Spring Break

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Early Spring is my favorite time of year. (Although, I said the same thing about the Winter Solstice!)

The late February sun is giving me life. (And, in last week’s chat, a lot of you seem to be feeling the same way.) There is something irreplaceable about seeing the thick blanket of a winter’s worth of snow and ice finally melt away, and the green shoots underneath already coming up ready for another vibrant explosion of growth and activity and celebration.

This week, my oldest kid Roscoe and I got to take our first bike ride of the year. Here he is in front of my favorite tree in our neighborhood:

This winter, he learned to read. It’s been a breathtaking process for me, watching someone’s entire frame of reference to the world around them change. Watching him learn, on his own, in a new way.

The other thing that’s giving me life is: We’re moving houses, from St. Paul to Minneapolis. It’s a brave step for my family, and it’s going to take a few weeks of constant effort to make it happen. So I’ll probably be slowing down my post frequency at The Phoenix to just once or twice a week or so until May.

I’m conflicted, because there is *so* much going on in the world right now that’s worthy of being shared and supported, and there are several amazing writers from all over the world that I’ve already commissioned to tell important stories in The Phoenix.

Those stories will be told. Your paid subscriptions go directly to supporting writers like Armol Irfan, whose interview with Pakistani ecofeminist Noor Ul Huda Daudpota we published last week.

I’ll keep building The Phoenix to be a home for voices calling for revolutionary change in big and small ways, people like you and me who are eager for a better world we are all worthy of.

Also… here’s a turnip in my garden that’s already started growing again, even though the ground is still frozen. It’s so eager!

In all of this warmth and promise, I *know* it’s only the first week of March. I *know* it’s going to snow again. The Twin Cities, on average, gets a foot of snow and seven snow days *each year* after March 1st. I know that this week’s unusual warmth is fueled in part by centuries worth of extractive capitalism. But in that cognitive dissonance between today’s weather and the date on the calendar and the lengthening daylight lies a promise for the deep, transformational change of spring and summer.

This time of year feels uneasy and exciting because the potential before us is enormous. There is so much joy ahead, and so much work ahead too. But as climate revolutionaries we find joy in the work. The journey toward a better future for everyone is built a day at a time.

Thanks for joining me on this journey, everyone. We’re doing all this together.

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