MY SISTER’S HUNDRED SMALL ACTS OF RESISTANCE

I adore my sister, who is brilliant and beautiful and kind. An experimental writer/creator and retired English professor, she has one of the most imaginative minds I’ve ever encountered. I have childhood memories of her extemporaneously speaking backwards, effortlessly pronouncing words and whole sentences in reverse. Or her memorizing "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" for senior English by setting it to the tune of  “The Happy Wanderer” (val-de-ri, val-de-ra-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha).

Some time ago, she moved into a small apartment within walking distance of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, where the housing crisis is on steroids. With multitudes experiencing homelessness, tent cities bloom and fade with the transience of poppies in the spring.

My sister’s poetry, fiction, illustrations, and satire are widely published, and her short plays have been staged worldwide. But after the last presidential election, concerned that firings, layoffs, and tariffs would affect people’s ability to support charities and that folks on the bottom social rungs would suffer most, she put her writing aside and embarked on a singular personal project of resistance.

Every couple of days, she loads a paper bag with supplies such as toilet paper, cotton swabs, and alcohol prep pads; napkins, paper plates, and plastic bags; bottled water and juice; canned food with pull-top lids; snacks such as applesauce and muffins; and seasonal items—hand fans in the summer and socks and mylar blankets in winter.

Then, bag in hand, she takes her daily walk. Always mindful of safety, she stays in familiar, heavily populated areas, where she’s well-known by neighbors and tradespeople. Avoiding those who look as if they might pose a risk, she’ll carefully observe a likely recipient, then ask respectfully if they’re homeless. If so, she’ll offer the bag, saying she hopes they’ll find something useful inside. Again, mindful of safety, she’ll quickly move on. Thanks are neither expected nor desired, but the reaction from most recipients has been surprise, delight, and gratitude, with “God bless you” given in return many times over.

Her project improves steadily with input from her few regulars. For example, a habitué who lingers by the nearby grocery store reluctantly confessed that he couldn’t eat the packages of nuts she regularly offered because of dental issues, common among unhoused folks. So she now packs only soft food in the bags and asks before giving out items like granola bars and hard candy.

And she’s had fleeting encounters with some very interesting people. On one occasion, a picturesque woman, naked as Venus on the half-shell, emerged from a tent to thank her effusively. Another time, she encountered a young man, possibly autistic, who offered to sing her a song. When she told him there was no need and gave him the bag, he dropped to his knees as if in prayer, crying “Thank you!” over and over. She told him he was very, very welcome, and as she turned to go, he shouted “I love you!” at the top of his lungs.

Then there was the man—tall, fierce, and muscular, with a shaved head and the countenance of a Mafioso bodyguard—who rudely spat an affirmative when she asked if he were homeless. When she handed him the bag, his stern features melted like candle wax, and he softly whispered, “Thank you.” My sister fought back tears all the way home.

She has now delivered well over a hundred bags. “I’m not rich, but I can share,” she says when asked about her project. Each bag delivered is a small act of resistance, a brief connection with humanity. In the words of RFK (the real RFK, not the junior), a tiny ripple of hope. And her personal pushback against the current regime has proved to be a powerful vaccine against hopelessness and despair. She remains upbeat about the future: “The fifties never saw the sixties coming,” she reminds me, “and everything changed.”

So I’ve started keeping bags of supplies in my car to pass to panhandlers at intersections. Tiny ripples of hope to make someone feel a little more seen, a little less hungry, a little more human. These small acts of resistance help me imagine a different America, one built on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, where every human is fed and sheltered, where every soul gets the help they need to thrive. And I feel in my bones those ripples buoying and building a current that keeps us moving forward with bigger actions, such as organizing, boycotting, marching—and most importantly, voting—so that once again, just as in the sixties, everything can change.


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Often addressing malignant legacies of racism, misogyny, and religious trauma, Bett Butler's poetry and short fiction have appeared in small-press publications in the U.S., U.K., E.U., and Canada. An award-winning songwriter and jazz musician, her upcoming album, "The Gospel Truth," is a musical response to the rise of Christian nationalism.