It was a beautiful day
It was a beautiful day
June 30, 2025
1.
The day they took Medicaid away
from millions
it was a beautiful day
The day they took the taxes we paid
said a clear "Fuck you" to working folks and
"Sure, here's 45 billion more!"
to terrorize and disappear more
of our families and neighbors
and to outright buy all
those once sworn to protect & serve
the Constitution and
we the people
and to teach them instead to
value wealth-hoarding men's property–
stolen property, on stolen land–
above all life, all love, all liberty.
It was only a matter of time.
Hey, did you notice?
The women drug away in unmarked vans,
ziptied hands
flying upside down flags– their children screaming
The men in fatigues or wheelchairs, burning US flags
The people wrapping themselves in far-more-loving flags than ours
Protestors fighting for justice and protecting neighbors with their own bodies.
All these folks are
NOT the men
burning the government, and the constitution,
into ash this month.
Yes, and
today was also a beautiful day.
Did you notice?
2.
It was warm and sunny the day
when we found out
all remaining checks and balances
were just bad theater
in the almost fully-lost now, USA
a United States of KKK
wealthy white supremacists and giddy rapists and tech bros
imagining themselves oligarchs
(and the deludedly "soon-we'll-be-too"s)
laughing out loud.
At first it felt
as if almost everyone else
either bowed their heads,
rolled their eyes,
or just looked away.
Or they were out enjoying the beautiful day.
We woke up to so many birds singing
and then hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza
still being intentionally starved
still being bombed
still dying by the 100s daily
as wealth-hoarders consolidated power here at home
down to a handful of over-fed, dead-eyed white men
who hate billions, not just Americans, openly
&
who love money, cheating, bullying, &
watching other people suffer & die
so much–
that they don't need
love
freedom
connection to the land
future generations
clean air and water
seasons
or Earth herself.
The beginning (which we weren't present for)
and the end (which we're witnessing)
of the KKK regime
is pure alright.
pure horror
pure delusion
utter nonsense
I am not exhausted by work or by worry.
I am exhausted looking at bleary, dead-eyed men who sound like past-gen AI
and expectation-warped-and-tanned-Barbie-like women
who have twisted the real face and life out of themselves–
trying to pull their own souls out–
and hearing them called leaders.
There's the lie.
Look it in the eye.
That's not where we're going.
That's not where we're going, friends.
Take a breath.
That's where we've been.
3.
It was a beautiful day– the buds emerged, the land smelled ripe
and open to possibility
when they stepped fully out of the shadows
when Elon threw Nazi signs then stole our personal data
and tortured public servants who love the country he doesn't
when Trump fan-boyed Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Hitler
spit on some precious graves, then
told a few wealthy, ruling, a-holes in Iran
(far-right wealth hoarders all eventually act the same)
that they could fire on an American military base in response
to the U.S. attack-for-show on their scientists
or when he screamed at everyone who stood in his way via Tweet &
fascist foot soldiers. Like the most demented motherfucking coward now alive.
And when Stephen Miller spoke of what he’d be teaching all white American children, very soon, going forward.
Or when Palantir said out loud
“We build to dominate.”
as they tried being honestly horrifying
to lure new graduates into shiny, well-paying, fascist gigs.
It was such a beautiful day, that day–
do you think they smelled the lavender blooming too?
consulted with bumblebees?
left food offerings to beloved land and wildlife?
When their wholly bought and owned slaves, aka, elected conservatives
in the House and the Senate and Supreme Court,
cowered and bowed to violence- and poverty- and hate-
spreading men
as almost all funding to pay for education, healthcare,
creativity, art, joy, protecting our environment, protecting the young, protecting the old, protecting veterans, protecting the vulnerable, preserving history, and almost all science
– and the wishes of the people holding the actual purse strings–
the people they work for, the workers–
was cut, slashed, to fund instead
what only the most self-hating cowards need:
U.S.-based concentration camps,
technology to terrorize, control, kill, and maim
not just abroad but here at home—
while all the rest of the taxes we worked hard for and paid
were given to those who already have yachts, planes,
lavish 3rd and 4th homes, and weddings in foreign cities where people hate
them every bit as much as we do.
This government just handed our money
to twisted, ungrown, unwise wealth-hoarders
blowing up rocket after rocket after rocket
in skies they actually believe they could own
while the rest of us try to see stars through their bullshit
and pick up debris:
part shattered rocket ship bits killing sea turtles
part shredded hearts & humanity
4.
It was 75 degrees (~24 C)
when, having “won” and “won” and “won”
they were still and still and still
and always throwing temper tantrums
always blaming others
always angry,
always working to spread harm,
and so
never, ever, free.
Ick.
The idea that men like that– or even a country like that–
could take all the rest of us down with them
is laughable.
Who and what is it
do they think we all see?
We see a few sad, angry, abused, narrow-minded men
with stolen wealth that only makes them smaller of spirit, not larger,
now willing to destroy their home planet
and everyone on it
simply to avoid
looking in a mirror, asking for help,
or going to therapy.
Our Black friends remind us
how these always-frightened wealth-hoarders'
always-frightened ancestors
would fill public pools with cement—
how they were fine with nobody at all
getting to swim
if it meant that their kids
wouldn’t have to swim
with Black kids.
Black people that their ancestors literally
could never have survived
without.
It can feel like
we are right back there,
again. That progress is being unmade.
But we're not back there anymore. They are.
Those of us with friends across old fears learn and unlearn everything.
Those holding abuse, without friends, and extreme amounts of money
learn little and unlearn even less. Cling to a past that doesn't exist. Believe that humanity herself is as cruel and unforgiving as their own fathers.
They've learned little beyond how to cement over
even more life, even more joy
to avoid the mirror, the help, and the therapist that the whole planet actually is.
To avoid breathing the same air as other humans.
To avoid hearing the rising voice of hatred,
which is only ever their own voice
echoing back at them.
5.
Warm breezes shift through the house
as morning light
dances with the tree branches
outside our windows
when it dawns on us,
finally.
They have no clue.
They have no clue who we are now.
No idea about global evolution,
playful revolution, joy, leaning gently on the beautiful world,
adventures in sailing friendships and relationships, or
the unending empathy that wraps herself around
and within those who adore the land
and each other. Those who sing, create, and dance across borders.
Those who spend their lives quietly and intentionally
healing unhealed wounds
so their children and grandchildren won't have to
open their veins
to feel the love of the Earth
the way far too many of us now do.
Thay have no idea
that even white women realized–
decades (and, for some, centuries) ago– that
being kind demands messiness, honesty, bravery, many perspectives, & unlearning
while being nice, or silent too long in the face of abuse,
maintains a creepy-violent status quo of dis-ease
clearly pass-down-able to our children.
Clearly hurting everyone
we love.
They have no idea who we are now!
No idea that being unbelievably wealthy & arrogant
while neighbors suffer
isn’t being wealthy at all– it’s fear and greed, violence
born of chronic abuse & isolation
turned chronic self-abuse
& self-hate.
No idea that the super wealthy are far more prone to delusion
and holding on to delusions to the point of violence, far more so
than any of the suffering or the poor
who flat-out can't afford delusion.
Literally everyone on the ground not happily being,
or working for,
fascists
knows this now.
We know this.
Globally now.
We know that
wealth hoarders have almost no idea
how lovely it is here with our neighbors
or how by simply being present on the ground, in person
with neighbors and friends, all holding each other's pain
while managing our own, while
facing years of abuse, violence, and genocides
– together– has made us strong, fluid, sassy, playful, flexible.
They have no idea that the hatred, abuse, & now intentional
poverty-generation as means to control that's
powering ICE
will melt away in just days
the moment enough of us decide to trust ourselves
to release our collective rage,
grounded in everyone and everything we love,
in the same direction.
Their shock & awe tactics are neither anymore.
They're more like biting flies at a global backyard party.
Except they kill kindness, stole all their stingers, and Mama Earth herself
wants them O U T out.
Wealth stealers and hoarders
that day is coming.
Wealth creators and sharers
that day is coming! Yay!
The day we drop our ancestors' fears of each other
and stand together this time. Stand with life.
That day is so beautiful we can feel it from here.
Move your hands to the center of your chest and shut your eyes
feel it?
Reach out to hold the hand or the comments section of a struggling stranger
feel it?
Feel it.
Feel that day approaching.
6.
It's a beautiful day, any day,
when we hold a hand or
join a protest or
when we protect our neighbors and selves from ICE
stop holding our tongues, hiding from pain we think we can't face,
stop believing we aren't powerful beyond measure together
when we say "Enough!" to nonstop wars
and genocides and building for-profit prisons and concentration camps
and the US becoming known as the planet's weapons supplier and weak-minded bully,
and we flat out stop calling the teeny tiny "men"
who need advanced tech, weaponry, walls, prisons, concentration camps,
and foot soldiers
leaders.
Fascists aren't leaders. Fascists are just our hidden, deepest, unseen fears.
We won't follow them off even one more ledge.
We will tear down every new artiface they imagine they need
to protect their soft bodies
from our messy, sweet
humanity.
Those holding weapons of war, pointed at neighbors
those belittling others
are never, ever the strongest or bravest beings in the room.
Remember.
7.
We hold on to beautiful days and to
brief moments of beauty
within all days.
We creators of life.
For example,
I remember the rainbow-color of a respectful mourning insect's eyes
face to face with me
on the ground, weeping
the day we learned our dear baby brother had died.
We come together to surround our pain,
humanity's pain. All pain.
We receive sunrise and sunset, forest, leaf, field, and tree.
To be present is gift enough, we learn
eventually.
A few weeks ago, I thought
"It's been almost two years that my friends
have been surviving genocide."
And then "It's been almost 80 years
that my friend's people have been surviving genocide."
And then "There are people here
who've survived genocide for
more than 500 years together."
Some of those people now make a mean
Colonizer Tears salted caramel mocha
and teach lessons in humor and true community
at the end of a nearby Coupeville pier
and on Facebook.
That's power.
Who am I to think we won't survive this unchanged or unscathed?
We're changed daily by sunlight and wildflowers, by children and laughter, by loss and genocide. By our connection and relationships.
We've already let most of the colonizer fascist white supremacist patriarchal nonsense within us go.
We now face the last of those too scared to look within, or look outside, without being wrapped in layer upon layer of brittle ancestral hate and fear.
Men who literally shit their pants in the presence of brave nonbinary folk and well-connected, unafraid women.
We will seek to recognize and protect the vulnerable among us and within us. We will accept protection when needed. We will survive this together. We'll thrive in every moment that we can. Like the plum trees, hummingbirds, and garden sage.
And when it's our time to go,
we will sing each other into the next world
and rejoice at how wonderful living this life together has been.
We will hold each other
the whole way home.
Here on Earth, we do that for insects, whales, dogs, cats, forests, and everyone else we're connected to.
We sing the songs of everyone we love and will one day have to let go of.
That's just what earthlings do.
That's what human beings do, too.
8.
It's a beautiful day
when we turn to fully face the pain of others, too,
even while holding our own.
When we realize that that one tendency
turns up the volume on
our tenderness
our sensitivity
our humor
our bravery
opens us up to a heart field so much bigger than just one body
that at some point, somewhere along the line,
she turns our once-frightened blood into dark red steel.
We get to keep our soft hearts and
warm, gentle, generous natures, though.
Through everything.
All of us this time.
That's why I'm here, now.
9.
Remember.
Remember the day that working people took their power back
shook off old assumptions
just did not go to work for a few days
refused to chauffeur the wealthy around
wouldn't carry their luggage or cook their food or
stare into their too-expensive phones made by people making pennies instead of into our loved-ones' eyes. Remember when we stopped
buying their unneeded, poorly made, tacky new goods or their
"self-made billionaire" bullshit anymore.
Remember the day that people working across old boundaries and fears
stopped weapons with soft flesh, flowers, words, paper
turned jackbooted fascist thugs
back into human beings
by playing music
by dancing
by growing quiet and asking all silent pain to speak
by holding hands &
by holding up
millions more glorious mirrors
showing who we humans really are.
Remember. Remember that day.
A day that has happened over and over already.
A day that grows larger every year that it happens on earth–
have you noticed?
It's about to happen again.
Get ready, friends.
Trust your most loving and brave peoples and intuition.
We're about to remember
what we're really made of.
Remember, too, that whatever else happens
we may all eventually
come to say:
We were there when it happened.
It was Horrifying. Empowering. Painful. Surprising. Uplifting.
We looked up and we'd been almost completely reimagined one day.
That was such a beautiful day.
