As I mentioned before, I have been taking positivity into the world. The volunteer project consuming most of  my time this year has been at my child’s high school.

I love kids. They are so awake and honest and their affections or disappointment is real and immediate.  Our group holds more than fifty kids, all of whom I adore.  Many have been close with my children for many years. Watching kids grow up is an epiphany.

At any rate, for more than 6 months now we have been planning, designing and fundraising to re-landscape an old  ratty courtyard,  last used in the 1950s, into a new Positive Change memorial courtyard.  Someday, it will include a fountain, a walking labyrinth and a glass block wisdom wall.

Creating the new requires dismantling the old. In our case, the dismantling was full of the nastiest and most prickly plant I had ever encountered… Fire thorns make rose thorns look like hangnails; we learned they are full of venom.  It’s hard to understand what they would be doing in a school courtyard.  Yet, even this obstacle was overcome with the creativity and ingenuity of people working together.

I began the day with anxiety about how our first day and attempt to clear the space would go and wondered as I often do when things start to take shape, exactly what I was thinking and why. The day’s weather encouraged us; after a week of cold, slushy rain, the sunshine was warm and you could feel the potential of spring coming.

However, not long into the day, we were basking in not only warm sun but community action at its best.  Parents and kids working side by side, cutting and hauling brush.  Even when the volunteered chipper didn’t quite have the capacity necessary for the huge amounts of brush we generated, the guys in charge came up with a plan B and we managed to get everything out and hauled away.

It felt heroic actually to complete a big task like that in relatively little time. We did sustain a little fire thorn damage, but nothing lethal. The cleared courtyard was stunning and full of potential. Now everyone is excited for the next work day, which is only moving hundreds of pounds of sod into a new slope.

Meanwhile we have sold out of our first bunch of positivity wrist bands and are awaiting the arrival of the next shipment. We already have hundreds of pre-orders. Amazing to watch positivity multiply itself.  A wonder of opening and a flood of gratitude is all I can report about our first days labor.

Positivity may be the key  to our capacity for high level humanity. We were the top story of the day this week, too…