Here’s the thing: As a voting adult, I’d like to consider an idea and then make decision.
So, let’s say ✅I agree with healthcare ideals but think we have to refine taxation approaches. ✅I agree with school funding. And, think after this reign of the ministry of magic, 🔜we should hold a responsible amnesty. ✅Let’s fund some dedicated immigration judges, get some real and updated rules on the table. ✅I want to work in a corporation, believe in making money 💸💰because money is our means to change; and, ✅want corporations to contribute to change, via what the people who run them and their product/service does for society and, believe in citizens and corporations being ✅environmentally responsible 🌎🌍🌏and showing up with tangible contributions when the hat is passed around for “funds for our collective good”. I don’t want to be labeled as some flavor of the month, splintered member, concocted by reflection of the right side of the brain which can only live in the compartmentalized world. Nope. I want to show up as a force of like-minded people who can get to a pretty decent version of a shared world vision. Because quite frankly, it’s not about my individual impulse. It’s about being of sound mind and being able to decide how to conserve the ideas of individual rights and freedoms that matter. It's about progress past those that are falling short of what is good for humankind, within our nation, and even beyond our nation’s boundaries.
Doing the best thing for our nation might require a party that is nimble enough to encompass and tolerate many views.
If years were counted in more than days what
would we say?
We would talk more about the tears, the smiles, and the fears.
We would hug more and hold onto the tingles and warmth.
We would kiss. Twice on each cheek - with a squeeze like toddler hands on the meatiest part of the arms.
We would sing the wrong words aloud bopping to the beat of our own songs.
We would laugh. How we would laugh. Wet and shimmering eyed.
We would wonder....
And, we would stand closer together to gaze at the beautiful world we sometimes share through moments when we breathe as one.
Q-What do you do when your middle-schooler tells his parents he has had it with school?
A- Invite him into your bed and take turns reading poetry, of course.
Turns out, he has a whole other life mapped out. And, he's ready to go to it. Moving the whole family and all. I listened.
"Here's how you can help, Mom. Here's how school is of no help. Here's the type of school I should be at." All the while taking turns at random poetry selection wherever the book opened up.
The poems were read with surprising amounts of expression. Dad brought him liquid Nyquil, then water, even though there is no drinking in our bed. Sister faded along with her Ricola cough drop quietly listening from a rocker chair. All the while, the feverish chatter went on between poems.
I laughed and had great empathy all at the same time. Dad quietly established his sleeping spot and read his paperback.
The soul had to be heard last night. And, it had risen up in that little body. Triggered by the non-sense of school. "Like family, can't you see, school makes no sense at all! Can't you see I am ready to be all of me right now? "
There is no easy answer to such a call of a boy's soul rising up. So, poetry was just as good as any.