A Community Gathering of Resilience, Resistance, and Hope

On May 18, 2025, we held an “event” inside a church in Los Olivos. I’m typing this the morning after, and I have not yet fully processed my emotions, but I can tell you this: my heart is full. It was a gathering of friends and neighbors from the Santa Ynez Valley, the Gaviota Coast, and beyond. Our purpose was to raise funds for Democracy Forward, but even more than that, to reaffirm our sense of defiance and hope, going forth with renewed commitment to stand up to the tyranny that has befallen our nation. There were songs by Jim Brady and Jan Brown, poems by Dorothy Jardin and George Yatchisin, spoken word by Jerry DiPego and me…and a surprise appearance by Jackson Browne. I cannot describe how much love and light there was in that room, and I know it will have a ripple effect. There are people all over this country finding their voices and their ways of fighting back––and we are going to prevail.

And because several people have asked for copies of what I said, I’ve decided to post it here. It includes some paragraphs gleaned from past essays, but it became its own piece, a kind of proclamation and a testament of love. Monte describes it as a “sermon” and it was indeed spoken from a pulpit.

I know people who run outside to taste the rain, who talk to trees, who stop and hold their breath when the canyon wren sings. I know people who teach the children, who make art and plant seeds, who fix the pipes and mend the fences, who study the reasons and find the cures, who tend to the earth and one another.

You know these people too.

You ARE these people.

And I know some powerful words: truth, justice, due process, empathy, honor, love. I’m not naïve. Our nation is flawed and unfinished, but our principles and ideals are worthy, and our democracy hard-won. We will continue to show up, donate, fight back, and connect, keeping our values close and our courage robust.

Remember what you love,” writes Rebecca Solnit. “Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love.”

I recently turned seventy-four, not one of those significant ages that ends in a zero or five and makes you feel you are stepping into a different zone, but a worthy number, unequivocally into my seventies. I have begun to refer to this part of life as the vestibule of old age. We’re in the building now, but loitering in the lobby, still near the entry door. There’s a hallway ahead, and we know where it leads. It gets darker in there, harder to move, not much of a forward-facing view, and whatever we have glimpsed of it does not look like fun.

And so, we linger in the anteroom, discussing aches and hip replacements, the way words slip from recall, how a sit on the sofa in the middle of the day turns into a little nap and we didn’t even realize we were sleepy. We know we are the lucky ones if we are slow but still ambulatory, if an annual wellness check has revealed nothing worse than diminished bone density, if we can afford the price of eggs and stream a mindless movie. We fear falls but manage mostly to stay upright, and we never dreamed we would be called upon to be activists at this point in our lives but we’re too dismayed by what’s happening to ignore it, and our hearts overflow with so much love, it is impossible not to express it. We know, in this vestibule, that our time is short, and thus it is all the more precious.

The view from the vestibule can be volatile and vague. I do think that wisdom accrues with age, but I remain bewildered. Life is tricky and challenging, and it takes a lot of resolve to do it well. I know now that my beloved dead will never leave me, and my task is to sift through the sadness to the learning and the love. I have been shocked to witness the ugly turn our nation has taken. I feel a kind of grief and shame for my country now, and my fervent wish is that before I am called into the rear chamber of the Very Old, I will see this nightmare turn around. In the meantime, I also understand that beauty and wonder are meant to be savored, and laughter is vital, and it doesn’t make things worse if you let yourself be happy now and then.

Last month I spent a few hours at our local school, where I was a teacher thirty years ago. I sat in the very staff room where I used to eat lunch, and I met a team of new teachers, charmed by their enthusiasm and idealism. Afterwards, the principal told me something that has stayed in my thoughts ever since.

“If I have to think of a word for my role here,” she said, “I see myself as a caretaker.”

Caretaker. It occurred to me that this is an approach to life worth emulating. There is so much honor in it, so much tenderness and respect. During my remaining time in the vestibule, I want to be a caretaker. I want to tend to what is vulnerable and dear, look after those I love, and somehow in my wobbly way help make things better, starting here, in this tiny corner of the world, because this tiny corner is all that I can access, but maybe it is everything. If you zoom in, you find infinity.

I am thinking now of my former colleague, Marc Kummel. "What's the probability of all of us being here today for this occasion?” he asked once at a graduation ceremony. “How many separate events and decisions over the years does this moment depend on? That's easy. Probability: zero. Absolutely impossible. And yet here we are."

I think about this every single day. All of what is happening is implausible, even impossible, yet here it is. And for me, what that means for the future is that anything is possible, including the most wonderful of outcomes. Especially if we hold on to that realization and aim for the good.

There was a sign on the northbound side of Highway 101 that I saw every day for months during the inexplicable and never-ending construction there. New Traffic Pattern it proclaimed in lights, followed by a tangle of lane closures, white lines, and cones. You’d slow down and wonder for a moment what you were supposed to do. I’ve decided that New Traffic Pattern may well be the theme of this season of my life. It’s not clear what the pattern is, but I have certainly slowed down and been alerted to a change.

And as I said, the view from the vestibule isn’t always clear. But even if the redirection amounts to nothing more than adhering with greater faith and resolve to the route I have always trusted, I’ll do my best. I shall aim to be a caretaker.

I recently heard an Icelandic word, and forgive me if I mispronounce it, but it sounded like SOWED LYOUST, and it refers to the moment “at dawn, when there is just enough light to see your sheep.”

In this tender, shadowy time, let us keep doing what we do, following the thread, tending to one another, grateful for the gifts, not giving up. Let us keep all that matters close to our hearts and never lose sight of our sheep.

The grace of the earth and community will replenish us, and we will stand up for what is right, and we’ll prevail. Our lives are imbued with meaning. Let us hereby resolve to love more fiercely than ever before, to live with a renewed intensity, to respond to this assault by being stronger, kinder, and more determined than we were.

“I wish I could show you,” wrote the Persian poet Hafiz, “when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing power of your own light.”

I can see that light now, in all of us.