Before it all gets too much and the hopes, dreams, pains, hardships and friendships of 717 days overwhelm – along with this kind gifted wine – I wanted to declare my immense gratitude that we all showed up. Whatever comes as we approach year 3 of standing together at this roadside – I’ll be forever both anguished and in debt, to fate that brought us to this ghastliness …so filled with beauty, humanity and life passionately lived.
Someone said activists see the negatives and are pessimists but that is clearly BS… we fight for life, for the bloody intense love of it, for the way we KNOW it could be if we were free from the damned shackles of someone else’s economy…
…away from the conformity of days spent in normality, we’ve discovered other ways to be, other ways to see and there’s a realisation of just how wrong-shaped maybe we used to be.
I find it awkward to walk back toward the former life that percolates in the background of the now more common, daily life at the roadside… returning reveals the messiness of the way it is under a system skewed toward the few. News stations are like horror channels churning out bad times, wrong moves, political fools, selfishness and no hope.
Roadside… it’s all about lifting ourselves up, standing with absolute purpose, not giving up, never giving in… nothing is trivial – even the stuff that sounds like it is. The humour comes easy because it’s so needed, and though the smiles are genuine, we know they're sometimes all there is that's holding back the tears of dismay and burning rage that come when the brutality and assault all get too much.
Generosity, kindness and sharing come as standard now - now that we've come to understand more fully who we each are. Trust has built as we each unfolded to each other over so many many days... impossible to hide yourself in this arena.
And there’s nourishment easily found when we seem too few... as now-familiar names and avatars appear on livestreams and timelines to urge us on, tell us thanks, show support, share our plight and enhance us in unseen but always ‘felt’ ways.
I have such certainty in what we do because when I look at the faces next to me or read the words that support our actions – they’re all attached to people I’ve come to admire, respect and feel honoured to call friend. How can ‘authority‘ compete with the honesty, solidarity and determination of us?
Don’t get me wrong, I want this done. Want this ugly reason to get up every day… gone. It’s what then comes that makes me wonder – we all see so differently now; we know that the system that caused the threat that brought us here, will not stop harming, even when we win this one. There’s a worrying realisation that even if I’d left breadcrumbs to get me back ‘home’ – that I wouldn’t recognise it or be able to relax in it again.
...
We're acting in truth and obligation and that's the better road... even if it's 'destination unknown'.
So here’s to what’s next and all the best in love and solidarity. Namaste xxx
