For those of you who don’t follow Britt on Twitter, she and Jared and the kids left this morning to drive the 24-hour drive up to Parkersburg, Iowa, so that they can provide help and moral support to his family and their friends who have lost their homes.
I’ve been talking to her off and and on (mainly on from about 11 tonight for the last couple of hours while she drove and everyone slept), and so I have a very retarded stream of consciousness from her Brittness to relay to you:
By this point, they’ve been through 5 states
Anybody who doesn’t answer their phone when she calls or doesn’t call when they have her cell phone number is a fucker (west coast people are especially fuckers)
Most of their drive has been in the middle of nowhere
Britt didn’t wear makeup and didn’t pack any. I think it’s because she wants to blend in with the survivors. Now she’s regretting it, because she’s sure that makeup will be hard to find in the stores near Parkersburg as everybody buys all the supplies they can.
Ideally, they’ll be hitting Parkersburg around 8:30 AM CST.
Our cell conversation has dropped numerous times, and Britt’s response is “More bars in more fucking places my fucking ass!”
At one point, her iPhone froze and she was freaking the fuck out.
Speed limits are retarded.
She encourages everybody to carpe diem. I told her to carpe my penis.
Once she gets there, she might be able to post, but if not, I’ll put up a post for her, and once she knows how people can contribute supplies or something, she’ll let us know.
She’s also occasionally checking email and is sorry that she hasn’t been able to reply to any of the comments and she really appreciates all of the outpouring of support and offers of assistance from everyone.
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Yesterday what is being estimated as an F-4 Tornado hit Parkersburg, Iowa. Our hometown.
Our town. The place where we grew up. The community where we know the neighbors and the businesses and the streets.
Or at least, we did. From what I’ve heard, even natives don’t know the streets now.
The school is gone, the middle ripped out leaving only a shell to stand as Command Center. The Kwik Star is gone. The restaurant is gone.
And the homes… gone. Jared’s mom and dad’s house. His brother and sister-in-law’s house. Gone. Literally. A pile of rubble standing where a home was yesterday morning.
The pictures. The china. The dining room table that was her grandmother’s.
Gone.
My family is safe. One of my best friend’s babies was taken to the ER last night, and that’s all that I know. The last count I heard was 5 dead, 15 injured.
Dead. Injured. Gone.
I can’t even tell you what an eerie feeling it is to hear about your Home being ripped apart, destroyed, from 1400 miles away. To frantically try to get someone on the phone. To watch your husband hold back tears as he listens to his mom cry “it’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything is gone.” To scour the web for reports, hoping for a picture or video or sound. Something to tie you to it. Something to connect you to the people who are hurting.
Your people. Lost. Torn. Broken. Clinging to one another in relief as they find people alive.
I know I should be grateful because my family is safe. I can still say I have pictures of my babies. My life is safe. Untouched.
And I am overwhelmed with guilt.
It is not enough for me to be safe. My community is hurting, it’s heart has been ripped out. I shouldn’t be OK. I shouldn’t be 1400 miles away. I shouldn’t only know of this devastation through reporters and grainy footage.
I need to know. I need to see. I need to hold them in my arms. I need to plow through the wreckage beside them.
I have put off participating in this Grassroots Blogger Campaign, despite my promises to Kapgar.
Because I knew it would mean writing this post.
Officially, the “rules” for this campaign only dictate that you write about sex. That’s not so hard. Hell, I’ve done that over and over again here (which I’m assuming is why IT Departments across the world hate me), but they’ve always been couched in self deprecating humor. I could have done that again, and slapped a label on the post that it was to “bring awareness to The Rape Abused and Incest National Network”.
But it would have been a lie, and an insult to what this movement is about.
How could I, in good conscience, pretend to support a cause for survivors of sexual violence if I refused to tell my own story?
I know no one wants to hear anymore about politics. I know.
Let me, instead, tell you about my broken heart.
I am 28 years old, born in 1980.
I have heard stories about the 70’s. I’ve read about the 60’s. I’ve seen Martin Luther King, JR. and John F. Kennedy speak via old newsreels and memorial reruns. My grandparents come from The Greatest Generation. My parents grew up fantasizing about the Peace Corps and Free Love.
I know about inspiration secondhand.
My generation has watched Paris Hilton become a celebrity based on her party habits and wardrobe. I am firmly sandwiched between The Me Generation and Generation X. When people reminisce about the 80’s and the 90’s - the decades I *grew up* in, they swap stories about hair gone wrong, peg rolled jeans and Miami Vice. Sure, VH1 loves the 80s - for their Monster Ballads, Hair Bands and the emergence of Bubble Gum Pop.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be a part of something that would still matter in 20 years. I’ve heard about the marches and the sit-ins and the rebellions, and I’ve wondered what it must be like to live in a nation that was gripped with awareness and fight.
The country I have known my entire life is one of apathy.
We say that we don’t discuss politics because “it just leads to a fight”, but what we really mean is “everyone gets pissed and it doesn’t matter anyway.”
I’ve heard it used to matter.
I’ve heard that protesters and disillusioned youth had the power to rip a society from the safety net of black & white TV into the explosive reality of life in Technicolor.
I’ve heard there was a time when people had a “Dream”, and when they were encouraged to ask “what you can do for your country”. The sound bites that people born in 1980 remember include “read my lips” and “not gonna do it”, or “it’s the Economy, stupid”. Somehow, those tid bits have the power to move me.
I’ve always imagined it must be an amazing thing to care like that, like King and JFK and the bra burners and the hippies and the anti-establishment protesters. And how thrilling it must have been, for an entire society to be caught up in “caring” right along side you - whether they agreed with you or not.
It wasn’t until recently that I thought I might actually have the opportunity to experience that firsthand. As I watched people become more angry with the current administration, I wondered if it might lead somewhere this time. I felt a fire light inside me that made me believe that we might still be connected to the American Story after all.
So, yes, I’ve been clinging to the Audacity of Hope for the past several months.
I have let myself be filled up with Optimism.
I have allowed myself to be inspired by the idea that Yes, We Can make a difference.
It is the first time in my memory that I can recall MY society having that chance.
I was certain this was it, this was our moment - our opportunity to leave our mark. It felt so right, so alive, so unlike anything we’ve been a part of before.
And now I feel like I’m watching that all… slip away.
It would not be an exaggeration to tell you that it hurts. It hurts to watch the infighting. It hurts to see the old apathy I’ve always known settle back in. It brings tears to my eyes to see our hope, my hope, be stolen away from us by bitterness and manipulation.
When I read comments here and around the Internet from people 15, 20, 30 years older than me who mock the fact that I care, I want to shake my fist in someone’s face and say “you don’t understand! You had your chance!” When I hear the same tired jokes from people my own age, I want to shake them by their shoulders and cry out “don’t you get it? Don’t you see that this time it could be different?”
You bet your ass this is personal to me.
If this doesn’t happen here… now… if my generation squanders this opportunity… if those of us who feel the spark allow ourselves to be silenced by the resistance of the sluggish…
I fear this is it. At least for me and my lifetime.
Perhaps my children will grow up and have their chance, their own fight. Maybe, in spite of the fact that there will be no one left to teach them, they will dig up old sound bites on the Internet and find their own inspiration. Maybe they will pick up the legacy that my colleagues and I have discarded in favor of tabloids and complacency. Maybe. And maybe, if I’m lucky, I live to see it and hear about it once again.
I’m thinking of dropping out of my Mommy group because of their reaction to sex offenders.
I received an email via the group’s mailing list last week containing a link to a “new” tracking system for sex offenders living in the State of Florida. Basically, you go to the web page, type in your address, and panic ensues as you count up all the “perverts” who live within a 15 mile radius of you.
The email responses started immediately.
“OMG, there is one on my street!”
The hysteria was hard to miss as many of these women imagined rapists and child molesters prowling the playgrounds in their neighborhoods.
In an effort to calm what I considered unnecessary panic, I responded to the group and assured them that “not everyone listed on the sex offender registry is a baby raper. People have to register as a sex offender if they get caught peeing outside for Pete’s sake.” I encouraged them to do some digging before they egged the neighbor’s house.
I didn’t receive a single response to my email. Instead, I watched as emails littered with fear and lynching flew back and forth across the Internet.
“They should all be stuck on an island somewhere!”
“I can’t believe my neighbor! The world isn’t safe!”
“Screw the island, they should all be castrated!”
The last one I read warned that this was exactly why “you can’t ever let your kids out of your sight”.
*sigh* I shook my head and closed the thread in my inbox. I was frustrated that no one seemed interested in a voice of reason. I was disheartened to see how easy it was for the mob mentality to set in. I imagined rallies and marches complete with pitch forks and torches. And baby strollers.
And something about that didn’t sit well with me.
It’s not that I’m pro sex offender.
God knows, I would kill any son of a bitch who ever laid a hand on my child. The innocence of children should be protected, and the idea that anyone would violate that makes me want to puke. Ugh. I get nauseous just writing those words.
I have three brothers. I share a mother with two of them and a father with the other.
To be fair, I share much more than a mother with Jay and Creed. We were raised together. We share a childhood, a family history, and memories that go far beyond genetics and blood relations.
And yet, it’s only Creed - the baby - that you’ve heard much about here. In fact, I can only recall one small mention of our other brother here. And even then, I didn’t elaborate much.
It hurts my heart that Jay’s story is not here.
It hurts me more that our story - his and mine - is not here, or anywhere, really.
Jay was my first sibling from either parent. When he came into the world six years after me, I went from an only child, shuffling back and forth between two parents, to the big sister in a family. He almost died that day, and I may not have ever known what it felt like to be part of something that gave you roots no matter where you roamed.
I’d like to tell you stories of him coming home from the hospital, small and precious as I imagine all newborns certainly are. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to bring that picture to mind.
I remember him as a toddler, with his thick curly hair and strong pointy chin, like mine. I remember him dancing around in his Bears’ jersey in front of the football game on TV. I remember him learning to ride his bike, absolutely terrified of my mom letting go of the seat - in much the same way my own son resisted his independence on two wheels. I remember when he got his feelings hurt in kindergarten because some big kid was bullying him, and how he would cling to the teacher’s side during recess. I remember him trailing along beside my best friend and I as he followed us home from school every day.
His eyes danced back then and in his toothy grin you could see glimpses of his soft heart.
And in his eyes you could also see the adoration he held for a man I would grow to hate, his father.
We do not share a father, although there was a time when we both called the same man “Dad”. The more vile my memories of that man grow, the more doting he appeared to become towards his first born son.
I remember Jay being very innocent, oblivious to the cruelty his father was capable of. As he got older, I could see the guilt line my brother’s face as he tried to reconcile the love he had for a man he heard such horrible stories about.
Maybe that’s where it comes from - the distance between us.
It’s hard to say, really, because it’s been there for so long. While Creed and I have always shared a remarkable closeness, there has been a wall between Jay and I for as long as I can remember. Neither of us can name it, although he jokes about Creed being my “favorite”.
“I love you Britter,” he’ll tell me. And when I smile and put my arm around him and assure him that “I love you too honey,” I think we both feel that there’s something missing in the exchange.
My history with him is blurred and bittersweet.
The memories of sitting beside a wrestling mat on Saturday mornings in high school gyms, pounding and screaming and praying for his safety, are mixed with the arguments and pain as I raged against his choices and he recoiled from my judgment. Over the years, it has been hard to ignore the worry and disappointment in my eyes as I watch him struggle through self destructive patterns and he avoids looking at me while he reassures me that everything will be fine from now on.
We’ve been stuck in this pattern for so long, he and I, trying to pretend that the distance isn’t there.
I love him, more than he knows. My worry and fear comes from that love. And I know he loves me too. No doubt his evasiveness and empty reassurances comes from his own love, at least in part. We look past the distance and play act at being as close as we wish we were, as if admitting we’re not would be a betrayal of the love we’re harboring for one another.
But it remains awkward and bumbling.
I long to explain to him how much I hope for his happiness. I fantasize about opening myself up fully to that hope again, abandoning my new found need to protect myself from disappointment. I envision the wall between us crumbling and the floodgates opening until the old facades have been washed away and we can finally be family. Really, truly, family - the way we each have known it with other people.
But for now, I just wait. I watch his life unfold and wait for an opening some day, when neither one of us will have a need for defenses and casual small talk.
Happy Birthday little brother. I love you. So, so very much.
Eight years ago today, two scared kids stood at the front of an overcrowded church and promised, before God and family and friends and their 3 month old baby in a swing in the back, to love, honor and cherish one another forever.
Five years later, those same two people stood at the front of a nearly empty church, in front of God and their parents and grandparents and a priest, and promised that they would continue keeping those vows.
But it is not either of those days that I am drawn to remember today, on my eighth wedding anniversary.
Today my thoughts are consumed with memories of my last anniversary and the stark contrast it is with this one.
Last year on March 11th, we were desperately trying to enjoy our Vegas vacation. I had just seen Prince for the first time and we were spending the evening together amidst a carefully concocted romantic environment.
We would have dinner at a small restaurant in the Paris hotel and ride to the top of the mock Eiffel Tower. As we gazed out over our own City of Lights, my husband would quickly bend down on one knee and present me with my anniversary present - an upgraded diamond set inside my original and newly repaired wedding band. At the end of the night, we would stroll hand in hand back to our suite at Bally’s and spend the night doing what couples do on their anniversary.
It should have been the perfect anniversary.
This year, my little brother is staying with us. In two days, my dad and his wife will be starting their visit. We won’t be heading out for a weekend getaway, or even dinner alone for at least another month. He will be working, as will I, and we will spend the evening at home, laughing and talking and enjoying the time we have left with Creed. We’ll go to bed later than we should, kiss each other goodnight, and snuggle in close as we try to get as much sleep as possible before we both have to get up for work the next morning.
There will be no presents or cards, as we’re planning to gouge into our savings for a pool soon and the rest of our disposable income is being swallowed up by entertaining out of town visitors.
By all accounts, it should be a very unremarkable anniversary.
And yet, in every way that last year’s anniversary was an utter disaster, this year is a triumphant success.
Last year, we both had agreed to ignore the fact that I had pronounced my desire for a divorce less than a month earlier. We were determined to put our disappointment and uncertainty in a Box To Be Dealt With Later and celebrate that, at least, we had made it this far.
This year, there is a new sense of appreciation as we reminisce openly about what we almost lost. It’s impossible to keep the gratitude out of my voice as I replay for him what the last year has meant to me.
Last year, we avoided each other’s gaze over dinner and clumsily held hands across the table. Every time we touched it stung like an insult to past intimate moments. We struggled through the insincerity and pretended not to notice the confusion in one another’s eyes.
Now, I find strength in a quick peck on the top of my head. I close my eyes and soak up the warmth of resting, just for a moment, with my arms around his waist and my cheek against his back while he makes coffee at 6 in the morning. I get lost in the easy comfort of sitting beside him, his presence alone enough to make me feel safe.
There is no pretense needed between us now. When he’s been talking about work for far too long, I can tell him with the assurance that he is trying to hear me. When I remind him that I love him, there is no question in his eyes that he knows this to be true. When we catch each other’s eye across two blond heads that refuse to sit still, there is a shared understanding that we’re in this together. Forever.
Forever.
That word means more now than it did eight years ago. We know better the bitterness of “in good times and in bad”. We know too, our own strength. Our faith is no longer only in a promise made, but in the fight we’ve seen in one another since that vow was taken. Our gratitude has grown from the smugness of youth who have “found” the “right person” into the humble realization that you’ve been given, blessed, with a fortitude of grace and good fortune to survive.
This year we celebrate without candles or lights or jewels. And we remember that it is not the fancy dinners or the elaborate vacations… or anything externally that we carry from year to year with us.
But it is Us. It is the good times, and the bad. It is the ease and the struggle. It is the hope and the promise and the work and the conflict.
I have bins for shoes. Bins for pictures. Bins for receipts.
Bins for clothes that each child has outgrown long before I’d hoped they would. Bins for clothes that have not been outgrown but have been painfully outworn and must be hidden away to prevent further parental embarrassment.
There are bins for out of fashion decorations. Bins for winter clothes. Bins for old school memories and camping gear and painting supplies.
And on each plastic lid is a strip of masking tape carefully labeled with black Sharpie, clearly designating the contents. “Shoes”. “Camping Stuff”. “Girls 18-24 months”.
I was reminded of these bins as I read a recent post at Shelli’s Sentiments.
She talked about not fitting anywhere. About not really being perfectly a part of this group or that, but always sort of floating half way between belonging. As she said, “it’s just painful sometimes when you don’t feel like you fit anywhere.”
I know this pain. This floating. This feeling like you don’t exactly Go in a bin properly - like an outgrown garment that you’re not ready to give away but no longer want to hang in your closet.
I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I belong in the blue plastic Rubbermaid labeled “misc. shit”.
In high school I was a cheerleader, as you’ve seen. But I was never The Cheerleader. Or the Homecoming Queen. Maye because I was also the drama geek and the speech nerd and one of the smart kids.
I had boyfriends here and there, and a small handful of girlfriends. But I was never wildly popular or firmly cemented within any particular “clique”.
I became a young mother. But I refused to fall into “that” bin, instead working hard to build a career and a respectable presence within the community. Of course, I still liked to laugh and smoke and drink too much on occasion. All of that led to me never really being at home with the other CCD teachers or PTA parents, no matter how many committees I served on. And the committees themselves I suppose prevented me feeling like I was ever really “like” the people I would drink and sing too loudly with on the weekends.
I’ve always been ridiculously younger than the other parents among my son’s classrooms. And now I find that while I am closer in age to the parents of my daughter’s set, I am one of very few with more than one child.
I wholeheartedly enjoy my play dates with Mom Groups. But I also find myself a little bored with conversations about potty training and scrapbooking and hoping in vain that someone will start bitching about the stress of working full time.
Shelli mentioned that, even in blogging, she hasn’t quite found her niche. And again, I read her words while nodding emphatically along side her. Every time I have to fill out one of those damned “what kind of blogger are you?” forms, I furiously wish I could check “mommy blogger” in good conscience.
I’m not a humor blog - I think the detailed saga of my depression discounts me for that. The fact that I’m being blocked by more and more IT departments I’m certain automatically discounts me from any sort of “parenting” genre. And I’ve yet to find the drop down menu that includes the category “I randomly blog about all kinds of shit.”
Misc. Shit.
That’s me.
And sometimes - admittedly more often than I used to be - I am at peace with that “uniqueness”. Most days I don’t give a second thought to my own masking tape label and I have no desire to be stuck into a box.
But sometimes, on some days, I long for the comfort that comes from conformity. Anthropologists and Sociologists will tell you it is human nature to seek out your group, your herd, so to speak. And there are days when I’m drifting when I wonder what the hell is wrong with me that I can’t fulfill this basic human need.
Why am I so different?
Why can’t I just be like everyone else? Or at least a large chunk of someone elses.
Truth be told, I suppose (like Shelli) I do have my own herd. It’s small, like one of those cloth baskets meant to hold little more than a set of fabric napkins - but it’s mine just the same.
It’s my husband and my children - in many ways anyway.
And it is my mother and my father and my aunt and my cousins and my grandparents - who share my traditions and inside jokes that span decades.
And it is, most definitely, my baby brother. Who is cut so exactly from the same cloth as me that it is almost frightening while at the same time, comforting on a cellular level.
This is why I have opened up my home to guests for the next solid month. Because while it will be expensive and stressful and I’m sure at times intrusive to be sharing my house for well over 30 days with various people… they are my bins. They are my herd. They are the familiarity that allows me to breathe with the ease that can only come from knowing…
I first heard about the BlogHer “Letter To My Body” Initiative over at Joy Unexpected. I’m following suit because I think it’s a brilliant cause, and one more women should embrace. It’s something my mother would be proud of.
Dear Body,
You have had to live with a lot of expectations. From me, from men, from other women - everyone has their own demands on you.
I should warn you, that’s probably not going to change.
My children will still expect you to push beyond your limits because they need us, even when we’re tired. Men will continue to expect you to hold on to our youth and never show any signs of wear. And other women? Well, I hate to tell you, but it seems that is just getting worse. They want you to be taller. And slender. And strong. And if you can manage it? Bullet proof skin would be a plus.
Thank God we still have Jared. He’s loved you in every shape and form. Even when I couldn’t stand to look at you anymore.
About that…
I have expected more of you than anyone. And I have ignored you and given you little appreciation for your successes.
When you were young and vibrant, your muscles taut and your skin still smooth, I berated you for your lack of lankiness. When your hips rounded long before child birth, I chastised you for ignoring the waif trend that was so prominent among teenage girls. I tried desperately to disguise you, with push up bras and jeans meant to elongate your naturally short legs. I didn’t appreciate your energy and stamina until they started to fade.
And, let’s be honest, when you were at your most vulnerable… I used you.
Worse than that, I let other people use you. I yielded you as a weapon. I let your value be judged by people who had no business doing so. For years I ignored how precious you are and sent you out as the guinea pig to see how dangerous the rest of the world could be. I tried to deny that you were intricately a part of Me, so that I didn’t have to face what I was putting you through.
And somehow, you survived. And I continued to take you for granted.
When you carried my children, reinventing yourself almost over night in order to meet their needs, I cried when you began to show signs of strain. I labeled your swelling and stretch marks as scars of weakness, ignoring the strength you exhibited by nurturing those two beautiful people inside you.
When you made soft places for those babies to lay their heads, I grew angry with you for your insistence on adapting.
And then I took control of you. I changed our diet drastically and melted 40 lbs from your frame. For the first time, I was finally pleased with you… because you were finally living up to everyone else’s standards.
Ah, that honeymoon period was sweet.
Of course, you and I know that behind closed doors, you’ve once again fallen short. We know that underneath my size six jeans, I hide your butt - that would sooner swallow a quarter than bounce one. We know that inside the Victoria Secret Secret Embrace bra, your breasts have become deflated and empty.
We know that your skin is sagging. We know that you’ve suddenly seem to become obsessed with new ways to sprout hair faster than I can remove it. We know that the excuses of pregnancy and child birth can no longer justify the potato sack you’ve attached beneath your belly button.
But I want to tell you, for once, for the first time…
That’s OK.
Really. Because those expectations that people have for you? They’re nothing more than a fantasy anyway. Other bodies don’t look like that either - not without surgery and airbrushing. Trust me. I have seen Cindy Crawford and Jennifer Love Hewitt (thank you Internet)… and you’re not doing too badly.
Are your boobs deflated? Sure they are. They’ve fed two children. But they also still spark at the touch and add to your uniquely feminine silhouette.
The extra width of your hips is what creates that beautifully melodic line when you lay on your side.
Your legs bear the signs of a woman who has learned to stand on them, on her own.
The new whispers of lines around your eyes are a reminder that you have lived more, laughed more, and cried more than a younger version of you. They remind your children that you have seen enough to offer them guidance.
Your hands have begun to look less like your daughter’s, and more like your mother’s… which is at it should be as you stop needing a caretaker and become one.
Are you aging and sagging and adding to your fat storage? Sure you are. You no longer need the defense of hard lines. Our life is now filled with people who need the comfort and warmth that your softening provides. The energy you exuded in your younger years is slowly being tempered by a calm, more quiet confidence that grows from experience.
It is unusual for me to repost someone else’s words. And there’s a good chance that you’ve already seen this anyway.
But if you haven’t, you should. I don’t care who you vote for. It doesn’t matter what your opinions are on the war or health care or social security or the energy crisis.
Whatever your hopes are for this country, our country, you need to hear these words:
If you cannot get past the face that says these words… or the music that no doubt is designed to reach you in the depths of your emotions… if you need to pull back all of that, then do. And look only at the words, in black and white.
It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.
Yes we can.
It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.
Yes we can.
It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.
Yes we can.
It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.
Yes we can to justice and equality.
Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.
Yes we can heal this nation.
Yes we can repair this world.
Yes we can.
We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.
We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.
But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.
Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea –
Yes. We. Can.
Is this not what we hope our country can stand for? Is this not why our ancestors - be it 200 or 20 years ago - came here?
Is this not what we want our children to believe, to know in their very bones to be true? That hope is real. That no matter how insurmountable the obstacles seem. That yes, we can.
for the past several months.
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