Feeling hideous

Sadly, the cold I have been battling for the past week has turned into a sinus infection, so I am a limp rag. Sue took me for a ride in the car, and I’m beginning some antibiotics for the infection. Tomorrow is both a blip anniversary and a march for justice that I have been looking forward to for a couple of months. This march actually matters to me more than the women’s march last week. I’m determined to join the marchers as they line up, but when they start the march, I will return home and spend the rest of the day in bed, missing the rally, a meeting with a senator, Bella’s birthday party, and the birthday party of a good friend later on in the day. I am thankful for antibiotics. Had I lived in an earlier time, I’d be dead by now, so I’m living on borrowed time and I’m grateful for it.

I have been reading a sustaining book by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, The Third Reconstruction (2016). In an appendix for organizers, he lists fourteen steps we can take forward together. Here is the thirteenth:

“Engage the cultural arts. A moral movement is only as strong as the songs we sing together. Study the history of cultural arts in freedom movements and bring music, the spoken word, storytelling, and visual arts into your organizing. Make sure the images in your art and actions convey the same message you are proclaiming with words. Speak the truth, sing the truth, and use art to help people imagine the future they cannot yet see.”


This view of a mottled sky is not an example of what Rev. Barber recommends, but it’s the best I can do for today.