finding joy in the small things when the world seems to be falling apart

it's been a lot lately. the land of my birth is busily being dismantled by a tyrannical minority, against the will of around 70% of the population. and it feels like there's nothing that can be done about it. apparently we weren't paying proper attention for the past 50 years. or we weren't willing to do something about it because we didn't really believe they would be that backwards or that evil. but they are. and then some. and it's very disheartening. i find it very difficult to listen to it. mostly, i feel shame. being american is embarrassing again. i remember when obama was elected, i rejoiced that i wouldn't have to hide my passport while i was in an airport line anymore, but alas, i need to hide it more than ever. or finally get that other passport. it's definitely time.

i find myself looking for around me at the little things to be able to find some joy, despite how disheartening and humiliating it all is. things like the baby chickens our chickens hatched out and which two hens are very dutifully tending (though only one of the hens is in this photo).

or our very cute, but very fraidy indian running ducks, who stay, as husband puts it, in an organized clump and have the cutest penguin-like walk.

or the four-leaf clover i spotted as i sat in the garden the other day.

or the daily walks i've been taking during most of june to keep a new back problem at bay and to spend some time in my body as well as my head while listening to the cozy daisy dalrymple mysteries. 

or enjoying a really good cup of coffee in my favorite handmade ceramic mug. and the fact that my peonies are blooming.

it helps me feel less helpless. i can have an effect on things. i can pull those weeds in the garden and tend to the plants, i can feed the kitties and spend time with them in a favorite corner of the garden. i can do interesting work with interesting people. i can look forward to my child coming home in a week or so. i can put new sheets on the bed and snuggle into them at night. i can take a long walk. i can have long, deep conversations with husband. i can invite friends over and enjoy spending time with them.  i can sit in the chair i recovered with handwoven fabric and have the privilege of working from home and making a good living. and i can vote. for now, voting matters and is something concrete that i can and will do. it's clearer now than ever that it's important, so let's remember this horrible time and get our asses to the polls come november. our lives and the freedom to live them on equal footing with all those old white men might very well depend on it. 

on the eve of the election

i want to record this moment. to send the anxiety out through my fingers onto the page, both preserving it and dispelling it. i did what i could. i sent my vote, via DHL, just to be sure. i have proof of receipt and i voted for biden. he's a shoe in to win illinois, where i vote. i have also, demonstrating extraordinary foresight, produced a daughter who will vote in her first presidential election - in the potentially decisive state of arizona. her vote will really count and she's taking a whole gaggle of friends with her to the polls. i have done all i could.

i fervently hope that the biden-harris ticket wins and if the economist is right, they will. but whether trump and his merry band of trumpanzees will accept it or not is another story and that's probably what's causing the most anxiety for me. we just have no idea how the world will look when we wake up on wednesday. and will that child of mine in arizona be safe? there are an awful lot of guns in the hands of an awful lot of stupid people.

i hate that that thought even goes through my head. and i hope i don't regret putting it down here. i thought maybe getting it out would help dispel it. i hope it doesn't make it come true instead. not that i feel my words have that kind of power. 

i have to believe that there are more good people in the voting population who want something better - better than the lies and racism and the sexism and the xenophobia and the narcissism and the self-dealing and the nepotism (i could go on). people who want better for their children and their futures. i have to believe that most people are good and sensible and moral. because what kind of world will we live in if they're not?

i hope i can sleep tonight and stay busy tomorrow. luckily, i have loads of meetings, so i'm hoping to stay distracted. it's both a relief and difficult to be so far away. better get that application filed for danish citizenship. 

making the best of life in a global pandemic

everyone is talking these days about how covid has changed our lives and about how heavy that burden seems. in fact, reply all's latest episode talks about how this year is scientifically proven to be the saddest, most unhappy year. probably ever, or at least since these scientists started measuring happy/unhappy words on twitter. as if twitter is a happy place. 

but, i get it. it's hard with limited social contact, not much going out to eat or get drinks, not visiting family and friends and feeling awkward when you do, no halloween party, no concerts or movies and no yoga classes. we work a lot more from home and it can feel at times like the workday is just one endless long teams meeting. 

but i also find that there are good things about it. for one, the coffee is way better here at home. i order the beans from a little roaster in trieste, grind it myself and make two cups of espresso in a little mokka pot that i bought in venice (thinking consciously about that every single time), then pour that into plenty of warmed, frothed milk that i get from an organic dairy farmer nearby. 

and while i find myself sitting too long at the computer without getting up and sometimes forgetting to eat lunch, when i do eat lunch, i feel consciously grateful for the plates i had made by a local ceramics artist and to myself for making a really good omelette for dinner the other night and for there being leftovers. i don't feel that way about lunch at the office. at the office, i usually find myself thinking that they would being going into elimination if it were master chef. 

the past few days, i've been happy to be working at home, because on tuesday when i got home, husband said there was a kitten yowling out in the big barn and i needed to rescue it. the poor little thing had its eyes all stuck shut and it was very distressed, cold and hungry. i brought it in, gently washed its eyes with warm water, put some aquaphor on them to soothe them and ran to the grocery store for cat milk until i could get to the vet the next day to get proper kitten milk replacer. i concluded that the kitten was a little older than i thought, as it has pretty good teeth and within about 36 hours, it was a different, lively, lovely little kitten that was ready for his first photoshoot. he does need to eat every few hours and i have to mix milk replacer for him and give him some soft food, which i also got at the vet. he's doing very well. i think his mama is a young wild thing that comes for food and i tried to give him back to her, but she wasn't having it. it's late in the season and i think she doesn't really know what to do. but anyway, thanks to corona, i'm here for him.

i've had a really sore throat for a few days and i'm coughing. i haven't gotten tested, but i don't have a fever and i can still taste things, so i think it's just an ordinary cold. though how, with all the hand washing and hand sanitizer, one can still get a cold is beyond me. one part of me just wants to get the damn virus and get it over with.  

another positive is that this damn virus makes my work life really exciting. we have the exhilaration of quickly bringing solutions together as the situation changes in various countries - like france's new lockdown (probably to be closely followed by one in belgium), we're moving quickly to help our stores there, adjusting their black friday campaigns and making them able to meet with customers online. it's seriously really exciting and makes me appreciate working with talented and hard-working colleagues. 

denmark finally instituted mask requirements in public places - like grocery stores and the library and such. they had required them on public transport and in restaurants and bars (until you're seated at your table) some weeks ago. i'm a little tired of hearing people moan about the mask requirement, questioning its effectiveness. and only thinking of themselves. as i see it, using a mask is something we do for one another. i was happy to wear a mask this week, since i had a sore throat and i didn't want to give it to anyone. i don't do it for me, i do it for my fellow humans. 

another thing i did for my fellow humans is that i voted. and sent it via DHL to be sure it got there. i have proof of delivery. and boy, will i be glad when this election is over. 

how are you coping these days?

* * *

 acedia - that thing we're all feeling now.

serenity now

i don't think i'm going to sleep a wink tonight. i'm so nervous about tomorrow's election. and it will only get worse tomorrow night. hard to comprehend what might be ahead of us, no matter which way it goes. but for now, there are kittens.

these dark days

after an unusually warm october, autumn is upon us. and it's dark and dreary and grey and frankly a bit ominous, which is guess fits with the general mood of these times. with a potential trump victory looming over us, i find my mind feeling as dark and clouded and blurry as this photo. i wake up with a start in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, full of anxiety, actual bile in my throat. i pick up my phone and open the new york times app to see whether some new shit has hit the fan. i am both looking forward to this being over and dreading it. what if that monster wins? what does it mean? where does it leave us? and how could it happen? who are these people who are voting for him? (i've read dozens of articles about that and still don't understand.) have i just been gone too long? how did it come to this? i am sincerely at a loss. and terrified.

but i will say that this helped:

HOLY SH*T (You've Got To Vote) from Funny Or Die

so holy shit, get out there and vote for her. it's the best thing you can do. and it's so important. quite possibly the most important vote you'll ever cast.

nothing to fear but a cheeto with a brillo pad on his head

i find myself thinking about fear. it’s surely the aftermath of last week’s republican national convention, which seemed to be all fear (and hatred) all the time. and then i just listened to the modern love podcast episode “live without me,” which was about how almost being in a plane crash changed the author’s fear of flying (counterintuitively taking it away). and it got me thinking about what i fear.

i can have the odd sleeplessness at 3 a.m., worrying about money or whether they’re painting the ship without us being there to film or reimagining what i should have said in a conversation, but i’m not generally much of a worrier. but i find myself genuinely worried these days about the prospect of that cheeto with a brillo pad on his head becoming president of the land of my birth. about the only thing i can do about that is vote for hillary and do my part, so it’s not actually worth losing sleep over.

in a little over a week, we are sending our child “over there,” into the belly of the gun-toting, school-shooting, cheeto-loving, jesus brigade. and i’ll admit i have my share of fears about that. was it a good idea to send her via an airport we’ve never transited? do we bring her home immediately if the cheeto wins? how soon will it descend into anarchy and chaos and be completely unsafe for an innocent, albeit fashion-conscious, über cool teen? was it wise to buy her a one-way ticket?

all of those giant, quite unfathomable fears aside, i don’t generally fear that much in my daily life. ever since i left russia by myself on a train to the finnish border in 1994, i've been pretty fearless. i used to walk alone at night in my neighbourhood on the south side of chicago, believing that if i walked with purpose, i’d be ok (turned out that was true). i’ve travelled alone on balkan trains, ridden in rickshaws late at night on the streets of mumbai, crowded into the back of a tuk tuk in phuket, driven the road from manila to subic, played in the waves in the south china sea during a typhoon and been beaten up by (supposed) bulgarian police. and yet, i remain a mostly unfearful person.

it’s something my mother taught me to be, by being fearless herself. she drove us to horse shows all over the upper midwest on threadbare tires throughout my childhood. she told me to get back up on the horse when it dumped me off. she made me get out there are work with that horse again when it was being difficult. and that time that skip’s galley lad picked me up by my shoulder blade with his teeth when i was 12, i didn’t tell anyone (until years later), nor did i become afraid of him, because i had a fierce love for him already in place. if anything the fear made me more determined.

but i’ll admit i don’t really know what to do with this fear about the fascist cheeto with the brillo pad on his head. it’s a low grade fear that won’t go away.