I started writing this post on Friday, and hit “publish” instead of save when I was pausing midway because we had to leave. I finished it up this morning. An explanation in case you saw the title come through on Friday.

A friend linked to an article that gave me a glimmer of hope and provided an answer for the Wolvog when he lamented that the problems in America feel too overwhelmingly big and it is daunting to turn the figurative ship. Well, yes. But we try anyway.

The BBC article starts out: “Nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed as armed conflicts – and those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.” It goes on to list moments when a group of people created change through nonviolent action. The examples are a little different because they apply the 3.5% rule to situations such as the toppling of a single dictator vs. changing a mentality, but the article continues to look at how nonviolent protests get the job done.

Overall, nonviolent campaigns were twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns: they led to political change 53% of the time compared to 26% for the violent protests. This was partly the result of strength in numbers.

People are more willing to join something nonviolent than violent—on average (from the events studied) four times more likely. More people = more disruption to everyday life = more people paying attention to the cause = more people thinking about where they stand = actual change.

The researcher of the paper states: “There weren’t any campaigns that had failed after they had achieved 3.5% participation during a peak event.”

So how many people would that be in the US? “It would involve 11 million citizens – more than the total population of New York City.”

11 million people. Yes, I get that it sounds like a lot, but I also feel strangely hopeful that there are 11 million people out there willing to actively participate. 11 million people out there who actively support reform initiatives. They’re willing to go to the polls and encourage other people to vote in representatives who will work to dismantle systemic racism in this country.

We took the twins to a socially-distant, masks-on protest down 16th Street in DC on Friday. People honked in support or had tears streaming as they drove down the road. It was impossible to not have hope (even knowing the history of hope) when you saw so many people coming out and lining the streets (10 feet apart!) to say Black Lives Matter.

And if we can get 3.5% of people actively caring and working towards a goal, we can accomplish a step in the right direction.

I debated whether to write the Roundup this week because the majority of IF-blog posts that I read were about the protests. This is not a problem—the issue is that they were all written by white women.

Black women have a higher rate of infertility than white women, but our online blogging community is overwhelming white. The vast majority of the POC bloggers I read write non-IF themed blogs in my feed reader. Your mileage will vary because we each curate our own feed reader, and I can only read who I know. When it comes to IF blogs, I apparently know mostly white women who are still blogging now that so many blogs are defunct.

For almost 14 years, I’ve featured only IF bloggers in the Roundup. I read non-IF blogs, but the project has always been infertility-focused. So I haven’t featured book bloggers or general diarists or online cooks. Rather than make this post something it’s not, I think it is better to not write the Roundup this week.

Instead, I point you towards Ibram X Kendi’s guide for discussing his book, How to Be an Antiracist, which includes his reading guide for other books. There’s a lot of content in there. Dig in.

It started with a backup coffee pot. We ordered it at the start of the stay-at-home orders because I reasoned that if our coffee pot broke and we had to wait a week or two to get a new one, I would be weathering the stress of the pandemic with a caffeine headache. It wasn’t a big deal to order a backup coffee pot, so we did it and felt good about the purchase. We picked up a pour-over coffee attachment at the same time and felt super-prepared. We were going to have coffee come hell or high water.

The backup plan extended to a few food products and cleaning supplies. We didn’t need hand soap now, but we would need it in the future, so we picked up an extra bottle or two. I got a backup bottle of bleach so I could mix my own cleaning spray if we couldn’t get any at the store. All was well within a normal range of preparations.

Was I more “prepared” (whatever that means) than other people? I don’t think so. We had a few extra boxes of pasta. A few extra rolls of toilet paper. It felt good to know that if we couldn’t go out for a week, we’d be fine.

But then came the backup plan for the plants. The backup plants. I started obsessing over what would happen if my plants died and I couldn’t get more plants. I should get backup plants for the real plants. This would give us way too many herbs, but that could be a good thing. I’m sure neighbours would appreciate a bag of fresh basil and Linus always loves a sprig of parsley.

Which made me think that I should get a backup pig. My greatest joy right now is mornings with my pig. I show him animal videos and scratch his head. He curls up next to me while I read a book. He is my heart, covered in fur.

So I started looking at guinea pig breeders and that is when I realized there would never be a big enough backup plan to encompass all of the people and pets I love. There is no way to get a backup for the most important beings. And that is really what the backup plan is all about: Trying to keep everyone safe. Keep everyone close. This was never about pasta or plants or pigs. (Okay, maybe it was a little about pigs.) It was about trying to have some control during a scary time.

So I closed the sites and went to spend time with my pig and try not to worry.

My birthday has been a little bit of a family joke. We always do something for it, but it’s rarely on my birthday because we generally have other commitments. The last few birthdays have been lost to Bat Mitzvahs, work galas, and college reunions. Instead, we choose a different weekend and go to the beach for the day.

But that’s not really possible. And it’s hard to get into the birthday spirit this year. Our country is heartbroken, scared, and enraged.

We started the birthday festivities over the weekend. None of the festivities feel really exciting so dropping them into various days means that we always have something small to look forward to. Maybe we’ll keep it going until the end of the week.

There has been “beach” time via a YouTube beach video. Yahtzee-without-complaining while gorging on cookies. Hanging out time with my guinea pig. A socially-distant visit with my parents outside their house.

A quiet and subdued entry into 46. Which is okay.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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It feels fitting that the 301st Microblog Monday would be about transitions. Not that it is experiencing a transition except for going from 300 to 301. I guess I’m stretching here.

But I bookmarked this ages ago and clicked the bookmark this weekend to remember what it was. Atlas Obscura set up a booth called the Plotz Plot in Arizona (which blew over by this point). They explain:

Visitors to the Plotz Plot will discover a small metal shed with a sign that reads: “For those experiencing a life transition: This is a place to leave behind a piece of your former self.”

I really love this idea of setting up a physical space where people can take a pilgrimage and shed an object to give themselves closure on one section of their life. To know that the object is sitting with dozens or hundreds of other objects that all meant something enormous to the people who owned them once upon a time.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.