Walk Without Rhythm

Signing off on consistency for the now with links a-go-go, thoughts on our collective trauma, and a little shared delight.

The huz made me breakfast in bed today: Earl Grey (hot), Fiberlicious toast with the butter melted into it, cheezy eggs—yes, EGG$!—with February tomatoes off the withered plant he finally pulled up (we’ve been a little pre-occupied). They tasted like candy.

I’ve been writing this post all week, it’s been so hard to write. I’ve erased about eleven drafts. Couldn’t get the tone right, not what I want to say, not what I want to be focused on, too scattered, too many links, can’t find the right tone, losing track of the Generous Muse mission. Guess that’s just what life feels like right now. Last week in the midst of everything I managed to drop my back-up drive right after I’d erased my laptop for a clean reinstall. I lost the final draft and query letter for Ten Days, Ten Pounds! I erased that story from last week’s blog, because I couldn’t figure whether to make a point about how “at least I didn’t lose everything in a fire,” or “I’m not even a dismissed government employee,” or “everything is getting erased anyway.” And I was too stressed having to move into an unfamiliar new OS.

Anyway. This whole chaos of “making things efficient” is highly inefficient. But they know that. Their agenda is to throw so much chaos out there that the “opposition” (yes, bullies and narcissists turn others into bad guys) can’t keep up. It’s been the plan all along. They’re now systematically rolling out their fantasy world—see how they’re doing in this Project 2025 Tracker. And did you hear that one craven author of Project 2025, now literally in charge of the president’s budget, say the inside thing out loud? “We Want the Bureaucrats to Be Traumatically Affected.” « Seriously. Click that link, it’s short and needs to go viral.

It’s not just the bureaucrats. Everyone is being traumatized.

In The Winning Family: Where No One Has to Lose, we talk a lot about trauma. We share some amazing, inspiring stories, and quote a bunch of experts. We talk about how stress, shock, and trauma are three different things. Stress and shock are in the present; trauma is systemic. Mental and physical stress come from pressure, and shock comes from the unexpected, something that lies outside of our normal experience.

We can transform stress and shock by action. If we don’t immediately release shock by talking about it, shaking, or shouting, says Gabor Maté in the documentary The Wisdom of Trauma, it can settle into trauma and change our brains. The pandemic (ah, remember how Trump fired half the CDC with the first stroke of his pen? And what happened 2 months later?) was especially traumatic for everyone who was trapped into inaction.

So let’s keep processing the stress and the shock—talking about it, shaking, and shouting. Let’s keep our hearts engaged; they enCOURage us.

Last Monday, I went to the President’s Day protest near me. It felt so great to be outdoors among people being loud! Team Michael Moore interviewed protestors at one event are messy and awesome.

Sometimes action means inaction. At the protest I carried a slightly-used sign promoting the Amazon Boycott March 7-14. There are lots of organized boycotts upcoming but the biggest one is a very widespread “Buy Nothing” day on February 28th, since the REALITY is, DEI is good business and the “Woke Virus” panic is hurting our retirement funds. (It’s especially sad that Disney caved.)

Slightly-used signs at the Oakland rally.

Wearing my dad’s red train hat…make red hats okay again!

Sometimes you need to just rest and think about things. Take a listen to this fabulous 1-hour episode of We Can Do Hard Things about the Broligarch’s endgame. You’ll think about what’s happening in a whole new way.

Sometimes you need to send a few bucks to all the hot races so we can take back Congress in April.

Sometimes you can click links or pick up the phone. (Here are the good clicks: Resistance | Results | 5 Calls) Here’s another super fun ridiculous action suggested by Redwood Mary: Sign up for the White House mailing list and take the survey they email to you. Let them know all of your opinions in “Other.” (Then you can unsubscribe if you like.)

So many questions: Is the highest level of government seriously using Mailchimp? Did they misspell “reining in” on purpose? And did whitehouse.gov seriously post that picture of Trump as king? They’re NOT KIDDING about this!

Guard Your Joys!

This was my grandma’s motto. As her body failed her, she still made sure she had something to laugh about every day, something sweet to taste. The other thing we talk about in The Winning Family: Where No One Has to Lose, is the powerful protection of pleasure against stress and trauma. Remember that chapter on PLAY I posted a month ago? Seems like a year? Here are some quotes from Chapter 10, “Stress Coping & Trauma Prevention:”

Positive emotions expand health, wealth, and well-being. As my coffee cup states, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!” (This is true of papas, too.)

Later this spring I’ll be launching a self-paced video course featuring my mom, younger than I am now, teaching a room full of parents how to protect against stress.

“The best homework you’ll ever get!” she’d say. “Make a list of twenty things you love to do. Some are things you’d do alone, some with your children, some with your spouse, partner, or friend. Then cross off any that are not good for you!” Everyone would laugh. “Be aware, as you write, of when you last did those things.”

My greatest joy, (breakfast in bed notwithstanding) is dancing with muses, bringing art and ideas into the world, nurturing creativity. A few things that have lit me up lately:

• A chess player named Todd posted this little ditty he wrote on the stunt-banned & unbanned Tiktok. You may have seen it on Last Week Tonight. I played it in Dancetera!

• I’ve been mentoring a young artist whose college career got caught in the meat grinder of the Mills “teachout” to Northeastern. L.A. Bonet (yes, related) intended to write a documentary about our *last* hostile takeover, but instead her rage and talent magicked up a wild ride of an artistic exposé full of comic brilliance and traumatized crazy. This is the audio rough which will come out later in bite-size chunks, but she wants it out there NOW so here it is!

• I went to the Black History Month celebration at Dave’s school last week, and was impressed, as I always am at their cultural celebrations, at how all the nonsense calms down and how excited the kids get about performing and listening to each other in a larger, inspiring context. Our stories all intertwine. The next day he drops this post, “They’re Coming,” about how multiculturalism is being silenced in other schools. And then I try to imagine RFK’s fantasy of taking this pillar of the community off his meds and what we’ll all do when he’s sent back to a reparenting camp!

• And here’s a pic from last week’s mini gondola cruise, celebrating 5 years since the plague. We survived.

  

So.

This was exhausting. I hope it wasn’t as exhausting to read as it was to write. Let’s be strategic with our energies. On the theme of cutbacks, I’m going to need to take “Weekly Post Friday 10am” off my calendar. (It lately hasn’t gone out until Saturday, Sunday, even Monday anyway.) I’ve done pretty well on the consistency thing (not my neurological wheelhouse) since I first started up on Substack in summer of 2023. Until I get my work done, get caught up, and things come clear, I’m going to be posting more sporadically. Hopefully I’ll get an actual Museletter together by spring.

Dave does this thing when he brings me breakfast: he turns on the TV. It’s like trapping me in bed until the sun hits my eyes, watching classics I haven’t seen or am seeing again. Watch Philadelphia Story if you want a laugh or The Notebook if you need a good cry or Dune if you’re thinking about restoring order to a world ruled by industrial greed. Movies are full of good ideas.