Hey, how’s everyone doing? I’ve been checking in with my students — some of them don’t pay much attention to politics, others are very aware of what’s going on. Many are worried. I’m worried about them.
I told them that I didn’t know what I could do to help, but they should consider me a resource — if they needed an immigration lawyer, or an abortion, if I couldn’t help directly, I could probably find someone who could. One of the nice things about being middle-aged — you know a lot of people who do a lot of things. Time to activate our networks.
I also told them about the Know Your Rights flyers re: ICE (I need to print some out and bring them to class), and about Heather Cox Richardson as a reliable source for both daily updates and historical context.
Here’s Arya for you — he seemed to be sleeping when I stood up to take this photo, but then his eyes flicked open at the movement, and he stayed like this, motionless but alert.
That’s kind of how I feel like now — not paralyzed, but paused. Braced and ready to move fast, if necessary, but not spinning out of control, burning up energy.
I’m trying not to be immediately reactive to things when I don’t have enough facts or context. (For example — grieving for the Kansas passengers and crew, and for the helicopter personnel, but trying not to spin theories until we get more facts.) There are smart people with far more political education than I have, working hard on parsing all this for the public.
I think my job right now, as a citizen, is to find those reliable sources, stay informed, and be ready to move if the call goes out. And to check in with my community — so here I am, checking in. How are y’all doing? Feel free to express any emotions you want / need to in the comments. I’m holding space for you.
