Rebecca Solnit: 'We're Defending Revolutions'

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LISTENING: to my keyboard's creamy sound
FEELING: overwhelmed by work and life!
SEEING: the sun set outside :')

There's something magical about women. I love being a woman. I love being a woman who loves other women. I adore my man — he makes me feel like the sexist woman alive — but women are irresistible. The way we sway our hips and purse our lips. The way we dance like no one is watching. The way we don't let our menstrual cycles stop us. Even if we are bleeding, we show up. Even when our bodies age and enter the next phase of womanhood, perimenopause, we persevere. We take care of our children and our neighbors. We feed, and we nourish—with our hands and our hearts.

Oh, how I love being a woman.

The climate movement, in particular, would be nothing without the women who weave its various threads together. I'm thinking of Elizabeth Yeampierre. Or Tamara Toles O'Laughlin. Or Ayisha Siddiqa and Xiye Bastida. Or Mika Tosca and Hebah Kassem.

I could list names all day long, but how about we hear from one woman I recently interviewed: Rebecca Solnit. She's an author many of you likely know and love. Her new book just came out — my preorder is awaiting my pick up at my local bookstore. "The Beginning Comes After the End" is what we all need right now.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this nugget from our interview, which will publish in Loam Magazine later this year. Solnit emphasized that, indeed, the revolution is already underway. We must now fight to defend the progress that the right is trying to undo with its full violent might:

"We're defending revolutions because to change the status of women from what it was for more than 2,000 years in the Western world is revolutionary. It's why the Epstein files are making such a stir. We went from a world where women and girls voices didn't matter to one where, sometimes, sort of, to a little bit they do."

This is a woman's world now. I've had my taste of freedom. So have all the other women and girls bringing clean energy, climate justice, and safety to their communities. I'm thinking of the women in Iran, who now have to contend with literal war alongside an attack on their liberties. A sisterhood cannot be broken. Not even with bombs and airstrikes. 🌀

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