In our towns and all around in October, purple is the color of caring. It’s National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. And like all the causes that have colors throughout the year, it’s important to think about what we can do, and do it, and just as important to keep thinking and doing after the ribbons, lights, pins and other symbols are put away.

A symbol can stand for hate or peace, or unity in addressing a cause. And whoever wears one or displays it is saying something about themselves and the world they want to live in.

This should be a world where no partner or other family member of any age, or their pet, or girlfriend or boyfriend, gets hurt or otherwise abused by someone they trust. I doubt we will see that day in our lifetimes. But we can make a difference. Absent trying, there’s no hope, only acceptance.

And domestic violence in all its forms depends on acceptance — that looking away, that statement of it’s not our business, that hesitance to ask someone how they got injured or why their child has been missing school, or why they have stopped meeting them for lunch, or quit their job.

Get educated, volunteer, help raise funds or, if you are experiencing domestic violence, on either end of it, please reach out for help. Our newspapers maintain a domestic violence resources page at wiscassetnewspaper.com and boothbayregister.com

It’s there this month and every month.

Call New Hope for Women at 882-6222 or its 24-hour crisis hotline at 1-800-522-3304. Newhopeforwomen.org states, if in immediate danger, call 911.

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However you feel about the state’s plans for Wiscasset’s downtown, if you’ll still be traveling Main Street by foot, pedal or motor after the project, it may as well have the lighting style, tree species and other details that most appeal to you among the choices the state is offering.

The state will only know what you want for those features you’ll be looking at daily, for years to come, if you tell it. The Maine Department of Transportation plans to have electronic clickers Thursday, Oct. 5 at Wiscasset Elementary School for people to give their preferences. Give yours.  The meeting starts at 6 p.m.