It’s so hard to write. How can I celebrate….anything? We are a violent, cruel, selfish species and I’m not so sure that even the best of us can save us or this small blue dot floating in the cosmos. How can I just go on with my life, celebrating food (oh I drink more wine than ever), the beauty of my new garden (that may be my only means of survival)? Even my new granddaughter’s beauty and existence is tinged with fear and anxiety because every day the horrors, the selfishness, the utter imbecility of the current climate in this country is in our faces?
Some days I vow not to look at the news, yet isn’t it our duty to at least try to stave off this relentless march of evil, of violence across this country of ours? To stay informed? To do what we can do?
Some say it’s been there all along, this hate, this anger, that the veil has simply been lifted so all can see. Certainly, our present government has given evil a platform, permission to show its ugly face and I fear, to grow and overtake us all.
I go to celebrate my granddaughter’s first birthday today. So full of promise, full of joy and so very trusting of the world she has entered. We, her family, will feed her well, protect her, educate her, celebrate her intelligence, her unique view of the world, her wonder, her excitement, her achievements. We will comfort her hurts and disappointments. We will, I hope, help her stand strong in the world. We will show her all the wondrous differences among people and places and how people live and celebrate in a myriad of ways. We will encourage her to find ways to participate and feel a part of something larger than herself.
I do not want to teach her about hate, about cruelty, about violence. How to explain that some people are so afraid of differences that they are willing to kill? For today, I do not have to explain the twisted angry faces of the twisted souls who are betraying the best in all of us. Today, in our little family group, in my sphere of influence, the world is good and kind.