This day means a lot to me, I often call it the most hopeful day, the day, when the light comes in. And I still do, even after watching and raging for the past three days at what has been going on in my country and what is going on elsewhere. I could list all the angry and insightful quotes and statements I have collected, the memes and the poster images and the cartoons, thank goodness for nasty cartoons. But instead, I look out over the hoar frosted garden, bright sunlight, the birds picking through the handful of nuts and seeds on the patio table, the squirrels racing across the lawn and into the hazel bush.
Before sunrise, I hear the blackbirds singing out their mating songs. And this is my song for today.
Today, I want to whisper in people's ears: Don't be afraid of change, because the current situation means a climate crisis, wars, inequality, noise, oppression, species extinction, oligarchy, lack of education, violence ... Nothing that is worth fighting to preserve. So you have nothing to lose by embarking on the adventure of improving the world. Do your best to separate the signal from the noise.
We exist together. We don’t have to do any of this alone.Nandi Rose
Perhaps this is all we can give each other right now—the promise of support and camaraderie and love. There are things that will not get better—things that will be irrevocably lost—but then there are things, hopefully, that will: our care for each other. Our care for the land. Our involvement in our communities. Our capacity for love.
Getting better at loving, I think, means sitting with the hard stuff, not being afraid of it, not turning away. Maybe we can learn to undo the language of betterment in favor of something more honest and true: not I hope you feel better but I’m with you as things get worse.
Tomorrow is my sister's 70th birthday. She has been mad at me since forever, we are in a constant competition of who can come up with the best, veiled insult, the sharpest sarcastic remark, the nicest grandchild, the worst chronic pain and so on. We are both carrying wounds that will never heal. I know I owe my life to her. I knitted this pair of mittens for her. The pattern is from a book I found in a second hand shop ages ago, it's an old Estonian pattern. The book is full of wonderful mittens and socks in these traditinal techniques and patterns. I've copied every single one of them over the years. A long time ago, I knitted one of these mittens for a therapist I went to for a while. I carefully chose the softest wool and fretted over the pattern a good deal. She refused to accept them, something about professional standards, about not allowing client's work on her skin and so on. I dropped the mittens in a bin on the way home.
Anyway, that was a very long time ago. These here are the ones I sent to my sister.
