drops in the bucket
what I am doing to face the chaos
I have had several conversations over the last few weeks about what to do right now, during what is (for many) our first constitutional crisis. So while I generally eschew anything that smacks of a listicle, I want to share what I am doing on a regular basis more broadly, in the face of (gestures wildly) all this, to feel like a person.
These actions can feel meaningless, mere drops in the bucket…but I like to imagine others out there who are also grieving a country & a future, and want to lean into community, and want to make the world a better place. Many drops can make a rainstorm.
daily meds & vitamins
Taking medication & vitamins, washing my face, applying sunscreen - as I wrote in my post-pandemic magnum opus, these small actions are investments in a future self who needs to wake up every day for the next 4 years, and beyond.
automated monthly donations
If you have any additional financial resources, automated donations make supporting causes you care about seamless - set it and forget it. Here are the organizations I currently donate to:
weekly mutual aid donations
I am budgeting $5-$20 a week to either hand out in cash, donate to GoFundMes, or Venmo directly to someone in need. Recent donations include families displaced by the LA wildfires, Palestinians in Gaza, and people impacted by ICE raids.
If you don’t know where to start, I recommend searching “your city + mutual aid” to plug in to a group already doing this work.
reaching out and checking in, especially with public servants
Community, near and far, is all we have, and I am trying harder than ever to do the work to tend and befriend with people from all eras of my life. This mostly looks like a text saying I’ve been thinking about them, hope they are doing as well as they can, no need to respond, and let me know how I can best support them right now.
If you know people who work at universities, public schools, cities, counties, federal agencies, non-profits, etc. - they are especially stressed. A text, dropping off dinner, offering childcare, or a venmo for a little treat goes a long way.
messaging elected officials once a week
This feels like the most meaningless of potentially meaningless actions, but I see it as one tool in a toolbox to combat tyranny and facism. I have been rotating between direct emails, FaxZero, and phone calls via the 5 Calls app (the scripts are great if you are nervous about calling).
coordinating low stakes social time
Walks. Sitting on the same couch to watch reality TV. Puzzling. Cooking & eating easy meals. Meal trains. Silent reading parties. Dominoes. Study halls. Running errands with friends (also a great primer for people who struggle to ask for help).
limiting social media & news time
Spending less time on my phone in general has been incredible for my mental health, creative energy, and mindfulness. To paraphrase Eliza McClamb, too many headlines & images of war-torn families pushes me into numbness & apathy - not what I want right now. I don’t need hourly updates on T***p and M**k’s latest act of hateful stupidity in order to know I don’t like them and don’t support them. 2016-me could never understand, but 2025-me has lived a lot of life since then.
letting myself cry
Trying to ride out those waves of emotion when they hit instead of sucking it up and burying the sad feelings.
calling my Nana and meeting friends’ baby
My Nana remembers marching in the streets with her dad and sisters on VE day. My friends have a baby who has only been breathing oxygen for 4 weeks - miraculous! Life is long, time is a flat circle, and I have been especially appreciative of the perspectives of different generations right now.
reading & learning history
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, sure; but really, I like to be reminded that bad things and cruel people have committed atrocities before; and yet, the oppressed survived, and the resistance resisted. Of course right now could be better, but it could also be a lot worse.
I am making an effort to read more non-fiction this year, and use the brain space that usually went to social media on educating myself. Maybe 2025 is the year I finally finish The Origins of Totalitarianism.
a final note
Maybe all these things are dumb. What I keep coming back to is this: I refuse to let these ghouls outlive me. I refuse to let stinky old buttface white men who I don’t like influence major decisions about my life. I will not let billionaires who cause harm with no conscience change my belief that most people are inherently good, that the arc of the moral universe is long but we can bend it towards justice, and that it is worth having hope in the future. SO THERE.
good things on the internet
I love love, especially Macaulay Culkin and Brenda Song 💗
This 🛴
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
currently reading
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix: Light horror, revenge of the unwed teenage mothers at a Floridian home in 1970. CW, graphic birth scenes.
You Bust Loose From Heaven And Now Your Life Starts* by Miranda July:
“Remember that you are not a vagabond. You are not a child. You will be with you every step of the way and that's quite something. Also: you are not leaving behind art and music and dancing and your work and your friendships and magic and spirituality. All that is coming with you, in fact it might be more with you, going forward. Have a little faith in life itself and your journey through it.”
this week’s jam
this song is so cinematic
a live version from a 2002 Berlin show is also worth the listen
photo of my cats
We win in inches.