It has been a long 10 days for my city.

There are some good things coming out of this, and because I am an optimist I like to focus on the good. But I recognize that right now we should really, really be focusing on the bad so that we can all change for the better.

For my own part, I’m digging in to see what can be done to abolish the police union, which I find to be the heart of many (but not all) problems in the department. I also want to rethink the entire police force and other solutions to bring about safety in our communities, because what we have now clearly is not working.

In the meantime, while I read and research and study, here are some amazing murals which have popped up on the plywood covering my city at the moment. This is a very small sampling that I caught while driving to run a quick errand this morning.

Because of our exposure to Ezra’s nanny family and my newborn clients I have, I am not attending protests and I am not shooting much of my city (except through my car). This is extremely hard on the journalist in me, but I think it’s necessary at this time. Instead I’m donating money and supplies, and working for change as mentioned above. I hope you, too, are doing something to support the cause.

The last week has been hard. Beyond hard.

We have witnessed extreme police brutality. We have watched our city burn. We have feared for our safety. We have had really hard conversations with a five year old about abuse of power, racism and the cycles of poverty that racism fuels.

We have had a few bright spots — the largest seeing our community show up with so much food, so many diapers, so much help. We have seen volunteers clean the streets in quick order. And we have seen community defend each other and watch out for each other in ways that the police cannot.

But it’s still hard, and it’s still exhausting. Imagine living like this daily. Imagine the exhaustion of our black communities.

Now go do one thing every day to make it better.