First-ever post on my first-ever blog

With the election of Donald J. Trump to the U.S. Presidency, I'm feeling a lot of personal firsts coming on.  Some of them have already happened, as on the evening of November 8, when I'd pored over my New York Times app for long enough to know that it was all crashing down around us, and deliberately dropped the F-bomb in front of my child.  (I'm not saying I've never cussed in front of Zac; I'm just saying that this time I did it loudly, unabashedly, and just two feet away from his ears.)  Another first that already happened was that I created an event on Facebook, a human right's march to be held in my small town on January 21 in solidarity with the Women's March on Washington.  

Then there's this, my first-ever post on my first-ever blog.  The blog is the second half of a two-part idea.  The overall theme of the idea is "Save the world from Donald Trump!"  The first part of the idea is to commit myself to doing some action in this regard each week for the first year of Trump's presidency.  The actions can be big or small.  I like to think that in my most ambitious weeks I'll be chaining myself to giant sequoias or going to jail for justice--but I recognize that even if I don't wax quite that ballsy, and instead perform dozens of quiet, unsexy tasks like phoning my members of Congress or attending services at a mosque, that will still count for something.

Put more seriously, what I intend to do is be one of many foot soldiers fighting for the communities, concepts, and systems most in need of our protection during the impending Trump years.  I will fight for our minority, LGBT, immigrant, and Muslim-American communities--for their right to equality, physical safety, compassion and understanding.  I will fight for human rights whenever I see them disregarded or downplayed.  I will fight for a healthy environment--for maintaining and restoring natural ecosystems, for protecting our wilderness areas, for keeping our public lands in public hands, for acknowledging our role in climate change and taking steps to slow it.  I will fight for democracy, and I will fight for peace.

The second part of the idea is to be accountable for what I'm setting out to do, and if at all possible, to inspire others to take their own weekly actions.  Enter the blog.  I'm frankly a bit of a Luddite, and I really haven't spent any time in the blog world, other than unwittingly, as a result of how-to Google searches and recipe queries.  So this is all new to me.  But I felt it was the best way to address the second part of the idea.  Otherwise, the "accountability" bit would have to be fielded by one of my girlfriends--for 52 weeks, poor thing!--while the "inspiring others" part would probably be attempted on Facebook, and would serve only to get me unfriended by all of my cousins.

But what's with the beads?  The beads are the visual aid to the idea, a way to make it tangible and measurable.  In the next few days I'll buy myself a whole bunch of beads of every color and personality, and a length of chain or twine to put them on.  Each week as I complete an action, I'll string a bead.  By January 20, 2018, depending on the size of the beads, I'll have either a bracelet or a necklace to wear or give away.

I came up with the idea of 52 Beads about two weeks after the election, after having passed through successive clouds of disbelief, apathy, sick amusement, and delusional optimism (the latter referring to the two- or three-day period in which I believed that Trump might not turn out to be as bad as we feared, ending with his appointment of Stephen Bannon as chief strategist).  It's been a focal point for me since then, something to plug my energy and belief into, in lieu of moving to Canada.  It's why I was able to wholeheartedly welcome the New Year.  Although the 52 Beads mission--"Save the world from Donald Trump!"-- is idealistic, to say the least, I feel confident I've graduated from delusional optimism because all I'm purporting to do here is my own part.  I will take my own small actions for peace, justice, and ecological integrity, week by week.  I will string my beads.  At the same time, I will contribute to a movement of many, many others opposed to Trump's hateful, regressive agenda.  And with any luck, the beads will flow, the movement will grow, and we will eventually find our way out of this mess.  

A final note:  I have some ideas for actions, but I need a lot more.  Please help me out by posting the actions you're taking, actions you've heard of, helpful links, etc.  I'd love to see this, my first-ever blog, become a gathering place for people trying to make a difference.