Maybe it is the small acts of kindness, compassion, and comedy that can make the world a better place.
I’m on a trip to Toronto to visit my dad. If you don’t know already, he is in a long-term care facility suffering from Parkinson’s and dementia. He has deteriorated even further and was pretty much unresponsive when I visited him yesterday.
It was heartbreaking.
It’s a very emotional time for me right now. With my mom’s death a year and a half ago, how that blew up my family that no longer feels like it exists, my dad’s deterioration, the state of the world, and with abusers getting away with it, I’m feeling overwhelmed and discouraged.
How can I keep my sanity while at the same time “resist the collapse of people” (Massie-Blomfield)? That’s my burning question right now.
While I was visiting my dad, who was totally unresponsive, I decided to do something. I remember how careful my dad was about his personal grooming. So I got a pair of clippers and trimmed his messy hair, moustache, and beard. There, that looks so much better. I teasingly said, “Now you don’t look so much like a hobo!” Did he smile?
A young brown-skinned man emailed me from California, terrified that even though he’s a birthright citizen, he’s going to get kidnapped by ICE. He wanted encouragement. What could I tell him? I told him to be careful. I also told him about a new crowdsourcing app called ICEblock, which allows people to warn and be warned if ICE is spotted in their area. He was thankful for that and has started using it.
The billboard I designed promoting trans rights was erected in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, with an overwhelming response of both joy and. I’ve heard rumours it’s been vandalized. I hope not.
Maybe my art is making the world a better place by challenging the principalities and powers and uplifting the marginalized and discouraged. No! I know my art is doing that because I hear from people like you that it is. I hope so.
Massie-Blomfield (quoted above) tells the story of Claude Cahun, a Jewish resistor against the Nazis. When she was finally caught, she was sentenced to the firing squad for her subversion, but also six years imprisonment for owning a radio. She responded to her sentence: “Are we to do the six years before we are shot?” The power of humour in the face of authoritarianism!
I saw a video ad. I think it’s from Sweden. It shows a gay man on a subway. He gets nervous because a tough-looking man clad in a leather jacket and a shaved head sits across from him. He obviously braces for harassment, but then notices the leather man is wearing a rainbow bracelet. And he relaxes. Just a little bracelet formed a connection and provided the feeling of safety to someone who needed it. Small. Big!
Massie-Blomfield mentions another artist/activist, Mikaela Loach, and I was pleased to discover that we already follow each other on Instagram! Like… WOW!… there’s a connection I wasn’t aware even existed. She once messaged me to say she loves my work. Now I love hers! Maybe that connection will grow into something that makes the world a better place, too.
Loach provides a helpful analogy:
She compares such connections to mycelia… “unseen but spreading widely underground… the mushroom that pops up above the surface is the victory, and you never quite know when, or how, it will appear. What is certain is that without that web, hidden from the human eye, no mushrooms, and no victories.”
