“This
past weekend, our Climate Clock went live in NYC! The iconic Metronome clock in
Union Square is being newly repurposed as a giant Climate Clock, an 80-foot
wide digital display that keeps track of our remaining time window to take
urgent action on climate change.
The numbers displayed (7 years, 102 days, counting down by
seconds) show our critical time window to undertake bold transformation of our
energy system and economy. With fires raging across the West Coast, 5
hurricanes churning in the Gulf, sea levels rising, drought impacting food
supplies and other climate-related catastrophes, the clock communicates a clear
message: We have no time to lose. The time for bold action is NOW.
The
Climate Clock is a project of Beautiful Trouble’s Action Lab and has gone viral
with articles in NYTimes, Washington
Post, posts by Hailey Bieber, and more. The Climate Clock was the single
most read article in the NY Times on Monday. The
Washington Post article's instagram post has over 14,000 comments and
has gotten more likes than any other Instagram post in the entire
history of the paper, clocking in this morning at over 1 M. There
were over 80 articles written on Monday from India to Greece. There have also
been 17 reported cases of whiplash from people walking down the street in Union
Square. Okay, that last one isn't verified, but
check out the Climate Clock media twitter thread here!
Meanwhile,
activists are pouring into the streets with creative tactics to hold elected
officials accountable in the wake of the death of the Queen of Dissent, RBG.
And using creative tactics to get out the vote.”
We walk past the
dunes and a sign that reminds us, this is a sensitive habitat.
Tread lately,
This is a
sensitive habitat.
Not just the dunes
at Ft Tildon, all of it, our democracy, our lives.
History swirls
with the tides.
“It is a joy to be
hidden, and disaster not to be found,” says DW Winnicott.
What happens if we
are not found?
What happens if no
one knew you were here, I ask my students in our online classroom, many with
their cameras off, a blank screen and maybe a voice in front of me?
Everyone
is on fucking line teaching, trying to learn, and not to lose their minds,
first week of senior year, freshman year in high school....
I
come down from two and a half hours of policy class and the teenagers are
cooking away, making fried rice and cake for mom and dad and international
hobbit day, teaching day.
We
talk it out at Barbes.
There
is a lot we can and should do to beat back democracy’s decline.
We
can push back against the coup, the president seems to be planning.
We
can vote.
We
can mobilize.
We can
prevent the fall.
We
can refuse to accept the election results if all the votes are not counted.
We
can take the streets if he tries to steal this election.
As Daniel Hunter puts it:
“We will nonviolently take to the streets if a coup
is attempted.
If
we need to, we will shut down this country to protect the integrity of the
democratic process.”
Even
if he wants us to think his win is inevitable.
I awake every with a
sense of foreboding.
The climate
clock is ticking.
Seven
years and counting...
Andrew
Boyd is in town, on a stop in his year of living experimentally.
We
talk about his climate clock, 7 years and counting it reminds at Union Square.
Boyd
tells about his clock
Finishing
class earlier in the day, we watched the film of Freddie Hampton, shot in his
bed in 1969, receiving news about the police who did the same thing to Breonna
Taylor in her bed, charges mostly dismissed.
All
over the city, activists are in the streets, calling for justice.
“It
is better to rage against the preventable suffering/because it leads to the
suggestion of gorgeous alternatives/than to express our sadness,” says Judith
Malina (1984).
Few are
giving into notions of the inevitable.
It’s
the year of living vulnerably,
Dangerously,
The
center isn’t holding.
A
6-3 hard right majority in the highest court is a tough one to stop.
Moderates
are falling into line behind the nomination.
While
I was not expecting Romney to save democracy, I do wonder why Mitch is that
much more conniving than all of us?
The lunatics, the people of praise are
taking over.
“ Is
American democracy
dead?” wonders Masha Gessen
“ Just
in the past few days, Trump has asserted that the Presidency gives him “total” authority, made sure that his name will appear on the stimulus checks that
Americans will receive, and threatened to adjourn Congress in order to fill
Administration vacancies without waiting for Senate confirmation. Is this the
definitive end of American democracy? No, but only because when a democracy
dies there is rarely a definitive time of death. Democracy is never pronounced
dead at the scene.”
Gradually,
we see our gains on the precipice:
Environmental
regulations,
Civil
Rights protections,
Gains
for LGBT folks,
Healthcare, the affordable care act, in jeopardy.
Don’t
mourn organize.
Get
out the vote.
Call
voters in Pennsylvania.
Write
post cards to Georgia, get activated.
Democracy
is not a spectator sport I write on one of my cards.
Vote
early.
Some
days the panic grasps.
And then
I have to breathe it back in.
Don’t
let the outside world make you crazy.
Ride
the “Dreamboat”, one of
Ferlinghetti’s oil and acrylic paintings on canvas, Keegan and I check
out at Hyperallergic Gallery on 60 Mulberry Street in Chinatown.
101 years and still painting.
The stories about the survivors,
Hettie Jones and Monk and the Murakami
living dangerously, their ideas popping off the page and the stage, jazz screaming
into the night.
“When you opened the door the music
rushed out, like a flood of color onto the street,” said Hettie after hearing Monk
play the Five-Spot in the summer of 1957.
Dangerous living, the sun sparkling
on the waves, reading all morning long.
Saturday, some goodbyes were in
store.
Tides pouring.
Along the Christopher Street Pier,
where we said goodbye to Bob Kohler all those years ago.
Charles, who was there, talking with
Dana, who was remembering Jerry, a few of the trials of time.
Star here, Elizabeth there.
She was my aunt’s best friend.
I remember losing her but it feeling
ok, said another.
Activists greeting each other as
family.
This is bad as the early AIDS years,
says Kate.
Charles concurs.
We started with the Lord’s Prayer,
Elizabeth’s meditation.
“'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is
in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we
also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever
and ever.”
“Some knew her as Velvet,” said
Jeremy, recalling his friend.
She had many lives.
She took in many others,
a daughter and a sister, many of us.
Every person a new story, a struggle
that brought her into this work.
She brought everyone in as family.
How are you, she asked.
That was important.
To keep this going, to check in.
We organize, we build power.
But for her this was the most
important thing, that we were family.
That was the thing that would make
us safe.
Her philosophy,
“I don’t do hugs.”
“Thank you for coming to work today.”
“I’m your sister from another
brother.”
We will be family so no one endures
what she did.
There were thousands who were activated,
said Jawanza Williams, an organizer with VOCAL, who confessed:
“November 2013, I was in a shelter. I got a knock. She snatched me. I would not be here if it was not for her.”
Gracie, her best friend, was having
a hard time.
“I’m really struggling with this.
I’m trying. But it’s a battle. We
are here today and gone tomorrow.”
“She’s right here. You are near her,” several remind.
Flowers followed, reminding us,
“Why do we have to fight?
Because we are right.
We will
Right is right.
Truth shall rise.”
She’s so VOCAL.
Others remembered her as one of the sweetest,
spiciest people they ever met.
“I’m going to smoke some weed and
pop a bottle of champagne,” she’d day on the way home from work. But sometimes
it took her a while to get home, chatting away with everyone in the office,
with the guys in the bodega or the laundry. “At the grocery story, I pinched all
the old me in the store to remind them they still got it,” she used to say….
We all laughed.
For a second, she was back with us
again.
Fred, her office husband, told a few
stories.
“Fred, this is what matters,” she
told him.
Organizing, staying connected,
loving each other.
“Its hard being in this world
without her.”
With Elizabeth on her way, I jumped
back on the bike.
Across town, East over the Manhattan
Bridge, through Prospect Park, down Ocean, to Brighton Beach, through our dangerous
habitat, where the ocean connects with the world.
Meeting Norman and Gene and Kristen
for the first time in months.
Norman’s dad passed from this, one
of the early ones.
My Aunt Trish, earlier in the day.
Daily waves,
Cases on the rise.
All we hear is so and so is sick.
So and so died.
Day after day, month after month.
Charles remembered every week, some
friend COVID, others from isolation.
Loneliness grasped at us.
We kept breathing.
Keep on breathing.
Keep on breathing.
Don’t forget to breathe.
Feel the waves roll through you.
Through us.
Don’t forget to breathe, even in
this sensitive habitat.
Don’t forget to breathe.
