Hi sweet friends - it’s been a minute. The last three weeks - the first three of 2026 - have been filled with unbelievable horrors. I’ve been trying, and failing, to find words to capture how I’m feeling. I’ve been trying, and mostly failing, to find somewhere to put my restless and anxious energy. I’ve been thinking a lot about Mariame Kaba’s words: 

“Action is a practice of hope. Put another way, hope is generated through action. “Doing” allows us to derive experience and meaning - it is through doing that we experience feeling. I’m interested in a robust and active hope, the kind of hope that has dirty and calloused hands.”

I’ve been pretty inactive the past two weeks. Pretty in my head and on my phone, scrolling helplessly past images of the terror ICE agents are wreaking in Minnesota. And then, a parent at my kiddos’ school invited me to a group of other concerned parents who are working to develop a plan for rapid response if and when ICE presence increases in our community. I signed up to train as a volunteer with the Colorado Rapid Response Network. And damn if Mariame Kaba wasn’t right: I started feeling more hopeful. I started finding more meaning. I started to feel. 

I’ve been slowly making my way through How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee this month. I finally made it to the final essay in the book - “On Becoming an American Writer” - and it truly blew me away. While Chee is speaking of the importance of writing as action as a practice of hope, I think this applies to anything you are creating - art or a home cooked meal for a neighbor or a contribution to a mutual aid fund or a new connection.

Here’s Chee: “We won’t know when the world will end. If it ever does, we will be better served when it does by having done this work we can do.” This reminder was so needed for me this week. By having done this work we can do. I’m reminded of the venn diagram of purpose being the intersection of what you love, what you are good at, and what the world needs. And also of the quote from Civil Rights leader, Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” I think I’m still finding my purpose in this moment, still figuring out what makes me come alive right now, but I’ve been thinking, actively, of what the work is I can do. Of what my action can be. Of where I can develop my dirty and calloused hands. Of how I can rage against despair. Of how I can create hope in service of what the world needs while finding my own aliveness in the process. 

Mary Oliver reminds us that “It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.” The world is broken, yes, AND I want to commit to using my aliveness, to taking it seriously, to working to mend as well as I can in my corner. 

Chee, again, writing to his students about persisting despite the horrors:  “I wrote to them that weekend and told them that art endures past governments, countries, and emperors, and their would-be replacements. That art - even, or perhaps especially, art that is dedicated somehow to tenderness, dedicated as a lover who would offer something to her beloved in the last nights they’ll share before she leaves this life forever - is not weak. It is strength.”

My word of the year is “tender” and I love this reminder that art-making dedicated to tenderness is strength. That any action dedicated to tenderness is strength. And that that strength, that action, begets hope. I’m realizing that fascism attempts to stamp out tenderness because open hearts, hopeful hearts, are not so easily forcibly controlled. I want my heart to be open. I want to be vulnerable. I want to risk being bruised. I want to stay tender to the possibilities of a different tomorrow. I want, as Andrea Gibson says, for “my heart to be covered in stretch marks.”  

So, that’s where I am today. I’d love to hear if this resonates with you. I’d love to hear about actions you’re taking, hope you’re creating, tenderness you’re cultivating, openness you’re committing to. I need to know that we’re in this together, doing the work we can do. Thanks for being here.