It's awful. It's not my America, and I don't think it's yours. I bet yours (even you, my red-state, conservative friends) is more like mine.
See the photo below? It was taken around 9 a.m. today. That's 60 yards of mulch in front of our neighborhood park and a bunch of our neighbors who came with shovels and pitchforks and rakes and wheelbarrows to tackle it.
Some of them don't have kids. Some do. Some, like us, have kids who don't play at the park much anymore. We don't know everyone's name but we can usually match them to their kids or their dogs.
A lot of the people you see in that picture also help plant flowers and clean up in the spring or do other things to make our neighborhood a place where everyone is welcome. Your sexual orientation is your business. We welcome all colors, cultures, religions, and political persuasions.
We just want you to be friendly, pick up after your pets and be kind to those you encounter. You don't even have to help spread the mulch. Do the former and we'll still like you.
Here's what that pile looked like a couple hours, a few gallons of sweat and a few dozen blisters later.
Here's where some of it went.
Even as my back aches and my fingers are wrapped in Band-Aids, I like this America better than the one I see on TV or online lately. Maybe if we can spread a little more neighborhood park mulch and a little less hate, we'll all have more of this and less of the other.
As long as I'm on my soapbox, here's another one: I was in Louisville last weekend with my Book Club and we were sharing the hotel pool with a bachelorette party for two lovely young women whose wedding is a few weeks away; a couple who live states apart but are dating and met in the middle; and a family -- mom, dad, two kids. It was an amazing, happy, silly, wonderful afternoon.
I chatted a bit with the brides' moms. One of them was all-in for the relationship from Day 1. The other was worried. Her daughter had been in a relationship with a man prior to meeting the woman who she'd fallen hard for. That mom had sent her daughter to therapy -- even went with her. "I had to be sure," she said, adding that she was all-in now as well.
The whole wedding party, of course, knew the saga, and they were all sitting around with us. Some in the water, some on the deck. Some paying attention to the conversation, some not.
That second mom, the doubtful one, had to learn that her new daughter-in-law would make her daughter happy before she could support the marriage. Some might think that's a terrible thing. Why couldn't she just accept her daughter's wishes?
But moms aren't built that way. They need to know their kids are going to be happy; that they have partners and friends who'll support them, love them, be there for good times and bad.
It's too early to say if that marriage is going to be one for the ages, but I'm cheering for them. And for the moms. Both of them. I'm an unconditional kind of mom, but I also would go to the ends of the Earth (even therapy) if that's what it took to make Ali happy. I respect the hell out of both of those women -- and the entire bridal party.
Theirs was a situation that could have wrecked a family. I'm glad Mom 2 was open to evolving and trusting her daughter. It's easy to fall back on "that's how I was raised" when push comes to shove in the culture wars. It's harder to be open to understanding something new, whether that's sexual orientation or culture or something else.
Why do we have to keep learning that love is always better than hate?
If you need a reminder, go to a park where the kids are too young to separate by color or to know what hate is. (Unless we're talking beets. It's OK to hate beets.)
Soaring in a swing or zooming down a slide brings the same joy to a boy that it does to a girl; that it does to black kids, white kids, Hispanic, African-American or mixed race kids.
That's the America I love. Let's get more of that one.
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