Janna

We went to a 65th birthday party for our friend Janna. She's a classical guitarist and a sound engineer, and many of her friends are stage hands, sound people, backstage artists who support those who go on the stage; others are social activists and artists of one kind or another. (My son, Bella's father, is also a sound engineer, only he works on big tours most of the time and doesn't know the local people.) Because Janna draws her friends from groups of people who don't usually meet each other, men and women of various ages, she asked that we form a circle and introduce ourselves by saying our name, how we spend the majority of our time, and what we are passionate about. Every single person in the room was passionate about social justice and the health of the planet, and every single person expressed concern, fear, anguish, or despair about the way the USA seems to be headed. We tried to celebrate, but our hearts were heavy. Janna played some Bach to nourish us and give us strength.

I thought I should turn my comments off, and I did, but then I thought again. I am so grateful for your ideas, thoughts, and links, that I went back and turned them on again. You give me strength, energy, and hope, and I am thankful for that. However I find I cannot do the work of this moment and also respond to comments, and I find I can only look in on one or two other journals a day. Every day there are multiple political events in Portland: supporting Native People at Standing Rock, opposing right-wing politics and white supremacy, defending immigrants, protecting targeted populations and women and children from what we fear is coming. I am doing my best to take photographs of all the actions I can attend, as it seems to me that this is my assignment in life. I could be wrong. Maybe this thing I call "social justice photography" is such a drop in the great bucket of angst, such a ripple against the tide of right-wing violence that it has little value. I'm going to stumble along and continue doing it for as long as I can because I don't know what else to do and I have to do something.