two things that help

a little

Hey! You’re here. Thank you!

When I say you’re here, I don’t say it lightly. You are here. One week since the election and you are here and so am I. That’s something.

As my friend

MJ

said last Wednesday, Every text I woke up to this morning said I love you and that has to mean something.

I can’t pretend to know how the last week has felt for you, but I can tell you I am glad you’re here. I am glad we get to keep showing up together, whatever that looks like now.

I’m still in the place where no words feel good. Every gesture toward hope feels inauthentic. This is supposed to be a silly little newsletter about books and dogs and happy things and I am at a loss.

That said, here are two things that helped in the last week - at least a little.

Do something different.

We are going to have to do a lot of things differently. To fight back, to survive, to protect our siblings, things are going to have to change. That much is clear.

When I am depressed, though, change is the hardest thing. I don’t want to do anything differently, risk anything new. So I’m starting small. I do not enjoy cooking at all, and I never crave food preparation as a creative outlet. This weekend, though, I made butternut squash mac and cheese. It was pretty good. I enjoyed using my mind for something different, trying something new. I also enjoy cheese and pasta so let’s be honest that’s probably the main thing.

Last night I sold books at a poetry reading at Smith College. The reading was incredible, but what I will remember is the conversation I had with the woman who was the first to show up. It was about 30 minutes until the reading began and I was just setting up the books when she approached the table. We started talking and she told me she heard about the reading on the radio and decided she wanted to go even though she’d never been before. She texted a bunch of friends asking if they wanted to go with her, but they couldn’t make it. So she went on her own. In the dark of a Tuesday night in November she went on her own. She was early because she was worried about finding parking. Relatable.

When I’m depressed the last thing I want is someone telling me to get out of my comfort zone. I’ll get out of my comfort zone to curse out every person who suggests just “getting out there and doing something.” Sometimes it’s too hard and that’s okay.

What I’m saying is pick the thing that is just shy of too hard. And that’s going to look different for everyone. Try a new recipe. Sit in the back of a book event by yourself. Walk in a different direction than you usually do. Order a fancy coffee drink that you’ve never been sure exactly what it is and then give the Barista a fake name so you get to be someone else for two seconds. Go into your local bookstore and ask the bookseller the last great book they read and read it no matter what it is. Okay that one is a little self-serving but you get the idea. The point is we are going to have to do things differently and I think it’s okay to start small.

I am a chef now.

Two Book Lists

Writing little lists of books has always been a magic trick for me. It gives me something tangible to look forward to, a reminder of what is possible, what is out there waiting for me. When I’m sad I just write lists of books I want to read on little scraps of paper and it is has always helped at least a little.

Last Wednesday morning I started a google doc that contains two book lists. One is called Books for Joy & Comfort and the other is Books for Dreaming of a Better World. Like all binaries this one is basically false. I am not convinced that the spicy sapphic romance novels on my joy & comfort list aren’t going to make a better world. In fact I know they will.

Pictured above are the two books I brought home with me last Wednesday. The first in each of my two lists. I can’t pretend to know what brings you joy, but reading about a small-town bakery owner and her enemy-turned-lover who happens to own the sex shop next door felt just about right to me. (Frosted By the Girl Next Door). I’m a hundred pages in I wasn’t wrong. They can’t take away our queer nonsense. They simply cannot.

I haven’t started Mutual Aid yet, but it has been on my list for ages and it’s long past time. That will be my next Dreaming of a Better World read after I finish The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is as powerful as everyone says. It is worth your time, now more than ever.

All of this is to say these little book lists give me a pale light by which to see something like a path forward.

Books won’t save us, but they can help us save ourselves.

So I want to know - what is on your lists these days? How has your TBR changed in the last week? What is bringing you comfort, what is arming you for the fight ahead?

Meanwhile you can find Yaya letting the soft animal of her body love what it loves. May we learn from her.

I love you. I’m so glad you’re here.

Love,

Rosamond