Hope fashioned from pipe cleaners and yarn, and a call for action.

The day after the presidential debate, I took a walk with my daughter and a dear friend around the park I adore as though it were a family member. We talked about the night before with anguish and panic, as though someone had died or was about to.

How could things have gotten this bad and no one had alerted us?

Or had we simply fallen asleep yet again, despite all signs everywhere pointing to the fact that humans are now lobsters in the pot on a slow, yet rumbling boil? A pot that simmers not only with climate change and hundreds of years of inequity, greed and pain, but also a democracy that somehow cannot elevate and support the next generation of leaders of substance.

But until it affects you, until it slaps you in the face right in your very own living room, it doesn’t matter.

Because are all waiting for the grownups to show up, to intervene. But we are the grownups and it is us who must intervene. The life we are gifted here could be so much better for all if we did the math problem that might not add up, but solves so much: taking less so that others have what they need ultimately equals you being happier, you thriving in place.

So what do we do in this moment when we have been jolted awake? We must vote and we must do more than that. This great article in Teen Vogue (a good pub for teens and all ages) explains that making a difference in times like these is about voting AND: voting and joining a campaign, voting and taking a class to overcome bias, voting and shopping consciously, voting and hosting a community potluck. It’s about showing up to the polls and then civically engaging all year long.

I just signed up to do voter outreach in my area. I will vote. I will send you this message today and ask you to vote and…

As we walked around the park and lamented, we were confronted with this yarn creation someone had taken the time to make and leave here on this tree (which actually might not good for the tree, but that’s another matter). An artist or a child or a regular person looking to brighten the day of a total stranger like me, wrapped this old pill bottle in bright green yarn and stuffed it with pipe cleaners bent into the shape of flowers and displayed it for me to find, for me to remember the beauty and generosity of humans and what we are capable of when we remember our humanity.

I’m grateful for this reminder and I share with it you. It is the hope, even at this eleventh hour, that anything is still possible when we hold onto to the best part of being human, the thing that separates us from other animals: our empathy, our courage, our ability to rise up and do the hardest work which is to change, to take action, to save the day.