How are you coping there?

Good morning friends! Lately ppl are asking me, and each other, these questions:

How are you coping? (And in my case they also mean my personal load of current bullshit, but I like to think that’s temporary.) They are asking How are you not freaking out all the time? How are you living life despite everything?

and also sometimes Are you thinking about leaving the country?

Answer to the second question: No. Nein, nyet, nopers.

I do have a Canadian passport. So I could. But my kids could not, so: No.

What would it really fix for me to leave my family and friends? I have chosen to stay and fight + have a good time regardless. Enjoy what I can.

More practically, to the first question, here’s how I’m coping:

1. I remember seeing Tommy Orange in late 2019, just before the pandemic, in his native Oakland. What a night! The venue was enormous and it was still overflowing and I was so lucky to have someone illegally save me a seat at the main stage. 



And I still shrivel in embarrassment when I think of this: an attendee asked Tommy how he was coping with the current administration and he said something like A lot of you are feeling so Chicken Little right now, but us natives have been living the actual apocalypse for 500 years. For us, it is a post-apocalyptic world. 



This statement comprehensively rearranged my brain and the embarrassment for me is that it didn’t happen before 2019.

So. Longer timeline. I’m taking that view.

2. I am not mainlining the news, and I haven’t for a while. I didn’t feel the earthquake here the other week and didn’t know about it until after the fact.

That was just a small earthquake off the coast of Maine. Obviously there are bigger earthquakes happening in public life and some I need to know about, but I like to remember who benefits? WHO BENEFITS from my freaking out when I read the news?

There is nothing natural about the presentation of news today. It is explicitly designed to flip the terror switch because when you’re terrorized you’re easy to push off the cliff and into the clickhole. It’s hard to climb out and they—virtually all news outlets—only give ya one thing to do down there at the bottom, which is click on more terrifying shit.

You definitely cannot pull anyone else out of the clickhole—not from the bottom. Stay up top where you can be of use.

3. You can’t do everything. Plenty of ppl will give you grief about that, but don’t give it to yourself. Decide what you can do and do that thing.

For me, it’s land back. For you, it might be working for single-payer health care. Or reading to first-graders. Or maybe you get your grandma to her appointments every day. Do your thing you care about and trust the other ppl to do their things they care about.

That’s what I’m doing to stop the overwhelm. It’s better to do one thing than to be paralyzed, no?

And of course I’m drawing strength from others. I really try to pay attention to the ppl in my world that are solid, decent and hardworking. My friends mainly! And public figures and teachers like Catherine Liu, Chris LaTray, James Vukelich, Robin Clark. Memoirists and newslettrists (a word? sure!) like Cameron Scott Steele and Rain Perry and more.

So: Longer view, bigger view. The world is full of good folks. Take heart!

Also plz feed yourself.

If you have any concerns about dieting, withholding, binge eating, compulsive eating, overeating, all of that? This little book is a HUGE help.

Your purchase helps support this newsletter! Thank you 🙏

RECOMMENDING.

reading.

I signed up for Native American Studies for Everyone, a public course. I’m one of those that often hates the assigned reading, but the main text, Everything you Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask, by Anton Treuer, what a banger, I can’t put it down.

For instance did you know that paleontologists have shown that indigenous Americans did not come via land bridge 11,000 years ago? Nope!

They had to come by sea, because they came more like 35,000 years ago, when there weren’t no land bridge. 🤯 Highly recommend this.

Also Sara Gran*’s Little Mysteries just arrived last night!! It is the best Valentine I could hope for.

*One of my two favorite living writers. (The other is Anna Dorn. Between them, life = worth living.)

And I just finished Early Morning Riser, by Katherine Heiny. Thank you reader and uncanny recommendation engine Julie H. for the rec! This is a beautiful story of rural disappointment, disaster and found family. I literally laughed out loud, and apologies for the cliche, but I also wept real tears. It has Elin Hilderbrand’s recommendation as well as Julie’s. You’re welcome!

watching.

Oh the algorithm. AND YET. The other day it served me up Pure Grit, a documentary about Sharmaine Weed, a female bareback racer (“America’s first extreme sport”) from the Wind River reservation. It’s an Irish production and it walks a fine line indeed with the trauma porn. But it’s a very beautiful film that I might never have found on my own. The racing—it IS extreme—will make your heart pound.

eating.

Alison Roman’s Gorgeous Chili. I made mine with beef but you can make this recipe vegetarian. My freezer is really filling up:

Okay, that is the week! Please let me know how you are coping. Or if you are not, let me know that too. I am thinking about you.

👊  respect!

💗  adore!  

🙏  and thank you for reading.