Our building’s a pod, six sheltering families, and we’ve gathered together in our small backyard to celebrate three of our children who are graduating from 8th grade. Two of them find robes to wear, one’s in his usual uniform of t-shirt and shorts. What desperate hopes we have for them, the new generation, charged with the unenviable task of undoing some of the damage we did when we thought we were simply living. They will surpass us easily enough, simply by being themselves, awake in a cruel century. We dance, we grill, we throw our arms high. Defund the police.