Beauty Is What's Inside

My Dearest Friend,

Happy tidings from here in Indiana on this thirty-first day of March in the year twenty, twenty -five. I am glad to hear that you are traveling again. I do hope that you are keeping yourself safe by wearing your “I did not vote for the Felon!” button with you. I have heard that other countries can be less than friendly to us Americans right now because we are currently a threat to the freedom and democracy that we had so fiercely protected in the near past.

I had begun a letter to you previously, but I ended up balling it up into the furnace to be burned up with the wood. It was not that I decided not to share the events with you that I had so lovingly written down, it is more that other things began to feel more urgent. I just wanted to let you know that the space between letters was not that I was not thinking about you, but that life has held so many changes recently that it is hard to keep up.

Today is International Transgender Awareness Day. Since I have many loved ones who identify as trans, this day is so important to me. I am still baffled that this small percentage of people in our society has become such a major obsession with the right. As a woman, I have never once felt threatened by a trans person. Even when I was younger and didn’t fully understand, I wasn’t ever afraid. The only thing that worried me was my saying something wrong that would upset the person because I did not know how they preferred to be addressed or such. But time and education have helped me learn how to be better at navigating things with more grace. I am not perfect by any means, nor have I ever professed to be, but I strive to give everyone respect.

As I ran for County Council last year, I worked to make it clear that I would work for everyone in our community, and I would focus on those who have not been represented by our council for decades. I have had a handful of people mention my personal posts that state my harder feelings towards those who support anti – trans, anti – autonomy, racists, and fascist ideals and say they show that I am not willing to represent them. I have even had a close Republican relative say that I should watch such posts if I hope to be elected in the future. My reaction? I laugh. None of these who hold such feelings to my posts have found it within themselves to hold their leaders accountable for the hateful posts they share. They still elected a felon for the white house. They elected a drunken racist for representative here in Indiana. So, I do not think my posts are going to stop my future electability.

If a person were to feel that I would not represent them due to my opinions on hate, perhaps it says more about them. Because I’ll make myself clear today, I work as a leader in many groups. I willingly and happily represent people who hold different opinions, every day. I welcome opinions that are different than mine. I welcome ideas that are outside the box. I love minds that think differently than the norm, I celebrate such differences because I know that nothing wonderful happens if we all do the same things all the time. But I will not and cannot support ideals that dehumanize people, take away their human rights, oppress people, discriminate, and promote hate. Those ideas are not a difference of opinion, they are a difference in morals. I promise you all that I will never support discrimination. These are not matters that I am willing to compromise on.

If one tells me about their feelings towards a group of people like trans people and that they are not hate, but one of the safety of people, I will simply reply that they replace the word trans with another group. One will not display a photo of the trans person in their family. What if you replace the word with black, brown, yellow, or white person? How well does that play out then? One does not want a trans person using the bathroom with those whose gender they identify as. Replace trans with the different races of humans. Is that segregation something we already said was wrong in our lifetime? Oh, but the Felon has already begun to erase that progress, because they are not the party of racism. And as a side note, who is it really that they are afraid of in the bathrooms? It is not a transwoman. Because transwomen just want to use the bathroom and not be attacked. If one is afraid of a man pretending to be a woman to use the women’s bathroom to attack a female… then the person is clearly a CIS MALE. Most children beyond a certain age will understand that to pretend means to act as something you are not. So, if a male is pretending to be trans that makes him a MALE, not trans and the reality becomes they are afraid of MALES. Males who have a higher percentage of sexually assaulting others than any other group of humans. I mean when was the last time you heard concern of a transman using the men’s room and attacking someone? It is because people do not fear that. In that case, there is a higher risk that the cis males will attack the transman than the other way around and our loudest fearmongers are not concerned about that.

On this day, I celebrate those who are living as their true selves. It is a brave and beautiful thing to be who they were created to be. The world is a better place because of their bravery. I hope that you, my friend, can celebrate this day along with me and chose to help others more aware of the beauty our trans friends and loved ones bring into this world.

Always your friend in good trouble.

Michelle Carr

Wagons ho!

My Dearest Friend,

Tidings from Indiana on this sixth day of March in the year twenty, twenty- five after the birth of our Lord Christ. I hope you are well. You have been a bit quiet lately, and I do so hope everything has been going according to plan there. Things have been quite busy here lately as I will share with you in this letter.

Do you remember three years ago when I was in that wagon accident? Well after all this time and work to heal my injuries, we have finally taken the steps to put the case to rest. I will have lasting injuries from that horrid day, but the stress and remaining care should be covered once everything goes through here in the next few weeks. I did not realize how heavy that all was on me, until we held our meeting. When we walked out of the attorney’s office, I felt like I was flying. I was so relieved that the biggest part of what had plagued me mentally would be over soon. Now I can just focus on managing the pain. Thank goodness I learned so many tips from the physically training lady. I have a good sense of how to treat myself when I am having a dreadful day.

The last day of February was the boycott on shopping day that the unions created. The idea was for everyone not to make purchases that day and to use our purchasing power or the lack there of, to make a statement. We saw flyers posted everywhere. I was determined to stick to my promise and if I spent funds, I would only do so at small local general stores. Fortunately, my mother had received notice that she had a room now available for her at a place in North Vernon. That day became my mother’s moving day, so I knew I would be too occupied to shop. I was correct. Between the four trips back and forth from her old place to the new room, I did not have a chance to think about shopping. Unfortunately, I did learn later that the boycott day was not successful as it was hoped to be. This was because people shopped shortly before and after and the purchases evened out. So the boycott didn’t make a difference. I believe the use of our dollars can have an impact we just have to lessen our purchases. Buy more locally. Do not shop at places who do not share our values. Target is already seeing the effects of pulling back from DEI. Others will too.

I am so grateful that mother found a room in North Vernon. The Villas, where my mother lived previously, has been owned by a church group. One would think that being as such, they would be caring of our elderly and disabled, and their needs would take priority. But unfortunately, that is not the case with this group of owners. They refused to renew the contract they had with government housing and chose to let their residents know that they must move out by this April because they were tearing down the homes. In the building’s place they were going to build a new set of buildings where only those who received bigger fixed incomes could afford to stay. The owners knew this would make them more money. And even though their selfishness would mean leaving almost one hundred people without a place to stay, they refused to change their minds. So many people tried to stop this using many different methods. Even the city tried to purchase the current property so that the residents would not be displaced. But the “Christian” owners refused and instead placed profit over people. These are exactly the types of actions that signify what is wrong with our world. It is not the lack of people proclaiming to love a god, it is people failing to love other people. And at the end of the day, they can mandate the ten commandments in as many places as they want, but if they fail to love others then nothing will get better. It just will not.

It took us nine wagon loads full to get my mother moved into her new room. They just do not make covered wagons as spacious as they used to. After moving her in and helping her to get as many things set up as we could, we were all exhausted. My mother reached out to me last night as I sat in recovery mode and let me know she hit a couple of unexpected upsets. Her carriage has started to act funny and is leaking fluid. She thinks it is her transmission. That is such an expensive repair. So now she is stuck, unable to drive anywhere remotely far. As she was stressing about the funds for repairs, she received her disability income from the government. After all the promises from the government that the social security incomes would not be lowered by the chaos created, my mother finds a letter with hers. This letter informs her that her Medicare payments will no longer be covered. Because of this, they have removed two months’ worth of payments from her fixed income amount. This has left her with a little over $500 dollars to last the entire month and she still has moving expenses to cover as well as carriage repairs. This is what I mean by rich leaders selfishly hurting those who need help the most. Those of us who do not lack awareness know that the pain will not just stop with other people. We are all connected, and this chaos will reach us all. It is only a matter of time. By failing to be there for others, these people who voted in this chaos will find themselves alone in the mess.

This being an off year for elections, our democratic party restructures itself in preparation for the next cycle. We held our county executive committee election on the first of March. Myself and the other three members ran for reelection, and no one opposed us this time. We must be doing things right when those who work alongside us approve of our methods. We were re-elected unanimously by our precinct chairs and vice chairs. (They like us, they really, really like us.) As the now elected (not appointed) Vice Chair, I am ready to continue the work and help to fight back against the chaos that is coming from the current administration. I cannot let good people suffer because rich men wanted more power.

We must continue to rage against the machine and lessen the harm that it has caused to those hurt by its madness.

Until the next time we stand up and fight back together,

Michelle

A Basket Full of Eggs

By: Michelle Carr

My Dearest Friend,

Today is the twenty – first day of January in the year twenty, twenty-five, after the birth of our lord and christ.  It has been less than seven moons since I wrote last. I promised I would be better at keeping in touch and I am striving to atone for my earlier prolonged silence.

Even though it has been a shorter amount of time, the days have stretched themselves out so that a single transition of day to night back to day feels like an eternity. There is so much chaos being done in our federal government that news continuously hits us like an explosion of terrible tidings. It is enough to drive one straight into hysterics as I mentioned before. I can only allow myself a short amount of time to absorb such things each day before I retreat into my own sanctuary. I know if I fail to watch out for my wellbeing, that I  too, may find myself sent to one of those woman clinics that many fail to return fully from. I refuse to remove myself from the fight like that. So, I give myself time in my fiction stories and creating art. This also gives me an opportunity to write you as well.

Things here on the home front are beginning to feel the impact of this first thirty days. I went to the general store today to buy food for the following fortnight.  One of the things I remember the other party yelling so angrily about before the election was the price of eggs. Well, my dear, I am so sad to announce that eggs are currently at the highest price that I have ever seen them. For one large dozen eggs, they are more than five dollars! And they aren’t even special eggs. They are not organic or laid by free range chickens. They are just eggs, and I could buy a meal at a quick food place for that price.  I hear that there is the bird influenza going around and many birds at a farm 20 minutes away from us had to removed from life. I have also heard that it has affected their cows, and milk could be impacted as well. It makes the Felon’s promise to lower the price of eggs after elected that much more of a farce. One he hasn’t tried to do anything to solve the rising price of groceries at the market nor do I see him having the ability to do so in the current situation in which we find ourselves. I cannot tell you how many times I was told by the other side that I was being hysterical about my rights disappearing, as they cried repeatedly about the price of eggs. Now that eggs are priced at their highest, they are so very quiet about this matter. It was never about eggs, was it?

Speaking of the influenza, I just spent an expansive time in bed with the human variant. I kept telling myself it was the influenza. That I must have developed a different virus. Even as my head throbbed, I shook with the cold chills and moaned at the aches, I denied and denied. It wasn’t until I woke up in the morning before the sun with a need to run to the bathroom and be sick, did I admit that I definitely had the flu. On the third day, Jason tried to get me to the doctor. He scheduled an appointment for me. He wanted me to get the medicine that would help it clear up faster. But it was also the worst day, and I could not get myself up to go to the doctor. So instead, I remained where I was and drank water until I could not force it down anymore. I woke up the next morning with the fever finally breaking and my head feeling clearer. I still have some of the lingering effects now, but I feel more like myself. Our doctor relayed to us that many have come into the office and tested positive for influenza right now. The scary part is that about ninety percent of them hadn’t received the vaccine this season. And here we are, with Robert Kennedy the secretary of our Health Department and worm brain guy believes that vaccines are bad. We can only expect flu season to get worse in the coming times and everyone can expect to get sick like this at least once a year. So much for keeping within those sick days, but then again with all of the protections being wiped away, we may not have sick days to use at all.

As I began to feel better, I realized that everything feels connected to the chaos as the government spirals out of control. Everything continues to feel dire even when you’re ill. We will continue to find ourselves exhausted and mentally overloaded, but we must fight NOW. Don’t make this destruction of our lives easy for them. Keep calling on bills and confirmations. They may not base their decisions on our input, but keeping the phones ringing is a way to show we won’t go quietly. We will annoy the crap out of you.! Writing and emails are the same. Fill up the mailboxes.

If they take aways things from people, work to replace them within the community. Books get banned from schools, buy copies and pass them out for free. They ban chips from being covered with snap, fill the food banks with chips. They stop caring for our parks, go in and pick up trash, weed wrangles excreta. Take away care for elderly, take it upon yourself to check on them.

And please, please, please look after yourself and one another. There are enough of us to help pick up slack when others need to rest.

We will not let them win. We will be loud! We will CARE for one another. That is more than they ever do. We will watch them fall apart while we hold each other up. Let us REBEL with love.

Until we stand together again, I will forever remain with you in good trouble,

Michelle

My Dearest Friend

My Dearest Friend,

Today is the seventeenth of February in the year twenty, twenty- five after the birth of our lord christ. I know it has been over a fortnight since I have written to you last and I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me of my silence. I will try to atone for the delay by writing more frequently in the days ahead.

Since my last regards, a felon has taken over the leadership office of our country. I never thought we’d see the day with this great experiment of ours called democracy, could be so close to its end. We continue to receive word on the executive orders this man writes daily as if he were king of the world. Each order is more unbelievable than the last. It hasn’t even been a month and now people and businesses are allowed to discriminate against my young ones and myself for just being open about who we are. The very existence of a group of people has been determined to be illegal. Trying to find a place to go to the bathroom has gone from a thing of worrying that you could be harassed to the possibility of jail time. My young ones are now afraid to venture out too far from home without protection.

The Felon has also created a department led by his billionaire friend, Elon Musk. I am sure you remember him. He was the one who dumped so much money into getting the felon elected. The same man who would buy successful companies and then run them to the ground. Now reports would have it that he is actively acting as our country’s leader while the Felon has become the straw man. Proof in this, stems from the far reaching access Musk has had in all of our important parts of government. The claim is that he is performing an audit on these departments in order to eliminate them from overspending. But oddly enough, there aren’t any auditors on his team. It is a team of young adults, barely over the ages of my young ones and they are hacking into places where their access doesn’t reach. Getting our very private information and recording into their own personal vaults. This seems to be outrageously unbelievable, I know, but it’s true.

I was devastated to learn that even after the felon departing office the last time with a plague underway, they just went ahead and confirmed his first pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services. His pick was that guy from the same family as a famous president who had been assassinated. But as a traveling wannabe apothecary, this guy couldn’t be further from the integrity that his family upholds. He cries wolf about vaccines, like the ones that protected us from the last plague. He insists that there is a brain eating worm in his head. Yet he will keep us healthy. I looked upon the White House Documents with the Felon’s executive order regarding health. The focus seems to be on our young ones. Some of the proclamations are similar to what a previous First Lady had worked to bring to fruition. She was attacked terribly by those who are trying now to implement the same things. It hurts one’s head to try and understand the nonsense. I hold no doubt that after he has removed the medications that have been truly helping people, that we will learn of some apple cider vinegar concoction that Kennedy has made that will cure all if it is taken everyday.

There is already the Make Our Children Healthy Again assessment which is looking into the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs. This makes me incredibly wary because as you know, I take Duloxetine, a serotonin reuptake drug to help with the injuries that I have to the nerves in my leg from my severe carriage accident. This medication is what has helped me be more myself. And if it is removed from availability, I will find myself in pain, everyday again as my nerves will tell my brain that my body hurts when it doesn’t. It took me quite a while to find a doctor that didn’t just believe it to be female hysterics and I’m finally on my way to a better place. This administration would take that away from me and a league of other humans. We will find ourselves reduced back into a group of hysterical people.

I can not help but believe this is what they want from us. To take us to a place where we are all struggling to just get by day to day. Then we would become too busy to see them stealing our freedoms, our money and our democracy from us. But we must be vigilant. Even though the unregulated militia of the people has yet to take a stand, it doesn’t mean we aren’t under attack from our government. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t revolt and civilly disrupt. Because hate and those acting outside of said agreed upon boundaries of society shouldn’t be met with tolerance. The only correct answer to such things is intolerance of their behavior.

Until we stand together again, I will forever remain with you in good trouble,

Michelle

A Brave Patriot

by Michelle Carr

I am a brave patriot.

I am proudly a member of the silent majority.

I know we are the majority because he received the ranking highest amount of votes. 

We aren’t so silent anymore. 

We were really loud on the faithful day, Jan 6.

Sadly, our shouts were taken advantage of.

Antifa dressed up as us and attacked the Capitol. 

They would do anything to make us look bad.

One of our own lost their life when she tried to stop the attack. 

She will never be forgotten.

I give unwelding support to the best President there ever was. 

His refreshing directness speaks to the words I have wanted to say for so long.

Words that I have kept buried within my soul.

But now I can be loud and proud about not wanting to be WOKE!

I don’t have to worry about how anyone feels.

I put myself first, just like I do America. 

Is he perfect?

No, but no-one is.

He tries his best though, even if he isn’t great at it. 

You know, like dancing, public speaking, business, and knowing which side of the Bible is up.

But he keeps trying and like Frederick Douglas, he’s doing many good things. 

He has been under such persecution by the radical left. 

They impeached him twice but he stayed president. 

They built false case, after false case and then  a leftest jury found him guilty. 

I know it’s all fake though. 

He makes our country great!

Taking us back to a time where I didn’t have to think about anything but work and play. 

I like it simple. 

I’m a good person. 

I don’t understand why they keep comparing us to Nazis and the KKK. 

They take everything too seriously. 

A person beats his heart and waves at the audience and it’s a Nazi salute. 

Craziness.

I can’t even celebrate my joy at him winning this last election without people sharing that wave. 

Family comes to me crying like the snowflakes they are claiming they are being hurt by his EOs.

But I knows,

It’s all an act, hysteria, they just hate him that much that they are so dramatic.

I just delete their cries and defend him with everything I am. 

Because I’m not in a cult, I just believe he is the one God is working through to make us all better and bring us back to him. 

Only he can do it.

And this first week has been great!!!

Well, minus the fact that my family members stopped talking to me simply because of my vote. 

But hell it’s wonderful that we are all female now, less pronouns that I have to remember. 

And history will remember me as one of those who helped make it all happen. 

HEIL MAGA 

A Missed Wrinkle in Time

by: Michelle Carr

Which one, out of all the banned books, has changed your life the most? I found this question incredibly difficult to answer as there have been a great many banned books that have impacted my life. The earliest one that I can think of probably would be one of the most frequently banned or challenged books, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle.

My first interaction with this book was in the sixth grade when my very conservative Christian church began talking of the evils of this book. Many of my fellow young peers in the church had been assigned this book as a class read book in school. My church had gotten wind of this through the parents and there was an outrage growing that led to our pastor addressing it in a sermon. His sermon educated us on it’s evils. This book had satanic themes like opening your mind and clearing it of thoughts, which everyone knew to be the way the devil planted thoughts in your head. Discussions of themes of science and Christianity were simply not tolerated. This could lead to questions. There were ideas that clearly veered to a path away from our beliefs. They feared the powers the characters had in the book that were believed to be magical. We all knew that all magic came from the devil. Our parents were strongly encouraged to not allow us to participate in the class reading of this book. It was the work of the devil and would lure us in.

I cannot tell you how many sermons revolved around why the themes in this book were so bad. But I can tell you that as the youngest person in my sixth grade class, for the first time ever, I was frightened of a book. I was a lover of books even at that age and couldn’t understand how a book could be so dangerous. I had so many questions. All the adults around me told me not to question just to follow, they knew what was best. So after listening week after week about how bad this book was, I too began to fear it. What if my curiosity of the adventure that its pages held became my gateway into leading a life of the Devil’s bidding? If clearing one’s mind of all thoughts was so bad, then what protected me when I went to sleep every night and tried to shut out the thoughts of the day? Looking back, I’m pretty sure that this fear played a key role in the insomnia that I experienced during that time as well.

At some point, I stopped worrying so much about this book. I began reading other books with similar themes of magic and for a long time would feel that familiar twinge of anxiety lurking in the edges of my brain. This feeling became fainter as my knowledge grew. I began to embrace the findings of science instead of fearing the things that I learned simply because they would prove the things that I had blindly held faith in, to be impossible. Without having read the book, I began to embrace some of the very thoughts from the book that my childhood church had declared to be so evil.

In 2018, the discussion of this book began again as it would now be in movie form. I, myself, am now the mother of a twelve and a nine-year-old. I found myself staring at a copy of this book again and feeling the faint anxiety. But instead of letting the fear take over, I chose to break the cycle and purchase it as a gift for my oldest. I would let them decide. They read it and I finally read it. I found myself wondering why the themes of love and triumph of good over evil weren’t ever mentioned to me when I was a kid. I took my kids to see the movie and my oldest declared that the movie was so much better because the book had been quite complicated. But overall, we were in love with the strength and growth of the female main character Meg.

I look back now at all the heroic female characters that I have loved throughout my life. Each one has shaped me in different ways. I wonder now how Meg’s journey would have affected me had I discovered her in sixth grade as my friends had. Would I have questioned things earlier and moved quicker into the person that I grew into being? Would I have held more courage as I began to grow away from the thoughts of my childhood? Would I have known that I held more power within myself to create change than I had believed to be possible? Perhaps. But at least those are questions my children won’t have to wonder. I shared my story about the book with them and encouraged them to not fear books or the thoughts held in them. Change and growth can be scary, but it becomes a little less frightening when you don’t feel so alone even if it’s a dark and stormy night.

Freedom 2023

By Michelle Carr

Freedom

they dangle

like a magician

as they take away your books

so you can’t spot them as crooks

Freedom

they chant

while they work every angle

‘til they can turn you away

for being born gay

Freedom

they promise

stepping on the scale

removing your healthcare decision

claiming it was an unborn provision

Freedom

they scream

so they can out all the kids

yet they tell you’re crazy

for needing meds to save Dave(Daisy)

Freedom

they say

fingers crossed behind

looking you in the eyes

as they fill you with lies

Freedom

they yell

over and over

with each fascist ruling it does wane

the very thing people lost their lives to gain

Liberty and Justice is for all

or it’s for none.

Excuse me Doc, I want my time back

Let me begin this by saying this share isn’t an easy one to tell. I don’t know many women who would feel comfortable in sharing such an experience with the public, but as I want to be someone who helps empower other women, I feel like I need to share. There are too many times when a doctor fails to listen to a woman, and the woman suffers from it. If I can help one woman from suffering needlessly, then I have done my job.

Brief summary of how I ended up here. November of last year, two days before Thanksgiving, I was in a wreck where the other driver ran the red light and t-boned me in my driver side door going at least 40 miles an hour. I was squashed between my door and the middle console of my car. I was rushed to the local hospital with severe pain in my ribs and my hips. I learned there that I had no broken bones but that my spleen and my central mesentery had been injured resulting in pain in my ribs. I also learned that I had a massive growth in my uterus that would likely require me to have a hysterectomy. I remained in the hospital for a couple of days and was released with strict advice to come back if I noticed warning sides with my internal injuries. I saw a doctor later to check on my remaining injuries and ask why my hips were swollen in places where the severe bruising was. I learned that I had at least one large hematoma on the backside of my left hip. I was told these things would heal and that after the beginning of the year I would feel tremendously better. I was also told that Physical Therapy would probably get me back to normal once I was able, I was still very limited in movement as well as physical activity of any kind. Enter in the old fashioned abdominal hysterectomy that I went through in April, I found my limited movement back down to the strictest level of restrictions. For another two months, I wasn’t able to do much. This weighed very heavily on me since before all of this, exercise was the way I helped myself to feel better. I was walking/ jogging 3 miles four times a week and working to increase it because I wanted to do the half marathon the next year. Now it had been 8 months that I had hardly been able to move. Walking half a mile left me in pain. I went to Physical Therapy and the assessment showed that there is something more wrong with me and that therapy wasn’t the right move yet. She was the first person that had really listened to my pain and what I had been through over the last almost year. It was comforting being validated in thinking that something more is wrong with me. She suggested I go to OrthoIndy and recommended I visit Dr. Monesmith. I am now at month 11 of not being able to walk more than a mile without landing in some major pain.

I filled out all my preappointment paperwork. I even marked on there that being in a place that I couldn’t exercise like I had previously, had left me feeling anxious and depressed. This is important.

I entered the office nervous but hopeful. Hoping that I would begin to know why I was in such pain. The staff was nice and I joked around with the nurse even while groining to myself that I had gained another five pounds. Due to taking several x-rays, the doctor knew before stepping in the room that my problem wasn't one with the bones in my hips. At least not the bones there, he entered the room with such a dismissive attitude that even Jason noticed. He had me stand up and asked me where my hips hurt and I proceeded to tell him even with him interrupting me multiple times. The doctor hardly gave me the chance to describe to him the pain that I had been experiencing. He looked at me briefly, disregarding the hematomas as something that would go away even though it's been almost a year. His cavalier attitude almost made it seem as if he thought they were fat pockets vs something that swelled up under the massive bruising and appeared immediately after the wreck. Though he did say he could tell they were swollen and that I was still really inflamed.  He asked about Physical Therapy and I told him that I had been to see a Physical Therapist and that the assessment had shown that there seemed to be more of an issue and that I wasn't ready for Physical Therapy yet. He scoffed at that and told me I should probably get a new Physical Therapist. This of course got my edge up even more and I pointedly said that she was the one that recommended your expertise. He then told me what was wrong with me was probably more of muscle injury that would require a Physiatrist instead of himself. He would recommend that I see one of them.  In the meantime, he said that I was still quite inflamed from the injuries and that he had a sheet that went over anti-inflammatories. As he showed me this sheet, he made it a point to point to the place in the sheet that spoke of literature that taught about nutrition and obesity. He began to suggest that to me. I stopped him and reminded him that earlier I had said that before all of this I was walking 3 miles a day for exercise, that I had been down quite a lot this last year due to immobility. He literally WALKED away while I was telling him this to go look for something. When he came back, he proceeded to go on a diatribe about the same thing again and point back to the same place on the sheet that spoke about obesity. He spoke about books that were listed there and suggested that I read them. I stopped him midsentence like he had done to me so many times in this very short visit. I told him that wasn’t necessary that I understood all of that. I folded the paper right in front of him and moved to show that I was ready to leave. I don't know what the disconnect was there, that this man that treats injuries to the areas of that body that allow people to move would not realize that after a year of trying to become mobile again and also being severely limited in movement for two months due to a surgery that a person would not help but put on some weight. And that when a person fills out a form that the lack of being able to exercise and move to relieve stress has led them to feeling anxious and depressed at times, that perhaps pointing out over and over that they've gained weight, is not the best practice. When a person goes through what I have, you don’t have to tell her she weighs more than she did before, she knows. She also knows that the pasta and wine that she indulged in perhaps a bit too often wasn’t the best for her but when one of her other comforts is taken from her, food filled that spot. That perhaps if he had taken the time to read through her preappointment documents he would know this. Perhaps as her doctor for that session, whom she paid to see, he had taken the time to listen instead of interrupting and engaging in a conversation with the other male in the room, he would’ve realized that weight was not the issue that lead to this problem that it was more the result of the problem. But that would require having a good bedside manner instead of acting like a jerk because he have received a case that he do not have the remedy for. Perhaps Dr. Eric Monesmith is really good in his field. It is quite possible that he is, due to the fact that the PT, he scoffed at, held him in such high regard. But this was my experience and my experience was that he didn’t have an answer for me. That he knew coming into the room, he didn’t have an answer for me. So his solution to being inadequate was to make me feel like my pain was an overreaction and something I could remedy with the right diet and anti- inflammatories.

This type of diagnoses happens too often with women. If a bad doctor doesn’t have the answer, well it’s your weight and you should try eating better. It’s female hysteria, exercise more. Or here’s pain meds, that should help relieve what you’re feeling. It’s ridiculous and it’s extremely harmful to ignore the patient and assume treatment like you know them. When doctors treat patients like this, sadly they should be called out. If we can help one another with who to avoid and who really helps, it could save one another a great deal of heartache, pain and worse. I hope sharing this helps someone else avoid having this same experience.

This Time They Came For Us

I woke up this morning with less rights than I had when I was born over 43 years ago.

Under the cover of night, our elected Indiana state leaders, consisting of a GOP majority, pushed the final stages of a bill that left a corpse with more bodily autonomy than a person with a uterus. The governor shutting off his phones from the public as he signed into law.

They rushed this through all so very quickly, crushing down all the voices of opposition. Jumping over the hurdles placed by the Democratic leaders. Cutting down oral public testimony down to a fourth of those who signed up to speak. Remained quiet to the public on what they were introducing. Refused to answer the public’s questions. Failed to respond to constituent’s calls. They ignored their own polls that reported 63% of Hoosiers did not want an abortion ban.

We yelled. We chanted. We sang. We testified our nightmarish stories. We shared the parts of us that hurt the most. We cried. We comforted. We called. We wrote. We had over 700 medical professionals join us. We had over 500 businesses express concern over the effects on the economy. We had Gen Con stand up from their tables and command their audience.

But at the end of the day, none of it mattered to the Republican “leaders”. They rushed this bill through knowing that their only chance to get this through would be to ensure it was finished, no matter how poorly, before their adjournment date on August 14th. They knew when the legislative session opened again, things could look dramatically different for them. So they turned their back on their constituents and shook their derrieres at us in a declaration of how unaccountable they feel. Then as they quoted verses from Bible, using their belief as a shield, they stripped away the rights of Hoosiers to decide how their own uterus will be used. These “leaders” placed themselves as the only people in our state who can determine how to use a uterus. Their beliefs weighing more than the person and all the physician’s knowledge. Anyone who has a uterus has officially been deemed too naïve to hold responsibility of our own body parts. We have less rights than a corpse. We hold the same level of respect from these leaders as akin to cattle. All done by leaders who the majority of them have never had their own uterus. Perhaps that was why they so badly wanted to control them? And they themselves will never be in a position of being mandated on how they must use their own damn organs.

In their minds, they must feel pretty powerful this morning now having control of every uterus in the state. The control to tell a child that they did not declare they were pregnant from a rape soon enough and they must now allow that fetus growing in their body, that was placed there without their consent, to grow into a baby that will endanger their life as they try to deliver into this world. Deliver in a state with one of the worst maternal mortality rates. They must feel really good knowing that they can still aid their mistresses in getting an abortion and hold the ability to stop others from having that access. They twisted all those Bible verses to make themselves feel so righteous in this endeavor. They made themselves believe they are heroes. Oh the sweet (wet) dream to be living in the 50’s again.

What they seem to have massively forgotten was that our state nor our country is a theocracy. These leaders can have their faith all day long and that is fine, but they were not elected to be spiritual leaders who force such beliefs onto others. They were elected to represent Hoosiers and their very own actions proved they failed at this.

They even voted down an amendment that would have let Hoosiers decide through votes if this should be a law, because they knew it wasn’t supported.

I want to thank them for showing us their true colors. Thank those that did try and speak out of both sides of their mouths for going back in and voting down amendments that then showed everyone they were liars. I thank them for giving us this public record, because now they can’t hide behind pretty words.

Now here is how we fight back. We take this knowledge. We take this anger fueled at being made cattle. We take it all to the polls with us in November. We VOTE out EVERY single one of them who voted YES to SB1. They failed to represent Hoosiers as they took an oath to do and they need to be removed. We vote in blue leaders to replace them. Vote for leaders who have been working to protect our rights. We flock to the polls in numbers that no matter how our state was gerrymandered, it still slides in our favor.

We, the 63% of us who didn’t want this law, vote to take back our VOICE!!!!

We remove those set on controlling us through their religion!

We take back our state!

We do not go gentle into this good night, Hoosiers will ROAR!!!!

Fury

by: Michelle Carr

We should smile more. Women aren’t supposed to get mad. We are supposed to remain kind and calm at all times. No matter if someone is screaming in our face. No matter if we are being yelled at from across the room. No matter if someone just attempted or succeeded in inappropriate actions or behaviors towards us. No matter if legislators are taking away our rights. No matter the injustice. No matter …. what.

I was told from a young age that I had a bad temper. I was told that I shouldn’t get so angry. I was told that I needed to work on my anger. I was taught that I wouldn’t be listened to if I was angry. But it’s really hard to remain calm when you are punished for another sibling’s deeds. It’s really hard to remain level headed when the seventeen- year old you left the house for an hour without notifying the parents at work and you were grounded for two weeks. Then your fifteen- year old brother doesn’t come home all night without telling your parents and nothing happens to him.  Growing up, I was taught that anger didn’t win arguments that you must remain cool and logical. This was something that I worked hard to do for a really long time.

Then I began reflecting. I realized real change doesn’t happen when people are calm about an issue. Real change often happens when people are angry. Often when WOMEN are angry. That yes there are still times that require more logic than anger but you know nothing says you can’t be stern. There are definitely times when anger is required. Anger is required when laws are used to impose the religious beliefs of some onto others in order to control their actions. Anger is required when legislators start a witch hunt for those who are literally enacting on their civil rights that are guaranteed by the federal government. Anger is required in instances of oppression and injustice.

I felt such anger when I heard about Texas’s newest abortion ban law. I still feel anger regarding it. I, as a mother of two, have reached a point in my life that I don’t want another baby. How in the world, knowing what I do as a mother, could I force another to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth? I can’t. Nor do I want to be told when I must be a mother. So I did what I feel I do well. I sat down and wrote a letter. I wrote a letter to my local newspaper and called out the hypocrisy of the leaders who express their “distress” for the women in Afghanistan while working and cheering on the oppression of the women here. I unleashed a bit of my anger in the argument as I added in the facts of what this bill means. It felt amazing.

A couple of weeks later, I was approached on social media on a thank you post I had written. A male acquaintance said my letter was a gross over-reaction. That I do not realize how unreasoned and unbalanced reactions are poisoning civil discourse. My anger and sharing of the truth is poisoning civil discourse. So is it civil to hunt down women and doctors for doing what the law has granted them to do? Is it civil to treat people as “hosts” for the forming cells in their body? After chuckling for a few minutes at his comment, I responded in so many words that I didn’t care about his opinion of me or my actions. He continued on as though I should care what his opinion of me is and that the variety of things that I post could only mean that I think that I know it all. (Sorry I really had to take a few moments and laugh heartedly at this clearly wrong assumption) There is a giant difference between wanting to learn as much as you can and sharing what you have learned and thinking that you know all there is to know. If one fails to understand that difference, the problem lies with them. The best part of the whole conversation came when a male friend came over and told him he was wrong. Then in order to defend his stance, the acquaintance, refers to the first ten words of my letter and underlines the five words he says are extreme. Trying to say that in the first line itself half of my words were trigger words. The first line of my letter, those first ten words, were a quote from a male Republican Senator of Texas. He had somehow failed to see that this was a quote even though it was fonted differently, and attributed to the person that said it. Because of this and I’m sure the other descriptors that I placed in the letter, he deemed it to be an extreme over-reaction and “quite distinct from the regular thoughtful letter.” (I feel like I should win an award for this.)

My letter, in his opinion, wasn’t thoughtful because I had used expressive adjectives to display my anger at the ridiculousness that is this Texas law. But it was thoughtful. One doesn’t come up with such vivid word usages without having given it some thought. I mean one can only use the word GREAT so many times before everything sounds the same and nothing is given a sense of urgency or higher level of importance. In the end, it was my anger that he didn’t know how to understand. So his only recourse was to tell me that I shouldn’t be angry. That may have worked on me before, but I have now witnessed strong women wield their anger into mighty weapons of change. Now, I am no longer afraid to allow my anger to become visible. I refuse to be told that I need to remain calm no matter what. I will not be complacent. I encourage other women to do the same. Together, we will bring change. For all of those who fall into the reaction that anger at oppression and injustice are extreme and divisive, may I suggest that you should probably try smiling more.

Behind My Blue Eyes

I joined a new religion.
This religion makes me feel better than I ever have. I feel so loved just as my imperfect self is... well ...maybe not just as I am. I learned that having blue eyes is a sin. That in order to be loved by God I must have eyes that do not resemble the sky or sea. Such eyes are evil. There are a few verses in the Bible that have been interpreted to say this. Blue eyes mean I possess evil inside me and could cause others to have impure thoughts. So to be clean and born again, one must have darker eyes. I was completely broken hearted that I would never be loved as one of God’s divine creatures as long as my eyes remained as he had given them to me, blue.
I felt like I would never be accepted in the church because no matter how hard I prayed, my eyes remained blue. I spent hours on my knees everyday. I fasted and I punished my impure self. But no matter how much I tried to atone for how I was born, I was not graced with the blessing of having nonblue eyes. How could this be? Surely it was because I was unworthy.
My fellow church members told me they loved me but they didn’t love the sin of my blue eyes. They said I simply wasn’t trying hard enough to change. I needed to work harder to rid myself of these abominations. I was at my wits end. I was told I should consider a type of therapy where physicians put daily injections into my irises to transform them into the desired color. This scared me. I knew this was a very aggressive treatment and could leave me permanently scarred. I still wanted so badly to be accepted as everyone else had been.
So I did something that I’m not proud of. I told my church that I was getting the therapy and that I wouldn’t be able to attend for a time. During the absent weeks, I got myself fitted for color contacts. I already had to wear contacts but one had to have colored ones specially ordered. I prayed that I would be forgiven for my deception but I couldn’t face my terror of becoming possibly blind by my other alternative. I continued to pray and fast that my eyes would change on their own and I wouldn’t have to do anything drastic. Yet, the evil remained inside me and reflected outwardly in the blueness. I returned to church with my colored contacts and pretended that I had been found worthy enough to be fully reborn with chocolate brown eyes. This pretending was difficult. The colored contacts constantly hurt and never felt right as my others had. But it did feel good to finally be accepted as .... me? Seems really ridiculous right? Because it is! A person’s sexuality, gender and sexual preference is just like their eye color. They are born the way they are. These things aren’t chosen therefore it can not be a SIN anymore than the color of your eyes can be! You don’t commit an act of choosing who you love or what gender you are. I mean after all, you see the same things happen in nature but I don’t ever hear that a bird committed a sin for being both genders. Thinking such things is as illogical as saying that I chose to have blue eyes and if I pray hard enough I can choose to have brown eyes.
Thinking that you’ve been chosen to help people see the err of such things, tells me that perhaps you have a strange need to want to keep yourself above others. A desire perhaps to be righteous while someone else is not. When I was direct about this obvious need I saw from someone I was told that I was judging them for judging those of the LGBTQ community. But I never claimed that I would remain quiet when I witnessed others being hateful and displaying clear signs of rankism. As said in an article from Psychology Today regarding those who are displaying homophobia and the like regarding the persons reasons for doing so- “They are excuses for putting people down and keeping them down so we can more safely exploit them in the future. Or, so they will not compete with us. Or, simply to feel superior.” (see #6 in how people use rankism https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/somebodies-and-nobodies/201002/what-is-rankism-and-why-do-we-do-it%3famp )

This toxic behavior can lead those who are receptive of it to self harm and even suicide. It can also lead others to violently attack someone because they have been taught to hate the different as something that is to be feared and evil. This is why it is not only wrong but dangerous to use religion to demean others for being born differently.

You cannot truly love someone if you hate a part of who they are. Being LGBTQ is a part of someone, not a choice. The choice part is deciding whether you love them as they are or feel the need to have them change the impossible. (Like my blue eyes) I personally chose love above all else. And this month is a month that celebrates Love!! Wishing you all a beautiful month of #Pride!
#PrideMonth #LoveIsLove

The Seduction

By Michelle Carr

“Come hither”

It beckons.

“Just pause for a moment

look for that missing piece.

You have the ability to make me whole.”

I pause,

the temptation is great.

Finding one piece easily,

the seduction softly begins.

“That’s it,

you’ve got it.

I only appear to be impossible.

You can solve me.

Take a seat,

stay a while.”

I link two more.

My willpower diminishes.

Determination surfaces.

I WILL solve this challenge.

Nothing is impossible.

Hours pass by without my notice

“I knew you couldn’t resist.

You are mine.

And here you will remain

until I let you go.”

Safer Under Biden’s Leadership

By Michelle Carr

Since the occupier of the White House was elected in 2016, I have:

- (within days) Had to address a four year old bullying an autistic boy of color in preschool.

- seen the increase of hate crimes and bullying in my community, the state and country.

- been harassed and bullied online for my views

- witnessed female candidates being harassed and bullied online for daring to run against a man.

- witnessed a female candidate repeatedly harassed online because her religion was not Christianity.

- had my daughter come home upset because she was told she was bad/ stupid for not liking Trump, a man who has mocked those like her.

- seen people spew hate towards a Festival full of love and acceptance that gave those I hold dear strength to be who they are.

- had sleepless nights worrying that those I love will lose their equality.

- had sleepless nights worrying about the safety of loved ones.

- had friends say that if they had been the law enforcement at a peaceful demonstration similar to what I, myself, had participated in, they would tear gas the people, zip tie their hands and get them out of there.

- had people tailgate, race around my car, and cut me off all while waving their MAGA hat at us. This succeeded in scaring my children. The response came from a “Trump Divides” Magnet on my car. (Literally proving the point)

- had many sleepless nights worrying about my loved ones with preexisting illnesses.

- had people treat my fact sharing as hysterics or my being over emotional, only to watch as the things I warned about came to pass.

- had my circle of friends slowly catch Covid around me until it reached my own home.

- had a friend pass away from COVID as his wife had to say goodbye through video chat.

- had my heart broken watching others mistreated and killed because of the color of their skin.

- had someone I know,who is a quadriplegic, tear gassed for being at a peaceful solidarity rally for BLM.

- had pressure to send my children to school as COVID numbers increased. Two weeks into attending one class, wearing his mask, my child catches it. This resulted in three of us being ill and quarantined for a month. Two months later my son and I still have breathing issues.

- my friends with Democratic signs in their front yard had someone shoot their front window.

- had a woman strut over displaying her firearm to my friends and myself as we prepared for a Democratic rally and ask us how we could vote for someone who is selling out our country as she held her Trump flag.

- seen our “leader” say Covid is over as tens of thousands of positive cases continue daily and over 220,000 people in the US have died.

These are just a few reasons I feel safer with Biden as President. A few reasons why I have given him my vote. Because it’s not just about me, it’s about those I love and even those I don’t know. Biden will be President for everyone not just the 30 percent that still support him. (He wouldn’t leave you stranded in an airport after bussing you in to feed his ego either.) If you feel safer under the occupier perhaps it’s because you THINK you haven’t had anything to lose under his leadership. Imagine what it’s like to have to worry everyday if your kids will make it home ok because of the color of their skin, or the person they love, how they worship or that their political beliefs somehow seem a threat to others?

Now imagine a country where that was lessened.

#VoteBlue #Vote #BidenHarris #BidenHarris2020

Vote

by: Michelle

Let me start this off by saying straight off the bat that I do not have a degree in political science, nor have I studied it. I do not consider myself to be a politician. A while ago, I came to a place in my life where I realized vying for everyone’s approval is not a way that I wanted to live my life. But I can tell you that I have a strong calling to help others, and it is for that reason that I have considered running for an office.

 As some of you know, I grew up in a very conservative household. As with many other households, I fell into the tendency to see things the way my parents did. At some point, I feel it was my late teens, as I became more aware of the world around me, I began to question if I truly believed these things. I realized that part of me had always felt a bit hesitant to quickly pass judgement on things in such a binary fashion. When I allowed these questions to fuel my search for what I believed, I came upon an extraordinary realization. I am a Democrat. My want to help others aligned more with the party of the blue collar workers. I was for a very long time a moderate or centralist Democrat. I voted for both sides, trying hard to keep what I thought was an equal balance between the parties. But what I failed to see was that that here within our state, one party has led a super majority for years driving our state to the bottom rung in the majority of categories.

 At some point, the center moved. I still held my same beliefs that I always had, but now those views were considered to be further left than in the middle. So okay then, I took it in stride. I was still fighting for the same things it didn’t matter to me where the middle fell. So now I am considered a progressive liberal. I’m okay with that. To me it means that I do exactly as I hope others will do. I dream big and view everything as a possible we just have to find the solution to make it happen.

 Do I want to see massive change from where we currently are as a nation? Yes. This current administration has undone decades of progressive work and thrown us onto a dangerous course that jeopardizes our very survival. Do I wish for a progressive candidate to be elected who will jump in and work to fix the damage that’s been done with progressive solutions? Yes, of course I do. Do I want a leader in place that has been selected by the will of the people? Yes, I do. Am I willing to not vote or attack others because they don’t want to vote for the candidate I decide to pick? Absolutely not.

 For one, keep in mind that I am a progressive liberal female. Do you think my first choice was the only progressive liberal candidate left in the field? Was gender my leading factor? Nope. It sure wasn’t. I was eyeing many candidates on the field and felt strongly about supporting a couple of them that have both now left the race. I would like a grassroots progressive movement to go far. And when I hear that’s not what the majority of the people want, I feel like that isn’t true. I feel there is a strong support for making health care a right, for protecting our planet from our own destruction, for equality, gun reform and so very much more. But sometimes it’s not the ideals, it’s the leader.  You need to have someone that can make the message resonate with everyone not just with some. I, myself, am all for the movement but don’t like the way it’s being done. I don’t like that attacking of those within your same party as if they were the enemy. There has been much denial that this is happening. My job requires me to be neutral when I am doing it. I am required to treat each candidate equally. No matter how neutral or equal I am within that work space, there are constant attacks from those who say they support the progressive candidate or bust.  When as a liberal progressive posting neutral and informative posts, I continuously find myself getting attacked only by those who claim to be supporters of the progressive movement THERE IS AN ISSUE and it needs to be addressed.

  I am old enough now to realize the change we want doesn’t always happen as quickly or the way we want it to. I also am wise enough to realize that even if the candidate doesn’t agree with everything you want doesn’t mean the opportunity to change their mind is nonexistent. There will always be opportunities to so if you have common ground to approach it. I realize that either candidate is immensely better than the choice on the other side. I wasn’t certain which one I would vote for myself. Both candidates have things I like and dislike about them. One candidate has worked hard to unite. While I see the other and part of their followers work to create division and that is a trait that I so detest from the conservative side. So while I’m not sure where my primary vote will go to, I can say with absolute certainty that my November vote will go to whichever one wins. I won’t allow my voice to be silent. I won’t allow my right to vote that was fought so hard for by the women before me, go to waste. I refuse to sit out of the most important election of our LIVES. This is soooo much bigger than upset feelings because your candidate wasn’t voted as the nominee.

 As I close, I will charge you with the one task. VOTE. Do you want a movement? VOTE. Do you want people to act on climate? VOTE. Do you want equality? VOTE. Do you want everyone to have access to healthcare? VOTE. Do you want to end children from being in cages? VOTE Do you want to see gun reform? VOTE. Do you want to stop Trump from having four more years? VOTE. Do not sit it out as some sort of defiance, that is part of what put us here. VOTE.

A Trip Away from Plastic Bags

By: Michelle Carr

  As many of you know, I am a work in progress environmentalist. I am not perfect. I haven’t ever claimed to be. I say work in progress because I try every day to be greener yet I know I’m clearly not the best. One of the things I strive to do is to eliminate my usage of single use plastic bags. I have grown quite a collection of reusable bags of various sizes and messages. My reusable bags are something I get quite nerdy and excited about.  They kind of make me feel like I have been transported into a pre-plastic bags era, when baskets and cloth bags were used. It makes my Anne of Green Gables loving soul soar.  

 One of the places I frequent is Jay C Foods. Being an offshoot of Kroger, they have made a commitment to stop issuing single use plastic bags in their store by the year 2025. Though it’s not as quickly as I’d like, it’s still a huge step. Knowing this fact, makes me smile every time I enter their store. It has made me feel like my reusable bags were a little more welcomed here than other places, but today’s experience was a bit different than normal.

 I place my reusable bags on the conveyor belt first. This is something I always do in order to not have to make the cashier/ bagger remove items from they’ve bagged in plastic bags.  Then I begin to unload my items from the cart. As the cashier hands me my first bag she half turns to the employees conversing behind her and says. “But they are still going to let us use these plastic bags right?” She points to the single use bags attached to her bagging area. In my head, I can’t help but giggle a bit. I know it’s wrong, but seriously the whole point of the change is to eliminate those very bags. Why would they keep them?

 “No, in a few years we won’t be using those anymore.” Her fellow employees respond. My cashier looks troubled as she continues to scan and bag my groceries into my REUSABLE bags.

“Well, what are we going to use then?” She questions with a sour tone. Here I know I can help. As I take another one of my grocery filled bags from her hands, I smile.

“Well you will use these.” Understanding this didn’t seem so complicated to me but perhaps to someone who didn’t realize that the stopping of using single use bags meant they wouldn’t be using single use bags, it was. She wrinkles her nose at me.

“I hope not. I hate these kind of bags.” She literally says this as she picks up my next bag.  Now here is where I made my conscious decision that I wouldn’t be helping her bag my items as I do with other cashiers. This may have been slightly evil on my behalf, but I wanted her to have to use my bags.

“Well I love them.” I smile, determined not to deter from being polite.

“But they are so dirty. I hate touching them because people bring them in here so dirty.” She holds my bag in a way as if to say she felt mine was dirty. I am dying laughing inside at this point because most anyone who knows me knows that I am quite the germaphobe. I regularly wash my reusable bags, especially after they’ve held meat in them. I will wipe down the big freezer bags with Clorox wipes after every use. The very last thing my bags are is dirty.

“I assure you,” I smile huge at her to keep from laughing. “I wash mine frequently.” In my head I scream with laughter and almost blurt out, “But today, just for you, I rolled them in pig poop right before I brought them in.”  Instead I nicely add. “And they are much better for the environment than single use plastic bags.” To this the lady scoffs and places more of my food into one of my bags.

“They are so dirty I just don’t know how people can stand their food being in them.” She turns to the people behind her. “Will they go to paper bags?”

“That is something they are considering.” Her fellow employee answers.

“Good.” My cashier responds. Of course in my head I’m dying thinking that she has exposed herself to more bacteria by touching my packaged chicken and ground turkey meat with her bare hands than she did touching my bags. I’m also shaking my head at the thought of cutting down more trees and causing pollution from manufacturing for what will most likely be single use paper bags. All of it, so that cashiers like this can avoid having to manage using a cloth bag. But then, I look at my bags in the cart. It is very clear from the fact that all of my meat was placed into a more cloth like bag and my toilet paper and potato chips were placed into a cold freezer bag, that this cashier was a novice. She probably still had a lot to learn about bagging, that her limited experience clearly hasn’t shown her yet. Perhaps with more exposure to bagging with reusable bags, her early bagging opinions will change. So as I took my receipt and wished her a happy day, I made a mental vow to help with that learning curve by going through her line often. After all, 2025 will be here before we know it.

Image taken by Michelle Carr - Novice bagging skills

A Woman's Choice

Early in December of 2003, I discovered that I was pregnant.  This was joyous news, for my husband and I had been trying but not trying to have a child. It was scary. It was wondrous. It was mind boggling to know that I now had a life growing inside of me. I felt instantly connected to this new life. I would speak to it often when alone so it would know my voice and hopefully understand how much I love it already. It was strangely comforting knowing that I was never alone. I tried my best to take good care of myself. I’m not really good at this, as I will often put others needs before my own. But I knew now it wasn’t just me that needed to be healthy, so I began to take care of me. To say that I was happy would be majorly downplaying the continuous burst of joy that overwhelmed my heart. My husband and I agreed that we would wait to spread our news. We knew that sometimes things happen and we waited to make sure everything was good before we told the world.

  As Christmas neared, we discovered that this feat would be a lot harder than we thought it would be. So we made a decision to announce our news creatively. We purchased “I love Grandma” and “I love Grandpa” bibs and wrapped them as presents for the soon to be seven grandparents. Christmas day we traveled to four places and delivered our special news. Everyone was so pumped by the news that I couldn’t tell them I wasn’t feeling well. I tried to ignore the painful cramps that traveled down my lower back and made me feel like my uterus was pushing itself out. I convinced myself that it was just severe constipation that was brought on by the prescription prenatal vitamins and some water and roughages would fix me right up. I couldn’t bear the thought that I could quite possibly be on the verge of letting everyone that we just told, down.

  The day after Christmas, I returned to work at my retail job. Shortly after I began my shift, the light spotting I had been experiencing that morning became heavier. I began to fear that I was losing this new life I had loved from the start. My husband began trying to contact my doctor and I was trying to get my boss to help me cover my managing shift so that I could go and get checked out. Unfortunately my boss at the time, though a woman, didn’t see the urgency of my needing to go leave to see a doctor. My concerns were met with others telling me some bleeding happens. So I struggled to remain chipper to the customers and tried my best not to reveal the pain nor the anxiety I was feeling inside. I tried to hide my many trips to the bathroom. Each trip, praying that the bleeding had stopped. Finally after several hours, I got another manager to come in early so that I could leave.

  Later that day in the emergency room, I discovered that my worst fears were reality. I was miscarrying. Though my body was still acting pregnant, the “tissue” that had been the life I was carrying was leaving my body. That was why I had been cramping so very badly. My husband and I found ourselves sitting in a room for hours with a container of “tissue” on the counter. “Tissue” that we believed had been our forming child. I stared at the contents of the container that didn’t resemble a human feeling heart broken and empty. I blamed myself. I must’ve done something wrong that caused this to happen. I must’ve drank one too many caffeinated drinks, worn to high of heels, didn’t eat healthy enough or maybe I was broken. It took me a long time to realize none of these things were the case.

  A few days later, a supposed friend invited me out under the pretense of getting my mind off of what had happened. It was while we were in a store that I found out this was really more about something else. She cornered me and started interrogating me on why I had not shared my pregnancy news with her. I explained that we had only known ourselves for a few weeks and had decided to not tell anyone yet. That later as a couple, we had decided to announce it to our parents on Christmas right before we miscarried. But no matter how insistent I was that this was a personal matter and choice on how we shared it, my friend believed that my news would affect her wedding plans so I had been required to share it with her. She worked incredibly hard to make me feel guilty for the decision my husband and I had made. But that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. I knew it then and I know it now. This whole experience had been the worst thing I had ever been through and haunts me even now as I am a mother of two.

  With this experience in my history, some might find it strange that I am a pro-choice advocate. I will say that just like everyone else I do not love abortion, but I do understand the need a woman has to be able to have that choice be a legal and safe option. I understand what it is like to have a life inside of you pass away. So I would say that the choice to end such a life would be an incredibly difficult one. A difficult personal choice that should remain between the woman, the father if he is not a rapist, and her doctor. The government (mostly lead by men) should not have the ability to take that choice away from her. We don’t see them making laws that control a man’s reproductive parts so why feel the need to tell a woman she can’t make a necessary decision regarding hers?

  I have witnessed a “public figure” (I use that term very loosely) get bent out of shape because the Gillette commercial encouraged men to be their best selves. This commercial, if you haven’t seen it, touches on bullying, sexual harassment and assault. This male “public figure” became triggered that this commercial was telling him how to raise his boys. So triggered that he posed in a field with his three children. He and his young boys held firearms while his daughter, weaponless, posed in a pretty dress with a flower headband. He posted this picture exclaiming to Gillette that he would raise his boys as he chose to. But within days of this post, he began to argue that abortion shouldn’t be legal that women shouldn’t be allowed to commit murder. Literally sending the message to the world that don’t tell me to teach my sons not to sexually assault women but if a woman is assaulted, I will tell her she can’t have an abortion. So why is it that we women shouldn’t be allowed to have a choice on what happens to our bodies? Why is it that himself and others like him believe that our rights can be so easily ignored?     

  But what about the lives of the innocent? Isn’t a person a person no matter how small? People have asked and argued with me. Here’s the thing they may not realize. I know all of those arguments. I know them because I used to give them myself when I was a self-righteous sixteen year old who was pro-life and ignorant of just how difficult this choice was to make in either direction. It wasn’t until I realized that I couldn’t look a woman in the eyes who had been brutally raped and tell her that she had to carry her rapist’s child to term. I realized I couldn’t use the excuse of you can just give it up for adoption, as I realized what kind of life that could mean for the child. How could I look a woman in the eyes and say I know that your child has severe medical issues and would spend every day of its life in complete and utter agony but you must allow it that agony? How in the world could I feel justified in telling a mother who may have another child that her life or her need to mother her other child(ren)  is not as important as the life forming inside of her? How could I tell a woman who doesn’t have the means to raise the child that she must have it? I know how some view those who receive government assistance. I know how this current administration wants to strip away that very aid that the mother in need would get. And crazy enough those are the same people that will tell her to have the child. But once it is outside the womb they could care less in ensuring it survives. Thus this group of people are not pro-life they are merely pro-birth.  As a wise woman said, “They can’t actually say that their intent is that women must be punished for having sex whether or not it was consensual. To actually admit this instead of speaking of the innocent lives lost, wouldn’t bring many to the cause.”  I realized that I couldn’t demand any of those things I listed above. I realized that it was not my place to judge nor my choice to make. I will tell you now that these decisions are too difficult and too multilayered to be placed into black and white scenarios.

  The truth of the matter is that abortions have been occurring since way before you and I or even our grandparents existed. Making abortions illegal will not STOP them from happening when they have been used long before they were made legal. The fact remains that when abortions are made safe and legal and are accompanied by safe sex education and birth control their numbers actually decrease. The amount of lives lost are lowered. No one likes abortion. If you are against them then it’s simple, you have the CHOICE not to have one. But the key is that you have the CHOICE.  That choice is not something you should try and take away from others because you don’t like it. I have been lucky in my life that I have never been in a position to have to make such a decision. But I can tell you with every ounce of truth that is in me that if I ever found myself there I do not know what choice I would make. Each one of us wouldn’t know for sure either unless we have walked in those shoes.

“Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom that said he was in love.

He said “Don’t worry about a thing, baby doll I’m the man you’ve been dreaming of”

But three months later he say he won’t date her or return her calls

And she swear, “God damn, if I find that man I’m cutting off his balls,”

And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walking through the door.

They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner and they call her a whore.

God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes

‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose.”-Everlast

This Isn’t A Race, It’s A Marathon

I woke up the day after the 2016 November election and looked immediately at my phone. First story I saw is that Trump had been elected not by the popular vote, but by the potential number of electoral votes he could receive from the areas he had won in. My heart seized in my chest. Tears came hot and heavy. How could a man corrupted by power and greed, one who continuously spread such hate, lies and fear be elected to lead our country? How could so many, who professed Christianity, support such a person as if he were the second coming? (Which if they remember the Bible, the Antichrist was due to come first and fool those easily lead self-proclaimed followers) I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Could they not see the facts of how this person had poorly ran his businesses before? Could they not see the hate he had for those who differed from himself or failed to worship him? Could people not see the division he was already causing and the harm that would come from placing him in a position of power?  I drew comfort in learning, I was not the only one who felt these things. Even as others tried to paint us as sore losers and snowflakes, we all knew it wasn’t just about the fact that our candidate’s 3 million more votes wasn’t enough to pull the win. We understood this was about something far greater.

  The Resistance formed. January 21, 2017 millions of women, men and children gathered for women lead rallies and marches to take a stand. A stand saying we would fight against the hate, the pollution, the lies, the injustice, the inequality and any decisions that hurt we the people. After this main event other rallies and marches began to appear. These events were not just groups of people standing around and yelling. These events hosted speakers that came from many different walks of life. I’ve stood with scientists, teachers, business owners, concerned mothers, environmentalists, religious leaders, dreamers and many more. Many who have shared their concerns and voiced their fears. I know many have expressed their opinions that such rallies and marches are stupid and pointless. But seriously I have seen them draw attention to matters such as Standing Rock that perhaps would’ve gone unnoticed by the Nation had not those brave protectors taken a stand. Not only does a rally draw attention from the outside world to a matter, but a well-planned event offers steps of action for participants to take. We all understand the change doesn’t just happen magically after you draw attention to something. Change happens when we work together in collective actions for that change. Rallies and marches give leaders of a cause the opportunity to begin those collective action efforts. Think of it as a huddle for your team. You meet up discuss the issue and set out a play to create the result you want to see. Such things have been happening all throughout history, this is how many monumental changes have been brought about. And that first year we all worked so hard in every joint effort that we could.

  Year two mark came and we now have candidates for the 2018. By this point I have found more of those that I consider to be my tribe and I am working with the county’s Democrats. We can feel change coming. We have seen it in places all over our country. People who had been paying attention, would tell you they did not like the direction our country was going. Strong leaders, fueled with the passion to help others decided to run for office. Because I could see their sincerity in want to help others, I joined the many volunteers who worked tirelessly for year to help them achieve the opportunity to serve. In essence that is what their newly elected position would be, working for the people. None of them had massively rich people who owned giant corporations dropping donations into their laps simply for choosing to run under the paid for umbrella. They were all people like you and me, people who had spent their lives working to help others and believed they could make a difference. I knew they could. I looked at our opposition and had no doubt change was needed. The opposition held a leader that couldn’t manage to keep himself awake while sitting as a councilmen during their public meetings.  There was a leader that helped to keep the budget planning in a reactionary mode and hide during the campaign months. One opposing candidate even said that he supported every kind of hate there is and then continued on repeating that same message until someone corrected him by saying “I think you mean, you don’t support, right?” then he changed his words. At another forum a GOP Candidate said the problem with today’s society is that people aren’t waiting to have kids until they are married. Single mothers are a big source of what is wrong. (I literally wish I was making this up.) Then we come to the major candidate who let his last name carry him to victory. He had already ran a company that left behind environmental damages to our state that has cost tax payers over 20 million dollars. But hey let’s let him into Congress to represent us. NO THANK YOU. So my absence on my blog was due to my helping in whatever way I could to make sure we had people elected who would actually work to help people.

   Trump was really worried about our Democratic Senator. Donnelly, a moderate Democrat, had worked to help Hoosiers. He stood against Trump’s attack on healthcare and the tax cut which only benefited the wealthy one percent. Trump knew this seat and other like Senators in red states would hurt what he wanted to do. So he rallied here. Rallied because they can work to spread a message, right? At his rallies he fired up the fear. The blue wave will bring a crime wave. If we lose the House, the witch hunt will continue. I need leaders who are Republicans and aren’t a part of the Dems Mob rule mentality. The Fake News encouraged the bomb mailer etc… etc… And those who wanted so badly for someone to tell them what to think or to feed their fear of change, soaked the propaganda right up. I was literally told by a Republican that she knew so and so wasn’t a good candidate but he was on the Republican ticket. Her fellow Republicans had convinced her that it was far more important to vote straight ticket than to worry about one candidate. That the Republicans needed to stay in power. LET THAT SOAK in for a minute. I could tell this bothered her even though she stated her decision was made, because she reached out trying to talk to someone about it to begin with. I tried to encourage her to think about who she thought would really work for the people, because that was the job we were voting them into. But I believe the fear that someone else had instilled into her of what would happen if the GOP no longer held the overall majority was greater than her conviction of voting in a bad candidate.

  Last night was the next gut punch. Every single one of the opposing candidates I told you about won their races. My heart felt as though it were being squeezed in a vise as I sat in a room filled with our well-meaning, hardworking candidates and many volunteers who had put so much effort into this election. The brave faces, tears, hugs and words of encouragement helped to comfort the ache that we all felt. Again this feeling was not just because we lost, but because had it felt like money, corruption, hate and fear had once again won the battle. I am not going to lie, feeling that the majority of the people in your state have lost their moral compass is an incredibly horrifying feeling. It could quite possibly paralyze you into inaction or even propel you into violence (perhaps like the supremacists and the pipe bomber).

   As for myself and the wonderful people I have come to call my tribe, we took the blow. We are processing it. Learning from it. We are celebrating the victories this wave has brought to our country. We won back the House. The senate races were close. Many diverse and creative civic leaders were elected this round. Even though last night was tough, it was different than it was in 2016. We have been in this movement since the beginning knowing that it wouldn’t be an easy journey. We know that the Women’s Suffragette movement took 70 years for the women to win the right to vote. If those brave women can keep fighting that long for what they know to be right, then we can keep on going as well. We know we are not alone. We have talked to many others, who feel misrepresented right now. For those of you who are in this journey with us, we just have to keep going. Pace ourselves. Know when to give it our all and when to slow down and replenish our weary spirits. Anything worth achieving is not easily won. As a wiser person than myself said, “This is a marathon, not a race.”

 I woke up the day after the 2016 November election and looked immediately at my phone. First story I saw is that Trump had been elected not by the popular vote, but by the potential number of electoral votes he could receive from the areas he had won in. My heard seized in my chest. Tears came hot and heavy. How could a man corrupted by power and greed, one who continuously spread such hate, lies and fear be elected to lead our country? How could so many, who professed Christianity, support such a person as if he were the second coming? (Which if they remember the Bible, the Antichrist was due to come first and fool those easily lead self-proclaimed followers) I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Could they not see the facts of how this person had poorly ran his businesses before? Could they not see the hate he had for those who differed from himself or failed to worship him? Could people not see the division he was already causing and the harm that would come from placing him in a position of power? I drew comfort in learning, I was not the only one who felt these things. Even as others tried to paint us as sore losers and snowflakes, we all knew it wasn’t just about the fact that our candidate’s 3 million more votes wasn’t enough to pull the win. We understood this was about something far greater.

The Resistance formed. January 21, 2017 millions of women, men and children gathered for women lead rallies and marches to take a stand. A stand saying we would fight against the hate, the pollution, the lies, the injustice, the inequality and any decisions that hurt we the people. After this main event other rallies and marches began to appear. These events were not just groups of people standing around and yelling. These events hosted speakers that came from many different walks of life. I’ve stood with scientists, teachers, business owners, concerned mothers, environmentalists, religious leaders, dreamers and many more. Many who have shared their concerns and voiced their fears. I know many have expressed their opinions that such rallies and marches are stupid and pointless. But seriously I have seen them draw attention to matters such as Standing Rock that perhaps would’ve gone unnoticed by the Nation had not those brave protectors taken a stand. Not only does a rally draw attention from the outside world to a matter, but a well-planned event offers steps of action for participants to take. We all understand the change doesn’t just happen magically after you draw attention to something. Change happens when we work together in collective actions for that change. Rallies and marches give leaders of a cause the opportunity to begin those collective action efforts. Think of it as a huddle for your team. You meet up discuss the issue and set out a play to create the result you want to see. Such things have been happening all throughout history, this is how many monumental changes have been brought about. And that first year we all worked so hard in every joint effort that we could.

Year two mark came and we now have candidates for the 2018. By this point I have found more of those that I consider to be my tribe and I am working with the county’s Democrats. We can feel change coming. We have seen it in places all over our country. People who had been paying attention, would tell you they did not like the direction our country was going. Strong leaders, fueled with the passion to help others decided to run for office. Because I could see their sincerity in want to help others, I joined the many volunteers who worked tirelessly for year to help them achieve the opportunity to serve. In essence that is what their newly elected position would be, working for the people. None of them had massively rich people who owned giant corporations dropping donations into their laps simply for choosing to run under the paid for umbrella. They were all people like you and me, people who had spent their lives working to help others and believed they could make a difference. I knew they could. I looked at our opposition and had no doubt change was needed. The opposition held a leader that couldn’t manage to keep himself awake while sitting as a councilmen during their public meetings. There was a leader that helped to keep the budget planning in a reactionary mode and hide during the campaign months. One opposing candidate even said that he supported every kind of hate there is and then continued on repeating that same message until someone corrected him by saying “I think you mean, you don’t support, right?” then he changed his words. At another forum a GOP Candidate said the problem with today’s society is that people aren’t waiting to have kids until they are married. Single mothers are a big source of what is wrong. (I literally wish I was making this up.) Then we come to the major candidate who let his last name carry him to victory. He had already ran a company that left behind environmental damages to our state that has cost tax payers over 20 million dollars. But hey let’s let him into Congress to represent us. NO THANK YOU. So my absence on my blog was due to my helping in whatever way I could to make sure we had people elected who would actually work to help people.

Trump was really worried about our Democratic Senator. Donnelly, a moderate Democrat, had worked to help Hoosiers. He stood against Trump’s attack on healthcare and the tax cut which only benefited the wealthy one percent. Trump knew this seat and other like Senators in red states would hurt what he wanted to do. So he rallied here. Rallied because they can work to spread a message, right? At his rallies he fired up the fear. The blue wave will bring a crime wave. If we lose the House, the witch hunt will continue. I need leaders who are Republicans and aren’t a part of the Dems Mob rule mentality. The Fake News encouraged the bomb mailer etc… etc… And those who wanted so badly for someone to tell them what to think or to feed their fear of change, soaked the propaganda right up. I was literally told by a Republican that she knew so and so wasn’t a good candidate but he was on the Republican ticket. Her fellow Republicans had convinced her that it was far more important to vote straight ticket than to worry about one candidate. That the Republicans needed to stay in power. LET THAT SOAK in for a minute. I could tell this bothered her even though she stated her decision was made, because she reached out trying to talk to someone about it to begin with. I tried to encourage her to think about who she thought would really work for the people, because that was the job we were voting them into. But I believe the fear that someone else had instilled into her of what would happen if the GOP no longer held the overall majority was greater than her conviction of voting in a bad candidate.

Last night was the next gut punch. Every single one of the opposing candidates I told you about won their races. My heart felt as though it were being squeezed in a vise as I sat in a room filled with our well-meaning, hardworking candidates and many volunteers who had put so much effort into this election. The brave faces, tears, hugs and words of encouragement helped to comfort the ache that we all felt. Again this feeling was not just because we lost, but because had it felt like money, corruption, hate and fear had once again won the battle. I am not going to lie, feeling that the majority of the people in your state have lost their moral compass is an incredibly horrifying feeling. It could quite possibly paralyze you into inaction or even propel you into violence (perhaps like the supremacists and the pipe bomber).

As for myself and the wonderful people I have come to call my tribe, we took the blow. We are processing it. Learning from it. We are celebrating the victories this wave has brought to our country. We won back the House. The senate races were close. Many diverse and creative civic leaders were elected this round. Even though last night was tough, it was different than it was in 2016. We have been in this movement since the beginning knowing that it wouldn’t be an easy journey. We know that the Women’s Suffragette movement took 70 years for the women to win the right to vote. If those brave women can keep fighting for what they know to be right for that long, then we can keep on going as well. We know we are not alone. We have talked to many others, who feel misrepresented right now. For those of you who are in this journey with us, we just have to keep going. Pace ourselves. Know when to give it our all and when to slow down and replenish our weary spirits. Anything worth achieving is not easily won. As a wiser person than myself said, “This is a marathon, not a race.”

I woke up the day after the 2016 November election and looked immediately at my phone. First story I saw is that Trump had been elected not by the popular vote, but by the potential number of electoral votes he could receive from the areas he had won in. My heard seized in my chest. Tears came hot and heavy. How could a man corrupted by power and greed, one who continuously spread such hate, lies and fear be elected to lead our country? How could so many, who professed Christianity, support such a person as if he were the second coming? (Which if they remember the Bible, the antichrist was due to come first and fool those easily lead self-proclaimed followers) I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Could they not see the facts of how this person had poorly ran his businesses before? Could they not see the hate he had for those who differed from himself or failed to worship him? Could people not see the division he was already causing and the harm that would come from placing him in a position of power?  I drew comfort in learning, I was not the only one who felt these things. Even as others tried to paint us as sore losers and snowflakes, we all knew it wasn’t just about the fact that our candidate’s 3 million more votes wasn’t enough to pull the win. We understood this was about something far greater.

  The Resistance formed. January 21, 2017 millions of women, men and children gathered for women lead rallies and marches to take a stand. A stand saying we would fight against the hate, the pollution, the lies, the injustice, the inequality and any decisions that hurt we the people. After this main event other rallies and marches began to appear. These events were not just groups of people standing around and yelling. These events hosted speakers that came from many different walks of life. I’ve stood with scientists, teachers, business owners, concerned mothers, environmentalists, religious leaders, dreamers and many more. Many who have shared their concerns and voiced their fears. I know many have expressed their opinions that such rallies and marches are stupid and pointless. But seriously I have seen them draw attention to matters such as Standing Rock that perhaps would’ve gone unnoticed by the Nation had not those brave protectors taken a stand. Not only does a rally draw attention from the outside world to a matter, but a well-planned event offers steps of action for participants to take. We all understand the change doesn’t just happen magically after you draw attention to something. Change happens when we work together in collective actions for that change. Rallies and marches give leaders of a cause the opportunity to begin those collective action efforts. Think of it as a huddle for your team. You meet up discuss the issue and set out a play to create the result you want to see. Such things have been happening all throughout history, this is how many monumental changes have been brought about. And that first year we all worked so hard in every joint effort that we could.

  Year two mark came and we now have candidates for the 2018. By this point I have found more of those that I consider to be my tribe and I am working with the county’s Democrats. We can feel change coming. We have seen it in places all over our country. People who had been paying attention, would tell you they did not like the direction our country was going. Strong leaders, fueled with the passion to help others decided to run for office. Because I could see their sincerity in want to help others, I joined the many volunteers who worked tirelessly for year to help them achieve the opportunity to serve. In essence that is what their newly elected position would be, working for the people. None of them had massively rich people who owned giant corporations dropping donations into their laps simply for choosing to run under the paid for umbrella. They were all people like you and me, people who had spent their lives working to help others and believed they could make a difference. I knew they could. I looked at our opposition and had no doubt change was needed. The opposition held a leader that couldn’t manage to keep himself awake while sitting as a councilmen during their public meetings.  There was a leader that helped to keep the budget planning in a reactionary mode and hide during the campaign months. One opposing candidate even said that he supported every kind of hate there is and then continued on repeating that same message until someone corrected him by saying “I think you mean, you don’t support, right?” then he changed his words. At another forum a GOP Candidate said the problem with today’s society is that people aren’t waiting to have kids until they are married. Single mothers are a big source of what is wrong. (I literally wish I was making this up.) Then we come to the major candidate who let his last name carry him to victory. He had already ran a company that left behind environmental damages to our state that has cost tax payers over 20 million dollars. But hey let’s let him into Congress to represent us. NO THANK YOU. So my absence on my blog was due to my helping in whatever way I could to make sure we had people elected who would actually work to help people.

   Trump was really worried about our Democratic Senator. Donnelly, a moderate Democrat, had worked to help Hoosiers. He stood against Trump’s attack on healthcare and the tax cut which only benefited the wealthy one percent. Trump knew this seat and other like Senators in red states would hurt what he wanted to do. So he rallied here. Rallied because they can work to spread a message, right? At his rallies he fired up the fear. The blue wave will bring a crime wave. If we lose the House, the witch hunt will continue. I need leaders who are Republicans and aren’t a part of the Dems Mob rule mentality. The Fake News encouraged the bomb mailer etc… etc… And those who wanted so badly for someone to tell them what to think or to feed their fear of change, soaked the propaganda right up. I was literally told by a Republican that she knew so and so wasn’t a good candidate but he was on the Republican ticket. Her fellow Republicans had convinced her that it was far more important to vote straight ticket than to worry about one candidate. That the Republicans needed to stay in power. LET THAT SOAK in for a minute. I could tell this bothered her even though she stated her decision was made, because she reached out trying to talk to someone about it to begin with. I tried to encourage her to think about who she thought would really work for the people, because that was the job we were voting them into. But I believe the fear that someone else had instilled into her of what would happen if the GOP no longer held the overall majority was greater than her conviction of voting in a bad candidate.

  Last night was the next gut punch. Every single one of the opposing candidates I told you about won their races. My heart felt as though it were being squeezed in a vise as I sat in a room filled with our well-meaning, hardworking candidates and many volunteers who had put so much effort into this election. The brave faces, tears, hugs and words of encouragement helped to comfort the ache that we all felt. Again this feeling was not just because we lost, but because had it felt like money, corruption, hate and fear had once again won the battle. I am not going to lie, feeling that the majority of the people in your state have lost their moral compass is an incredibly horrifying feeling. It could quite possibly paralyze you into inaction or even propel you into violence (perhaps the supremacists and the pipe bomb mailer were mislead to feel this way).

   As for myself and the wonderful people I have come to call my tribe, we took the blow. We are processing it. Learning from it. We are celebrating the victories this wave has brought to our country. We won back the House. The senate races were close. Many diverse and creative civic leaders were elected this round. Even though last night was tough, it was different than it was in 2016. We have been in this movement since the beginning knowing that it wouldn’t be an easy journey. We know that the Women’s Suffragette movement took 70 years for the women to win the right to vote. If those brave women can keep fighting for what they know to be right for that long, then we can keep on going as well. We know we are not alone. We have talked to many others, who feel misrepresented right now. For those of you who are in this journey with us, we just have to keep going. Pace ourselves. Know when to give it our all and when to slow down and replenish our weary spirits. Anything worth achieving is not easily won. As a wiser person than myself said, “This isn’t a race, it’s a marathon.”

 Suffrage Movement

https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/WIC/Historical-Essays/No-Lady/Womens-Rights/

Women’s March

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/original-womens-march-washington-and-suffragists-who-paved-way-180961869/

Independence Day

By Michelle Carr

            Stand
               hand over heart.
                 Recite    
        words etched into brain.
               Remain
        for the National Anthem.
            Sit
        celebrate your freedom.
            Watch
        the colored gunpowder show before you.

                    Celebrate?
                      Questions whirl inside my head
                    Celebrate?
    While Russia's pick sits in the White House.
                     Freedom?
    My rights to my own body are diminishing.
                     Freedom?
    Holding my 80.5 cents to a man's dollar.
                     Freedom?
     Our public parks are turning into tree farms.
                     Freedom?
    Our air and water are filling with pollution.
                     Freedom?
                  Our government figures get wealthier by killing our planet.
                    Freedom?
            The poor become poorer and the rich, richer.
                   Freedom?
                        Kneelers are forced to stand.
                  Freedom?
                      To not be able to identify with the gender we truly are.
                 Freedom?
                    To be refused services simply for who we love.
                Freedom?
                      As the White House quotes the Bible and bans Muslims.
               Freedom?
                      For guns to be protected more than my children while in school.
              Freedom?
                 For my relatives to become preexisting conditions.
              Freedom?
                   For officers to gun down weaponless people of minorities.
              Freedom?
      As asylum seekers are treated as criminals.
             Freedom?
                  As thousands of Mylar covered children cry on concrete floors .
             Freedom?
         As parents are deported while their children remain our hostages.
            Freedom?
              Our voices of resistance are called the enemy and muted.
            Freedom?
   To say THIS IS NOT MY AMERICAN DREAM!
            Celebrate
           my hand falls to my side.
           Celebrate
          my mouth remains mute.
           Celebrate
                as the tears fall from my eyes.
          Celebrate
                 is there any wonder that I can not?

        Declare

                 THIS IS MY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
 

Picture credit to thelastbastille.wordpress.com

A Simple Request

  This isn’t the first time in history that our youth have taken a stand for what they believe in. Whether or not you think you agree with what they are asking, don’t we owe them the chance to be heard? 
  The #NeverAgain movement was started by a student that had to bury many of her friends after living through a horrific trauma. But some would have you believe she is prompted by means other than the survival of herself and her peers. I hope you have never had to experience such a devastation, but just imagine yourself in their shoes. Would it really take an adult to spur you into action? It wouldn't have taken that for the teenage version of myself.
  I keep seeing many making comments that assume they know what this movement is for without even taking the time to listen to the stance itself. LISTENING is key folks. If you are really about solving any issue, the first step is to listen to those who are in the front lines. The ones who are dealing with the problem head on. Refusing to listen and then blasting those brave enough to stand against great opposition, will never solve anything. 
  Every time anyone mentions gun reform there is a great defense that jumps up screaming “You want to take all my guns. Don’t tread on my second amendment rights. Shut up and sit down. Guns don’t kill people.” And once again, I see this daily. 
  But the first amendment also exists and it allows us free speech and the ability to peaceful march. Don’t forget that. Our freedom to express ourselves makes this country a good place to live, it's not what is wrong with this country. Listening to those who are asking for gun reform, you will also know it’s not about taking everyone’s guns away or destroying the second amendment. Many behind the movement are gun owners and second amendment supporters. This I know because I listened to them as well. And let’s take a look at this second amendment so many think we want to destroy shall we?

  The second amendment was not interpreted as the "right to bear arms" the way we interpret it today until Scalia’s interpretation which also included this part -

By conservative bastion Justice Antonin Scalia, states: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited…”. It is “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

  Limits are allowed, without them being considered as destroying the right. Interesting, huh? Funny how that part is often ignored. 

  We all know guns don’t kill people. We fully understand this.  Gun reform is not for guns but for the people who want to own fire arms. Because to the ability to own such a tool also comes great with responsibility. It shouldn’t be easier for an 18 year old to purchase an AR-15 ( that was designed for military use) than it is for someone to get their drivers license which also comes with great responsibility.

  The youth I see leading today’s movement are well educated, informed and taught to think for themselves. We owe it to them to listen to what they’ve been through, even though it may make you feel uncomfortable, and listen to what they have to say. You don’t have to offer your support. But just listen. And please don’t be one that tries to drown them out with lies and false narratives that appeal to your fears and understanding. If you aren’t willing listening to their request for help before offering your solutions then you aren’t really there to help them, you’re helping someone else.

Acceptance

By Michelle Carr

I’m sitting on a couch in a hotel lobby in Washington D.C., capital of the United States. I sit amongst a circle of people who are very different, yet share a common love of the outdoors and protecting it. We had just gotten back from a fantastical dinner and were relaxing over some adult beverages. After a couple days filled with training, we were eager to have such down time moments.

  It quickly became story time and I happily settled in and began listening to stories of their work, funny memories, their challenges and their successes. Even though I found them all fascinating, there was one lady that stuck out. Her stories reflected a life of hard work and strong character. She had achieved that perfect mix of strength and kindness. I adored the passion she displayed for protecting the things in life that she held dear. One of her many passions were turtles. She strove to protect their nests and help ensure the babies made it out to the big blue once they hatched. You could see and feel her love for her work as she spoke of her experiences. She began to speak of those who came to help her. Reflecting, that as with everything, you have those who are eager to help but don’t know what they are getting in to. Here is where she paused and asked us all to hold out our hands so she could see them.

  Here is where I paused. I am not one to get my nails routinely manicured by a professional. I’m a tomboy. I can’t stand having fake nails. Now I’m not putting down anyone that does. I’m just saying that for me and what I do daily, they are a hindrance and not a benefit. I have only ever had fake nails put on twice in my lifetime. Both were for weddings and I felt so awkward. I struggled with everything from putting my contacts in to opening anything that I could normally just rip open. After weeks of frustration, both times, I swore it wouldn’t happen again. I don’t even normally wear nail polish. When I do manage to paint my own nails it chips off within a couple of days and I end up sporting chipped polish for weeks.  I’m honestly lucky if I remember to take a moment to file my nails. (I’m such a slacker.) So most of the time my nail length ranges from super long to oh my God I just ripped that one off to the pink and I kinda cried.  Truly my hands, minus adding lotion to them, are not on my mind often. They are simply the appendages that which I use to get things done.

  And…. now that you know probably way more about my hand grooming habits than you care to know, my point is that I hesitated. For that brief few seconds, I hesitated. I am one that wouldn’t have looked at someone else and said “oh your nails aren’t painted or filed we can’t hang out”.  I’m not perfect and say so often, so I don’t expect others to be either. I am one that hopes to encourage everyone to just be yourself, and hell if you stand out that’s an awesome thing because YOU aren’t like everyone else. In this moment I scanned my brain … like I can wear a Chewbacca onesie to the movie theater, I can dance in front of a crowd like no one is watching, I can put my thoughts into words and post them for the world to see but now suddenly I’m nervous. Nervous to put out my hand and scare away these people that I have so come to admire. I kicked myself in the butt and bravely stuck out my hand. Then I take in all the other hands that surround mine and you aren’t gonna believe this but they all looked very similar. The speaker smiled at us and said “You know what, not a manicure in the bunch. All of you are welcomed to come work with my turtles any day.” She went on to explain that with all the digging one must do in the sand with their hands that those who have manicures don’t tend to stay or be able to help much. So my ungroomed hands were perfectly perfect just as they were.

  My point in all of this is that everyone is searching for their tribe. That no matter who you are and how much you love to stand out or don’t care to be like everyone else, you still long to feel included somewhere. It’s in our nature to crave to be understood and feel accepted for who we are. That even I, who often find myself happy with my weirdness, couldn’t have wanted that group to like me more than I did in that moment of fear to show my hand. It’s natural. You want those you admire to like you back. The tricky part is to not change in order for them to like you. I knew in that moment, when sticking out my hand, that had the reaction been bad I wouldn’t have changed and sadly that person or persons weren’t my tribe. The beauty is in that single moment that you do something weird or brave or stand against the tide and someone looks at you and says “YES! SHINE ON!”, that person or that group is probably your tribe. There is magic in that moment of being completely accepted for who you are. No matter how near or far you might be from one another, it’s a gift that you carry with you always.           Shine on dear ones, shine on.