If you’ve ever been stymied by monkey-mind*, you’ll know how I was feeling before sitting down to write. Thoughts congested my brain with content that ranged from celebrating a friend's 85th birthday with a bit of an adventure earlier this week, to watching my six year old grandson participate in a kindergarten wide jump-rope event last night (my first ever), to my other grandson’s 4th birthday today (YIPPEE), to another friend’s recent health incident and her well-being, to finally replying to yet another friend’s 11 1/2 x 8” three page handwritten letter after a month had passed. Interspersed between those thoughts were multiple renditions of ‘what what am I going to write about today'?
So, looking for inspiration, I retreated to my email where I found it in the wisdom of a new contributor on Substack. The man himself, Parker J. Palmer, is far from being unknown and has been around for decades; though I only discovered him and the non-profit that he founded, The Center for Courage & Renewal, recently. Today, however, is his first post on Substack. Titled “Coming Home to Each Other”, it caught my attention and my heart. You can find it here: https://parkerjpalmer.substack.com/p/coming-home-to-each-other. I encourage you to give it a moment of your time; I think you’ll find it worth the read and relevant to our current events. He shines a light on the potential of unified power on social change.
If you had not noticed, the common denominator in the first paragraph is friends…friends and family. I firmly believe it is family and friends who sustain us in challenging times - at least for me, this is true. Parker J. Palmer takes our relationships a notch or two further to encompass strangers, ultimately tying the whole human race together. This truth and sense of connection hit home when a subscriber, a stranger but connected by writing, left this comment for me in response to ‘Fodder for Thought’, “There's just so much going on these days. I'm thankful for voices like yours. I don't feel so alone. Thank you.” Thank you for sharing, my friend. “I don’t feel so alone.” Whew. Powerful. Heartstrings, fully attached, to you, to me, to all of us. I don’t want any of us to feel alone; it’s in our aloneness that we are vulnerable.
In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers … There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. Thomas Merton
This human connection is what energized me when I participated in the National Day of Protest Event on April 5th. My friend - a different one from the aforementioned friends - and I were just a couple of about 350 people who attended the rally in Wolfeboro, NH. But what struck me was that we were part of a whole; we weren’t just individuals in the gathering, we WERE the gathering. Several small parts coming together to make a whole, sharing in a common cause. Our voices mattered because they were raised as one, offering strength in its unity. If I had been standing alone along the street and received as many single finger salutes as I did, I would have felt threatened and fearful. Instead, buoyed by my fellow protestors, I just smiled and waved sending a little of my good cheer and ebullient mood back at them.
The day was raw, drizzling and frigid, but I was warmed by the smiles of my co-protestors and the jubilance of the crowd. At one point, I thought, “This isn’t a jubilant situation that is driving us out of the comfort of our homes on a cold, rainy afternoon. This is an impending crisis forcing us to the streets. Why are we all smiling and acting as if it’s a carnival?” I tried to wipe the grin off my face and respond more solemnly, but that wasn’t the vibe. The vibe was 350 people coming together joined in voicing concern for our Social Security and Medicaid, for our educational institutions, for our libraries, our right to free speech, our need for science and research, our children’s and grandchildren’s futures, our environment, our status and responsibility in the global world. We stood for immigrants to be treated as humans with the rights entitled to them, we stood to voice concern over those who were whisked off the streets and disappeared, we called for ICE out**; we stood against being bullied and run rough shod over by billionaires. We stood for Democracy. And if the tariffs had been implemented before then, we would have stood for our hard-earned savings accounts and retirement funds. The good news is that the 350 people my friend and I stood with were only a fraction of the millions who joined in the 1300 Hands-Off protests that took place around our county. We came in unison “singing songs and carrying signs”***. We demanded to be heard! We made noise, and while we didn’t get in good trouble****, we rose to the occasion! It thrills me to feel the power of the people, even as sit here remembering the day. I am heartbroken that our country is this imperiled that we need to take to the streets; but I’m heartened that so many of us did - and will.
Because none of us can resist a cute face, and all of us need a furry friend or two, I’m closing with a picture of some new friends I made on said birthday adventure this week. These alpacas were found near Quechee Gorge in Vermont; my two friends and I stopped at a large roadside shopping indoor plaza. We were drawn to the shop at one end of the long building…all things alpaca, not knowing there were live alpacas outback! As suspected, the shop carried beautiful yarns for the friend who is a knitter and other incredibly soft merchandise for our ogling pleasure. One friend bought five snuggly Christmas gifts, and a throw for herself, for under $200; our other friend bought herself a snug alpaca vest. “I live in vests,” she said, so I encouraged her to buy it! She looked fabulous in it, by the way! Me? I bought a grapevine sphere filled with alpaca fur for the birds to pick at for their nests. But what brought us the greatest joy were the alpacas themselves. See for yourselves!
I am grateful you join me here on “PoeScripts”. Thank you!
Remain curious. Be well. Show kindness! As Always, With Love.