Roe v. Wade.
One word: No.
We will fight like lions. With everything we’ve got. We will kick and bite, to preserve our absolute right to choose what we do with our bodies and our lives. For ourselves. For our daughters, and everyone else’s. For women of all walks.
As I write this, Lauryn Hill’s honey-whiskeyed voice streams out of my turntable, singing "‘everything is everything”. It’s a song I’ve known forever, but at this moment in history, it has a particular resonance. The past year has been full of everything. Making and sharing art, working, mothering, fighting for change, taking care of the people I walk tall beside, practicing kindness as much as I can. Tough lessons and easy laughter in equal measures. Sharing meals around the table with good friends again - oohhh I’ve missed that. Some dance parties. A few surprises and penny drops. Saying yes and not regretting it. Loving anyway. Sea swimming and deep green hikes. The pleasure of running in the rain. Being back in the rehearsal hall, finally. Guilty pleasures. Residencies - such a privilege to have the time and space to create new work. Buying a painting from my fine friend Joanna Clark - a woman in green flying through the air in wild abandon. Seeing the amazing Neko Case at the Vogue Theatre - first concert in ages. My smart, gorgeous daughter graduating from high school last week (howthefuck?). Next stop, university all the way across the country this fall, with scholarships to boot. She’s a real wonder, my girl.
And the goodness of growing food and raising honeybees. That constant cycle that steadies me. Reminds me to watch, listen, and learn. Humbling - yeah. Slow start to the season, it was so cold and rainy in the early months. But the warmth of the sun is here now. Sundresses and sandals. The blackberry flowers bringing on the nectar flow, so my bees can get down to the serious business of making the best freakin’ honey I’ve ever tasted. Weekly harvests of beautiful veggies that I have the pleasure of distributing to my community: fat salad turnips and French radishes, heads of crispy lettuce, bunches of spinach - warm from the sun, spicy arugula and mesclun greens, alliums and creamy fleshed new potatoes, asian greens galore, lacinato and Russian red kale. Soft necked garlic, roots, squash, tight skinned nightshades and cukes are on their way… patience. And in the apiary garden - red poppies, yellow glads, heady scented lavender, hyssop, calendula, echinacea, lemon thyme, sage flower and pink honeysuckle are rioting. Bien.
Nurturing all of this is one of my ways of changing and shifting the status quo. Of slaying the dragons. With love, and dirt under my nails. And sometimes I get my lion on too. Whatever it takes. We all make change in the world in different ways. It all counts. Everything is everything.