What we can save | LISB
Everything we can save is worth saving.
The world is violent and mercurial — it will have its way with you. We are saved only by love — love for each other and the love that we pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent; being a writer; being a painter; being a friend. We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love. - Tennessee Williams
Hey y’all –
Last week in the US was… something. Cruelty is on the rise – in fact, it’s being incentivized. The flurry of executive orders from the White House was a whiplash inducing blur and did nothing to calm the fears many folks have about the incoming administration. It really does feel like things are on fire. Instead of the shared chaos of the pandemic, this is the individualized chaos that comes from not knowing who your allies are, not knowing what the future holds for you, despite the fact your neighbor may thrive under the changes.
Many of us are in a state of shock right now – amazed by the brazenness as we watch long-held political norms disappear in the space of less than 168 hours. When a house is on fire and you try to escape, different people try to save different things. The wedding pictures. The family Bible. The box with the important documents. It’s a crisis, and you can’t save everything, and so, in a split second, you must choose what to save and what to risk losing.
I was described one day last week as pessimistic, but I’m not. Not at all. I bet as always, in the long run, on people, on humanity, on love. I’m sure that people will rise to the occasion and there will be mutual aid efforts and people working to thwart ICE and others will be caring for those harmed by these policies and we will organize and, eventually, put the fire out.
I continue to believe that love will win in the end, and should it ever appear that love has not won, it is only because it is not yet the end. I bet on love. Always.
What I am is not pessimistic, but rather filled with anticipatory grief for all the folks who won’t make it out of the building before we can do that.
On the day after the election, activist and author Rebeccaa Solnit wrote a long piece she shared on Facebook, and I copied out a sentence of it and posted it over my desk. I come back to it again and again:
The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything, and everything we can save is worth saving.
Maybe we can’t save everything, but what we can save is worth saving.
So stay safe, friends. Take care of yourselves, and drink plenty of water and move your body as much as you can and find something to look forward to and plant flowers and eat the best food you can and reach out and check in on the ones you love. And surround yourself with as much beauty as possible to remind you of what is at stake and what must be saved.
Five beautiful things
I love these sketches by Shou Xin, a Chinese artist who does amazing things with very few marks.
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. That is the first line of the beautiful, brilliant, poem Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Hairo, from her collection The Woman Who Fell From The Sky. On the Poetry Foundation’s website (which is a national treasure, for sure), there is an option to have it read to you. (I shared this a year ago, but it feels timely again.)
The always worth reading Anne Helen Peterson describes her changing relationship with social media, and this feels spot on for me.
I was on YouTube, looking for something else, and found this version of Angel From Montgomery, a duo by Bonnie Rait and John Prine. I felt my shoulder drop just listening to this.
The largest rooftop mural in Miami Florida is a 35,000 square feet trompe l’oeil masterpiece that reminds one of a specimen case containing over a dozen butterflies. 400 hours, 200 gallons of paint, and all done with rollers! More public art like this, please!
Members Only
If you were a member, you would have gotten an essay this past Saturday about being angry, but not being consumed by it. Some folks found it useful.
Membership starts at $5 a month and pays for my labor and keeps this newsletter free (and ad-free) for everyone else. And along the way, you will get occasional goodies and exclusive weekly essays like this one.
Heads up
This year I am making some pretty big changes in how I interact with social media. One outcome of that is more frequent, shorter, blog posts on a website I control. I’m currently blogging at hughlh.com and you can sign up here to get an email on Saturday morning with links to that week’s posts.
Thank You
Ideas for links this week came from friend of the newsletter Amy, Eric Maierson, and the excellent Ann Friedman.
This letter has been an act of love, written without the benefit of AI or algorithms just for you. For almost a decade now I’ve been allowed in your inboxes each week - I don’t take that for granted.
Thank you.
Hugh
PS:
If you like this newsletter and want to support it, here are four ways:
Share it with a friend (just forward it, or post the link on social media) and ask them to subscribe at https://lisb.hughhollowell.org
Buy me a cup of coffee.
Become part of our membership team and financially support this work, while getting premium essays and other occasional goodies.
Hit reply and tell me what resonated, what didn’t, or send me a link to something you thought was beautiful.