Tag: Hope

Where There Are Bees

it’s not a sign of spring. The leaves on the trees have mostly popped already anyway, but it was the ultimate sign of hope.

I went out to the garden to check the progress of the sun in an area I want to prep for later in the summer. The buzzing next to the garden Was so loud I wondered if flies might have been attracted to some poor chipmunk that had attempted to steal squash leaves in the presence of Princess Jane. As I walked toward the apple tree on the west side of the garden, however, I saw hundreds of tiny worker bees toiling among the apple blossoms.

i’ll go back to try to capture them with a better camera, but they were patient as I tried to snap a few pictures as long as I didn’t interrupt your work. I greeted and welcomed them, knowing the returning bees are more than just a sign of spring. They are a chorus of hope.

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Talking Bout This Generation 

A popular meme depicting T1’s generation as iPhone-addicted idiots found its way into my Facebook feed tonight among the countless photos of his peers peacefully marching and calling for an end to violence.  

 I’m a member of the generation that, defined by John Hughes movies and political disengagement, came of age with the MTV and PacMan. At our high school most of the focus for seniors was on the goals that would improve our own lives. 

By contrast, this generation of high school seniors has engaged with the world (and they did inspire people around the world), starting the work towards their vision of a more positive future for their peers but also for the kids who will follow. They are indeed fixated, but technology seems to be the conduit for their passions, not the objects of it.

Remembering that the idea for the march was instigated by teenagers, it occurred to me that while my generation has been deriding the attention they lavish on smartphones and tablets, T1’s generation may have been using them to acquire and share ideas and make loftier plans than anyone has given them credit for. 

Thanks to T1 and his girlfriend (thinking SuperGal will be her secret identity since she has demonstrated some superpowers which are fodder for future posts), I do hear about kids making plans for futures defined by civic engagement, so when I see memes mocking their cohort, I tend to roll my eyes. It’s not enough, though, to just ignore an inaccurate stereotype. Today’s marches made me rethink how I should be talking about this generation, beginning with talking about and to them with respect .

Radio Silence

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Even the November of 2011 – several months after Hurricane Irene tried to drown Vermont, most of the state was still in recovery mode.

One coworker was still excavating almost a foot of mud from her basement – and still counting her blessings that the house had not been swallowed when the bubbling little creek that ran 20 or 30 feet from her house became a torrential river and in a matter of minutes. Another coworker had waited out the birth of his second child while Irene was raging overhead.  In my neighborhood near Arlington, Vermont, homeowners along the Battenkill River and other low-lying areas were also recovering. Some homes would remain empty for months.  The thing I remember most about those early months, however, is not the destruction, but the way, Irene brought out the best not only in our neighbors but in the people who came from other areas of the country to lend a hand.

I saw people who I knew were still cleaning out from their own messes deposited by overflowing rivers somehow finding time and resources to start collection drives for neighbors and neighboring towns in more dire straits. Through the grapevine we’d hear stories of people making trips over the mountain on four-wheel-drive vehicle or even horseback to collect much needed supplies for town that have been literally stranded by washed out roads. There were collection boxes at the country stores.  People needed everything – furniture, baby supplies, food and drinking water – We scoured our home for anything we could donate.

In the week or so before and after the Election, we engaged in a bit of radio or media silence at our house.  Unlike Irene, the campaign seemed to be bringing out the worst in competitors across the board, and, recognizing that watching the mayhem wouldn’t slow it down, we tuned it out.  This also meant that we missed a fair amount of news related to Hurricane Sandy, and, aside from following Facebook to find out where to donate, I’ve been living under a figurative rock of late.

Then a few days ago, I clicked on one of my news sites.  The election was over, and the people who govern us were still making me think Thing1 and Thing2 could work things out more equitably.  Most of the photos coming from affected areas in New Jersey and parts of Queens still looked as if there had been a war.  There were a few stories about looting after the storm, but they were did not dominate.  What started to dominate, as I read more about the aftermath, were stories very much like the ones that had played out before us in Vermont just a year ago.

I saw the bit about the New York Marathoners morphing the race into an opportunity to race.  I saw a group that was helping people collect sample sizes of much-needed toiletries.  I saw Occupy Wall Street occupying Sandy and getting supplies out to people across the area.  And mostly what I saw was confirmation that while the infrastructure may be damaged, our national social conscience that the media and politicians love to denigrate for one reason or another, is healthier than we are sometimes led to believe.