47: Week 15

May has landed, and with it, the garden is starting to truly bloom--the June/July garlic harvest that lasts us all year, the walls of water beginning to heat up so we can get tomatoes in the ground in the next 10 or so days before a vacation, and radishes picked fresh this evening for an indulgence with rich salted butter and a delicious baguette procured this morning at the season's first farmer's market. This makes me happy. Makes me smile. Makes me hold hope even when the week delivers horrors and absurdities that seem to outdo previous weeks.

This was the week of outlandishness regarding the economy--the regime believing the way you reassure people about a tanking and bleak economic outlook is to tell us poverty is OK. During a cabinet meeting, he informed us that maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. This was the week of outlandishness regarding the Constitution--when asked on "Meet the Press" whether a president must uphold the Constitution, he replied "I don't know." And this was the week when 47 manifested himself, on "Truth Media", with an image of Pope T. You just can't make this stuff up.

This was also the week when Nan and I, along with two neighbors, joined a block by block protest designed to fill street corners for more than 30 miles during the evening rush hour on May Day. Even though every corner didn't have someone standing up for democracy, hundreds spread out along the route. So many cars honked in support. People waved from their car windows. People walking by stopped and said thank you. Less than a handful mumbled something in support of the regime, and the handfuls too many to count made those few people mere blips in an evening that brought the four of us together to talk, pump our fists, and feel the hope of all the support passing by.

We are over the 100 day mark. Hold the courage. Find the people who give you hope. Remember the slogan: "the power of the people is always greater than the people in power."