supermarket shelves became increasingly bare, he set up a free farm stand by his mailbox filled with zucchini, corn and tomatoes to feed his neighbors.

When he wasn’t in the ,garden, he did the same as many others: made the calls, signed petitions, went to the marches. None of it felt like enough, but he kept at it, day-by-day, and in the evenings he healed his soul by pulling weeds, watering, and digging in the rich earth, and by sharing what he grew with those in need.

Ugliness and despair grew and grew, but so did Mr. Donohoe's garden. 

As the garden surged, so did the rumors about Mr. Donohoe. He rarely left his property, and his hair and beard had grown wild and woolly from neglect. There was something different about him, and different was dangerous.

In the end, his quiet kindness and generosity weren't enough to save him. When they came for him, they had to hack their way through the roses, grown from those very first cuttings, to reach the front door.

Without Mr. Donohoe there to tend it, the garden continued to grow in wild and unfettered ways. Deer, rabbits and bees lived contentedly in the tangle of flowers and bushes while birds of all types nested and sang in the trees, unbothered. 

After a time, stealthy neighbors snuck in and tamed the vegetable patch, while others distributed the food it produced. 

While adults cultivated the vegetables, children played in the shade under the trees on hot days. 

People came to pick bouquets to brighten their homes and their moods and stayed to pull a few weeds while they were there. 

The garden became a jewel at the heart of the neighborhood, which the residents tended with care; it brought them the same solace it had given Mr. Donohoe.

The revolution started small, spreading like dandelion seeds floating on the wind. By the time it took root and burst into bloom, it was too late for the fascists to stop it. It grew as robustly as the roses in Mr. Donohoe's garden, watered by hope and fertilized by courage. 

Sadly, no one ever learned what became of Mr. Donahoe. But, like him, all of us carry within us the seeds of change. Don’t give in to despair. Instead, plant acts of kindness. Plant compassion. Tend lovingly to those in need. Pull out the weeds of hate wherever you find them, cross-pollinate with community action, and watch justice bloom.

The People, United.

“THE PEOPLE, UNITED, WILL NEVER BE DIVIDED!” Lainey got chills as the megaphone crackled to life and the chant rippled across the crowd. Everywhere she looked, up and down the intersection, people waved flags and held up signs, just like she and her mom were doing.

The white vans with tinted windows had started showing up not long after the election. They came early in the morning, when people were on their way to work or school. They had taken the dad of one of Lainey’s friends right from the school drop-off line.

As cars drove by many honked their car horns or cheered in support. Others ignored them, and one person flipped them the bird. Lainey wanted to do it back, but her mother hadn’t let her. “When they go low, we go high,” she said.

The white vans had taken many people since those first frightening weeks. They were sending people to camps, or to prisons in other countries. Some claimed it was because they had broken the law, but the laws kept changing, becoming harder and harder to comply with.

The atmosphere crackled with energy as the crowd continued to grow, eventually spilling off the sidewalk and into the street. Lainey’s pulse thrummed in her ears as traffic came to a halt. Not far away from where Lainey and her mom stood, someone dressed as the Statue of Liberty was trying to reason with an irate motorist.

The crowd began a slow surge down the street in the direction of the Statehouse. An unfamiliar sensation percolated in Lainey’s gut. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t excitement. It was something new, something she didn’t have a name for.

A police line was forming ahead, officers in riot gear standing shoulder to shoulder behind heavy shields. Some held tear gas or batons, ready to use them on the crowd. Behind them, scores of white vans stood waiting.

Lainey looked around her, perplexed. Everyone was chanting in time with the drumming that was coming from somewhere at the back of the crowd, shaking their signs. She didn’t see anything bad happening.

Lainey’s mom saw the police line, too. She looked at Lainey with a worried frown. “Maybe we should go.”

”No, I want to stay,” Lainey pleaded. She took her mother’s hand in hers and squeezed. “We need to stay. Please. For Brisa, and her dad.” Their eyes met as Lainey’s mom searched her face for fear or uncertainty. Finding only determination, she nodded. “Ok. We’ll stay.”

The chanting got louder, everyone’s voices rising together in sync with the drums. The eerie wail of a lone bagpiper coiled around the beat of the drums, tying it to the voices of the people. Lainey felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to rise as a new surge of energy moved through the crowd.

The first street light to bend was almost over Lainey's head. She gasped at the pop of sparks as the metal gave way and the wiring within twisted too. All along the street light poles were bending into new shapes.

Up ahead, the men in riot gear looked at one another in surprise as their shields began lifting into the air and taking flight.

Throughout the crowd people began dropping their signs to grasp one another’s hands as they continued to chant.

One by one, the white vans began to sink slowly into the street as if the asphalt were hot lava. A cheer went up from the crowd as the drivers of the vans stumbled out of their vehicles and took off running across the sticky pavement.

The police line fell apart, with some of the officers blending in with the crowd as they, too, joined the march.

Hand-in-hand, the community pushed past the abandoned vans and surged up the steps into the Statehouse to demand change.

Lainey squeezed her mom’s hand, the strange energy fizzing all around her. Tears prickled in the corners of her eyes. For Brisa. For her own family. For everyone. As they climbed the steps, their voices rose together, “THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!”

Living to Fight Another Day

I'm sitting outside on my balcony on a balmy afternoon in June. The weather is absolutely perfect today. Flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing. I have so much to be grateful for, and I am grateful. And yet, I am sitting here feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as I type these words. It's to be expected, considering all that's going on right now. 

We're caught in the grip of a global pandemic, protests are unfolding around the globe, the White House is an absolute dumpster fire of incompetence, corruption, and bigotry, and thousands of immigrant children are crammed into concentration camps on American soil. Paid for by my tax dollars, no less. So yea, things feel kinda heavy right now, to say the least.

Today at church the sermon was about having compassion for everyone we meet. Love Thy Neighbor is my guiding principle, and it rarely leaves any ambiguity about how I should be conducting myself. Being compassionate fits right in. But sometimes, my good attitude gets a few dings in it. Sometimes I get tired, or grumpy, or frustrated.

If we're ever going to fix the things that are wrong in our country, then people like me (by which I mean white people who want to be anti-racists) have to get used to carrying around all these big, heavy feelings. We can't let compassion fatigue become an excuse to stop. We can't forget that our friends and neighbors who live with racism never get a day off from it. Self-care is ok. Pacing ourselves is ok. Being (somewhat) patient with ourselves and others is ok. But giving up, throwing up our hands and quitting, that's not one of our options anymore. 

This afternoon, I'm going to do some self-care and re-charge my batteries, because tomorrow is a new day and I need to be ready to do whatever I can to dismantle the racism machine from the inside out.

If things are feeling heavy to you, too, fellow white person, I get it. Everyone needs occasional rest so we can live to fight another day. But just remember, when rest time is over we need to get back up and keep doing the work. 

PS - I've started to put together an anti-racism reading list if you feel like having a look. Let me know if there are any other titles you recommend to be included. 

Lane Change Ahead

I've been thinking about what I'd like to do with the blog, and where I'd like it to go. 

The thing I keep thinking about as I approach my fifty-third birthday is that there is less and less time. If there are things I want to do, or be, or to achieve, the time has to be now. 

With that in mind, I registered at the University of the People. I will be working towards my bachelor's degree in business administration. I completed my Associate's degree in 2008, but I always wanted to keep going. 

UoPeople isn't just any school. It is a tuition-free online accredited university. UoPeople is revolutionary and ground-breaking, and I am SO FREAKING EXCITED to be part of it! Since I plan to take you on this journey with me, I added a blog category for UoPeople. It will soon be getting its own page, too.

Social Justice, specifically anti-racism work, is another area of my life that deserves more attention. I attended a couple of the recent protests locally, but there is a lot more we (and by 'we' I mean white people) need to do. One way I can help is by using the blog to help share resources, and amplify other voices. I've added a couple of categories for those posts, too, and yes, the architecture of the blog will be changing to support this focus. 

I'll still blog about writing and family life, and random things that bring me joy, because why not? But as I incorporate the changes mentioned above I will probably be archiving or re-arranging some of the older material. 

If you want to read how I decided what the blog should be about back in the day, you can do so here.