Be The Change

61 posts
Be The Change

Distraction

After work, I rest in the wispy warmth of a waning December sun. On the table by the window, piles of half-read books leer at me and I at them. In the fading light, a hawk swoops by, hungry. Hungry, I reach for my phone; looking down, I spot a pile of dust, make a note to sweep it up

· 1 min read
Be The Change

High Interest Rates Are a Climate Problem

In 2008 I was a graduate student with almost no understanding of the financial system--I couldn't even explain the difference between an interest

· 9 min read
America on the Brink

Mourners

We are all mourners now, our clothes funeral shrouds we tear off our backs when the time comes (and it will come); in one pocket we carry brushes for tidying the graves we stumble on in schools, churches, nightclubs, concerts, grocery stores, streetcorners...

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Paper Plane

Bad news blares from every stamen, every mouth, every passing car and leaf blower. I am coated in dust. It has been too long since I left this spot. How do trees do it? Do they too grow stiff and restless

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Of War and War and War

“When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.” - President Volodymyr Zelensky Beneath a Bougainvillea-laced trellis I r

· 1 min read
Be The Change

The Price of Gas

No one is to blame for anything anymore. Or is it that everyone is to blame for everything? Maybe the world has gotten too small: so many billions of us, incomprehensible to ourselves, let alone one another, crowded together

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Ukraine

long before the stamps commemorating peace, before factories resumed churning out grenades, some made off with blueprints for conquest, taped them to the walls of their dreams

· 1 min read
Be The Change

Elephant

Out of the blue our three-year-old declares he doesn’t like the elephant. For days he repeats—unbidden, as if recalling a nightmare—that he doesn’t like the elephant.

· 1 min read
Be The Change

The Raison D’Etre of a Bad Habit

Some talk during movies. Others crack their knuckles, drink to excess, buy things they don’t need, make mountains out of molehills.

· 1 min read
Be The Change

The Spirit of Christmas

It's all too much, the floor strewn with gifts we couldn't possibly deserve. But our son is happy, going from toy to toy, and so  are we, smiling along with him as he plays with the train, the trucks, the scooter.

· 1 min read
Be The Change

After Thanksgiving

So much death and pain today: slaughtered fowls, reminders of genocide and oppression, celebration of abundance denied to billions. Cousin, did you know 400,000 Ethiopians are suffering famine?

· 1 min read
Be The Change

The Fog of Anger

At what time the fog took over, I do not know: I was, if not sleeping, attempting to, tossing and turning like a Heron's wing, lost in fog.

· 1 min read