Today I drove through a traffic sign that said NO TURN ON RED.

I try to obey laws. Especially traffic laws.

I was 'anticipating' being somewhere. I didn't expect a no-turn sign on that corner. The corner wasn't that important, it seemed. I was absorbed in the future.

I pulled over in case there was a police officer who saw it. I didn't want to make he or she work extra to make me stop.

Nothing unfortunate happened.

Later, I thought about some relational issues.

The sign said - don't turn to the right when it's red.

I started thinking about what I'm always thinking about lately - politics, survival, stopping someone else's progress, reversing direction, children, their future. In all my life, I never considered turning to what we now call the right. I never dreamt that we would associate red and right in a way that I now struggle with. I never dreamt that we would be so severely divided by movement and color. I never dreamt that I would see so many endings involving MY country.

I didn't know then that I had bought into a heritage I cherished until it all started unraveling politically, monetarily, environmentally, legally and because of organized religion. I believed everything my parents, grandparents, teachers, reverends, scout and 4-H leaders told me about my country. For amber waves of grain. It wasn't until the treasures (that I didn't know were treasures) started being taken away from me by my own leaders ... of my OWN country ... that I knew how much I loved and believed what my teachers taught me. Every vote counts. You can grow up to be President. Your representative speaks for you. You are the government. America opens its heart. You have a right to a trial by a jury. You are innocent until proven guilty. Church and State should and will remain separated.

Yes, there were divisions and injustices. But, we were working on them. All our decisions seemed to advance the 'righting' of wrongs in their own fast and slow ways. The movement was forward. We expected progress for the good of our country and for our love of other people in the world (at least for me).

It's all about division now - a nation divided. Politically and as a citizen, I love and hate with passion. I don't say the words 'I hate', but, what I say and what I write is contemptuous. In looking back, I thought I was neutral. I must not have been because what was in me kept growing stronger and never wavered in what I thought I and all of us were all about. A greater glory for each other? I can't choose the words to say what it was. It was just there. I never went to a class or took a course to help me decide which direction I should take. It was already in me from my youth. I must have either been blessed or the propaganda really grabbed me. I gulped in a thrill when a milestone was just and progressive. That's the way it's always been for me.

This journal will be dedicated to children.