reading this excellent essay at 11;20 at night, I'm not going to sleep easy. But I'm grateful to you for having written it. I knew all of these inhumane acts, including those two young chikdren being deported to certain death, but I don';t want it to fade into the rest of the horror. How can we not just fucking rise up?
I hate for you not to sleep well, Abby. It’s kind of funny though because I read your essays when I have insomnia which is most nights these days. Somehow when the world gets quiet I seem to have a surge of anxiety about everything. And I have tools, I meditate, I know what to do. But there’s just energy moving through me and I suspect it’s because I feel I should be doing more, but I don’t know what that “more” looks like. I’d march on Washington, I’d do a general strike, I’d do anything. I’m just not sure what I should be doing aside from the things I am doing, which don’t seem like enough. Given everything. I do hope you sleep, though. We need to rest. I’m sending you so much love, you’re one of the people who give me hope in this world ❤️
I love all this and I'm thinking of you so hard, but also I had to say that this right here:
I’m the person who unpacks right away - and by that I mean everything goes directly into the washing machine whether I wore it or I didn’t - because I have some weird idea that even inside a suitcase, traveling back and forth from LAX to JFK - germs have entered my carry-on. I shower right away because I have to “get the plane off me.”
--it's like we're the same person. (also I have never told anyone I do this.)
I cannot recall a post where I just thought to myself “yes”. Yes to literally everything. From the pain of not knowing or how to take the next steps after the last breath of a loved one —or the loved one, to the complex emotions behind multiple sweater sets left behind and the pain/love of the person who felt compelled to purchase and keep them on hangers. To the unkindness and the Bill provisions…it is as though you plucked all of my worries, thoughts, and even my heart out of my body and placed them into a mosaic in the post. Ty
Thank you so much, Chris. I’ve been in a strange sort of space since I came back from NYC. I have so many thoughts about grief and grieving, I really think we don’t talk about it enough. I’m a lot further out than you, I think. I saw your note about it being nine months, and that’s so recent. I’m so sorry for your loss.
The first year after my mother died was unbelievable. I look back and don’t know how I kept doing all the things that needed doing. It does get easier, but it isn’t easy to lose a whole person, and I suppose that makes sense. People want you to “feel better” and I suspect that’s their own fear of vulnerability and mortality.
I think grief for someone you loved deeply is something you carry in your heart. Sometimes there’s a storm. Other times something happens that makes you laugh. It softens you, that’s for sure. And I think we need more people who are soft in this world that has become so hard and cruel. Anyway, I’m glad and grateful this made you feel less alone in your experience and I’m sending you a lot of love ❤️🩹❤️🩹
You are one of the smartest and most badass people I know. A captain in the Maleficent Army. But when I read about your heartache, I want to wrap you in a warm blanket and make you cookies. Sending love...
It’s that whole thing of one grief bringing all the other griefs to the surface I think. It just doesn’t have to be like this. I really hope we can turn things around and lay some eggs and protect the kids and just, start again 🙏🏼🦋
Here I sit, at my computer, in the middle of the night, crying my eyes out as I read this essay. I'm missing my mama, who died in 2011, and my grandpa, who died 50 years ago--he taught me about baseball and unconditional love, something that was otherwise sorely missing in my childhood. Ally--those three black sweaters of your mom's, and the hole they didn't fill in her...Damn, that's gonna haunt me for a long while. And about man's inhumanity to men, women, children, and trans people, why are they all so freaking angry? Why the cruelty? What black hole of need do they think their hatred and viciousness will fill. It won't succeed. We all know it. It's up to us to stop it. We (and sometimes the courts) are the last line of defense. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for you brilliant and evocative writing.
Oh Audrey, I’m still awake, too. I wish I could give you a big hug. I’m so sorry you’re missing your mama and your grandpa, too. There’s something about the grief of these times that seems to bring all the other grief a little closer to the surface. It isn’t easy.
And I don’t know what’s going wrong with the people who are in favor of this kind of cruelty, let alone the ones actively bringing it about. There’s a real soul-sickness at play when people have no empathy or compassion for anyone who doesn’t think the way they do (or love the way they do, or look the way they do, or pray or not pray, and on and on). It’s so lacking in decency and humanity it’s hard to fathom.
But you are correct, we have to fight back in all the ways we can and not give up hope. They won’t win, they never do historically speaking. But it’s painful to live through this, so we have to hold each other up when it gets hard. Sending you so much love, friend. Thank you for being here❤️
Thank you so much for this, Ally. Been reading and thinking a lot about hyper-normalization as a tool to exhaust the populace and achieve passive complicity. The injustices and cruelty currently on display in our country are disheartening and overwhelming; never mind the atrocities going on in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, Sudan, etc., etc.
What’s a person of modest means to do except write letters to congress people, show up for protests, and give what little money they can to pet causes? Drop in the ocean. It’s all too much.
And yet. Little things like smiling and showing kindness to strangers, forging genuine connections, not giving in to our worst impulses, showing solidarity with the randomly marginalized, can make life more bearable for all of us and eventually turn the tide. To quote David Mitchell: “What is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
I have days when hope feels a little easier to grasp, and days when I really have to work for it. Certainly it’s hard to find by taking a cursory look around at all the heartless things happening in our country and in the world, but I know that there are so many people who feel the way we do. I know this. And I know if I look hard enough I’ll see those people showing up for their friends and neighbors and people in their communities. And I know the days I feel the best are when I jump in and do something to help myself, no matter how small. But I do wish there were “bigger” and more immediate ways we could fight back. Sending you a lot of love, Helia. So grateful to be a drop in the ocean with you ❤️
reading this excellent essay at 11;20 at night, I'm not going to sleep easy. But I'm grateful to you for having written it. I knew all of these inhumane acts, including those two young chikdren being deported to certain death, but I don';t want it to fade into the rest of the horror. How can we not just fucking rise up?
I hate for you not to sleep well, Abby. It’s kind of funny though because I read your essays when I have insomnia which is most nights these days. Somehow when the world gets quiet I seem to have a surge of anxiety about everything. And I have tools, I meditate, I know what to do. But there’s just energy moving through me and I suspect it’s because I feel I should be doing more, but I don’t know what that “more” looks like. I’d march on Washington, I’d do a general strike, I’d do anything. I’m just not sure what I should be doing aside from the things I am doing, which don’t seem like enough. Given everything. I do hope you sleep, though. We need to rest. I’m sending you so much love, you’re one of the people who give me hope in this world ❤️
I love all this and I'm thinking of you so hard, but also I had to say that this right here:
I’m the person who unpacks right away - and by that I mean everything goes directly into the washing machine whether I wore it or I didn’t - because I have some weird idea that even inside a suitcase, traveling back and forth from LAX to JFK - germs have entered my carry-on. I shower right away because I have to “get the plane off me.”
--it's like we're the same person. (also I have never told anyone I do this.)
Thank you for making me feel less insane haha. But also, we’re right, there’s no way that stuff is clean.
I also wash the soft sided bags I've carried (shoulder totes). They were on the floor with god knows what.
You are my people. In more ways than one, clearly 🤣
I shower the work off me every day. I dont care. <3
I mean, hard same. I’m not getting in my bed without a shower after being out in the world lol.
I cannot recall a post where I just thought to myself “yes”. Yes to literally everything. From the pain of not knowing or how to take the next steps after the last breath of a loved one —or the loved one, to the complex emotions behind multiple sweater sets left behind and the pain/love of the person who felt compelled to purchase and keep them on hangers. To the unkindness and the Bill provisions…it is as though you plucked all of my worries, thoughts, and even my heart out of my body and placed them into a mosaic in the post. Ty
Thank you so much, Chris. I’ve been in a strange sort of space since I came back from NYC. I have so many thoughts about grief and grieving, I really think we don’t talk about it enough. I’m a lot further out than you, I think. I saw your note about it being nine months, and that’s so recent. I’m so sorry for your loss.
The first year after my mother died was unbelievable. I look back and don’t know how I kept doing all the things that needed doing. It does get easier, but it isn’t easy to lose a whole person, and I suppose that makes sense. People want you to “feel better” and I suspect that’s their own fear of vulnerability and mortality.
I think grief for someone you loved deeply is something you carry in your heart. Sometimes there’s a storm. Other times something happens that makes you laugh. It softens you, that’s for sure. And I think we need more people who are soft in this world that has become so hard and cruel. Anyway, I’m glad and grateful this made you feel less alone in your experience and I’m sending you a lot of love ❤️🩹❤️🩹
You are very kind and there is something about collectively sharing grief that does make it more bearable.
I truly loved your piece, from start to finish.
Thank you, Chris. I’m so glad you’re here.
Beautifully expressed. I completely agree!
You are one of the smartest and most badass people I know. A captain in the Maleficent Army. But when I read about your heartache, I want to wrap you in a warm blanket and make you cookies. Sending love...
Aw Wendy, I have to tell you, I would not turn down the warm blanket or the cookies right about now. And sending you love back, always <3
Insightful, thoughtful and spot effing on. Thanks for putting into words what many of us feel about our lost Moms and lost country.
It’s that whole thing of one grief bringing all the other griefs to the surface I think. It just doesn’t have to be like this. I really hope we can turn things around and lay some eggs and protect the kids and just, start again 🙏🏼🦋
Exactly!
❤️this essay.
Thank you, Harry, and thank you for being here❤️
Thank you so very much, Ally for everything in this essay…for every memory, feeling, outrage and action to be taken.
Thank you for being here, for reading, and for the solidarity ❤️🩹❤️🩹
This captures that cognitive dissonance you talked about. We’re frogs in boiling water.
https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-interactive/2025/may/22/hypernormalization-dysfunction-status-quo
Here I sit, at my computer, in the middle of the night, crying my eyes out as I read this essay. I'm missing my mama, who died in 2011, and my grandpa, who died 50 years ago--he taught me about baseball and unconditional love, something that was otherwise sorely missing in my childhood. Ally--those three black sweaters of your mom's, and the hole they didn't fill in her...Damn, that's gonna haunt me for a long while. And about man's inhumanity to men, women, children, and trans people, why are they all so freaking angry? Why the cruelty? What black hole of need do they think their hatred and viciousness will fill. It won't succeed. We all know it. It's up to us to stop it. We (and sometimes the courts) are the last line of defense. Thank you for all you do. Thank you for you brilliant and evocative writing.
Oh Audrey, I’m still awake, too. I wish I could give you a big hug. I’m so sorry you’re missing your mama and your grandpa, too. There’s something about the grief of these times that seems to bring all the other grief a little closer to the surface. It isn’t easy.
And I don’t know what’s going wrong with the people who are in favor of this kind of cruelty, let alone the ones actively bringing it about. There’s a real soul-sickness at play when people have no empathy or compassion for anyone who doesn’t think the way they do (or love the way they do, or look the way they do, or pray or not pray, and on and on). It’s so lacking in decency and humanity it’s hard to fathom.
But you are correct, we have to fight back in all the ways we can and not give up hope. They won’t win, they never do historically speaking. But it’s painful to live through this, so we have to hold each other up when it gets hard. Sending you so much love, friend. Thank you for being here❤️
I’m so glad I found my way here.
Me too ❤️
Thank you so much for this, Ally. Been reading and thinking a lot about hyper-normalization as a tool to exhaust the populace and achieve passive complicity. The injustices and cruelty currently on display in our country are disheartening and overwhelming; never mind the atrocities going on in Gaza, the West Bank, Ukraine, Sudan, etc., etc.
What’s a person of modest means to do except write letters to congress people, show up for protests, and give what little money they can to pet causes? Drop in the ocean. It’s all too much.
And yet. Little things like smiling and showing kindness to strangers, forging genuine connections, not giving in to our worst impulses, showing solidarity with the randomly marginalized, can make life more bearable for all of us and eventually turn the tide. To quote David Mitchell: “What is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
I have days when hope feels a little easier to grasp, and days when I really have to work for it. Certainly it’s hard to find by taking a cursory look around at all the heartless things happening in our country and in the world, but I know that there are so many people who feel the way we do. I know this. And I know if I look hard enough I’ll see those people showing up for their friends and neighbors and people in their communities. And I know the days I feel the best are when I jump in and do something to help myself, no matter how small. But I do wish there were “bigger” and more immediate ways we could fight back. Sending you a lot of love, Helia. So grateful to be a drop in the ocean with you ❤️
Same. And don't forget that your beautiful posts go a long way to improving peoples' lives by making us feel less alone.
Thank you, Helia.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Thank you so much. That was really kind of you ❤️🩹
Thank you so much. I love that 🦋🦋🦋🙏🏼