feeling solar, punk?

"Tactical urbanism fights against loneliness, isolation, and ultimately totalitarianism because it is a practice of enacting real change in the world for its betterment, in community with others. Tactical urbanism is a bottom-up approach to improving our shared public space, things like planting guerilla gardens or building benches for bus stops."

Like. I remember back in my grocery store cashier days I did so much crazy shit.

When WIC (Women, infants, and children voucher program to help low income mothers/families with children) people were in my line I would pretty much know who they were. Before the cards they had to tell us upfront they were WIC and show us their vouchers for what they were allowed to get (it was awful some times. Like. 2 gallons of milk. $4 worth of vegetables etc etc). They’d always have items hanging back, waiting to see what the total was and if they would have to take it off the belt.

I began to place the fruits/vegetables a certain way on the register scale so that like 1/2lbs of grapes read as like .28lbs or something. Then act shocked when I said that they still had X amount of lbs left. They got all their fruit and vegetables.

I think it started to kinda? Catch on to the women? Because I would have the same moms in my line month after month. And even after they switched to the cards (they worked like food stamp cards?) I’d still do the same thing. They were able to get more produce for whatever shitty max amount Indiana gave them.

and we will say "When I was YOUR age, fruits and vegetables came from a supermarket and they were bred to get shipped 1000 miles in a truck and sit on shelves for weeks, and they tasted so sour and watery it was like eating paper compared to these ones. It wasn't even legal in some places to grow your own food"

and they will roll their eyes like yeah yeah just because everything was miserable in the 20s doesn't mean I have to have a smile on my face standing in the hot sun while you listen to that one guy talk about his bees FOREVER

And many other people have been just spitting, foaming at the mouth fucking FURIOUS. How dare I have the audacity to imagine a future where things get better?

Don't I know how BAD things are? Am I not aware of the TERROR and DEVASTATION of climate change and fascism and biodiversity loss? How dare someone be so bold, so callous, as to imagine something other than misery and suicide. How dare someone suggest it will get better. How dare a person propose that there is a future where we will be okay, in the face of so much terror. Hasn't she seen the abyss opening its jaws before us?

Well? What do you think?

there were kids who stayed inside because of the black plague and went on to help cure it.

there were women who sat at home and cleaned the house and dreamt up a world where they could vote and have jobs.

there were kids in the mines who thought up a life outside of it. there were children who hid in annexes and wrote a diary where they prayed for a future without a terrible man in control

there were slaves who wanted freedom so badly and had hope that it would get better

there were gay people who hid in the corners of clubs and fought back for a future where they could walk down the street together

do you know what all of that has in common? they had hope that things would get better and they made that change. they looked at the world in its cruel ways and fought back.

so now, there are kids and teenagers and young adults and new adults who dream of a world so beautiful and the only amazon their grandchildren know is the rainforest

and it is in everything we do that we find this hope. wishing on dandelions, counting the stars, making our own clothes out of crochet or knit or sewing it, watching the sunset, going to the farmer’s market, feeding the birds, planting seeds.

by Gayle Brandeis

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