Planter Boxes

Mac sat in the yard, with the hose in a bucket, soap on himself, Cheese, and a pile of Cheese’s most prized toys and other favorite things. Del rode up, slightly wobbily, on their roller skates. “Hey! What are you two doing today?” Mac waved a soapy arm. “Hey! I’m cleaning Cheese’s house, and his stuff, and him, and me too.” Mac said laughing, and pointed, to a damp, but scrubbed, Cheese house, now brighter, on the outside, the smell of damp dog and soap wafting over on the breeze. Del leaned on the fence where some of Cheese’s blankets, scrubbed and washed, hung in the sun to dry, and reached down to scratch behind Cheese’s ears. His head was damp, and he wagged his tail at the attention, flicking water with each wag. Del laughed. Mac shook some soapy water off of his arms and dumped out the bucket onto some wildflowers near the road, the dry ground soaking up the water quickly. He turned on the squeaky spigot to fill the bucket back up to rinse some toys off, and went to get a box of things off of the porch. “Want to help me touch up the paint on Cheese’s house?” he held a cardboard box with brushes and jars with paint, a hammer, nails, a saw, and some pieces of wood pulled off from some pallets they had found back on a trail behind the convenience store. “I’m also going to fix some of my aunt’s planter boxes. ” Del peaked inside the box. “Roe gave me some paint from his brother’s workshop that we’re allowed to use, he had some baby food jars from when he watches his cousins, so I didn’t have to take the whole paint cans.” There were a few colors in the box, and now that it was scrubbed off, Cheese’s house had some clean, but bare spots. Del sat on the porch step, and began to untie the doubleknotted, sparkly laces on their skates.

Poly Meaning Many

I’ve been considering lately the different choices we each make in life; some choices we make exclude other from our lives, and some choices we think exclude others, but they don’t necessarily have to if we can be respectful. I’ve been having some great conversations with a friend lately about being respectful of other people, even if they have different ideas and opinions. Not opinions that are different like, genocide is good (because lets face it, we’re all better off losing people like that), but just a different way of experiencing the world and seeing things. Sometimes we get so caught up in being right, we lose people along the way.

Have you ever had a vegan friend? People can choose to be vegan for a lot of reasons: some do it for health reasons, some because it aligns with their values, some because it’s trendy and they like rubbing it in other people’s faces. There are awesome vegans and asshole vegans. So, let’s say you’re not vegan. You aren’t even vegetarian. You’re an omnivore. You love bacon, you love steak, you love cheese. But you also have a wonderful vegan friend you enjoy spending time with. When you call them up to get brunch, you do it because you care about and want to spend time with your friend, even though they aren’t just a carbon copy of you. When they ask where you want to meet up, you’re going to take the time to remember that your friend has a need that you don’t: they don’t eat meat or dairy, or eggs. It may not be your need, but because it’s your friend’s need, it matters to you. So you choose that one cafe that you remember has vegan options. You never choose those items off the menu, but it matters that your friend has something to eat, and really it matters that you show that you validate and support their choices even if they aren’t your choices. When you get to brunch, your vegan friend doesn’t shame you, or try to make you feel like a terrible person for getting cream with your coffee. You respect that you’re both adults, who can make your own choices, and even though you don’t make the same choices, you still care about, support, and respect each other.

Spoiler alert, I’m not really talking about veganism.