updated, new version, of new column:

"Hatchets, Buckshot, Rifles, Earthquakes, and Death
and/or
How the Orchid Blooms Still Beautiful"

For a short month, February sure turned out to be quite a sad and, rather, violent one.

The month started with news that we had lost Coretta Scott King, lost the fight to stop Alito, and a guy in Massachusetts had entered a Gay bar wielding a hatchet. As the month went on, the War in Iraq continued to get worse and worse with more dead bodies daily. Our government’s use of torture upon detainees further came to light (although continually repressed by our media, the Administration, and our own communal consciousness). We witnessed the term ‘buckshot’ become part of the current lexicon as Republicans shooting at quail took on a whole new meaning. And we ended the month with Republican Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia blithely retorting, "I used to travel on the subway from Queens to Manhattan with a rifle."

Thinking of all these things makes me wonder how we keep on keepin’ on. Sometimes it all seems so hard. Not only are there losses in life—friends, family members, community members, pets, loved ones, dreams—every single day, but there is also so much to fear and dread in our culture. Our society and our government, at least on a national level, just seem to be falling further and further downward in a spiral of destruction. And bad guys with hatchets, buckshot, and rifles seem to show up all the time just to remind us of all the negativity and violence in the world.

Further, it’s not just our society, but also just the randomness of life that weighs on us. Our nation is still reeling from the devastation to our Gulf Coast after the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Regardless of the disastrous and shameful lack of response by our federal government, the fact is that nature can also be supremely violent and cruel. We know this very well here in California where we are always under the possible threat of an earthquake or other disaster. In fact, we are about to recognize the 100th anniversary of the 1906 earthquake that forever changed our city.

However, as much as my words here may be about negativity and violence and loss, they are also about their opposite. During this month I experienced two local events of note. In attending the Pacific Orchid Festival at Fort Mason, I saw hundreds of thousands of orchids from throughout the world. They reminded me that even the most fragile still can flourish, and perhaps it’s not such a heartless world after all. And while their beauty may be brief, it is still beautiful nonetheless.

I also went to see the SFMOMA exhibit, “1906 Earthquake: A Disaster in Pictures.” As I stared into the photos of the earthquake’s aftermath, I saw life amongst the ruins. I saw people continuing on. I saw people looking forward and finding their futures. There was even a photo of people making fun of their predicament.

This is not to say that we should make light of any of these difficult situations in life. The violence and negativity are real and dangerous. But we do not need to live our lives in fear or anger or sadness. For we will always have the ability to find hope in the margins, bloom within the cracks, prepare ourselves for the worst, and dream of the better.

In many ways, we are dreaming now, of a life where discrimination and homelessness and crime and poverty and loneliness and depression and all these things are no longer real. And so we continue on despite all of these things in our lives. It is in the continuing on, the keepin’ on keepin’ on, the blooming and flourishing despite the cold hard world, where we find our reality, see beauty, and make our futures. The future is forever. And so are our hopes, our survival, and our love.