People cry and cuss

 in our country.  I wouldn't trade that not even for rumors of bigger armies, better space pods, some sort of lulling world leader with promises.

  This time of year always feels like....

  Like people are more like squirrels.  It's the traditional hungriest time, before summer and harvest.  People and animals scrounge and clean to maybe find.  Something edible, sumpin' worth keeping.

  At the very end of kindegarden I got on the bus and had one of those full on cries.  I was sad to leave the venue where...

  In college, 1991, '92 it was intense.  At the end of year semester not just one, but teachers and staff were like: GO AWAY.

  Of course I cried; not sad, but overwhelmed and worn out.

  I think that was around the time we all came up with "red flags" and people needed to

  Sure there's some different words because like the mass incarceration of Covid, individual people still need to have individualized response to the world.  Differences between people were heightened; so-and-so never needs to sleep, but I do; a roomful of people clubbing up, uh, I, um, didn't even know this was a debate or debate-over or

  In Hartford, CT we hadn't had all the resources to change the world back into or into a compassionate place, but we'd done a lot of work.  People in the city assured that there were other people in other cities who were, who'd felt inspired with at least a little hope.  A man in a wheelchair took off a leg and chucked it onto a cot that people had made out of dumpster trash, ain't gonnah change

  My own parents were cold to me when I first went home.  It was a process we went through over and over.  Might be a frenemy, the Grandma Pearl in my mama pulled the little kid siblings towards her.  Nothing like your own mother making your skin tougher.  Dad and the boys harped on we don't want to change.

  I spent alone time at the Sound where some "we," those who'd shown up, had changed the trash situation clogging the water.  It wasn't like a world buffet, I mumbled to my mother's tough-gentle way of should I define it, you, for you?!  I didn't eat anyone.  Didn't become a political animal.  Had gotten good grades, stopped saying I can't do it--instead, I can do this better.  I had to settle with being like a ocean's inlet.  Having felt like being part of the whole ocean, but finding, no: making some sort of harbor.  The truce with folks came in agreeing to not share studies with younger kids, and Mom rocking a day open with coffee and asking me my theme.  

Theme?  

I might find something in my travels to add to your journals.  

Okay.

  I spent summers working and reading and organizing the porridge of the world in my head.  And this became applying self and studies.  It didn't matter can't make a living.  And working people affirmed, can't make a living doing this either.

  That was something not to discuss with younger or older people.  But friends of the same generation got it, and we were off on the journey of contending as capitalists.

  My folks set up a hotline on the landline.  Mom took a piece of masking tape and sharpied HOTLINE on it.  There were six of us, all trying to grasp the cost of stuff and earning.  And running into the workday problems.  One brother took off with all the Chinese food on top of the car and paycheck that might've been was summed up in a photo of strewn noodles and squashed egg rolls.  Speeding tickets.  Mom was the Judge.  We'd explain procedure and what had happened.  Own up to not keeping mouths shut and nose to the grind.  Or have workplace abuse carefully weighed against money.  Some behaviors by others was just not okay.  So our parents would help us come up with least-tense reason(s) for leaving.  It was only rarely that there was true cause to say-- that's not okay.

  Mostly I met dozens of decent people with different tastes for American grit(s), but all working to have the country function.  The best taught something, or had a kindness in situation that might have tipped into contention.  Sometimes there was no way to salve rowdy, or keep people focused on purpose: here

  Like grade-learning building on grade learning, we developed skills.  "People skills".  Trade skills.  Education skills.  Faith skills.  Nation skills.

  As a family who knew eachother inside out, we had points of reference, associations that made sense, networking, humor, shared stories!

  Daddy did the best he could to listen.  Problem-detection guru.  Not always the most decisive though, so we relied on each other to develop decision-making skills.  Even then, some years the big picture wasn't hardly navigate-able.  Family friends reminded, Be unique anyway, a kid screamed a noise and slammed a door.  Reassurances at the wall, Don't worry, we're ALL in the same rodeo.

  And it was like that some years more than others.

  Mom and Dad had fought their own battles in the high tides.  We'd had to learn about the in-between, something.  Something about not being the bully, but not backing down.

  Hell yeah, a brother assured a tee-shirt man.  Dad did a quick glance from dollars adding up to buying more to see if his swearing excitement was bothering anyone.  The ones with These Colors Don't Run, were selling.  The sisters felt compelled to buy flashback to care bears.  We'd briefly discussed why some slogans have more weight than others over pizza and sodas.  And stuck together on getting over the awkward of not being active military in that generational moment, because????  Because some jobs are done for everybody.

  That was how we found out one of us was having to clean the toilet at work with an actual toothbrush.  Mom helped keep a job by finding out from the manager that they couldn't afford a toilet brush.  Dad bought one and brought it to the workplace.  The manager dubbed the sister like a knight with the unspoiled King Neptune scepter.  She didn't mind cleaning the bathroom then, and the team worked up to taking turns!  Not all "change" is "bad".

  At a carpentry worksite, a girlfriend showed up at fifteen minutes late, plucked cigarettes from mouths and drained warm "hair on the dogs" and crushed with sneakered foot "attitude adjusters" and that was routine for a couple weeks until we got on time.

  Like at AA Meetings, people ya take a shining to are really on their own paths with chance and discipline, just like you.  People are differently-abled in skills and trying.  Here and purpose gets worked on by workers just as much as product, sales, and services.  People have good days and not so good.