October 9, 2023

by Dr. Plastic Picker

It’s hard not to have radical hope when you are me these days. I have so much hope in different domains in our family’s life. I have hope for our planet. I have hope for our society. I have hope for my future grandchildren. Life is so inordinately interesting when you have radical hope, but seek to earn that hope through action.

So today I am doing a lot of action because I’m refreshed mentally after coming back from UC Berkeley with our family. We had such a wonderful time with our son, and seeing glimpses of his life up there. We had some adventures that I detailed on Instagram, and many that are quieter or more private that I left out of Instagram. Fundamentally we got to know ourselves better. We are a close family for sure, but every day we change as people – and honestly we became reacquainted with our new selves. I was telling Mr. Plastic Picker that I had an epiphany about love this weekend. He had some mini-man tantrums (which he is totally allowed!!!) and was going through the process of his feelings of being annoyed at our daughter and myself. It made me slightly annoyed as well. But ultimately everything really evened out and we love each other more when we mend those bonds. My epiphany is that the expression of love for me now, is that I’m infinitely curious about him. I’m curious about why he does certain things. Curious about his emotional, spiritual and physical form. I’m curious about his day. And I’m curious about how his life will turn out, knowing well that I’m integral to that ending. But I’m most curious about his journey.

That’s it. I have radical hope and I’m so curious about him and the world and certain story lines in my head. But I will do certain things to nudge the storyline to the endings I prefer. Just nudging, with my climate action.

And I know he loves me because he’s always curious what I’m doing. I sometimes baffle him, but he finds me very interesting for sure.

Okay. Here I go. I have a tons of climate and environmental health projects to do. Letting my curiosity translate into some action!