I was going to write a blog about It. Then I read a piece by Atwood, and I didn’t have anything else to say. She said it all, more eloquent than anything I could craft.

Fears about It lurk in my dreams and during my awakening.

Heightened as I think about our children. Earth as we have known it: winter snow in the Willamette Valley and Cascades, mostly smokeless summer skies. 

Oceans estuaries mountains forests grasslands deserts. 

Now heat and fires and blizzards and drought, and plants and animals predicted to die.

Abundant ignorance pushes back.

Psychologists identify a new condition to treat as if to help address this newest trauma, related to It.

I worry.

For our kids and their kids, alpine amphibians and salmon….and, people with so much less.

What do I do?

I worry. I grieve in isolation. I ride the bus and walk and cycle and reduce my carbon footprint and buy less and donate and turn my heat down and support science and vote.  

Fear hides behind my eyelids, pushed away, almost ignored when consumed by day-to-day responsibilities.

What does this mean for our kids, their kids and the alpine amphibians?

I’ve never liked sci fi. Soylent Green interrupted my sleep with nightmares. My brain can’t distinguish between sci fi and reality. 

Of the ten things advised to address It, one is to make it real in conversation. To share your story with people, friends, family, strangers. 

When we talk, It becomes real. 

Which It is. 

I talk about It now, most reluctantly with my adult kids. For – is it I feel responsible? All that we haven’t done. How powerless we remain against lies and oil and money? 

No more politics. Truth. 

Talk about more than riding the bus and cycling and buying less and turning down the heat and supporting science and voting. Talk about truth and money and oil and lies, and what it will take to create change. 

We must do more. Together. Now. Even when the Deniers interrupt and the Fearful hide. 

For our kids, their kids, alpine amphibians, and all living things. 

Let’s talk. And insist on doing.