Plenty of Words

There have been plenty of words this week, trailing around, in and out of my head. I will not lie, many of them are frightening. Like when Trump said, “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard,” (abc news). And by dangerous, he included Portland, OR, which for anyone who has visited recently seems to be more absurd than just about anything he has said to date. In fact, “Portland has more than 100 miles of neighborhood greenways in every part of the city” and is a cyclist’s paradise filled with safe, beautiful paths and low-speed streets (portland.gov). (Just check out their beautiful airport– I swear you will never leave!) Trump’s lies that get pumped out as echoing sound bites are certainly the work of some legendary marketers, but it doesn’t change the fact that he is indeed a lying felon.

Thankfully, there were other words that spoke to me this week for which I am glad.

woman on the beach

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Earth Day

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs, —
To the silent wilderness,
Where the soul need not repress its music.” —Percy Bysshe Shelley

As a Nine Cent Girl reader you are uniquely aware of the lovely places where I roam and know many are right out my front door. Having the very best of air, water, earth, with a fire in our hearth keep us balanced on this one small planet. This week as Spring is slowly emerging from her underworld and winter garb, there is the reminder that Persephone is rising with her mantle of yellow flowers and cape of greens. As all New Englanders, I anxiously await the ease this next season will bring and am always reminded how lucky I am to live here, in absolute beauty: under grey clouds or vast blue, each day is a gift.

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still

Who could forget that cold December 14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, when a 20-year-old deranged man murdered 20 elementary children, as well as six school staff members? At the time our collective outrage was visceral and visible. The cold-blooded and senseless murders prompted an immediate demand for universal background checks, and for legislation to ban extremely dangerous semi-automatic firearms. And yet, as we face the 4th anniversary of this tragedy, and the 998 mass shootings since, there is little forward movement toward ending this violent epidemic ravaging every avenue along our collective landscape. headline4 Continue reading