My blog posts have most recently focused on the act of writing. Writing is one of my survival mechanisms to resist the collective failures of our world. We all need survival escape hatches, because failure is not a healthy paradigm by which to view the world. We have no other choice but to survive, struggle and thrive, no matter how futile and exhausting and draining and fruitless it can all seem.

The fireworks of days of celebrations leave me to meditate on how other humans just like me live amidst a warzone, where those crashes and smoke filled air is a threat and not a commemoration. Right now parents cook a meal for their children as thunderous explosions land a measurable distance away. Just yesterday a woman awoke the day after the funeral of her beloved younger brother. So I look to peoples and communities who have confronted failures unimaginable, faced by violence and betrayal of both the state and neighbors, to wake up everyday and start anew. Colombia is full of people who rise each day in the face of decades of paramilitary state sanctioned violence and global capital interests trying to monopolize natural resources, they resist by creating – Peace Communities. In Rwanda women rebuild a nation which saw cousin kill cousin, memories of machete massacres, and the legacy of colonialism a close stalking shadow, and yet they rise. Teachers in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico refuse to concede to the interests of the state and corporations, knowing that the police attacked and “disappeared” students and colleagues – yet they make their presence known. And in Ferguson, MO a father grieving his son leads more sons and daughters through the same streets where his son lay dying, knowing it is the only way towards change.

So allow yourself the sadness due the loss of life, allow yourself whichever escape hatch: a spliff, the new dress, the bottle, the wild night, the quiet day, the dance party to recharge, and then awake the next day ready for the same fight.