Mindy Meyers-Halleck

What’s Mold Got To Do With Politics?

Posted on February 20, 2025

Right now, I am staying in a hotel, a nice hotel, but still, away from my home, my husband, and dog. Mold was discovered in our attic and the removal, repair, and roof replacement has become a major ordeal. With my compromised immune system, I can’t be around the mold or the abatement spraying. So, here I am in a rainy coastal town 25 minutes from my house, with a fireplace and a view of the water––I know, poor me.

You’d think I’d be delving into writing more than I am, but I feel anxious and unfocussed like someone’s tearing my home apart in the middle of winter, and I’m not there to protect it. I know my precious doggo is scared and missing my cuddles, my husband is managing things as best he can from his home office––and maybe he’s missing my cuddles too. Anyway, it’d be better if I were there in person dealing with the contractors, instead of by phone.

Distractions like this tend to silence my muse. Stress is always a writing disruption, but this feels more like a psychic disturbance. Does tearing the shielding roof off my home and ripping the protective insulation out of my attic have spiritual significance to me?

In these troubling times of chaos and tearing our political agencies apart, leaving us exposed and vulnerable to the elements, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the true source of my soul-deep sense of unnerving disorder.

Even with mold in our attic we wouldn’t burn the house down. No, we eradicate and repair, because it is otherwise a great house. That’s what I feel should be done with our democracy, it’s a great house with some rot that should be eliminated. Instead, the house is being burnt down, and we are left exposed and in danger of all looming storms.  And they are looming.

To ease my unease I’m taking walks, writing this in a coffee shop, and meditating on my life’s blessings that were once only impossible dreams.

So now, on the eve of our country’s nightmare, I count the blessings of dreams come true and feel empowered to do things once thought impossible: like being 70 years old and trying to muster my inner 17-year-old revolutionary, again––and sadly, to fight for the same things as before.

For me, participating in politics other than voting, attending city meetings, and door-knocking for a few politicians––and once, in the 1970s being quasi-arrested for protesting the Vietnam War, and demanding women’s rights, including abortion rights––has been random participation.

My husband says I’m too political. My grandson says I’m not right enough, and my granddaughter says I’m not left enough. So here I am, standing firm in the middle of a burning house, realizing that random participation is no longer good enough.

I have learned that I can’t fix everything––a tough life lesson––and it’s not my job to mend the world all at once. But I can heal some small part within my reach.  

“Life is bristling with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to cultivate one’s garden.” François-Marie Arouet, a.k.a. Voltaire

Times like these, as with a writing deadline, force me to focus on what can be done instead of catastrophizing about what can’t and what’s gone wrong––instead, focusing my energies on what could go right. So, I started thinking about a few of those things that could go right, for example:

1. Troubling times are opportunities to rise and get in-spirit. I turn to the elders for inspiration; Martin Luther King Jr., Voltaire, Margaret Mead, The Bible, Edmund Burke, J.R.R Tolkien, and so many others. I’ve included their words below.
2. Activists who in the past faced a drought of public interest are now facing a tsunami of awareness and volunteers, turning helplessness into hope. From immigrants escaping violence, food-deprived senior citizens, and underprivileged kids in need of schooling, food, and shelter, to the unhoused we see in every city, there is no shortage of ways we can make a difference.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead.

3. The rules of routine politics have been tossed into a bonfire––no more business as usual––it’s time to engage anew, rise from those ashes a bright and radiant phoenix of this modern revolution.                                    After all, WE ARE THE PEOPLE damn it!

4. This is a unique opportunity to turn the tables and capitalize on intentional chaos (being created as a strategic plan to distract) and alter the political landscape of our country. It’s time to challenge elected officials and compel them to resist this inhumane administration.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

5. As writers, activists, and concerned citizens we must reevaluate and revise the conditions of debate around issues concerning our society at large. It is time to eradicate the mold under our roof, to reign in our spending without harming those most in need. Time to tax those inclined toward greed. It is time to get big money out of politics, time to do away with the corruption of organizations like citizens united, deliver a gut punch to the donor class (a plutocracy), and to alleviate greed and corruption to the best of our ability. It’s time to build that sheltering roof for our communities. It’s not time to move backward via Project 2025, but forward to a new humanity.  And that takes active participation.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed.” – Proverbs 31:8-9

6. Go sign up for something, lend your voice, carry a sign, contact your representatives (repeatedly) about climate change, women’s rights, voter rights, gun control, civil rights, immigrant rights, and so much more. Use your voice to speak up against evil.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

7. Visit sites and resources like the MASA––Let’s Make America Smart Again website for free resources, even print your own posters and so much more.

8. Right now, our house is burning, but it’s an opportunity to remodel and build a new house with a mold-resistant roof.

“From the ashes, a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring…” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Come on fellow citizens, let’s be that light!