Hi friends! What a month… As I vacillate between deep despair and incandescent rage at the state of politics in the US, I’ve been trying to find hope in my day-to-day, and in fact, there is much to be thankful for. Some things that are giving me life right now:
- After dinner walks with Garun around our land, and snuggles with the kitties as the temperature drops.
- I have started a 10-week course for women in business, and I am touched by the vulnerability and bravery of my cohort.
- I am so appreciative of my bi-weekly fiber arts club— it has been a welcoming and inclusive space, and the quiet ease of chatting with relative strangers over the clack of knitting needles is a balm for my soul.
- Visiting the local cider mill and stocking up on delicious seasonal treats.
What else have I been up to? Well…
What I’m reading
Check out #spellbooksaturday posts for my recent reading recommendations, as well as…
“The War on Truth Heats Up (just in time for Constitution Day)” by Rebecca Solnit
“I think it then becomes more important than ever… to find trustworthy sources, and to keep company with those who are committed to truth, those we trust. And to call things by their true names: to call cruelty and hate by no euphemism, to call lies lies and truth truth, to defend science and history, fact and reason.”
“From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home” by Adrienne Matei
“Fascism may betray women, but it still relies on their support.”
“Ezra Klein Just Showed Us Everything Wrong With Secularized Meditation” by Liz Bucar
There’s a lot to say about Ezra Klein’s trash opinions (here’s another great piece!), but I especially enjoyed this essay on his meditation practice. “These qualities—calm, detachment, refusing to take firm positions—are virtues in mindfulness culture. …But when fascism is rising and people are being harmed, that calm becomes a form of avoidance.”
“Meghan Markle and the curious pull of public domesticity on ambitious women” by Celeste Davis
“When they are slandered every time they don’t act feminine enough, is it any wonder that ambitious women turn to public displays of domesticity? Maybe the real question here is: why do we have so little tolerance for famous women deviating from femininity?”
What I’m watching
Spooky season is in full swing here, and so I’ve been marathoning horror movies, but I also really enjoyed this brief meditation on “radical neighbouring,” or what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls “the gift economy”:
For movie updates, check out HWB on Letterboxd! Follow…
What I’m listening to
Misinformation, disinformation, “alternative facts” and “hot takes”— there’s so much to sift through as I try to balance staying informed and staying sane, and in the immediate aftermath of the murder of misogynist and bigot Charlie Kirk,1 I was disgusted to see the Wall Street Journal’s dangerous and misleading reporting on the perpetrator.2 As such, I really appreciated this recent episode of Live Like the World is Dying on cultivating media literacy:
What I’m doing
Banned Books Week is October 5th through 11th, culminating in Let Freedom Read Day, a day of action. LFRD offers great action items categorized by time constraints— for example, if you have 5 minutes you can call a representative, if you have 15 minutes you can check a banned book out of your library, if you have more than an hour you can volunteer with your local library, etc. The American Library Association also shares ways to fight censorship, Unite Against Book Bans offers this fabulous toolkit, and for my fellow New Yorkers, Free For All gives tips on how to “defend intellectual freedom in your community.”
Remember, acquiescing in advance does the work of fascists for them, we don’t need to make it any easier.
And finally, speaking of the “gift economy,” we have been cultivating a friendship with our fabulous new neighbors, who dropped off blueberry zucchini bread, made with zucchinis which we had gifted from our garden. How abundant! How magical! How delicious!
- I believe the pressure to “not speak ill of the dead” is a type of violence against victims and survivors of forms of oppression, and I’m not going to engage in that nonsense. ↩︎
- I’m not going to link to them, as I don’t want to give this any more oxygen, but the Human Rights Campaign is demanding an apology, you can sign their petition here. ↩︎
