I think I’ve mentioned that I sometimes work with a personal trainer. It’s particularly useful right now as my wrist heals — Liz Fairweather is great at coming up with modifications that let me keep pushing forward without aggravating the injury.
She was amused by how hard-core I look here, because we’ve added a weight vest and ankle weights to make squats harder, and took a photo — I’m laughing, because I felt a little ridiculous, but the weights work. They’re making me stronger, and right now, I could use a little strength.
It’s a hard time politically for me and I suspect for most of you.
I’m not quite sure what I can do that’s effective on the national level — postcards to voters in swing states, maybe? Illinois, where I live, is solidly blue, and I know traveling to swing states and going door-to-door is beyond my capacity right now. Even phone calls — I tried doing calls two elections ago, and I hated it. Postcards are more my speed, and even more, hosting postcard-writing events and feeding volunteers. I’ll probably do at least one or two of those in upcoming months.
I wish I had a better sense of whether that’s actually effective. Would welcome data on that front.
To be honest, I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed this past year (with a death in the family, multiple serious illnesses, wrist injury, COVID, etc. and so on), that I’m barely managing to keep up with work-critical e-mail. Sometimes I manage to write fiction, but rarely.
Crafting and gardening and cooking (as my wrist allows) have been the only ways I can reliably feel productive and happy. I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading too, childhood favorites mostly, which are calming. I’m trying to prioritize spending good time with family and, as I feel up to it, friends (socializing is also somewhat hard right now).
It feels a little like a cop-out, to be focused so domestically in the midst of what is not just a national, but an international crisis. If Trump is elected, if the Project 2025 folks manage to get much of their agenda through, it’ll have terrible consequences not just for America, but for the whole planet.
But we do what we can. If I fall down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theorizing about the shooter at the Trump rally, or the question of whether Biden should be the Democratic candidate, or following the polls obsessively, I know it’s going to be terrible for my mental health, and unlikely to do much good.
So that’s where I am right now — building strength, despite the injuries. Finding laughter. Feeding people. Doing as much good as I can manage on the local level — and if you’re local and interested in running for library or school board in the next election, I’d love to talk to you. Local elections are critical for improving people’s everyday lives, and they also help build the bench for the larger electorate.
I’m trying to take the long view. I’ve read a lot of history at this point, in my graduate work studying post-colonial literature. I’ve read a lot of science fiction, extrapolating out to better futures. I know that we’re fighting a long war here, and that we’ve actually made a shocking amount of progress on human rights in a very short time, and that there’s inevitably going to be backlash.
We can’t let the backlash knock us down.
Little steps, every day, or as often as we can manage it.
Deep breaths.
Onwards.
