There is a daffodil blooming on the back hillside and a rosy pink camellia peeking through the greenery outside the kitchen window. Temps in Seattle have been changeable but recently 50 degrees, the red-winged blackbirds chortling in the hedgerow. Plenty of rain has come and gone but three feet of snow just fell on my other coastal nest; this works for me. What has not worked is finding my place in the many, many words — some interesting, most angry, all emotional — flying around as our country tries to find ballast during the current devastation of our culture and values. I do not know where to dip my oar, pull hard, gain traction against the tides. Or do I?

Bad Bunny sure did. He blew love to the top of the Super Bowl rafters; love for his country, his family, his people, all people. He hugged and kissed and shook his hips and danced on the roof and fell through the ceiling and kept singing and hugging and kissing And guess what? I didn’t understand ONE WORD because ask my family I do not have the language gene so to speak. But I felt him. And this isn’t new, is it? All you need is love.

Love first. Love before hate. Love Strong. Love Wins.

What does love look like? Well, whatever it looked like before this administration has to be amped up a billion times more. I am trying to look deeply into the faces of those around me. Smile first. Give a compliment. Lend a hand. Pay it forward. Buy a stranger a cup of coffee. Think kindness before inconvenience. Understand anger pulsing from so many people is fear and grief and despair. Follow the @walkforpeace monks on Instagram who are walking through snow and sleet to Washington D.C. peacefully, single file, in love and peace. Just walking.

I wonder if you are reading this with an eye roll. Maybe. But when I asked a sight-challenged man last week if I could help him as he was going off the sidewalk edge it wasn’t a lifelong commitment but a moment of humanity and I felt a feeling I have been missing for a few months: I felt ok. He was ok. We would be ok.

Don’t let anyone tell you or frighten you otherwise: we need each other. And the each other in this country is made up of everything — different colors, languages, shapes and sizes. Remember when this was what made us proud of our country?

I am mostly angry but not helpless. We cannot feel helpless or we have failed our neighbors. Find a way to help. Write. Speak. Listen carefully, even if you don’t understand the words.

Thanks, Bad Bunny. I didn’t need a translation:

A hug is a hug in every language.

Yes, we have knit many #melttheicehats too. Let me know if you want one.