Americans of all shades and philosophies came together and voted for one fundamental and common thing in the 2026 elections. We voted for the Constitution, specifically the reasserted power of Congress. We voted for this country to be run by the messy means of compromise, in a community where many parts make up the whole, to decide how we are to share our bounty. We voted for the mechanism of congressional representation and voice for the people.

There’s been a lot of conversation about what is the priority of this new congress. The number one job of this newly formed government is to restore the governing power of Congress to control the purse (where/ how are collective resources are applied), determine our military operations both home and abroad, and provide oversight and accountability to those who would game the system for their own benefit and reject the outright dismantling of the decisions collectively made by the people’s chamber. This power was freely undermine by the Republicans in Congress over the last two years. Our country has unfortunately been run by executive order. A tool that was never intended to be used as it has been by Donald Trump.

We the American people want a strong and activated Congress. We want a system that upholds collective decision making. We want the equality inherently reached for when the Congress was created. We want real balance.

We reject the county club accessibility, blind loyalty and narrow, fixed mindsets that plague the Republican Party. We voted instead for a party that can set up a giant tent to provide a place for many voices and many solutions, and a dogged commitment to making decisions for the people, by the people. We voted to take back our seats at the family table and make sure that table is no longer in a gated community.

Americans spoke with undeniable clarity on November 3rd, 2026. They don’t want to live under a mafia don with a network of capos under his thumb. They want a government for the people, by the people. That requires us the people to stay vigilant and engaged. Let’s get to it.

Copyright 2026 Kathryn A. Dickel

Climb, climb, climb.

Don’t be scared.

Hold my hand.

I’ll take you there.

Don’t look down.

We’re almost there.

Just look in my eyes

There’s no need to prepare.

The push will be swift.

I promise you that.

You won’t even see it coming

My beloved Kat.

It will all be over soon

And I’ll stand by your grave.

Weeping crocodile tears

And pretending I’m brave.

‘Here lies Kathryn

The best woman

I’ve ever known.

She fell to her death

For the love of my home.’

Let it be known

I didn’t jump or slip.

I was pushed without warning

Right off the cliff.

-Valentine Martin

The Climb was originally published in Pollinate Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My life is a land mine of memories and associations.

Each one attached to a piece of you that lives inside of my soul.

I turn my head and another one goes off…

The mower.

A lingerie ad on my feed.

The sticks in my car.

The wallpaper on my phone I can’t delete.

The airbnb list of all the places we were going to go.

Jazz.

5:30am on the clock.

The hoodie.

Loose black mala beads.

Every sign that reads Chicago.

Sea gulls.

Water.

A bowl.

My breath.

How much of me do you own? How long will it take to clear the mines from my land?

This is how you build a love. Piece by piece.

One association at a time.

This is how you dismantle a love.

One land mine at a time.

— Valentine Martin

Land Mines was originally published in Pollinate Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Reflections on nature and love.

A giant garden orb spider web lays sprawled over a busted out window in my garage. When the sunlight hits it at just the right angle it illuminates the perfection and fragility of this spider’s home.

This spider needs a home; something to capture nutrients for survival, and a place to lay in the center of its known universe. A place where singular devotion is paramount. When I look at it every morning I can’t help but mesh its wonder with the experience of falling into the web of new love.

The perfect symmetry of every commonality discovered between two people. The expansiveness of terrain encompassed by new love; how it stretches to create new surfaces in mid air. The way it anchors itself to established points outside of its new empire. It’s also peculiar how both are created in highly vulnerable spots like an open window and an open heart.

The garden orb weavers remove their webs each dawn and reconstruct them at night in a ritual akin to the good mornings and good nights of new lovers. The weavers do this to provide safety from predators. Lovers employ their rituals to do the same — to establish safeguards against the predators of countless past mistakes.

It is said in the lore of our ancestors that a garden orb spider appears in your domain to herald change in your life and I believe a lover most certainly does as well.

Yet this world of the web and of new love is incredibly fragile. It could be easily destroyed by one careless wave of the hand or misspoken word. I watched the other day as the spider, perched in the center of its creation, scurried up a main line of the web to take refuge elsewhere on my approach. It so quickly abandoned its nest at the slightest threat, as if to admit it was vulnerable to quick destruction. I wondered why it would abandon the beauty of its creation so quickly? Was the fear so great? Did it do so because it knew it could easily build a new one, on a new day, with the next potential lover in their match queue? Or maybe to leverage caution. After all, should the danger pass without incident the spider can just return home. Perhaps it is the perfect survival strategy. Protect your weaver-self so the next web can be constructed for the next day. Is this not the ultimate mandate of the weaver — to keep weaving?

I do not know how long this beautiful creature will stay in my world, building their home again and again; with good mornings and good nights. I don’t know why, in fact, it picked my world to build one of its own in the first place. And I will not know when it will to scurry for safety or find a new place to home all together. In truth, the spider is as elusive as a new lover’s heart.

All I can do is observe its ritual, protect this wonder to the extent I can, and wish it well when it no longer lives in my garage.

Kathryn A. Dickel 2023

New Love in a Spider Web was originally published in Pollinate Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.