Dear John,

I haven’t sent much out lately. I’ve been a little bit “head down, keep going” because I will admit I have been struggling. It’s exacerbated by the herniated disk in my neck (C7 for the disk affected among us; we all seem to love to compare the specific source of our havoc). With said herniated disk, I have continued to canvass and recently traveled to Sacramento for Sierra Day at the Capitol and Tahoe for California Jobs First. Not smart.

So why am I sharing this tale of woe? Not for pity! I am sharing this to make my appeal stronger, because one of the organizations that I think is making a huge difference in elections by lifting up much needed voices, Vote Mama https://www.votemamapac.org, is having an event in LA next weekend and I can’t come. (I have to stop driving all over the place for 5 hours at a time.) I LOVE Vote Mama and want their fundraiser to be successful. Can you please help? If everyone who is able to do so helps this time... many donations make bigger totals. Here is the link:

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/votemama-cb

Also while I have you: When you live in the Sierra, you think about the climate crisis all the time. Things like, "Oh wow, will all the snow cause the brush to grow and will this wildfire season be terrible? Can I make plans in September or will our air be like this?" 

Luckily, today I was listening to Rebecca Solnit’s excellent essay, “Difficult Is Not the Same as Impossible,” in the hopeful anthology, Not Too Late. And she said the exact thing I needed to hear to break me out of my doldrums and send this letter: “Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency… Hope means we must act without knowing the outcome of those actions.” She really got me when she quoted Vaclav Havel. “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something is worth doing, no matter how it turns out.” Get this book. It won’t freak you out. It is totally empowering.

How does this tie together, you ask? I am glad you did! Because if we want urgent climate action, we need to ELECT MORE MOMS TO OFFICE. There is no one more likely to break down doors than mothers who are trying to save their children from the terrifying but not inevitable climate catastrophe. So grab some hope and let's keep going.

Please click here before you go back to what you were doing.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/votemama-cb

With hope and gratitude,

Chris