Photo by Nick Fewings
I usually draft these posts the day before I post them so I have time to step away and come back and read what I’ve written to make sure there is nothing too outlandish in here. Last week I wrote the “Inspiration while traveling” post on Thursday afternoon before getting in the car to run some errands. And that is when a horrifying NPR program came on the air describing women fleeing humanitarian crisis in South America, finally making it across the boarder to have their children taken away, and in a careless way that did not anticipate reunification, and then being essentially incarcerated for months or years while waiting for their trial.
The pain in my heart was enormous. The sorrow for these women was beyond words. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how this felt. I was late to the magnitude of this news because of the timing of our travels and the fog of jet lag. And I felt like an “Inspiration while traveling post” was oddly placed when I went to post it Friday. So this week I address the pain, suffering, heartbreak and rage many of us are experiencing as we empathize with these women who made courageous and unimaginable journeys to make a better life for their children, naive to the fact that, very sadly, atrocities also happen in the United States of America.
Tomorrow I am going to the March in Raleigh. Coming together and taking action, feeling a sense of community with this pain is the best medicine for times such as these.
I was talking to Drew about the absurdity of the messages we need to write on signs addressed to our government (would you have imagined this is where we would be in 2018)?
Keep children with their mothers
Mass incarceration of children and mothers fleeing trauma is bad
Someone else’s child is no less deserving of respect than your own
Immigrants are human beings.
As someone who loves to put life into written words, I find it very sad to write such a basic message on a sign addressed to our government. So I don’t have any beautiful words for you this week. Instead I have put together a list of quotes I gathered from the trend and culture forecaster Li Edelkoort’s presentation to inspire the fashion industry to take action. The quotes remind me of the amazing women that have walked the planet, and the torch we must carry. I hope these words are similarly fortifying to help you find the courage to go out there and fight with us for the future all of us deserve.
Tomorrow, Sat June 30th, join a Families Belong Together protest around the country to demand that families be reunited and to end family separation and detention. Find the closest protest here.
When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.
Malala Yousafzal – Activist
Those who do not move do not notice their chains.
Rosa Luxemburg – Political figure
The greatest danger to our world is apathy.
Jane Goodall – Primatologist and anthropologist
Everything beautiful has a mark of eternity.
Simone Weil – Humanist, writer & political activist
If you have no more happiness to give, give me your pain.
Lou Andreas Salome – Writer Psychoanalyst
Each person must live their lives as a model for others.
Rosa Parks – Seamstress & activist
There are two kinds of stones, as everyone knows, one of which rolls.
Amelia Earhart – Aviator
It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple, one must be a woman manly, or one must be a man womanly.
Virginia Woolf – Writer
I decided to accept as true my own thinking.
Georgia O’Keefe – painter
Other people tend to value you as you value yourself.
Lee Miller – photographer & model
Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself.
Coco Chanel – fashion designer
Speak across borders even if borders pass through every word.
Ingeborg Bachmann – Writer, philosopher, poet
What is an adult? A child blown up by age.
Simone de Beauvoir – Philosopher
I am not interested in how people move, but what moves them.
Pina Bausch – Choreographer, ballet director
Radical simply means grasping things at the roots.
Angela Davis – Philosopher and political activist
Don’t compromise yourself, you’re all you’ve got.
Janis Joplin – singer
You wanna to fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.
Toni Morrison – Novelist
If we opened people up we’d find landscapes.
Agnes Varda – Filmmaker