The Spell of Rage and Antidotal Pumpkins

Updates on Adopt-A-Lot progress and coping with this world

Possessed by Rage
When I was a child, I would throw long, furious temper tantrums.

I still remember them. Anger and frustration would seize me—posses me—and contort my body into fits of rage where I’d cry and thrash for what probably felt like hours to everyone else.

Eventually, the storm would pass. Rage would retreat back into hiding, and Kristin—the compassionate thinker—would return. It felt like waking from a spell. My body would lapse into that jagged, rhythmic breathing that comes after a long, primal cry. I wouldn’t have clear thoughts. I couldn’t remember why it had needed to be so extreme. It was just release.

I understand now that what I raged against back then was a sense of powerlessness and invisibility. I was sensitive to the world and didn’t always know how to get what I needed. When it became too much, I’d scream, loudly, hoping to be seen.

Afterward, I’d find myself in the wreckage I’d caused. Relationships shaken. Trust strained. Most people kept their distance, wary and confused. But my father—no matter how loud I’d screamed or how long I’d cried—would still hold me. Kindly. Forgiving me, if that’s the right word.

As I got older and the storms still came, I asked him once why, even after the worst of it, he still welcomed me back.

His answer was simple: “I know who you are is good.”

He didn’t always know the perfect thing to say or do, but he stayed. He bore more than he should have—and I don’t think that’s noble. Or deserved. But I do know that his willingness to stay, despite it all, meant something. It still does.

Because maybe, even after a fit of rage—even after real harm—I can still become someone capable of good.

When Genocide Becomes the Answer
My twelve-year-old student once told me that when we cry, it’s like a computer crashing—an overload of more than we can process.

That metaphor stayed with me. These days, I don’t cry as often, but I definitely still crash. The overload just looks different now: headaches, silent rage, despair, destructive thoughts. Emotional storms, internalized. Still short-circuit my system.

I watch Zionists say things like, “All Palestinians must die. Even the babies.” I pretend to be appalled, but…I do get it. I’ve felt that kind of rage too. Rage that eclipses compassion. Rage that wants revenge.

In a world of acute powerlessness, rage protects. But at the end of that road—closed off in my cold, hard fury—I’m left with the thought: maybe all these advocates of genocide need to die too. All of them.

And just like that, genocide becomes my solution—the very thing I despise others for. But rage insists my case is different, that I’m still right. My genocide is justified.

My dad once told me I’m “good,” but I’m not sure that’s quite right. I look around at the world—at what we’re all capable of becoming—and wonder: are any of us really good? As if good and bad are fixed qualities.

Still, I remember his words. Maybe what’s more helpful than proving whether someone is good or bad is the act—the practice—of believing in goodness. In the idea of better.

Because after the anger subsides, I find that I still believe. I still push for better. I still ask: How do I stop becoming the very thing I rage against?

The Soul of Survival
From the perspective of the explicitly oppressed, I think the crucial question to ask isn’t just how do we survive, but how do we survive with our souls intact?

What is the point of surviving if we become the very thing that causes us so much destruction?

When I witness unbearable harm—when I see so much of it and the world looks away, or worse, smirks, manipulates, doubles down—the line between grief and hatred starts to blur. If justice won’t descend from the heavens, it starts to feel like it must come from my own hands.

So I pray for destruction. Annihilation. Indiscriminately. Make it end.

And you know, I think on many levels—big and small—lots of people in the world do the same. We give up. We say our government won’t help us. That there’s no point recycling when big business pollutes with impunity. No point speaking out, watching the news, bearing witness. Look away. There’s nothing I can do.

I suspect that on some level, most of us are secretly just waiting for the world to end. Because then the immense, inscrutable suffering would finally stop.

Do I Want Anger to Build My Life?
For me though, when rage passes out from exhaustion and Kristin takes over again, I look at myself in the mirror and wonder: if I’m “good,” is this what I truly want to believe? That violence is power? That dehumanization is defense?

Do I want anger to be the architect of my life?

It sounds rhetorical, but it’s not. It’s a real question I contemplate, born of real pain. Anger is protective. It tells me I never have to accept what’s happening. That western dominance, imperialism, cruelty—none of it is okay, and none of it is me. All I need to do is stay angry to remember. Wear rage like sunglasses that mute the glare of the world.

And honestly, many days, I do want anger to be the architect. Emotionally, it feels easier.

Pumpkins + Love > Enemies + War
Occasionally, because of my gardening and community engagement work, I have to take those sunglasses off. I have to climb back into the driver’s seat. No one wants to share the road with a raging person. Kristin drives for a while.

That happened today. I met with a city official—a Housing and Community Development Officer with Adopt-A-Lot authority. She told me last week that my request to adopt The Patch would likely be denied. Someone else had applied first. The city system had glitched, falsely showing the plot as available. Whoops.

As you can imagine, I got angry. Angry at myself—for knowing this might happen if I planted without formal approval. Angry at the system—for rejecting me not because my idea was flawed, but because of a silent error that took months to reveal. Somebody clicked before me.

Now, someone else—a stranger—would get control of the land I’d been tending. They could mow my pumpkins. And they probably would. Because, after all, people destroy.

If anger is the architect, then the path is clear. Get mad. Devour the enemy. Fuck this person and the city too. These monsters who don’t bother to see me.

But in this case, it was easy to see the irrationally of that route—because I love my pumpkins. I love that patch of land. I didn’t need to brace for a fight, give them up for destruction just to validate my anger. I needed to do what was best for them.

So: sunglasses off, Kristin at the wheel, I took the meeting. My goal was to turn this official into a teammate—a collaborator in the well-being of my pumpkins, and all our future gardens.

As it would turn out, she also wants community gardens. She’s eager to support people doing this kind of work—and offered many ways forward: introductions to partner organizations, information about other available lots, even a connection to the other applicant, who also just wants to grow food.

So the meeting went well, and The Patch will probably live on. But that’s not the main point.

Even if it hadn’t gone that way—even if I’d walked away with no guarantees—what struck me most was this: when I imagined us on the same side, working toward the same goal, people stopped being the enemy in my eyes. Rage didn’t need to protect me anymore. I didn’t need to be right. I just wanted what was best.

That realization stayed with me. If I can imagine a world where we’re all building something together, I don’t have to live like the world is out to get me. I can stay open. Patient. And remember that other people want a better world too.

And that’s the main issue, isn’t it? We don’t trust that others want a world we all can enjoy. Common people believe billionaires want to use them as disposable labor and don’t care if the world burns. Billionaires believe the masses are out for blood and must be controlled. Israelis believe Palestinians want them dead. Palestinians believe Israelis want them dead.

The Myth of Mutual Destruction (and a Better Version of Us All)
I think my way out of the trap of anger is to build a vision that could, in theory, include everybody. Whether in the Levant or in Baltimore, the vision is the same: a place where people—all people—have an equal right to live, to speak, to care for land, to be seen.

For my city, it looks like this: residents having a meaningful say in how land is used—if what’s done serves the good of the whole. A city without neglected land. Without neglected people. Open and abundant communication between leadership and neighborhoods.

I’m beginning to believe that if I can hold that vision clearly—if I can return to it, again and again, even when rage begins to bubble—it might endure. A vision rooted in inclusion, in the belief that all life matters simply because it’s alive, has the best chance of rallying others. The right kind of others. People who are ready to build, not just destroy.

So there’s my sobriety from anger, I suppose:

Creating spaces and relationships that remind me of my humanity—and acting on them.

In a world that seems so committed to dehumanization, maybe what keeps me from falling in is the practice of building an alternative.

Praying for the people of Gaza and the future of Israeli children—without condoning the state.

Honoring the power of rage not by storming, but by channeling it. Using its heat to push, relentlessly, for a vision I believe in.

A city that feeds people best it can.
A city where every resident has a voice—where birds and bugs have a home.
A city where people feel inspired to pick up trash and grow a lot.

A city made sustainable because it is loved.

The grief I feel is large, and it is ancient. But by refusing to let it stay locked inside—by letting it move me toward common ground—I can use its energy not to destroy, but to build something much stronger than despair.

A better version of us all, rooted in soil.