Americans are angry, but what are they doing with their outrage? We talk to Americans of all political affiliations who have channeled that emotion in creative or productive ways.
When I was growing up in Minnesota, 鈥淛oe Versus the Volcano鈥 was one of my favorite movies. I longed to be swept away to a tropical island. But as I found myself in La Palma reporting on the Cumbre Vieja eruption in the Spanish Canary Islands, I quickly realized that there鈥檚 nothing romantic about volcanoes or being stranded 鈥 even on an island.
I had come prepared 鈥 an N95 mask, baseball cap, and a ridiculous-looking turquoise swimming mask my Spanish mother-in-law lent me. But nothing could prepare me for the invasiveness of the volcanic ash. It fell from the sky like a rainstorm, lining streets, covering doorways and windowsills, and filling the crevices of my ears.聽
It wasn鈥檛 long before the airlines canceled all flights. When tourists began panic-buying all the ferry tickets as I was interviewing residents about their futures, I realized I had, quite literally, missed the boat.聽聽
For two days, I wandered empty streets awaiting the resumption of travel, carrying a backpack and feeling progressively stuck 鈥 and at times panicked.
And then I realized I was being given the chance for deeper insight. Here I was experiencing, albeit in much lesser degree, what the people I was writing about were feeling: uncertainty, frustration, and fatigue from living next to an erupting volcano with no end in sight.聽
Like the people of La Palma, I leaned on others to get me through 鈥 from the English woman who gave me a bag of oranges from her garden to the church that let me use the bathroom after being stranded at the top of a mountain.
As I finally left 鈥 via boat 鈥 I realized how grateful I was to have experienced the humanity of the people in La Palma in the face of crisis. I know it鈥檚 what will pull them through it.聽