Lessons & Questions, 2024

When overwhelmed, slow down. When you’re in danger of absorbing someone’s anxiety or anger, slow down. Walk slowly. Talk slowly. Don’t make your responses urgent just because the anxious person or people are acting out of urgency — if you do, you will be reacting and not responding. Reactions are rarely helpful.

Reactions are rarely helpful and social media tends to fuel reactivity. We aren’t meant to form so many opinions so quickly, and only from the neck up. A real perspective is an embodied thing — multiple viewpoints, evidence, how it feels in the body. What DBT calls “wise mind,” sort of. Consider: what bias sways our thinking, even with the best information?

What bias sways our thinking, even with the best information? I’ve considered myself a feminist for 23 years — and not a “choice” or a girlboss feminist, but an anarchafeminist — and still didn’t deeply consider how care work is work that requires specific skills, not something that some people (women and femmes, mostly) just happen to be good at. When we view care work as something natural, we devalue the labor it requires. We allow people (mostly men) to weaponize incompetence around it. Capitalism weaponizes incompetence around it. We look the other way when those who are paid domestic workers don’t make a living wage. We call it “unskilled work” but staying at home and unschooling has been the hardest job I’ve ever had. However, each day has gotten more interesting as I’ve identified and honed the skills required to be an excellent (or at least okay) carer.

I’ve identified and honed the skills required to be an excellent (or at least okay) carer. There are so-called “hard” skills, like how to clean so our environmental allergies aren’t constantly torturing us, or meal planning and prep that keeps everyone’s sensory needs in mind and keeps us in the moderate category of the Consumer Price Index. ADHD cleaning checklists save me daily. Human doing aside, the most important part of caring is noticing, which requires presence. You can’t care well from a dissociated state.

You can’t care well from a dissociated state, so I train my nervous system the way a professional athlete trains for competition. I continue to practice mindfulness even though it sucks most of the time. If I can smoothly modulate between nervous system states, Theo can unrattle. If I am grounded in the present moment, I can build on what Theo wants to do — I can pull out the right sensory tool, “yes, and” his activity suggestions. I suspect these are skills that will also help me as we head into uncertain authoritarian times.

I suspect these are skills that will also help me as we head into uncertain, authoritarian times. Will being a better carer make me a better community member? Less self-centered? Less consumed with my insecurities and how to transcend them? For the first time in my life I don’t care whether I’m saying the right thing or having a brilliant insight about the terrible genocide or fascism. I don’t have any answers. Only attempts.

I don’t have any answers. Only attempts. I’ve wanted to get to the place where I can hold uncertainty and messiness for years and I’ve gotten a little better at it. Hell, my family survived three years of fighting to change our lives in the face of both bad luck and structures that were working as they were designed to — by which I mean against all of us.

Structures worked as they were designed to. We moved across the country. We never have enough money. I’ve barely written or read anything but I know how I want to feel —

So I won’t resolve to make individual changes to solve structural problems this year.

I will love my friends and family foolishly — lean into the discomfort I feel in almost all social situations — build stronger relationships with my siblings — support and receive support from people, not ideologies, not systems.

I want to be passionate and connected and alive all the time.