In the book I’m writing, a desperate child imagines himself far above the planet, far from the endlessly breaking bad news. He isn’t wired for the constant barrage of awfulness. None of us are. This is why I love and admire people like thirty-three-year-old Chris Smalls, who, independent from any giant outside organization, unionized the Staten Island Amazon warehouse last week. Smalls and three friends saw injustice, jumped in and built the Amazon Labor Union from scratch. There are so many good people out there just jumping in and getting things done, so many ideas we haven’t yet tried.

Riders, by Robert Frost

The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.

What is this talked of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.

There is our wildest mount, a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven’t tried.


For more information about Robert Frost, check out this site, where an unknown someone has written about him in an odd, strangely phrased (“happily buried”?) and somehow charming way.

alisonmcghee.com

Words by Winter: my podcast