Smuggling Grace

Like any town, my town has crosswalks at street intersections. But there are also places where crosswalks sit midway through a street. Usually, there is a button you can push that activates flashing lights, and traffic is supposed to stop and allow people to cross.

Yesterday, I was at one of these crosswalks, but there was no button and no flashing light. I was sitting on my bike, waiting for a break in traffic so I could cross.

I assumed cars wouldn’t stop for me. I wasn’t going to wave anyone down. I was simply going to wait. But to my surprise, after a while, someone did stop. And when that person stopped, so did the drivers on the other side of the road.

Someone has to stop first to signal what’s happening.

I know we often get remarkably busy, and we simply put our heads down and move from one task to another. When we’re surrounded by other people doing the same thing, we might feel that we need to keep going too. But I suppose the same premise applies.

Someone has to stop first.

Someone has to take the break.

Someone has to unplug.

That also becomes a signal. It draws everyone’s attention and increases the odds that someone else will feel comfortable doing the same.

The pause might be more contagious than we think.

—Renee Roederer

400 years ago, beavers went extinct in Britain. They were hunted and then couldn’t come back.

But in 2009, after a law was passed in Scotland to restore habitats with native species, scientists brought a pair of Norwegian beavers to a remote rainforest in the hopes that they would repopulate and restore an aspect of the land’s native history.

That’s exactly what happened.These two beavers began to have kits, and then their family spread. Wanting to keep the gene pool diverse, scientists brought in a few additional Norwegian beavers, too.

And once they became established, the landscape began to change in remarkable ways. Eight species of birds relocated to the area. Rare butterflies began laying eggs in the teeth-indented marks beavers made on logs. Freshwater shrimp returned.

And on top of these changes, because of the dams the beavers created, flooding around one of the stops on the tube ceased entirely. City officials had been planning a major infrastructure project to help with this, and then they didn’t have to do it.

Truth be told, some other challenges occurred too, especially for farms that were affected by changes in the water. Not everyone is happy. But the government is trying to place these beavers in the best possible locations.

These beavers are making a remarkable amount of change simply by being themselves.

Maybe…

I need the you-est version of you to be the me-est version of me.

Maybe…

You need the me-est version of me to be the you-est version of you.

Maybe…

We need an ecosystem of one another.

After all, we’re interconnected, too.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer

A friend recently shared something sweet. Her five-year-old daughter is convinced that lightning bugs (or, if you use a different word regionally, fireflies) are really fairies.

They are disguised as bugs, but every time they light up, they are revealing their true selves. And to her, this is not just metaphorical.

Every time the green light emerges, she runs closer, convinced she’s going to see arms, legs, and a smiling face in addition to wings.

Whatever — or whoever — they might be, we definitely live in an enchanted world. Savor accordingly.

—Renee Roederer

As I continue my cycling journey, pedaling down every street in the in my town in alphabetical order, I texted an old friend and told him that the very next day, I’d be biking down his street.

He said, “Let me know when you’re coming.”

So that morning, I gave him an ETA.That turned out to be remarkably accurate because I pulled onto his street at precisely the moment Google Maps told me I would.

And I was greeted by the sweetest, silliest thing:

He ran down the driveway, many plastic grocery bags in both hands, shaking them like pom-poms as he celebrated my arrival.

This delighted me.This is the first time I’ve ever been able to tell someone that I was coming to their street on this journey, and it did not disappoint.

I hope you feel celebrated today, too, maybe in ways you didn’t expect.

—Renee Roederer

I opened the door to my local Panera Bread, where I was planning to pick up some coffee. The first thing I saw was two dads in their 40s with two sons who looked like they were somewhere between 8 and 10 years old. They had pushed two tables together, and both dads sat on the booth side while both sons faced them in chairs. Between each dad and son was a chessboard.

Two dads, two sons, two chessboards, two ongoing games.

This was about friendship, strategy, intellect, and fun. I love seeing dads spending time with one another and with their children. And I love that it isn’t only and always about sports. Here they were, sitting across from their sons, thinking and playing together.

There are many ways to be dads. There are many ways to be sons. There are many ways to be masculine. There are many ways to be human.

I love that.

Just a lovely image to encounter while walking in for some coffee.

—Renee Roederer

I stepped outside to run an errand, and when I looked down, a bloom caught my eye. I wasn’t expecting it. I smiled.

Last year, my Mom visited and planted a garden at my house as a gift to me. So kind. We made sure to pick out perennial plants so they would return each year.

For more than one reason, that was probably a great idea. Because I am sad to tell you that not long after she left, some critter ate a lot of the blooms.

But here they are, one year later, returning. And one year later, my Mom is making me smile, even though she isn’t in Michigan.

This makes me think that people we know and love are embedded in so many things we see, do, and experience every day. We have made memories at this place or with this object. This person always loved this smell, this taste, this scenery. We sang this song together. We had a conversation right here.

This happens all the time. And this little butterfly bush reminds me to keep looking.

—Renee Roederer

Recently, I was scrolling through social media, when I saw this segment of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ recent interview with Hasan Minhaj. He says (you can also watch below):

“There are people who in 1830 — very intelligent people — would have said, ‘We cannot abolish slavery. If we abolish slavery, this country will collapse. There will be chaos. God knows what will happen.’

“Logically, there’s an argument for what they’re saying. I would never argue that, because what I would argue is slavery is so immoral that you can’t just sit here — there’s just no option to pursue this path, you know? It’s just that wrong. And I guess, like, when you highlight Yemen, as you just did, what I think about is not just Barack Obama. I think about — 75 years? How long are we going to make war in the Middle East? How long are we going to do this?

“How long — I think about Iran, you know, all the time. I don’t think — and I don’t mean this in any sort of disrespectful way — because people have lives and they have things they have to do — but I don’t think people understand. Between Iraq and Iran, how much war-making we’ve done over there and how violent our presence has been over there, and how, you know, in certain cases, how anti-democratic our presence has actually been. How long are we going to go on with this, man? Is this going to be every presidency after every presidency? And then each one makes some sort of excuse for why we have to do this.

“I just, I don’t want to be part of that project.”

@hasanminhaj

“I don’t want to be part of that project.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates

♬ original sound – Hasan Minhaj

A few days later, I was driving in my car when a news story from NPR came on. One of their reporters sat in on quarterly earnings calls for CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two private prison companies that are making billions of dollars by detaining immigrants in our country. People have been taken away at their immigration check-ins. Or they’ve been snatched after dropping off their kids at school. Or they went to the grocery store and never made it home.

And many are languishing in these detention centers. In the last quarter alone (also, why are we talking about quarters when these are human lives?), CoreCivic earned $1.4 billion. And this does not include the additional $1.6 billion CoreCivic has received after selling four of its facilities to the Department of Homeland Security.

If it is abhorrent to make money from bringing human beings into enslavement, is it not just as immoral to make a profit from ripping human beings from their families and their daily lives?

I just, I don’t want to be a part of that project. But I rarely do or say anything. I know that I am complicit.

—Renee Roederer

–Photos by Renee Roederer