What I wish I’d said

The REJC very kindly gave me a chance at the mic at the resilience celebration and presentation of Providence’s new Climate Justice Plan (Spanish / English). What I said was okay–climate change can stress us out and can add to the stresses we already have, if our kids are sick with asthma, if we don’t have enough work or if our jobs are killing us; while we’re fighting to remove those stresses, it’s better if we can also take care of and support our mental well-being; talking about what we’re feeling can help us practice talking to each other, which is necessary for working together.

But there’s also some stuff I wish I’d said, because it’s true, and here it is:

I wish I’d also said how grateful I was to be there, and how much strength I saw when I looked out at everybody who was there, sitting in folding chairs and leaning on picnic tables and watching the kids on the playground.

I wish I’d also said that mental health is a zone of justice and equity, both in the sense of, “Who gets care? Who gets to feel well?” and in the sense that landlords and bosses and power hoarders of all kinds want us isolated and lonely and tongue-tied and depleted, with nothing left over for each other.

I wish I’d also said that sometimes we don’t call what feels wrong “mental illness,” or even “sadness” or “anger” or “shame.” Sometimes it’s a stomachache, tight shoulders, a perma-clenched jaw, tiredness. Sometimes it shows up in a rejection of practical help, or abandoning a sustaining friendship, or giving up on trying to change something because we’re scared it won’t work.

I wish I’d also said that talking and listening can be part of healing if we do it carefully, and that it can help us know what we can do and should do. I wish I’d said that the city government had made a good choice in listening to the knowledge and experience of the city’s people, those most affected by racial and environmental injustice.

I wish I’d said again how glad and grateful I was to be there with everyone, in this time, in this place.

Resilience Celebration and Climate Justice Report for Providence

Today, join Providence’s Racial and Environmental Justice Committee in celebrating our city’s resilience and sharing the Climate Justice Report for Providence. Providence residents have worked with the REJC and the city’s Office of Sustainability to put together a plan that doesn’t treat any place like a sacrifice zone, or anyone as disposable, but makes the well-being of our city’s people a priority.

If you have questions about what the plan will mean for you, your family or your neighborhood, or how you can participate in carrying it out, this is a great place to ask them! If you don’t know the people of your city that well, this is a great place to meet them.

12-3pm, Davey Lopes Recreation Complex (227 Dudley St), Providence. Spanish-English interpretation will be available, as will food for the first 100 people. I’ll be there with the Climate Anxiety Counseling booth.

There’ll be music (live and DJed) and stuff for kids too. Please join us.

Stop Cricket Valley: November 16

Last month I held Climate Anxiety Counseling in Millerton, NY, where I talked with a lot of people my parents know. Many of them, and some of the people I didn’t know, said they were worried, angry and frustrated about the Cricket Valley Energy Center. On November 16, residents and activists are rallying against it.

This fracked-gas power plant is scheduled to receive out-of-state fracked gas through the Iroquois Gas Transmission System, a pipeline project co-owned by TransCanada and the Virginia-based Dominion Resources. Advanced Power, a private Swiss energy company, would own and operate the plant. Here’s a little more background, including some of the project’s investors and other ties.

I grew up about half an hour from where those companies want to build this plant, and my parents live there still. Dover Plains could use some jobs, but this won’t bring them; it’ll bring asthma and other environmental illnesses, weaken a vibrant but struggling ecosystem, and haste climate change.

If you live nearby and can go to 2241 Rte 22 on November 16th at 11am, please go. Sign up here. The Facebook event is a good place to ask about the specifics of support roles. There’s also picketing this Saturday.

Climate Anxiety Counseling at PRONK! tomorrow, 10/14

Climate Anxiety Counseling will be at the PRONK! festival tomorrow (Monday), 10/14, 2-4:30pm, along with many community groups, artists, and bands (go to the website for the full list, it’s pretty exciting). Come and share your climate change anxieties and other anxieties, and learn how to translate your feelings into connection and action.

Here’s a map of the festival. The booth will be on South Water St, somewhere in that line of purple fists.

[IMAGE: Map of a small section of Providence showing the location of various PRONK! events. Community groups will be lined up on South Water St; for directions/GPS, you can use “South Water St between Point St and James St, Providence, RI.]

Two additional features of this booth session: a friend is donating Spanish/English interpretation, and a producer from Safe Space Radio is offering the option to be recorded for a show they’re doing on climate change. You can absolutely still talk with me without being recorded if that’s what you’d prefer!

As with the rest of this season, any donations will go to the Tooth and Nail Community Support Collective. Yesterday I got to go do some work out at their farm and I met this character:

[IMAGE: A very fuzzy black and brown caterpillar, NOT a woolly bear, on a plantain leaf. The photo doesn’t really convey that they were a little smaller than my pinky finger, which is big for a caterpillar.]

Hope to see some of you by the river tomorrow.