If you have been reading this blog, I want to say a heartfelt thank you. There are 1,000 ways you can spend your time on the internet, so thank you for plunking down your hard earned attention on my little slice. Without you, I’m just another person muttering on the subway. So, thank you.
I’ve been avoiding the topic of the Cheeto flea, and I decided a few days ago, I will continue to not focus on him or shitshow #2– the mentally unstable billionaire version. I refuse to participate in or fuel the angst, anger, and depression (OK, well, I may not be able to avoid that last one). They are going to do what they are going to do, and my sleepless nights are not going to change them, but they will wear me down.
I did find something better I could focus on. I randomly came upon an interview with Trevia Woods on the Jess Klein’s Big Table podcast that really spoke to me. Trevia has been working in social justice for many years, and she has indigenous ancestry. I found her words honest and clear and she said them with great empathy. Her attitude is: “[Indigenous people] lived through the apocalypse y’all…and they are still here.” She goes on to say, you need joy and rest, and to build up your nervous system to deal with, rather than disassociate from, this uncomfortable reality of racism and white supremacy. That takes time and space. Then, the action will come. She acknowledged people new to the work of social justice often feel the need to do something, right now, and she called out that urgency (outside of life and death), saying it’s a trait of white supremacy.
That kind of blew my mind, and also made sense to me. We get to feel like we’re doing something without having to really face our part in racism.
Instead, she encouraged people to understand that many others are already doing this work. So come in, sit down, and listen first. Look for what is already there, and see how you can contribute.
It helped me understand the need to play the long game. I have collected 14 books on various topics of racism since the last time Cheeto flea was darkening our doorstep. And once he left, my attention went elsewhere. In 2025, I am going to do my best to accept my inertia, fatigue, and monkey mind, and read those books anyway. My way of coming in, sitting down, and listening. And I could easily find myself in June, with nary a finished book. But I gotta start somewhere.
So I think all we can hope to do, is our best in 2025 — whether that’s treading water to survive, resisting the urge to poke some annoying person in the eye, or diving in the deep end of whatever pool is calling your name, or all three, depending on the day. We are here, alive, and together.
Mergansers are going about the business of eating and living and not minding the fog on Jamaica Pond on a mild winter day.
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