The Knot-A-Verse : (K/not)(_/-)(A/_/-/‘/Verse)

Hello again, ‘Verse. I’m writing this post because even though I don’t entirely know what the Knot-A-Verse should be, I’ve spent too much of my life not creating. Not sharing writing and art and ideas. And not speaking out even when I should. I’ve been too risk averse to write that verse.

No more. What’s been going on in Minneapolis is heartbreaking. It makes me fear for our country and for my kids. The tyranny of this current administration and its wielding of ICE is disturbing. So is the large subset of people who seem to shrug off how mind-bogglingly far off the rails we’ve gone. I miss the days when Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” or Obama’s tan suit were considered scandalous departures from the norm.

I’ve only followed the news to a pretty basic degree lately, partly because I have kids and they are my number one priority. And partly because I don’t think I currently have the capacity/ability to change much myself. I can, however, go on record that ICE should never have been in a place to kill peaceful protestors. I may add links here later to resources I’ve found for what an average person can do to change things, though most are on a more local level. However, many people changing things on a local level can effect change on a broader scale.

I wrote the following poem for more personal reasons–both a conversation with a friend and for a diplomat character in my novel-in-progress:

Grown Ups

Be diplomatic
thoughtful, careful, and mature
not neutral or false.

At the risk of overexplaining (see my Writing page haha), being diplomatic is not the same as neutrality. And it’s definitely not the same as even white lies to keep the peace. Sure, sometimes those are actually necessary for safety. There’s a reason I don’t have bumper stickers on my minivan I use to drive my kids around.

But one can be diplomatic and speak out thoughtfully with proper regard to the context of a given situation and the people involved. At the very least, others who might be on the fence will see how many people stand on the side of, in this case, IMO, humanity.

I’d say more if I had time, but it’s after midnight. I listened to a podcast that we often work through problems in our lives in our sleep. While I doubt I can solve our country’s knotty problems tonight, perhaps I’ll find a seed of hope.