Resisting categories.

The Lesson

Grabbing the edge of the next step and swinging one's body up then scrambling to climb. A twisting set of steps with 5 feet high gaps between each one. Too high up to go back down, too low still to see what's up ahead.

"There's no such thing as other people's children."
- Hillary Clinton

Nostalgia

Paul Kelly sings James Reyne's "Reckless"

The word that's been on heavy rotation in my mind since my daughter's birth is "Generative". To have the power and will to make something new. After becoming a parent there is no denying one's power and one's will.

Such an awareness removes many limits to let strange objects loom in the headlights, in the rear view mirror.

Poet, Singer, Song

Kate Fagan sings "Clear Water"

Determinism is the other side of anger. If you know your rights and fight for them, there is no need to be angry.

Shake It Out: Choral Tribute to Florence and The Machine by the Capital ...

[Tolerance]

To circumscribe another by defining them, rather than assessing their actions in good faith, is to limit the possibilities for myself. I want you to have the right to your silence, even as I struggle to speak. I want you to know that you are worthy as a human being. I want you to be given fair and equitable treatment before the law, and I want you to be healed when you are sick and to know that your children are safe. I will want these things for you no matter how many times you repeat rhetoric like a child rocking on their haunches, or add swagger to pirate words. I want you to see the afternoon sun reflecting and for your streets to be clean. I want the air to smell like a delicious thought. I cannot live alone; my family cannot live alone; and so I want your family to prevail so that we gain courage from your continuity.


I will fight for your dignity, and in doing so I will build a wall around the things that I love, not a high wall, not a mean wall, but a strong wall, and your dogma and your hate and your violence will never touch us even as your best self comes and goes.