Does Not Compute

"Expect the end of the world."

Photo by Pixabay

I’m sitting at my writing desk for the first time in a long time — at a loss for words. In times as dark as these, what is there to do?

I find myself leaning on poetry, finding comfort in the words of Wendell Berry’s Manifesto and random Buddhist phrases that I tacked to the wall in my kitchen.

“May I offer my care and presence unconditionally, knowing it may be met by gratitude, indifference, anger, or anguish.”

“May I find the inner resources to truly be able to give.”

“May I offer love, knowing I cannot control the course of life, suffering, or death.”

Re-reading 12 step literature and applying the wisdom of those oft-repeated mantras to the moment. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

In the months leading up to the election, I rarely sat down at my computer, not for writing or scrolling or reading or for any of my usual internet activities. I felt drawn to the world outside of my home, to do something with my hands, with my community, yearning to interact with humans IRL, as

Mehret Biruk

encourages her readers to do.

I heeded

Sarah Menkedick

’s advice and signed up for a mindfulness course. I was about to sign up for a virtual 8-week MBSR class, until I happened upon an in-person course happening at a university near my home. The weekly meetings and my fellow participants have been a balm to my soul these last 2 months. Our last meeting was on Wednesday, the day after the election, and we sat together one last time, alone on our mats but together in this journey of “befriending oneself.”

I started volunteering with a local organization that supports immigrants and refugees, helping recently arrived asylum-seekers sound out words that are foreign to their ears and mouths and hearts. I am humbled by their ability to laugh and find joy, in the midst of so much uncertainty.

There is not much that I can do, but I am doing what I can to care for myself and my community. Making pumpkin pancakes for my kiddos, buying diapers and apple juice for a family displaced from the mountains after the hurricane, making a meal for a postpartum friend, mending ripped Halloween costumes, lifting weights, covering a friend’s lettuce seedlings while she attends an out-of-town funeral, hosting potlucks, sitting in silence, banding with neighbors to raise chickens collectively, going into the woods with a band of wild women, tending a fire, texting and calling my loved ones to check in.

How are you holding up? We are in this together.

I’ll leave you with these words from Wendell Berry:

So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it.