You don't have to read this

My family brings me joy. My friends people my busy retired life. Strangers I meet protesting give me hope and laughs.

“Without Due Process, It’s kidnapping”

“ Foxtrot Delta Tango”

“Elect a clown, Expect a circus”

“Regulate Dick, not Jane”

Kindness blooms in my life: That one car that allows me to change lanes, the youngster that holds the door for me, the friendly “Good Friday” that greets me at the Community Center. All these gentle courtesies add calm to my life. I know love and kindness are present.

Magnify that spirit.

Be KIND to those in pain and fear. They are everywhere.

Broadcast your support to anyone being marginalized.

Be the quiet listener for those who need to be heard.

Be the voice that disputes lies and negativity.

Stand up for your neighbor, stand up for any stranger for human rights.

My daughter shows me love every day, her husband helps me whenever I need help. Friends from around the world Zoom into my compact home.

I protest to stand for those who cannot.

They are fearful, they are cautious. It is not enough to send a message to the elected officials to DO THEIR JOB, defending the Constitution! I use my “white privilege” so that those in power acquiescent to the destruction of our institutions DO THEIR JOB.

I balance my life by having learning time for painting, Spanish, Tai Chi, ASL, and some mahjongg. I manage my anger and fear by writing, protesting, talking out loud in a red state, because I CAN.

I project the worst, tanks in the streets, more deportations of citizens, more destruction of our way of life, but I keep in my heart the Black and White women who will save us.

WOMEN against you, you have no hope of success. Women united against the follies of dictatorship, it will fall.

I feel strength and confidence in the spirit that engulfs us as we come together. There are men in our ranks. It is just that women are stronger than the men that are making laws against all they fear:

Children with gender differences, women controlling their reproduction, people of different cultures with strange languages, their neighbors of color, crime in the streets and having guns registered.

We acknowledge this, but we don’t believe that erasing black history or words will change anyone. It is a fiction they create which they believe will erase those realities. WHAT A JOKE!

If that is true, just erase the words, poverty, crime, and chaos. Then magically we all will be rich, safe, and at peace.

How in the world do grown men and women believe in such fantasy?

We Need to recall the stage that children pass through, magical thinking. At that age the tooth fairy and Santa are real. The Easter bunny brings us hardboiled and colored eggs. Faith in the unseen is trained and led by parents and adults to comfort us against the harsh realities of life. And we all perpetuate magical thinking, or why would we have Disney?

Gov. DeSantis fought Disney, the bedrock historically of our fantasy world. The Governor's fantasy world does not correlate with the Disney world. A battle of Fantasies ended in sort of a stalemate. BUT they are still both fantasy worlds. We should be talking about DeSantis World, not Florida.

And we all fantasize throughout our lives, or why would we travel to Cancun or Puerto Vallarta?

I have driven through the heart of Mexico, where people live in corrugated ghettos, women carrying babies beg on the streets, and barefooted street urchins try to wash your car windows with dirty rags, I have also been to Cancun, where the rich living fantasy is alive and well. Food anytime, everywhere. Pools with bars and bikini clad beauties. Safe jungle paths and lagoons where music drifts your mind into peaceful nothingness. Cancun at the same time is real, but also not.

Some of us can differentiate. Some cannot. Maybe because they are rich in the world of the barefoot urchin?

And we also have Movies that send us far into the land of imagination. Some of us come away from the movies with thoughtful realization, that fantasy mimics our real life, and we can apply ideas to our daily experiences. We have learned that a movie is created and not real, except for Jackie Chan, who did his own mind blowing stunts. In that case reality and fantasy are one, although we know he would do each stunt multiple times, just to get it right. The fantasy becomes real, and we fantasize about being Jackie Chan. I need to see another Jackie Chan movie. They never get old.

But I digress.

Please take to heart that we need KINDNESS and LOVE.

Do YOUR job, be kind.

It was Conni