I think being in nature allows me a kind of freedom that I don't get around other people
very often. When I'm out in nature there's no expectations. The trees don't care what
I'm wearing. The trees see me for who I am. Yes, it's a very freeing and grounding experience
to just be able to be exactly who I am without any expectations or limitations and just to
exist in my body and feel good about it. Do you want to come up now? I think this place holds
a lot of history both for me and for the town that I grew up in. It's a place that I came a lot
as a kid. This was the place that I had my first experiences with being in woods. I would come
up here when I was upset or afraid or just needed a place to think. So this has always been a place
that I could find some peace and calm and grounding. Yeah, well it's been cold so not as much but
yeah I've definitely been feeling the need to reconnect to things in the past couple of months.
So being outside helps with that, being around people who I love, who love me, help with that.
I guess I think that a lot of the...
I think that Donald Trump wants me to feel afraid and so I'm doing everything that I can not to feel
afraid. I think he wants me to feel helpless and hopeless and I don't. I believe that there is still
good in the world and I believe that there are people doing good in the world because I've seen
them doing it. So I've been focusing my attention and focusing my efforts on informing myself,
finding ways to be hopeful, keeping myself informed not just on what the executive orders mean but
also how we're going to stop them. When your government doesn't want you to exist it is scary
and it is a heavy burden but my government has never been the one to decide whether or not I
exist. That's between me and the universe and me and the universe are 100% sure that I exist exactly
as I am. Donald Trump doesn't get a say in that. So yeah I am still, I am still disheartened by
the cruelty and always will be but I am not made hopeless or helpless by it.
I find power and hope in my community. I've seen the way that people have immediately started
organizing to sue the government and fight for the rights of trans people and trans kids especially.
I've seen the ways that we come together to educate ourselves. Working in the library I've seen people
checking out books on kindness and empathy for children and checking out books about fascism
and how to defeat a fascist government for adults. People are informing themselves and my community
is coming together and that gives me a lot of hope.
Well my uh my honest response is that that that petty bitch doesn't get to tell me who I am
but I could also say that I don't need the government to recognize my gender.
They should because it's real and it's going to make it a hell of a lot harder for me if they don't.
But my identity is my business.
Donald Trump doesn't doesn't know what he's talking about. He doesn't.
I know middle schoolers with a better idea of sex and gender than he seems to hold.
A more complete and scientifically sound understanding.
So I don't, I don't, I don't put much value in what he says about about how many genders or
sexes there are.
Um I, I'm on a mission to see all 50 state parks.
Okay there's 52 on my list. So um I've got plans to check a couple more off my list,
do some more hiking, spend more time with my dog. I've got a pile of art supplies that are just
waiting for some inspiration. So I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah, good things coming.
I don't think so.