Friday, October 9, 2020…10:38am
The end of week 30. It’s been a solidly typical pandemic week in our house – meaning things were as normal as normal can possibly be in our house. Which is a huge blessing considering how extra bizarre the world continues to get outside of our house.
The chaos in the world has me feeling restless.
I’m feeling restless – and I can’t quiet my head or heart, or settle my body enough to sleep well, or shake the feeling that there is something I an supposed to be doing. I actually said to my husband the other night that I am about ready to go scorched earth on a couple of situations. It’s not that I think I have all the right answers to the problems of the world – but I can see so many spaces where some “good trouble” is so clearly needed in the name of common good. For somebody who generally subscribes to a live and let live philosophy of life, the desire to right some wrongs is simultaneously disturbing and exhilarating.
So what to do? I’m not entirely sure, but doing does help.
This past week I spent a few hours volunteering to text-bank for the Biden/Harris campaign. It was productive and temporarily settled my restlessness. I will definitely be doing that more between now and November 3rd. I am also doing deep dive research into the local elections and statewide propositions on the ballot so I can make choices from a balance of head and heart. I truly believe that it is in that place of balances head and heart that good trouble can force change. And it’s time for some change.
I came across a poem this morning that was originally written in 2016 by the poet Maggie Smith. Good Bones gets to the core of the restlessness tied to trying to hold space for hope, while raising kids in a world that feels upside down. So pretty much me, right now…
Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Maggie Smith, Good Bones
We could absolutely make this place beautiful.
Be well my friends.
We're All A Little Broken 