Hope Wears a Size Twelve Boot
Sunday morning musings...
Sunday mornings roll in soft here. Quiet.
The smell of coffee. Horses grazing in the field before the summer sun drives them into the barn. A dog on the back deck enjoying the view. Every human but me still asleep. I’ve always loved the time when every human but me is still asleep. I feel like I’m getting away with something.
The rest of the world has gone stark raving mad. But here, at least today, at least right now, you wouldn’t know it.
Unless you’ve read the headlines.
I’ve read the headlines.
“You and the Bean Girls give me hope,” Kim said.
The world is a mess y’all. Seriously and undeniably. Cruelty is en vogue. We have to take hope where we can get it. I find some of mine close to home. I find some more in the faces of loved ones. A little more in the kindnesses of strangers.
On the day that the US Senate passed their version of the big-anything-but-beautiful bill, we drove to the Asheville airport and picked up my grandson. He’s sixteen, and a long, tall drink of hope on two size twelve feet. He’s seen some things. Knows more than he should at his age. Yet he still has his innocence. Worrying about how fucked up everything is isn’t his job yet. It’s mine. It’s probably yours too.
A few days later, I call Kim on the phone because I have to tell her.
“I’m making dinner, and I looked out the back window. The horses are galloping, bucking and cavorting. I see the herd running at the top of the hill, look again, and see my grandson in the midst of them. He’s running and cavorting with them. My grandson is a horse.”
I don’t know what his future holds or what we can give him. Opportunity for everyday Americans just took a serious hit. Education, healthcare, food security, clean air and water, you name it, just got throat punched.
Yet a couple evenings ago, while his grandmother cooked dinner, my grandson was a horse. May that memory stay in his bones and carry him. May it carry me. May it carry you.
“I’m glad my father is dead,” seems like a morbid thing to say. It’s true though.
I’m glad my New Deal Democrat father is not here to see who’s occupying the White House. Or Congress. Or the Supreme Court.
Or prison camps in the Everglades.
The Glades are fragile. And magical. This vast river of grass isn’t just home for alligators. Stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, it spans nearly two million acres. It’s home to the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere, as well as numerous endangered species, including the Everglades' most endangered animal, the Florida Panther. It’s estimated that there are less than 100 of them left.
It’s the ancestral home of the Miccosukee Tribe. And later of the Seminole.
"If there's only pythons and alligators in that area, I'm wondering what I'm doing in that area, and what my people and my family have been doing in that area for centuries,” said William Osceola.
It’s also now home to an interment camp for migrants, hastily and poorly constructed on an abandoned air strip. It flooded within the first week. I guess we don’t build internment camps like we did in the “good ole days.”
I’m glad my father’s dead.
On social media, another friend recently asked, “How can we disagree with each other and still be kind?”
Several people commented, saying things like, “All I ever needed to know, I learned in kindergarten” or “We have to love each other more than we like our stance.”
I was reminded of the quote by Robert Jones Jr., also known as "Son of Baldwin,” who said, “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist."
I’m not sure I can find kindness for the oppressors. For the hoarders or the takers. I’m not sure I should. Fuck them. Fuck them forever.
I can hear the sounds of people waking up now. My stolen window of quiet is closing. That’s okay though. It’s good.
We all have to do what we can, whatever we can, to keep our wits and find some peace. Make some peace if we have to.
Yet that’s only useful if we use it as a launching pad for relationship. For kinship. To be a better relative.
Find someone who embodies hope. Maybe it’s a cat or a horse. Maybe it’s a grandson with size twelve feet. Maybe it’s a hard working man shuffling towards the coffee pot, half in dream space and half awake.
Maybe it’s you.
Maybe you are our best hope.
Our beloved hope.
Yeah.
I’m pretty sure it’s you.
Have I ever told you that you and the Bean Girls give me hope?
I didn’t know I had any hope until you helped point out this trait in me. A long time ago I sat in a board room and I realized that people are persuadable if they think the idea originated from them. So maybe our job is to flood the world with sneaky hope, to catalog it — like you do here and literally everything you write.
I sure am proud to know you, love you, and be inspired by you in each and every way. And I’m pretty sure that hope and inspiration are two birds that share the same nest. I cannot wait to meet your horse boy and have time for coffee with you this week. ❤️
Yes, you really hit home with this writing. I often wonder what my Mom would think were she here to witness this period in which we are compelled to navigate . She enjoyed discussing politics and history. I miss our conversations. Her heart would break as mine is breaking as mine is breaking to witness this cruelty. I take as many actions as I can to fight back but sometimes it feels like a drop of water fighting the ocean.