 A fashion statement to consider, next time you're headed to a wedding? Who thinks up hats like this? Who wears them — and where? How does anyone put together an outfit that pairs well with a reproduction of a full English breakfast? And seriously, what are those purple things at the top? To me, they look alarmingly like the pig’s ears I once impulsively ordered in a Portuguese café, only to discover they are every bit as rubbery and tasteless as you’d imagine. I found this outrageous confection online, listed as a wedding hat and offered at a deep discount (go figure!). Tempting, but no thanks. I did admire the sassiness, though. “In difficult times, fashion is always outrageous,” said Elsa Schiaparelli, a mid-twentieth century Avant Garde fashion designer. She created jewelry with Salvador Dali and came up with monkey fur ankle boots that were the talk of her generation. Footwear is still making headlines, and never more so than during this month’s high heel race held as part of Madrid’s Pride Week. To qualify, heels had to measure at least 15 centimeters (5.9 inches), and frankly, just eyeballing those stilettos made my tootsies wince in sympathy. Who could walk in them, let alone run? My hat is off to these intrepid joggers! "The only thing that separates us from the animals,” drawls Olympia Dukakis’s character in Steel Magnolias, “is our ability to accessorize." Obviously we have a few more things going for us, like language, math, science, and the capacity to produce endless Star Wars spinoffs. But Olympia has a point. We spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to put our best foot forward. According to Evolution and Human Behavior, when you add exercise, diet, and hygiene to dressing and grooming, spiffing ourselves up occupies one sixth of our time, a lifetime total of well over 100,000 hours. Often we’re putting in those hours for very practical reasons; how we feel about ourselves and present ourselves to the world can help us find a job, pursue an education, and enjoy a more vibrant social life. When we’re going through lean financial times and can’t afford to spruce up, it can be tougher to achieve our goals. In 1999, a woman in her seventies named Barbara Lee decided to do something about that.  Barbara Lee in 2022, age 95 It all started with a remark by Mary K. Sweeny from Homeward Bound of Marin, which helps the unhoused find shelter, jobs, and stability. “I have a few women here who have set up job interviews,” she told Barbara, “and they’re ready to go but they have nothing to wear.” Barbara got a few friends together, assembled some gently worn second-hand clothing, and helped the applicants put together wardrobes that would let them walk into the interview with confidence, secure in the knowledge they looked appropriate and had enough good clothes for two weeks on the job if they got it.  Is it me, or is this advice totally confusing? Skirt? Pants? Flats? Heels? Help! By providing clothes and workplace fashion advice, Barbara became one of the unsung heroes that I’ve been writing about all summer. In these troubling times, I find it comforting to remember that every day, all over the world, ordinary people are coming down to breakfast and saying excitedly to their husband, wife, roommates, and/or cats, “I’ve just had a brilliant idea. What do you think of this?” Often the ideas aren’t particularly glamorous or newsworthy, and probably won’t be talked about over cocktails among the glitterati, but in their own quiet way, they are making a big difference. Take David Blenkle, who runs a car service in California’s Santa Cruz mountains. He began providing free rides to veterans heading to the VA and job seekers on their way to interviews. “Blenkle has become a lifeline for hundreds of people in his community who would otherwise not have had access to reliable transportation,” wrote journalist Andy Corbley.  David Blenkle in his Ford Mustang Mach-E giving the shaka, Hawaii's iconic "hang loose" sign. Engineer Patrick Schlott spotted a different service gap: a dead zone without cell towers in his area of rural Vermont. “I realized, wow, there’s no cell service for 10 miles in either direction,” he told reporters. That's when he decided to retrofit a pair of old-fashioned pay phones and install them at the North Tunbridge General Store. He removed the coin slot so neighbors can phone for free; Patrick even picks up the service charges and helps transfer calls.  At the North Turnbridge General Store in rural Vermont, old-fashioned land lines keep residents connected in an area without cell service. Similarly, Barbara Lee spotted a community need and envisioned a way to help. She established a second-hand clothing store, originally Image for Success and now called Bloom, which has long been my favorite resource for vintage dresses and jewelry. My luckiest find happened there last summer. Rich and I had just accepted an invitation to a fancy party, and it struck me that I had nothing remotely suitable to wear. As it happened, at that very moment we were walking past Bloom, so I popped in on the off chance. Ten minutes later I’d purchased a gorgeous silk dress that has become my go-to fave. That doesn’t happen every time, but still… Of course, Bloom’s most important role plays out in the vast back room full of clothes racks and volunteer stylists working their magic.  In downtown San Rafael, CA, Bloom's back room is a treasure trove of contemporary fashion. Here stylists help clients choose just the right stuff. “Clients get an hour and a half with a personal stylist to help them curate a wardrobe,” explains Tuyen (it’s pronounced “Twin”) Fiack, who oversees the program. She’s the chief program officer of economic opportunity and social justice for our YWCA, which worked closely with Bloom for decades and then acquired it in 2022 to keep it on a more sound financial footing. Tuyen explained, “We always ask, ‘What is the purpose of the clothes? Is it for school? Is it for work? What kind of work do you do? What’s your style? Classic? Chic? Bohemian?’ And then the stylist will pick and choose, provide options, and provide some training in terms of how you mix and match, and other styling tips.” Boy, could I have used that kind of help when I started my first office job! Bloom now has between fifty and sixty volunteers who outfit a thousand people every year, including women and men seeking work and lots of kids who don't have sufficient clothing for school.  Tuyen added, “This one young woman came in, and one of our amazing stylists helped her, as always offering choices: ‘Do you like this? And this?’ And because she was coming from a domestic violence situation, for her it was the first time she actually got to choose what she would be wearing.” My heart went out to that young woman. And I felt a rush of gratitude to Barbara Lee and all volunteers everywhere, working quietly behind the scenes to provide fresh resources and opportunities when they’re needed most. Active compassion builds resilient communities, the kind that are strong enough to sustain us through good times and bad. It reminds us how connected we really are. “Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy,” says consultant Dr. Syed Almashhadi. “You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in.” Do I want to live in the kind of community where people wear huge, flamboyant hats? Luckily for me, this craze hasn't caught on in California or Seville. Yet. If it ever does, I'm counting on Bloom as my resource.  Stilton cheese, book club favorites, and teatime themed hats at Ascot Racecourse in England. FINDING HOPE This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Warning! Reading often leads to thinking. Conversation about reading often leads to action. They say you never forget your first time. I was a newlywed, newly arrived in Ohio, and felt enormously flattered when a kind acquaintance invited me to join a prestigious book club that had been meeting for more than a century. That month’s selection was Madame Bovary, in which a bored 19th century housewife has affairs with inappropriate men then makes a series of ever more staggeringly selfish and brainless decisions that destroy her family and the lives of others. Not, in my view, a very sympathetic character.  Some book clubs use prompts like this card. As you have probably already guessed, Madame Bovary is not on my short list. Re-reading the book before the meeting, I disliked the protagonist more than ever. Luckily my second-hand paperback edition included an introduction by a literary luminary, so I memorized a few phrases to toss around in case I needed to say something nice about the book. And sure enough, minutes after I walked through the door, a man in a blazer — was he actually wearing an ascot? Hard to remember now — asked what I loved most about Madame Bovary. “Flaubert's prose style,” I said. “And how it redefined the novel as an art form.” He looked down his nose at me, as if that the most idiotic remark he’d ever heard, and drifted away. Since that epic fail, I’ve found plenty of book clubs that were tremendous fun, a source of lasting friendships, and a wellspring of exciting ideas. It’s easy to see why people have enjoyed forming reading circles since Socrates and his pals first sat down to discuss the The Illiad in 450 BC. It’s no surprise America now has 13 million book clubs.  What’s trending? Themed gatherings such as the Wine Down Drink Up book club in San Francisco (note to self: give that one a try soon!), the online sci-fi Book Club at the End of the Universe, the Cozy Mystery Book Club for amateur sleuths, New York’s American LGBTQ+ Museum's Lavender Literary Society, and the Green Ideas Book Club for fans of climate-theme fiction (aka “cli-fi”). For introverts, there’s the Silent Book Club; you choose your own book and “gather to read together in quiet camaraderie.” At the end of the hour, you may exchange few gentle remarks … or not. No pressure. My latest literary adventure is Outlaw Bookworms; we read and discuss banned books. Each month's selection has managed to annoy self-appointed censors in schools and the court of public prejudice.  Why were our picks banned? To Kill a Mockingbird’s frankness about race relations in the 1930s “makes people uncomfortable.” The Great Gatsby refers to (gasp!) adultery. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime includes irreverent remarks about religious organizations. This month’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower shows teens engaging in sex, drugs, and same-gender romantic relationships (which obviously never happen in real life, so why would kids need to know how to navigate this stuff?). “Banning books,” said Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.”  Katie (left) and Rachel, founders of Outlaw Bookworms Outlaw Bookworms was launched this spring when long-time friends Rachel and Katie grew alarmed about the rise in censorship. “There's been an exponential increase in the number of books that are being banned,” said Katie, a former middle school English teacher, now a full-time writer. “And not only in schools, but in places for adults, like the Naval Academy… I personally am uncomfortable having one group in our society, whether that's a government or a religious group, dictating what they deem is appropriate for the rest of the public.” For Rachel, a nanny and pet minder, access to books is a very personal issue. “I love reading. I always had to do a lot of reading because I'm dyslexic. And I have dysgraphia [a neurological disorder that makes it physically difficult to write coherently]. I love books. They've saved me at every point in my life. Like, if I was feeling really political, I could find something that mirrored that in a book. Or if I was feeling desperately sad from a breakup, I could find that. Recently I was feeling really overwhelmed, like the rest of the country, and really dark. And so I wanted something that would bring community in.”  Our banned book club meets monthly at Rebound Bookstore. In April, Outlaw Bookworms began meeting in Rebound Bookstore, a cozy second-hand bookshop in nearby San Rafael. “It’s just so warm being literally surrounded by great books,” said Katie. “Here we’ve found connection, purpose, fun, and joy.” Finding a connection with congenial souls is not only enjoyable, it can literally save our lives. “Loneliness,” warned former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, “is far more than just a bad feeling — it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.” Yikes!  Human connection heals, sustains, and energizes us, inspiring us to engage in the world in new ways with newfound friends. Katie and Rachel have joined me on the Marin Banned Books Week Committee, and together we work to support other causes as well. These kinds of community connections are surprisingly powerful; they form the cornerstone of civil resistance, which has successfully toppled authoritarian regimes all over the world. Just ask Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who did the landmark research. “I collected data on all major non-violent and violent campaigns for the overthrow of a government or territorial liberation since 1900,” she said. “The results blew me away. From 1900 to 2006, nonviolent campaigns worldwide were twice as likely to succeed outright as violent insurgencies.”  Erica Chenoweth on civil resistance One reason civil resistance works is that unlike a violent uprising, it engages people from across the social spectrum: students, grandmothers, veterans, LGBTQ+ activists, knitting collectives, pickleball teams, street artists, everyone. And the really stunning part? You only need to rally 3.5% of the population to make change happen. That’s slightly less than the number of Americans who believe lizard-people from outer space have taken over our government. (Yes, I realize that would explain a lot, but let it go, people! It’s genuine fake news!)  A question that a lot of us are asking right now... Why just 3.5%? “No regime loyalists in any country live entirely isolated from the population itself,” Erica explained. “They have friends, they have family, and they have existing relationships that they have to live with in the long term, regardless of whether the leader stays or goes. In the Serbian case, once it became clear that hundreds of thousands of Serbs were descending on Belgrade to demand that Milosevic leave office, policemen ignored the order to shoot on demonstrators. When asked why he did so, one of them said: ‘I knew my kids were in the crowd.’” I get why some people are afraid of books like Erica Chenoweth’s Why Civil Resistance Works. They open our minds to new possibilities, encourage us to take risks, offer hope in place of fear. Which is exactly why they matter. And why the conversations that start in our book clubs can inspire us to find ways to reshape our lives — and our collective future.  “If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of Revolution, when the old and new stand side by side?" asked Ralph Waldo Emerson. "This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” FINDING HOPE This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Josh Duff and the 1500 bikers who escorted him to his prom. Photo: SWNS It’s never easy being different, especially in high school. Just ask the much-bullied Josh Duff, a neurodivergent free-thinker who was dreading his upcoming prom, which he planned to attend alone, in an outfit sewn by his mom. Then his dad reached out to some pals he rode motorcycles with, and the response was astonishing. On prom night, 1500 bikers showed up to escort young Josh to the dance; it was the social highlight of the year, possibly the century, in the town of Swindon, UK. “It’s insane, I’m still in shock,” a grinning Josh told reporters. “I used to say I felt alone, but I don’t feel that way anymore.” Thanks to his new friends and his moment in the spotlight, Josh isn’t too worried now about being mistreated by teen bullies.  This 1983 poster was enormously popular back in the day, especially with people who were tired of being picked on. It was cooperation that enabled our relatively small, weak, inadequately clawed and fanged species to survive for the last 300,000 years and eventually dominate the planet. Communal effort is in our DNA. Look at Amish barn raisings. Dunkirk. The Baltic States’ 1989 Singing Revolution. Not familiar with that one? It started with singing forbidden national songs and led to two million people — one quarter of the populations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — joining hands in a 420-mile human chain of protest spanning all three countries. What did it accomplish? It helped topple the USSR. Now, during equally tumultuous times in our own nation, people keep asking me what we can do to keep hope alive and stand up against bullying and brutality. Until somebody organizes a 3000-mile coast-to-coast human chain of protest — and if that happens I will be the first to sign up! — we can start by looking at more modest opportunities closer to home. Think the little stuff doesn’t matter? It turns out that moral activism — small, unglamorous, everyday good deeds — lays the necessary groundwork for widespread cooperation that leads to massive change. Luckily, opportunities for doing good deeds are lurking all around us, just waiting for us to notice and embrace them. I’ve been writing about them for months, from helping immigrant families to training guide dogs for the blind to finding words of comfort on the darkest days. And national sites such as Volunteer Match can put us in touch with thousands more, from school cafeterias to disaster relief centers.  For me, it often starts with whatever headline is making me craziest at the moment. Right now I’m reeling from the announcement that the federal government has cut a billion dollars in funding for school lunches, meals in childcare centers, and food banks that supplement the diets of the working poor, seniors on fixed incomes, and the destitute. With all the other federal funding that’s drying up, it’s unlikely states will be able to make up the shortfall. Feeling that I needed to offset that disturbing news with a feel-good moment among everyday heroes, on Thursday I went to Marin Community Clinics, the free medical center in nearby Novato, during their weekly grocery giveaway.  Volunteers organize bulk food into family-sized boxes and bags at Marin Community Clinic in Novato, CA. A long line of tables was set up under tents outside the clinic doors. Volunteers were rushing about, re-organizing bulk food into family-sized boxes and bags, making sure each one contained fruit, vegetables, protein (such as fresh eggs or canned tuna), a bag of popcorn for fun, and recipes developed by clinic nutritionists for combining that week’s ingredients into wholesome meals. After an hour of furious activity, the boxes and bags were lined up, ready to distribute, and the walk-up and drive-through lines opened. “Each family gets about $100 to $150 worth of food,” explained Biby, who organizes three weekly food distributions at the free clinics in Novato and San Rafael. “Hold on just a minute—” And she was gone, sorting out some urgent paperwork. Moments later she was back, bringing with her a kind-eyed, mustachioed gentleman. “Let me introduce you to Misael, one of the three staff members including me. Volunteers? We have about 30 here in Novato. The families? There are about 300 each week. They don’t have work, or they are working but it’s not enough, and they need food.”  Misael and Biby, staff members who organize the volunteers and oversee the food distribution As I wandered around, trying not to impede the rapid deployment of carrots and potatoes, I bumped into Lisa, a volunteer I’d worked with at the San Rafael food distribution center. “Biby and Misael are wonderful,” she told me. “And it feels great to be part of this community. I’ve made a wonderful group of friends here. We get different people that come in here for community service work, that come and go, but we have our stable group of people. They can count on us, each week, rain or shine; we’ve been out here when the tents are tipping over. You feel like you’re giving back. And that makes me personally feel good.”  Lisa distributes celery to each family's grocery bag. A lot of people call this kind of giving back “paying it forward,” spreading good karma around, helping create the kind of world that we can count on to step up for us if we’re ever the ones in need. Because let’s face it, between government cuts, rising prices, robots eyeballing all our jobs, and the chaotic global economy, who isn’t a pink slip away from needing free groceries or some other assistance from the Universe? “The most important thing I can add from my own observations is this,” wrote Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward, the novel in which a young boy’s Pay It Forward school project became a life-changing movement. “Knowing it started from unremarkable circumstances should be a comfort to us all. Because it proves that you don’t need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you’ve got.”  Each of those 1500 bikers did a single, small favor for one teenage boy and changed his entire world. Josh has now successfully finished his exams and wants to become a pediatric therapist, so he can help other neurodivergent kids navigate their future more successfully. Perhaps in doing so he’ll help more neurotypicals appreciate how much we need people around who don’t think precisely the way we do. “What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool?” asked scientist and autism spokesperson Dr. Temple Grandin. “You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.” I’m not sure I agree 100% — I suspect sooner or later somebody would have experimented with fire’s interesting possibilities, invented the wheel, and launched the whole mad enterprise of human civilization. But she has a point. Survival has always been a communal endeavor, requiring all of us to pitch in with whatever ideas we’ve got, however oddball they may seem. “Celebrate weirdness and innovation,” said Anthony Bourdain. “Oddballs should be cherished.” And not just on prom night, but every single day of the year.  Cue music: Born to be Wild FINDING HOPE This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase a signed paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it.  Words of resilience in Santa Rosa, CA following the devastating 2017 Tubbs Fire. “One day when Troy was four and Scott was two,” my friend Ginnie said during a Sunday picnic, “Scott came running in, tears pouring out of his little eyes, with a big red bite mark on his cheek. ‘What happened?’ I asked. Troy came in after him and said, ‘Scott bit himself!’ I said, ‘Oh, really? How did he do that? It would be kind of tough to reach that spot on his own face.’ And Troy said, ‘He stood on a chair.’” As a great gust of laughter rose from the picnic table, Ginnie added, “And yes, Troy grew up to become a lawyer.” The stories we tell give shape and meaning to our lives, which is why we take such pleasure in offering them to the world. As Groucho Marx put it, “If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.”  Right now, I need to hear stories confirming that, as Sam says in Lord of the Rings, “There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” That’s why, a few Fridays ago, Rich and I took the train north to Santa Rosa, booked a room in our favorite haunted hotel, and went to hear one of America’s most warm-hearted poets, James Crews. The (allegedly) haunted Hotel La Rose hasn’t changed much since 1907. Or my last visit. As usual, I didn’t sense the ghost boy in the elevator, see the white lady walk through walls, or hear the shrieks of the family who met a grisly end in Room 42. One weird thing: every time I straightened the old portrait on my bedroom wall I’d find it askew again. Supernatural forces or wonky hanging wire? You be the judge. The poetry reading was every bit as comforting as I’d hoped. “Even if no one ever touched you with the tenderness you needed,” James read from his poem The World Loves You Back, “believe that the world has been holding you in its arms since the day you were born.” James and his husband, farmer-poet Brad Peacock, had just published an anthology called Love Is for All of Us. They hadn’t met all of the 100+ contributors face to face and seemed delighted when one showed up unexpectedly at the reading, saying, ‘Hi, I’m page 33!” It didn’t take much to persuade page 33 (aka MJ Arcangelini) to do an impromptu reading.  Brad, James, and MJ at Copperfield's Books in Santa Rosa In Goodbye Kiss, MJ writes, his lover Planted a kiss on my mouth He didn’t care who saw us He was acting in the world He wants to be living in Not the world where that Might have been a Dangerous thing to do… Two old men in love Saying goodbye in A small airport lobby As if there were No one else around.  As the Bard says, "Parting is such sweet sorrow." Brad talked about how proud he’d been to serve as a soldier like the grandfather he’d idolized. And how shattered and shamed he felt when the Air Force learned he was gay and kicked him out for what they labeled an “antisocial personality disorder.” It took him decades to rebuild his life around love and purpose. Now he is once again being defined as an enemy of the state. “At a time when books are being banned simply for their content, without any regard for context,” James wrote in the book’s introduction, “when LGBTQIA+ people are being attacked and ridiculed, with laws placed on our bodies and our right to exist out in the open, we see this book as an antidoted to prejudice. We believe these poems are the exact medicine we need to help us love each other, ourselves, and the world more fully, remembering that no matter who we are, and no matter our situation, we deserve the everyday wonders life offers us.”  Poet Kai Coggin called the book “a declaration of unwavering truth. Within these pages we are safe. We are held. We are loved.” And that is the wonder of words; even when the world isn’t safe or sane, our narratives can create comfort, inspire us to act in hope, and provide a refuge from the firestorm raging around us. In that Santa Rosa bookstore, I realized I was sitting among many who had literally survived a firestorm: the Tubbs Fire of 2017. Sparked by a faulty electrical system on rural Tubbs Lane, sped by winds up to 60 miles an hour, fed by drought-parched land and 5643 buildings, it killed 22 people and ate up 36,807 acres in a three-week rampage. Officials could have sent out an emergency alert to every cellphone in the area but they feared (with good reason) that the entire population would jump in their cars and flee, hampering emergency response efforts. Instead they sent out targeted alerts. Not everyone got the message. “We had no idea how close the fire was,” one resident told Rich. “In the middle of the night my dog’s growling woke me. I got up, looked out the window, and saw my garage was on fire. I woke my wife, grabbed the kids, and we ran outside. Ten minutes later the entire house was gone.” And speaking of first-responder canines, I have written before about the heroic Odin. Like Groucho, I can't resist telling such a good story again.  The Great Pyrenees Odin, who wouldn't leave his goats “Despite the sounds of exploding propane tanks, twisting metal, and the hot swirling winds, Odin refused to leave our family of eight bottle-fed rescue goats,” said Roland Hendel. “He was determined to stay with the goats and I had to let him do it ... I was sure I had sentenced them to a horrific and agonizing death.” Incredibly, all the animals survived. Oden emerged with a singed coat, melted whiskers, and a limp, but he’d remained steadfast, protecting the goats and a few terrified baby deer who joined the little flock. As you can imagine, the community's recovery was long, expensive, and filled with plenty of free and frank discussion about who was at fault and how rebuilding should proceed. Everyone was shell-shocked, especially the children. Teacher Tracy Henry saw a sharp spike in misbehavior among her third-grade students, half of whom had lost their homes to the fire. Her solution? Put them to work writing poetry.  Thanks to the non-profit California Poets in the Schools, poet Margo Perin taught Tracy's third-graders how to get started. “From now on,” wrote eight-year-old Delia Stone, “never give up and never be mean. But when some things are tough, be kind and enjoy the sunlight.” Right now the world feels as preposterous as Troy’s childhood excuses. Men who look like Bond villains insist they have the right to tell us who we may love. To punish us for believing the Constitution’s promise that we could live forever in the country of our birth. To mock us for biting our own cheeks by standing on a chair. But Delia’s right; when things are tough, be kind and enjoy the sunlight. “Life is much wilder, more complex, heartbreaking, weirder, richer, more insane, awful, beautiful and profound than we were prepared for as children,” wrote author Anne Lamott. “The paradox is that in the face of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of taking in beauty, in actively being people of goodness and mercy, we are saved.”  Can one person make a difference? Ask 76-year-old Peter Lang, who grabbed a garden hose and spent all night, alone, fighting the Tubbs Fire as it approached his Safari West Wildlife Preserve. Not one of his 1000 creatures perished. FINDING HOPE This story is part of my series of blog posts exploring ways we help each other find hope in this worrying world. Know someone you think should be featured? Tell me more in the comments section below. See all the posts in this series. DON'T MISS OUT! If you haven't already, take a moment to subscribe so I can let you know when I publish my weekly posts. Just send me an email and I'll take it from there. [email protected] SUBSCRIBED BUT NOT GETTING POST ANNOUNCEMENTS? Check your spam folder. Internet security is in a frenzy these days. If you still can't find it, please let me know. FOR FURTHER READING My bestselling travel memoirs & guides Cozy Places to Eat in Seville My new book: My San Francisco If you haven't read My San Francisco yet, you can order it HERE. You can purchase the paperback edition, in person or online, at Rebound Bookstore in San Rafael, CA Already read this book? I invite you to leave a review HERE. GOING SOMEWHERE? Enter any destination or topic, such as packing light or road food, in the search box below. If I've written about it, you'll find it. |
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I'm an American travel writer dividing my time between California and Seville, Spain. I travel the world seeking intriguing people, quirky places, and outrageously delicious food so I can have the fun of writing about them here.
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