Dear kids,

Let me start by saying that I am sorry I could not do more, be more, and/or accomplish more. My generation has been stuck between flower power and the conservative, populistic lashbacks that, somehow, seem to ride the waves of large groups of human interest; but what hurts me, and will surely hurt you, remains the fact that my generation did not produce that strong enough leader to change the direction of the waves of this country. And this country should lead in a positive direction, not one from exclusion, but one from inclusion — as foreseen by the people who started this country (and who raped it so efficiently, so selfishly, so violently, and so quickly from all its indigenous peoples).

So here I stand, an idealist, a loser, a woman. If I had known, I would have done so much more, sacrificed my time with you even more than being the single parent that I was already. Back then I was simply trying to remain standing in that misogynistic society. It is only now, when I can lean on my partner who cares, that I can put my strength and knowing where my heart resides, in trying to salvage the rising tide of climate change: that one, odious, not abstract but scientifically proven concept not discussed at every debate held to date.

The strange feeling is that I keep on hoping. If Obama is from the generation behind me, and Hillary the one before me, then the one is still to come.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers — (314) By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers — That perches in the soul — And sings the tune without the words — And never stops — at all —

And sweetest — in the Gale — is heard — And sore must be the storm — That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm —

I’ve heard it in the chillest land — And on the strangest Sea — Yet — never — in Extremity, It asked a crumb — of me.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)