Dear President Trump,

It’s finally alternating rain and snow and the ice on main road out in front of our house is starting to melt. In fact, the snow on the ground, trees, bushes, houses, cars, fences is finally starting to look shaggy and like it may become a memory pretty soon. In the meantime, though, schools are all cancelled again today and we are hearing copious numbers of sirens as police and EMTs respond to accidents and fire fighters (and EMTs) respond to fires and downed power lines. Normal is still a ways off for us.

So I’ve given you a glimpse out our front window and now I’ll give you another glimpse beyond the first couple of screens in the WP because I’ve been finding I like it down there quite a lot more than the blaring opening screen with it’s crappy day-in-day-out focus on you and whatever bullshit you are foisting onto the rest of us. Truly, I don’t know what the hell we’d do if you didn’t have so much “Executive Time” since if you actually worked consistently, things would likely be completely unbearable. Now they are just quite unbearable; not much better, I know, but I’m trying to stay semi-positive and remember that things could (somehow) be worse. I’m also trying to be realistic since you do have a knack for topping yourself regularly when it comes to piling on just when we think things can’t possibly get any worse.

But I digress. Again. I do tend to let myself get snagged by you. Dang it.

The two stories I want to lift up today are both about women doing cool, kind things. The first is by Eliza McGraw (and sadly, when I went back just now to make sure I had her name right, her story had already slipped off the front page as had story #2) who wrote about various efforts to shift behavior at children’s sports events things are more positive and supportive. She talks about some people she met who make up sweet nicknames for the players and cheer them on and about someone else who routinely stands up and loudly yells “It’s OK!” when either team is scored on or messes up. I love her.

I also love Natalie Potell, the Prince William County Poet Laureate. For the last 100 days (and counting) Potell has sent two randomly chosen PWC residents a card with a hand transcribed poem. She indicates on the envelope that it’s from the PWC Poet Laureate, but she doesn’t include a return address so there’s no push for the recipients to respond. Plus, and here we come full circle with what’s going on outside my literal front window, Potell is a firefighter and she draws much of her inspiration for her own poetry from her day (night?) job.

It’s amazing what we can get done when we park ego and pride. You should give it a whirl.

May we be safe to humbly shine.
May we be happy to humbly shine.
May we support healthy ways of being in community together.
May we tenaciously embrace mutual respect and peace.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson