Spring, hope and protest

Spring is here, sorta, kinda, maybe. But the signs are unmistakable.

It started with the sound of one lone peeper, then two, then a chorus around the first week of March. They are little tree frogs, which are a sure sign of spring in New England, and they sound like a hundred piccolos all making the same notes, over and over. I hear them at night, as I peer up at the stars while I walk our dogs before putting them to bed.

That’s when I see the constellation Orion in the western sky, finally beginning its descent to the horizon. It’s been high in the sky through the cold months, but it is on the wane now, disappearing behind the trees that line our property.

And the red-winged blackbirds arrived two weeks ago, filling the branches of our maple tree, noisy with their characteristic cackling and fresh from spending the winter months in Mexico. Lucky them!

Photo by CHU TAI on Unsplash

My husband, who has been sidelined for the last three months after he broke his leg on New Year’s Eve, is finally out of his boot and is walking without a walker or even a cane. None too soon; he is a farmer and impatient to get out to the fields. Seedlings are growing under lights all over the house. I always wonder whether or not our neighbors think we are just growing marijuana and only pretending to have trays of tiny plants: kale, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, broccoli. He is getting started late, but if a farmer has no choice but to spend two months with one leg elevated, unable to bear weight, winter is surely the most convenient time to be inconvenienced.

And me? April 1 — tomorrow, as I write this — is when Skyhorse Publishing will release my book, “Saving Ellen: A Memoir of Hope and Recovery.” It’s also available at bookshops.org, the home of independent bookstores, and, I hope, in libraries soon. Five years after I began writing my memoir, it seems fitting that it is being published during the season of new beginnings.

And yet, the natural hope that comes with spring clashes with the Trump Administration’s gleefully heartless betrayal of allies and its targeted destruction of our Constitution, government services, and help for the less fortunate that have been the hallmark of our better angels since the Great Depression. Like any sentient adult I am capable of holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time. But it is often downright confusing to have hope for the biggest creative endeavor of my life while feeling white-hot rage at what our government is becoming, aided by amoral enablers in the Republican Party who put power ahead of the good of the country. It’s why I’m attending one of the hundreds of nationwide “Hands Off” protests this Saturday, April 5. (The link will help you find the nearest protest if you are interested in attending).

It is downright confusing to have hope for the biggest creative endeavor of my life while feeling white-hot rage at our government.

Not everyone can attend protests, but everyone can raise their voices, write letters, and keep abreast of what is happening. There’s a new tool for that: The Project 2025 Tracker, put together by two people on Reddit who had read Trump’s plan of destruction for the government before the election, even as he lied repeatedly that he never heard of Project 2025. I read as much of the 900-plus pages of its cornerstone, smugly titled, “2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” that I could stand without becoming clinically depressed, and wrote about it last August. But with this tracker, complete with sources, you can follow the actions of what Trump and his allies are trying to do in real time.

By using this tool, we can all object and we can all take action, each in our own way.

So there you have it, friends. I am excited for my book, concerned for our shared future, determined to protest what I believe is wrong. Amidst this clash of emotions is an appreciation for spring, and – dare I say it? – hope. Hope that we will all get through this time and we are able to fashion a better country for our children and grandchildren. We will make it if we hang on to one another, and insist on being part of the good in the world.

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PS – Writer’s Digest Magazine was kind enough to accept an article I wrote about how my habit of writing journals prepared me for a career as a professional writer – and helped me write my memoir. It’s here. Thank you for reading!