Thoughts and big feelings
As I sit here shaping bread after bread I find myself feeling a little silly, like I should be doing something more important and more meaningful to create change in the wake of the elementary school shooting at Uvalde. I’m still on a high from making bread with our younger son’s preschool class on Monday, in fact I think my true passion might be working with kids and food. I’m shaken by the thought of someone breaking into my child’s classroom and committing acts of violence. My heart goes out to the families at Uvalde who had to wait sometimes more than 10 hours to find out that they wouldn’t be seeing their loved ones again. I cannot imagine the anguish. I cannot imagine sitting with their loss as they are doing right now.
I really believe that food-making transmits the emotions that we bring to the process, so I do not make food when I’m feeling sad or angry. Inevitably the food reflects my feelings through signs of inattentiveness, bland flavor or because something is just not quite right. So today I’m making a point to feel activated to do something about what’s happening in our nation. It took me a while to wrap my head around how to describe what’s actually happening so I researched a few statistics. The one that stuck with me was:
The U.S. has had 2,032 school shootings since 1970 and these numbers are increasing. Alarmingly, 948 school shootings have taken place since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. Source: sandyhookpromise.org. Over the past 50 years, nearly half of all school shootings took place within the past decade! Talk about an acceleration…
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern summarized what works to prevent mass shootings. She said about the Christchurch NZ mass shootings, “We are a very pragmatic people. When we saw something like that happen, everyone said ‘never again.’ And so then it was incumbent on us as politicians to respond to it. We have legitimate needs for guns in our country like peace control and to protect our biodiversity, but you don’t need military style semi automatic weapons to do that. And so we got rid of them. We had a buyback scheme [and we changed the laws].”
I want a political system that can respond this quickly, that prioritizes interventions that will make mass school shootings not repeatable, like better gun control and universal background checks. I will participate in the activities at a local and national level that support change. And I’m making this weekend’s bread full of a firm resolve to do better, to be better, and to act. I hope you can taste it.
This weekend’s pop-up, Saturday May 28
Jamesport Farmstead
9am-1pm, 1146 Main Rd, Jamesport, NY, 11901 (look for the large barn with the Jamesport Farmstead logo)
We will offer our full selection of products from sourdough batards to sourdough cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, baguettes, roasted coffee beans and cold brew. Jamesport Farmstead will have their first harvest of the season for organic strawberries as well as veggies, seedlings and flower bunches.
Our June schedule will be communicated within the next few days.
We are sending everyone love and hope for a safer world.
Warmly,
Ana and Brett
