Six Plus Infinity

I almost always sign off on notes and messages to my family with, “I love you, 6+i—six plus infinity.” Infinity is beyond comprehension, and I add six to it to highlight how my love for them goes on forever.

But in these difficult times, 6+i is as descriptive of evil and criminality as it is of love and joy. I’m writing this in a coffee shop after participating in a No King’s protest that is part of our national fight for democracy. It was raining, and my knee was aching, and yet I knew there was nowhere else in the world I should be.

I have publicly protested just three times in my life, and two of them were in response to Donald Trump’s misdeeds. At the first protest in 2017 – mere days after Trump’s first inauguration – I wore a pink pussyhat I ordered on Etsy and carried a sign that proclaimed, “Leave Your Hands Off My Body.” I don’t like crowds, and this protest on the Boston Common was wall-to-wall people. But there is nowhere else in the world that my daughter and I, whom I love 6+i, belonged that day.

The second Trump protest was today, on Flag Day 2025 and Trump’s 79^th birthday. At 6:30 this evening, Trump is gifting himself a military parade of fascistic proportions. I was at my town green in the afternoon with my sister, whom I also love 6+I, and with over 500 people chanting to take our democracy back.

No Kings then, now, and forever in our precious United States.

There were a lot of clever signs at the protest, but a couple of them made me actually tear up. The first proclaimed, “I am a 90-year-old woman, and I remember what democracy looks like.” The second said, “My father fought against the Nazis for our democracy.”

So did mine, and I often wonder what he, an old-fashioned American patriot, would have made of this national nightmare from which we can’t wake up at the moment. I think I know. He would have counseled my sister and me to fight for our country. “You girls are what democracy looks like,” he would have said with tears in his eyes.

And so, I will fight for my country, my family, and my fellow citizens. I will fight for the over 100,000 people who took the US citizenship oath with my mother in 1966, and the over 800,000 people who also pledged allegiance to America and its flag in 2024. Their pledges still hold, and so do mine.

“God Bless America,” our modern presidents—including Trump—say as they sign off after a speech. In Trump’s case, he has said it only once thus far, after the speech he gave at his second inauguration. He is fond of saying “God Bless the USA Bible,” lyrics from a Christian Nationalism anthem.

And so, I say it here and now for my father, for my brothers and sisters in our country, documented or undocumented, and for the world, when I both beseech and proclaim – God Bless America, 6+i.