I'm Adelimo, and this is The Slowdown.

I was recently on stage in conversation with a brilliant Kentucky poet laureate, Crystal

Wilkinson, and Hazard Kentucky.

At the end of the discussion, someone from the crowd asked, what brings us hope?

I mentioned the natural world as I often do, this cyclical idea of seasons, of life finding

away.

But Crystal mentioned children, and she mentioned not just their innocence, but their sense

of wonder and their ability to see things in different ways.

Truth be told, I don't spend a lot of time with young children.

My nieces and nephews are all teenagers now, and as I do not have children of my own,

I won't be a grandmother down the line.

Still, the other day in Little Rock, Arkansas, I was talking to a few undergraduates and

their energy, their mix of enthusiasm and anxiety and joyful connection, buoyed me.

I was reminded that being around young people can make you feel like everything's going

to be okay, whatever okay might look like in the future.

But even as I write this, we hear news of more bombings in Ukraine, of the unfolding of

new violence.

One image sticks out from that news, a playground with a bomb blast in the middle of it.

I want to believe we will be okay, but I also want to see for lack of a better word,

some proof.

I will never be a mother, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to protect and encourage

the children of the world.

...