FIELD OF CARE AND UNKNOWING

Well, it’s been a week. When I ask the women I know how they’re doing, most say exhausted or numb. Which is how I feel also. We have been fighting for so long. We have been in survival mode for so long. We have been feeding the flames of hope for so long. I just want to sleep, for a month, or two, or three, except I don’t, because I want to pause time; stay here; remain in this moment of relative stability; keep the next onslaught of disasters at bay.

The morning after the election some women gathered in my writing studio. We wept, raged, sat together in stunned silence.

Last night a group of people in my town gathered to discuss the first section of ALL WE CAN SAVE, a book about the climate crisis, written by fem-identifying writers, many of them youth activists and writers of color.

None of these gatherings included answers, solutions, or problem-solving. None of us seem to have the energy, hope, or reserves for those things. But we gathered to grieve, which is, in itself, medicinal.

Isolation and loneliness are central tenets of authoritarianism; keep the people apart and they will not mobilize, support one another, or be able to visualize resistance. And so we brought our tired, sorrow-full bodies to the circle. And so we will do so again soon.

What the Right got right is churches; they understand the power of community and belonging and have built powerful institutions that braid the spiritual and political.

What the Left has never been as good at? Community and belonging. Herd mentalities. Bridging the spiritual and secular (for very good, constitutional reasons). But without those churches—those institutions of belief, community, and belonging—we have to create our own circles. Inclusive, warm, loving circles. Places for grief, mutual aid, joy, conversation, imagining, organizing, and the sharing of meals. I can’t bring myself to think beyond the hyper-local right now, and so that’s where my circles will be. Right here, on this soil and land, amongst these neighbors. Rooted in the most basic questions. How are you? How are your loved ones? What do you need?

These are questions the churches of the Right are very good at asking and responding to. They are good at recognizing the real needs of their neighbors and trying to help them meet those needs. This creates the weave and the weft of social fabric, and these are things many of us have lost as our local institutions disband, and we spend more and more time on screens, and commuting.

And so, some tiny thoughts/breaths on moving forward:

• Living rooms are where many social movements have started, strengthened, and grown. Make your messy living room a tiny church, or synagogue, or mosque. Make it a place for grief, love, and belonging.

• Don’t be alone. Don’t let them make you feel alone. I’ve listened to this Tara Brach podcast three times in the past week, and love her notion that there is “a field of shared care” all around us. Enter and be held by that field of care.

• Take care of your body. Eat well, sleep well, move, meditate, dance: whatever it is that keeps you happy and strong. This will be a long journey. Health is at the heart of it all.

• Keep making your art. Authoritarians hate art; art is subversive, truth-telling, unifying, liberatory, spirit-filled. Keep that spirit burning, fiery, alive.

That’s all I’ve got for now, I think. We’re entering a great field of unknowing, as many humans have done before. We will need all our inner resources to get through. We will need one another. Let’s be that field of belonging and care for one another. Let’s make the world we want to see—joyful, nurturing, loving, diverse, colorful, generous, beauty-full—unfold, right here.

Be well, dear ones. I’m with you.

Robin