Nate and Addie

 It's Memorial Day. If I allow myself I can dunk under deep, dense waves of sadness. Instead I've been pulling chervil burrs all morning then doing inside things while listening to KZFR from Democracy Now (vets tossing their metals back at the White House,) Woody and Friends (roots music of the people's struggle for bread and roses,) now, Time of Useful Consciousness (about John Goffman, an honest scientist who went all the way back to the beginnings of nuclear power and opposed it.)
Saturday was hard. A young man dead way too young and some of those who loved him-above. His brother, below, wrote a song to him. Drugs. Mental Illness. Head injury. Who knows what distorts the mind and steals the spirit from hope? It is Memorial Day--the community's friend Ed McLaughlin died this week too. There's plenty a sweet soul to hold dear and memorialize but one thing we know....never glorify war, never.

 Then there's the other side of the emotional landscape, filled with joy and hope. Our land partner's daughter graduated from High School. She came to Riparia as a wee beautiful baby, with striking huge eyes. Her mom had gone to an orphanage in Ethiopia to bring her home. A brilliant young woman now heads off to college. For us it was time to enjoy community, feast and be grateful.

 Here- Ali, Emily, Paul, Addie and Leslie. Seize the joy. Love and Live Life.