I’ve spent this week disassociating by binge-watching House and eating Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups and knitting. I sort of knew the onslaught would come, but I didn’t anticipate things like emails from our school department alerting us that ICE can now raid schools. And apparently the solution to deporting parents is to throw their kids into foster care? By all means, let’s take a broken system and break it more. *heavy sarcasm*

Meanwhile, on the “Blue Sky” side of the fence, I’ve been hearing a lot about building community – in “real life” rather than online, and so I let my husband talk me into going to a local writers group last night. I struggle with these things, partly because I’m introverted and anxious but also they tend to happen right smack in the middle of the kids’ bedtime. {In fact, I actually had to bail early, because while the advertised start time was 6 pm, by 7:30 the guest speaker was still in full form and the open mike readings hadn’t started.} But even though I left early, it turned out I actually really needed to hear what the speaker had to say. His name is Cliff Hakim and he wrote a book called “Walk In My Shoes: The Path to Empathy and Compassion”, and boy was his message on point. He talked about kindness, and how one small act of kindness can have a ripple effect. At some point in the middle of the night I woke up thinking, “since when did common kindness and human decency become political?”. I mean, I *know* how, but it still baffles me.

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Related: earlier this week, I had to go to the Social Security office to straighten some things out related to our adoption. Even though I had an appointment, I had to sit and wait for half an hour. It was like the UN in that waiting room, I was definitely in the minority as most people there were from another country and spoke little English. At one point a supervisor came out and as politely as possible announced that if you didn’t have an appointment you would need to come back tomorrow. The problem, of course, was that the announcement was made in English, with guards standing nearby. Social Security offices are considered government property and are secured as such. At any rate, there was much confusion as people thought they had appointments but did not, or actually had phone appointments not in-person appointments, and it had the potential of going chaotic really quickly. My number got called just as things started getting a little heated, so if there was any real drama I missed it.

Sitting next to me in the cramped waiting room was a little guy, maybe 2? His mom was holding a baby, and he had her phone in his hands. He tottered over to me and grabbed my hands, and started giving me high 5’s and poking me. At this point I’m pretty kid friendly, and my white hair screams GRANDMA, so I was happy to entertain him. I’m not sure his mom was happy, though? I’m guessing they spoke Portuguese and were probably here from Angola, but alas my Portuguese starts and ends at “obrigada” so I could be wrong. At any rate, there were language and cultural barriers there and I got the distinct impression I wasn’t necessarily coming off as “harmless white lady” to the mom…but that little guy didn’t know it. Sometimes I wish I had a button that said “Licensed Foster Parent – I’ve Passed Multiple Background Checks”, but sadly that doesn’t even mean much these days. My point to all this is, the adults are suspicious of each other but the kids are not. That suspicion is taught. And what, pray tell, will immigration police marching through the hallways of elementary schools teach our kids? I’m pretty sure this is not the future my dad had in mind for his grandkids while he was traipsing through Vietnam wearing a US Army uniform.

The other thing is that it’s convenient to frame these issues as “all or nothing”, open borders or build a wall. In reality, our country was built on the backs of immigrants, and it’s just way too complicated an issue to be reduced to sound bites. Honestly? I’m not sure I actually have a problem making changes to birthright citizenship. I think we do need to have some hard conversations about what the influx of immigrants does to community resources. But it would be really nice if we could start talking TO each other instead of AT each other, rather than just branding everyone who disagrees with us an idiot.

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And then: finding joy? I finally finished knitting the baby’s blanket. I had to buy more yarn to make it bigger because when I started knitting it he was maybe 6 months old, and now he’s almost 18 months old and a heck of a lot longer. I got up early with him this morning and he was rocking out to Baby Shark, wearing nothing but his diaper, and good lord is he a character. Tonight he didn’t want any dinner until I sat down on the living room floor with a plate, and he toddled over to steal my fork and eat off my plate. There are times when I feel like it’s wrong for him to be with us, because we are so old, but then there are days like today where I cannot imagine him being anywhere else. Tomorrow: Friday, and some work on a project, and maybe a long over-do lunch with my husband? Finally: January is almost in the rear view mirror and it is no longer pitch dark at 4:30!