We fought against a colonizing tyranny and won. We abolished slavery. We won workers and union rights. We secured our food system. We enshrined peoples’ right to public land and protected the environment. We achieved women’s rights and civil rights. We did so much more.

Day after day we showed up, we learned, we achieved, and we came around to seeing the world with new understanding. We grew stronger through it all.

And suddenly, through a movement attached to one cruel and ridiculous man, all that enlightenment stopped. It was labeled worthless, and much of our work was undone. Quickly, we were knocked back to places in our American lives that seemed long behind us. Somehow at the same time, our reality warped into a dystopia only possible in this modern moment.

Unfathomable as this scenario seemed when we were riding high on the crest of achievement, it is now our reality.

Where did our precious America go? The one who shone so bright and strutted her stuff for the world to see. The one we were delighted to see excel, set benchmarks, and create masterpieces of kindness and equality. She was magnificent to watch as she smashed norms the old, stodgy world powers set long ago.

We were a part of her seemingly unstoppable momentum. We shone in her brilliance.

Though we cling to her memory, I think we know we’ve lost that version of our country. She has been replaced with something dim and slow. Something cruel and hateful. Something that we can tell—especially as we head into these midterms—is sadly uninspiring.

When I watch the plentiful debates and protests that fill our lives and airwaves now, I see a new breed of American passion on display. It’s steeped in despair and stunted by the slowing effects of disbelief. Is this really happening? Is this really where we are?

We’re a melange of an electorate that is somewhere in the middle of the five stages of grief, and in this tragic moment, we are paralyzed.

As we absorb our abrupt loss, we are assaulted time and time again with brutal language, outright theft, and physical violence. Wave after wave. The corporate goons and corrupt politicians who stole our country leave us no time to process the ongoing abuse, and the impact of it all is dizzying. It’s devastating.

Our treasured America, swallowed by the Red Sea.

But even in these dark days, we have something that I have to believe will carry us through: we have her memory. She is a part of every one of us, begging to be carried onward. With her guiding presence, with her voice leading us forward, we can find a new, uniquely wonderful future.

The East Wing is gone, and it’s not coming back. But we don’t have to permit a ballroom in its place.

As we inch into acceptance, acknowledging that we have lost something irreplaceable, we can carry our beloved America’s legacy forward with new life. Not grasping to what we wish were still here, but building anew. We carry her onward by remembering and cherishing the best of her. We say her name.

America.

What a wonderful sound it makes.

Our next chapter is born out of that aching loss. Our country springs up as students show up and speak out at city council meetings, or walk miles to their nearest polling place. It breaks through with the sound of applause that meets citizens leaving early voting stations. It burgeons where communities unite to save public lands from destruction or to support and protect immigrants.

We can feel it growing as citizens meet, sing, recreate, and unite in the name of democracy.

We haven’t quite seen this before, and it’s beautiful too.

We feel the loss of our America. We carry her with us in every step. Let’s build something she’d be proud of and tear down the rest.

Walking into the midterms could feel like a sludge, a futile exercise in trying to regain what can never be replaced. Like a chore of rewriting a diligently crafted thesis that was lost in a computer glitch. But that’s never been our America’s way.

Our America is fervor and excitement. She’s full of brewing ideas and daring risks. She’s surprisingly light and welcoming as she holds her firm lines. And she’s never counted out.

She’s in all of us. She’s the best of us. And though she’s not here in the same way she once was, her presence will live on in every next step we take.

I hope yours are going to the polls.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Thank you for spending your time here with me. Let’s keep having meaningful conversations and let them lead us to new ideas and purposeful action. Subscribe to stay in the loop and support my writing.

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After a couple of months, cucumbers and tomatoes climbed around on vines, beans hung discreetly under leaves, and bees were sleeping in summer squash blossoms. The products of my cauliflower, spinach, and bell pepper plants were noticeably less obvious. My husband noted that some of them looked like weeds, and we laughed it off and kept watering.

I showed off my garden to everyone who would see it. Family, friends, neighbors—no one was immune. Guess I have a kind of green thumb. No big deal.

After harvesting our first vegetables, my patience gave out, and I looked up the growth stages of my seemingly underperforming crops. Shockingly, they were nothing like what I had been witnessing. To my great surprise and embarrassment, the thriving plants in my lovely raised bed were in fact weeds.

Instantly, and with not just a little bit of resentment, I pulled out the roots of the plants I had been diligently watering all season. Turns out, it’s really easy to stop caring for a thing when you realize how cruelly it’s been deceiving you.

I think about this now as I see stories of former MAGA supporters turning on Trump, and I imagine a new kind of reckoning. As indisputable evidence hits home for more and more Americans, I can see them uprooting him from their lives with ease.

Where he was nurtured and given the benefit of the doubt before, I see him finding hostile ground. Where he was allowed to grow and spread and feel like he could take over everything around him, I see him being spurned. I can see him discovering that people are watching closely—and knowingly— to make sure he doesn’t invade their lives again.

In place of my well-watered weeds, I carefully planted a new batch of seeds with both the humility and the confidence only gained with the experience of such a grand failure. Though the empty summer garden bed was a valuable missed opportunity, I know a new season of planting is right around the corner, and now, I am a gardener walking into it with a wider perspective and fresh expectations of goodness.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie Lovely

What is your most embarrassing gardening failure?

When the five tribes’ signs came down last month from Bears Ears National Monument, my heart sank. It symbolized a profound loss—erasure of public lands, abandonment of the innovative and effective partnership which maintained them, and, significantly, erosion of trust between people and their government.

From an academic standpoint, I knew that a move …

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Gosh, I’m tired. A new baby rests in my arms as I delicately tap buttons on my phone. A pile of laundry is waiting down the hall. My body, pulled in every direction, simultaneously yearns for the bed and feels completely uneasy with rest.

As I type these words, I know that there is a daunting world of need just a tab away. Recent headlines keep drawing …

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Anyone passing through the state for more than 5 minutes knows one thing for certain: you don’t mess with Texas. The unofficial state slogan covers souvenirs, billboards, and bumper stickers everywhere from Amarillo to Houston. It is ubiquitously visible in the landscape, but even more than that, the attitude that comes with it seems to be worn proudly …

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After a three-week hiatus, I headed over to my sister’s house for a visit. She suggested it offhand the day before: “Hey, you should come see the backyard. It isn’t done yet, but we’ve been working on it.” She’s a master at downplaying her accomplishments, but I knew when she mentioned it that it would be worth seeing.

It didn’t disappoint.

Emerging from …

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The importance of environmental protection is back in the national spotlight, thanks to a brazen attempt by Republicans to attack the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Earth Day. In the wake of the public’s defense of the law, discussions about biodiversity have finally permeated the mainstream. I haven’t seen energy like this since I was a wide-eyed Plan…

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After the Senate voted this week to approve toxic mining in Minnesota’s treasured wilderness recreation area, conservation leaders responded en masse. I’m grateful for their insight and rapid information sharing, and I am following their lead on how to best respond.

In all of this, one message in particular stood out to me. Ingrid Lyons, Executive Direct…

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In a social sciences grad school course, a classmate asked about how we should navigate community organizing with a Congress that worked against local needs. My wonderful professor practically scoffed when she answered. “That matters,” she said. “But real change comes at the local level—in-person, grassroots mobilizing where people come together and tak…

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It’s official, we’ve got a new job. After this week’s environmental shenanigans, it has become clear that our new call of duty is to call and write Congress every day to oppose the consistent assaults on our public land and water.

We can just count on them trying a new tactic when we defeat their last one.

This week, we have a few important land-steal a…

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Just a few hundred feet from a bustling river-adjacent greenway, a local resident explained just how remarkable its success truly was. He marveled at how far his city’s relationship had come with its waterway, and his eyes grew large as he said, “I mean for years it was used essentially as a sewer. No one wanted to go near it.”

The subtext was somethin…

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Watching Americans enter the Olympic arena during the games’ opening ceremonies, I felt a cringe of dread. On the international stage, I wondered how our appearance would be met, and I couldn’t imagine too many well wishers among our once-close international friends.

Our world-class athletes wa…

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Years ago, I visited communities around my small city and asked residents what they would like to see in their neighborhood parks. Over months, people sent in comments, answered questionnaires, or had discussions with me in local events and meetings to answer this question.

Reliably, there were three things that people agreed upon, no matter how big the…

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Yesterday evening, the House passed a bill that, if signed into law, will open up 225,000 acres of federal land for toxic mining by a foreign company. It now moves on to the Senate.

The bill, known as H.J. Res. 140, is one we all need to quickly get familiar with.

Here’s what the proposal does:

1. Uses the Congression…

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As Minnesotans stand up against ICE agents, another attack is looming large over their precious community. Last week, a Republican US House Representative quietly introduced a bill that would undo protections for land around the pristine Boundary Waters, a collection of over one thousand gorgeously untouched lakes in Northern Minnesota.

For over 50 year…

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A note to my red homestate, MAGA friends and family members, sorting through complicated feelings:

You helped me tie my shoes, we hunted Easter eggs together, you cheered me on at my soccer game. You held me when I was a baby, we explored Grandma’s backyard together.

I g…

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Amidst the explosive chaos Trump is brewing, there are steady battles for justice that continue to need our attention. This one, thankfully, didn’t slip under the radar of environmental advocates.

The outcome gives us a chance to celebrate the power o…

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Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen attacks on our wildlife and natural lands that were devastating precursors to the assaults now brewing against humanity.

Those in power are validating the…

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Valuing nature is a gift.

It is part of seeing ourselves as a part of something bigger, and, though it may make us feel weak or insignificant with its grandness, it is a vital part of understanding our worth.

If we can treasure a herd of deer that wanders into our backyard, we are more apt to treasure the quiet parts of ourselves that delicately tread t…

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But luckily, we are a country full of multitasking people. Between tree trimming and cookie decorating, we jo…

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