Helpless

That's the word for what I've been feeling lately. Unable to do anything about all that's going on. 

The horrific bombing of civilians in Ukraine leaves me feeling empty, drained. My little vase with sunflowers and forsythia branches is all I have in the way of small hopes. The sunflower, with its face turning ever towards the warmth of the sun, is a symbol of Ukraine, the national flower. And the forsythia, with its fat little buds, will open soon with a promise for spring. 

Sadly, on a much smaller scale, is the peril I am feeling for the fate of my city, with its optimistic sounding slogan, The Future Lives Here. 

Considering the swaths of trees that have been disappeared along the King George Highway (oops, more rebranding, as it's now called King George Boulevard, aka KGB), it's not going to be a very green future. Somehow I've always had it in mind that the word 'boulevard' suggests an elegant, tree-lined route. Not any more, not here. This despite the many cautions about climate change heating up and the necessity to protect and plant as many trees as we can. 

Even as I am typing this, the City Council is, I believe, about to rubber-stamp approval for fourth and final reading on the fate of lands abutting the Tata'lu/Little Campbell River, the area that's been rebranded with the gentrified name, South Campbell Heights -- which sounds more like a suburb in a Nancy Drew book than a plan to pave an aquifer. 

Helpless as well in that I can't even manage to open the supposed live-stream access to the Council meeting. Not that I would have been able to do anything, but I believe it's important to bear witness when we can. 

Which, I suppose, is why I keep watching tv news -- to bear witness to the massacre and destruction in Ukraine. All I've been able to do towards helping has been to make a donation to the Canadian Red Cross, where I believe the federal government is still matching what we give. 

Hoping that all of us will find our own ways of honouring all that's going on during these times that feel more and more like the defeat of goodness, the triumph of evil, sometimes like maybe the end of the world.