Learning from the Ladies in a Polar Vortex
What it takes to be a badass grandma in a rural town in Vermont
In a moment of heated disbelief, I learned we are the land of the free and the home of the brave, but apparently not the cozy and warm. Our country has become so profit obsessed that we've forgotten about the well-being of our citizens, especially our elders.
Recently, I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with some of the great ladies of Singing Bridge. These wise resilient women, or as Martha Nussbaum describes “storehouses of wisdom”, I hope to interview here soon. I will keep the identities confidential until they want to go public, but I have learned that despite working respectable jobs their whole life, that they now are forced to live on less than $17k per year and their food stamp rations are about to be reduced from $104 to $42 with the new spending cuts. Last week at the Plainfield food Co-op one woman was in front of me and I heard her tell the cashier to put $100 from her account on the account of another family in need — truly remarkable generosity taking place behind the scenes.
These heroic grassroots acts are often overlooked and like mothering and grand-mothering have yet to be valued by our society. What is so extraordinary and has resilience lessons for us all is how they come together to pool their resources and still manage to create joy for our community. These women are living in their original drafty homes with crazy heating and electric bills and they still manage to decorate them during the Holidays bringing cheer to those who pass through town. The new IRA bill should have money to help retrofit and electrify their homes, but so far we have seen very little action to help them. What kind of “civilized society” lets its elderly freeze in their own homes during a polar vortex? This is not the America I know and love.
Seriously, our seniors deserve our attention. We need to come together and find real solutions to help the people who deserve help in our own communities. We can learn a lot from the great ladies of Singing Bridge. They are showing us how to be resilient, what it means to be a truly brave society, how to share our toys and take care of each other.
If we do not exist to take care of one, another, why on earth do we exist?