Finding my way forward

Romanesco broccoli

Isn't this a beautiful plant? It's a fairly new (at least to me) cross between cauliflower and broccoli, called Romanesco broccoli and looks like a fractal to me. That link from Wikipedia tells me this:

The pattern is only an approximate fractal since the pattern eventually terminates when the feature size becomes sufficiently small. The number of spirals on the head of Romanesco broccoli is a Fibonacci number.

I find that to be incredibly interesting, and since I've actually eaten this plant, I can also tell you that it tastes a little more like cauliflower to me than broccoli. I took this picture last Saturday at the Farmers' Market. Since I tried to grow this plant during our springtime warmth, I was sure impressed with these guys. Mine almost immediately bolted, and I've since learned that it doesn't like a lot of heat and direct sunlight, so farmers around here grow it in the fall.

A week has passed since the election, and I'm feeling less fragile, but still can find myself weeping at unexpected times. It's part of the grieving process, and I'm pretty good at learning how to cope on a daily basis. I have decided not to allow myself to be bitter. Maya Angelou said this:

You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.

So I'm talking to you right now. I've decided to start giving a monthly allowance to two deserving organizations that I hope will help to mitigate the denial of climate change, which is a real threat to our world stability. Although I'm old enough that I won't see the worst of it, I fear for the young ones.

And I'm wearing a safety pin on my clothes. I read in another blogger's post about the first effect she experienced of wearing her safety pin. She is an elementary school teacher, and one of her students asked her about it. She said that it is to let people know that they can talk to her about anything and feel safe. The child said to her, shyly, "I didn't want anybody to know, but I haven't eaten anything since yesterday, and I have no money." The teacher suddenly realized why this student had been struggling in class, and she immediately took him into the cafeteria and bought him lunch. She also arranged to get him into the program for disadvantaged kids. Maybe he's homeless, I don't know, but that safety pin gave him a chance to talk about his hunger.

But it's just a tiny little symbol that means little in the scheme of things. Actually giving money to those organizations made me feel a whole lot better!
:-)