American persimmon/Diospyros virginiana. September 2014.
Here are some awesome things some friends of mine have been working on. I offer this particular list because a) these are compelling projects that deserve your time and love, and b) when I remember the powerful, hopeful work my friends are doing, it is hard to stay irate about things I can’t fix, like the way we insist on gendering our children’s lives from the time they are very, very small. Ahem.
1) ESSAY | Look at the Horses Did I first meet Cate at an informal lecture way up on the 35th floor of the curious and beautiful Cathedral of Learning? Or was it twenty minutes outside of the city in a quiet and icy barn one January night? I don’t remember the details but I do know we weren’t more than 19, teetering deliciously on the cusp of adulthood. Her essay about the plans we make and the places we come from is exquisite.
2) COLLECTIVE STORYTELLING | The Way They Worked Hilary and I go back even further, to the chalk dust and linoleum tiles and square roots of Ms. Presto’s early, early Monday morning pre-algebra class, seventh grade. She’s the motor behind a new project that collects the stories we remember about the work of our grandparents. What did your grandparents do? How did they feel about it? How did their work inform your own feelings about responsibility or family? Share a memory, with words or a photo or both – on the project’s website or your own website, or use the hashtag #TheWayTheyWorked on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram.
3) FREE E-BOOK | Artisans of Peace Overcoming Poverty The work I did in NYC is always at the margins of my writing. I struggle to give it its due. Family life, farm life, and Fourth World’s radical and inclusive approach to fighting poverty – these are my chorus, and I want so badly to write them into some kind of harmony. I’m going to keep trying, but if you want to learn more about what I was doing before the fateful day I first heard my husband’s easy laughter spilling between the tomato stakes, read this book.
What about y’all? Any good reads or powerful projects you’ve come across lately that keep you looking on the bright side?