“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” Maya Angelou

My latest manuscript spans over 100 years of Greek history starting with the end of WWI, through to what the Greeks call the catastrophe, all the way to present day. Greece has in this period (not to mention the period long before this) experienced a great deal of extremes. It is unbelievable to me how nations forget their histories and resort to populism as so many countries including Greece are doing right now.

But in a time of despair, people forget their history and their values and are too eager to blame others and look for easy, quick solutions. The governments they elect mirror, and capitalize on, what they are experiencing. And there is always the group of people who feel marginalized and who, when they find a voice that speaks to them, will rise.

I think of the person (I have so many choice words for that man, but at the moment, I think it best to remain polite) in charge in the United States at the moment. That man is frightening on so many levels. Here’s just one example: in court documents that were released this week about the shooter who went on a rampage in a mosque in Quebec last year, the accused said he was motivated by the words of Mr. Trump and David Duke (the American white supremacist leader). Further, the accused was worried because our own Prime Minister had increased the number of refugees Canada was accepting. It’s unbelievable to me that this young man (and he looks like a boy, anyone’s son) could be steered this way by the rhetoric of some misinformed, misguided and let me just say it, racist leaders of another country. They are the ones who fuel this sort of action and disaster.  

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I want to say that despite my fears, I’m a hopeful person. My husband says I’m naïve.

Here is an article I read yesterday about Greece that reminds me again and again of the goodness of humanity and of Greek hospitality: Lesbos, big enough for two. And another one I read in the Ekathimerini: Community Good Deeds in the streets of Athens.

I’m attracted to these types of stories even though my own writing veers to the dark side. I think I tend to steer in that direction because I want to understand it and because whether I’m hopeful or naïve, I believe there is good and bad in all of us and understanding what motivates us and others is the only way forward.

Anyway, that’s my two cents at 5:30 in the morning in Whistler where the sun hasn’t yet appeared, but the outline of the mountains still in snow reflect back to me the endless hope I feel for humanity. 

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