Good rainy Sunday night to you, Reader.  I hope you’ve been well.  This week found me teaching long days of rock music to kids up in Madison, Wisconsin.  I absolutely love the community up there, as well as the teaching program itself.  Enthusiasm and encouragement abound.  Also, the staff knows just what to do if you go into pre-term labor… 

That’s right. Friday morning it began: full swing Braxton Hicks contractions, nausea, fever—the works.  Doctors say this still isn’t ‘real’ labor, but sufficed to say, I’ll be laying low from now until this baby comes. Which could be tomorrow, or a few weeks from now. 

So during these past two days of downtime, I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of world my baby will know.  In light of this week’s events, it dawns on me that the world my child knows will be one where all people will have the right to marry who they love.  They’ll live in a world where cowardly acts of racial violence will be fought with acts of bravery that range from peace protests and potent songwriting (thankyouPeterMulvey) to actual scaling of poles to remove racist, antiquated flags (thankyouBreeNewsome).  

There are so many times that I’ve been saddened by humanity, but this week is not one of those times. 

I’m so grateful to be living right now.  Generally, I’m a good-ol-days type of girl, forever longing for things to be “the way they used to be.”  But lately, I just can’t get enough of right now.  So many good things are happening, and I know there is so much more good change to come.  

While I’m sure that some of this optimism has been brought to you by hormones, I like to think that at least part of it reflects legit feelings.  Things are looking up, Reader, and I’m happy tonight.  I hope wherever you are, you are happy too. -Em