The Noticing #48

Somebody Tell Me That It's Going To Be Okay

Hi! Today is the last full day of school and I have been dreading this impending transition FOR WEEKS. The whole no structure, no routine part of summer is the worst for an anxious, introverted, highly sensitive ADHD girl like moi. Remember: feeling like this has nothing to do with the degree to which you love your kids.

No matter how I feel about it, summer is here and we are rolling with it, we are breezy, we are making the best of it and saying things like what if it all works out?

Let’s get into this newsletter.

• Connections: But What If It Doesn’t All Work Out?

• Caught My Attention: Book Reviews, Podcasts and Summer Links

• Photographic Evidence: Every Day Something New Is Blooming

• If This Resonates: Please Answer These For Me (If You Want)

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Connections

Up on the watershed, standing at the fork in the road. You can stand there and agonize until your agony’s your heaviest load. Watershed by the Indigo Girls

Last Thursday night, a group of friends crammed in a get-together smack dab in the middle of May, right in the middle of awards days and banquets and graduations, field days and field trips. We call it Hot Tub Night. The only things on the agenda: eat dinner together and get in the hot tub. We planned it almost two months in advance. I went back and checked and it was March 21 that we set a May 14 date because that’s what it takes.

Over dinner, we talked about books and added to each other’s TBR piles, caught up on kids and jobs and all the things. We tried not to kill the vibe, I swear we silently did, because everything was going so well. But somewhere along the way, the conversation shifted to politics and how crazy-making it can be to live here in the deep red South, to live in a time where people pretend that racist things are not racist, where you can feel really lonely and isolated sometimes. I’m not even sure who said what first.

My fingers start to tingle when I get nervous about what I’m about to say. The racket in my head starts up: who do you think you are to say out loud that you felt hopeless and despair when you are sitting in a hot tub, safe as can damn be, in the middle of your cushy life? I wonder if maybe it is best to be quiet and not run the risk of making someone mad or defensive. And then I’m back at the audacity of saying out loud what I think so many people feel on the inside but the reality that the only experience I can share is my own. And my own experience, sitting in that hot tub, was hopelessness and despair.

We talked about the war, the gas prices, the gerrymandering and voter suppression, the overt racism and the subversive racism, the history repeating itself. It was every bit as much fun as you can imagine. And after you talk about those things for a little while, there’s not a lot to do other than sit there in silence. I can still picture the faint constellation I could see in the inky sky.

In the silence, I felt the impulse I usually have when things are uncomfortable: lighten the mood! Make a joke! At the very least, come up with something hopeful or positive to say, geez. Are you just going to sit here and let everyone feel their sad feelings? A history of feeling responsible for everyone else’s emotions will catch up with you every chance it gets.

Here is where my privilege meets my longing, and I will not get this right. I have the option to look away. I live a life where pretending is possible and sometimes necessary. I don’t know what the answer is to despair other than to keep going when you can, to look for one way to do something to help someone else, to find the tiny little bit of light you can where you can find it.

How do we hope when it feels hopeless to care or try? How do we not look away when we have the privilege of doing so, when we live in a time where you’re not even supposed to say the word privilege because certain words are banned or canceled?

I haven’t been able to come up with a way to tie this together. I cannot but-what-if-it-all-works-out the reality of so many bad things right now. I wanted someone else to say something sitting there in the dark. Somebody tell me that it’s going to be okay! A lot of it is not going to be okay. A lot of it is not going to work out.

Eventually we got out of the hot tub. I had to go home to put Cora to bed, to hear about how the boys’ days had been, to let the dog out and load some dishes and start a load of laundry. It was still a school night in the middle of May.

Sometimes I feel like such a dummy for making what if it all works out my signature phrase. It works well for stressful logistics or a conversation someone is dreading. It doesn’t really hold up for falls of empires and world wars and corrupt billionaires. But sometimes what works out is this: the plans fall into place, you show up with your tired selves, you look at each other across a hot tub under a dark sky, and you know that in the middle of your good and beautiful life, you are with other people who share the longing for everyone to have a good and beautiful life, to feel safe and loved, to have more than enough. And even though you feel like you can do so little, you pull into your driveway with the tiniest bit more courage to build that kind of world together.

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Caught My Attention

A heads up: I have so many good summer shopping links that I’m sending them in a separate post so they actually get the attention they deserve. Stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been reading and listening to. (As always, all links are affiliate links.)

📕 The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett I pretty much read whatever my friend Kristin recommends so when she suggested this one, I immediately went to my Libby app and hit the jackpot: both the audio and ebook were available to borrow! Thirty-five people are now waiting for them, so you better add this one now. I’ve been listening at 1.3 speed every spare minute (it’s 29 hours of audio).

📕 This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum Same friend, same method but I think she liked it more than I did. This one was fine, it kept my interest and I wanted to know what happened, which counts for something. I just never fully bought the reason the two main characters weren’t together from the beginning, and that’s a lot to ask me to overlook. But fine! It was fine.

🎧 The Guy on the Tractor and the Greenland Shark: Pantsuit Politics This one is basically the audio companion to everything in my essay above. Sarah and Beth dig into that feeling so many of us have right now of just wanting to check out. If you've been feeling it, this episode will at least make you feel less alone in it.

📱 @thekindred.space on Instagram This post helped me. If you have family or friends in high-control belief systems (religious or political) and you have ever exhausted yourself trying to debate or reason with them, this post is going to explain so much. The glass shelf concept alone was worth the whole thing.

🧳 One summer link as I prepare for summer travel: I never leave home without these. I take one instead of the four the package suggests, but it is a helpful piece of the digestive puzzle when you’re away from home. More summer ☀️ travel links coming in the separate post.

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Photographic Evidence

I am always looking for proof that beauty exists. One of my favorite spiritual practices is sharing what I find.

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If This Resonates

The last thing I would ever ask of you is to answer a question aloud but I offer these in hope that they are helpful in some way.

1. If you picture yourself in a heavy conversation with someone, can you name where you feel that helpless feeling in your body? Mine is in my hands and my shoulders, like a deep heaviness.

2. Do you identify with the impulse to lighten a mood if things feel heavy or do you think it’s easier to add negativity to a positive situation?

3. Does what if it all works out feel dismissive to you? Hopeful? Something else?

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Thanks for hanging with me, especially right now when everything is asking for your attention. See you next week (or sooner with those summer links!).