I will never ever understand the acceptance of cruelty and violence in the name of making things great again, but so much revolves around hubris. So many people think it won’t affect them so who cares. In discussions about health insurance (mostly revolving around what’s not covered, premiums went up, small gripes), I remind people that they are one banana peel (or e-bike) away from being on the fastest growing minority group ever….Team Disability. And when it’s YOU who has a million doctor’s appointments, you give a shit. I’m so so so relieved your son and his gf are okay. That is everything. But your bigger point, ugh. Even Marjorie Taylor Green gets it now and she’s as dumb as a bag of hair.
Dumb as a bag of hair is my new favorite. I find it so disgusting when people don’t care about a painful thing until it lands on their doorstep. Better late than never I suppose, but it’s such a shame to need to get the lessons that way.
And yes, health insurance. So crazy to have people yelling that Democrats are using SNAP benefits as political leverage “too” — like, don’t you think we should feed everyone AND have affordable healthcare? Did you ever watch schoolhouse rock? Did you skip civics? Do you not understand they are using the only tool they have, not signing a clean CR, to get their colleagues to negotiate…and the president is undermining the process at every turn? But they do not understand or they don’t want to understand. I’ll be taking a lot of naps this weekend. Thank you for making me laugh. Love+hugs ❤️
Thanks Ally. I'm glad your son and his girlfriend are okay.
I saw that video. It's horrifying, and I'm sure there have been many brutalizations that were just not witnessed, and so not shared.
I'm beyond trying to understand how anyone can tolerate, let alone support or encourage this abuse.
And I hold everyone in government who allowed this to happen completely responsible. Including the six SCJs who decided the Constitution means nothing. Including every Democratic senator who voted for Trump's clown ship cabinet member. Including every callous "ordinary citizen" who turns their head instead of screaming about our democracy's destruction, because they have enough money to eat and pay for insurance.
I will never forgive them.
**For anyone contributing nonperishable items to a food bank, don't forget tampons and pads. They're expensive, and no one should have to do without them.
I’m with you. I’m a very forgiving person. In my personal life I think there have been times when I have been too forgiving, it’s a thing I contemplate sometimes. I am not a grudge-holder or list-keeper when it comes to keeping lists of ways a person has let me down. But I have reached the point in this particular horror where I can’t forgive people who look at a video like that and feel anything but devastation. If you’re cool with that I do not want to know you and I hope you get the lessons you need to regret ever feeling that superior. That’s where I’m at.
Tampons and pads, yes! So glad you said that, I meant to mention.
Thank you as always for being here. Sending you hugs, love and continued solidarity ❤️🩹
I’m glad everyone in your family is ok. Everyday, I can’t believe the cruelty and self righteousness of these people. Where are their souls? Do they even have hearts? This abuse has got to stop!
Thanks so much, and I know. It’s too much, it really hurts to see this happening and feel powerless to stop it. I have absolutely no clue how anyone can be in support of such cruelty and violence. It’s appalling and awful to see. Thank you for being here. It really does help to gather together with people who are equally devastated ❤️🩹❤️🩹🙏🏼
I’m so glad your son and his girlfriend are both okay. That is so scary and I’m so grateful those two episodes had a happy ending. I am not going to watch the video of the mother being taken away in front of her teenager because I think it would wreck me right now. I hadn’t heard about that and it is enraging. I cannot understand how people can be so cold and hardened to the pain they cause other people. That is the biggest question on my mind right now — like how on earth can someone withhold food from hungry families, including millions of children, just so they can take away affordable healthcare from millions of other families? And how can this continue to happen? I live in a completely different country than I thought I did. I never thought someone with those aims would get very far. Now I realize there are more people without empathy or reason than I ever thought there were that will simply let it happen. I want to help keep hope alive in whatever ways possible. Which I feel means focusing on all the good and caring counter actions to all this. I just feel like I’m still dazed from punches I did not expect to be coming. But I will recover and fight with doing good. I’m glad there are people like you who are full of empathy and reason. ❤️
I think it’s best not to look. Some of us who are already devastated don’t need to see every example of abuse because we already know it’s happening, and honestly it takes a toll. I’ve been crying all week. It’s all mixed in with my own kids, as it should be. I think it’s important to stay focused on the people who are helping. That’s why I started thinking about fleas and ants 🤣 I’m Team Ant every time. Bring on the monarchy if it’s a matriarchy lol.
And I’m so with you. I think that’s the hardest part. I feel gutted. I never imagined so many people could support this kind of callousness. It continues to shock me and I kind of wish I could get past the shock, but every time I see something that is so undeniably horrible I have this hope that they’re going to be like, okay. That’s too far for me. And it just doesn’t happen and then I feel despair again. I don’t want to give up on hope but I need to be more disciplined about where I pin it. Thank you for being here. Sending you love and hugs
Ant matriarchy for the win! 😄 I loved the ant and flea analogy - it’s accurate! It’s healing to hear someone else (thank you!) express the shock and despair that they feel about all this horrendous behavior too. I like that you said you need to be more careful about where you pin your hope. Me too!!! ME TOO!!! I truly believe that every human being has a potential innocent and beautiful soul at their core and I think that inherently makes me hopeful they’ll do reasonable and good things, but I know more than ever now that for many people that beautiful soul may stay hidden deep down and never manifest itself in this lifetime. And when people show me that, the only appropriate response is to send that soul deep down within them some love and still enforce all the appropriate boundaries and consequences. And act for good and protect others myself. I wish people couldn’t do so much harm to other people. It’s sad and scary. But I love what you said about cruelty coming from ignorance and weakness. That is profoundly true. And it helps me to remember that. Sending love and hugs right back to you! So glad you’re here, Ally. ❤️💓💓💓
First and foremost thank goodness your son and his girlfriend are ok. How frightening for you and for him, I'm sure. This entire post is so wonderful and speaks to everything I think of but not articulate enough to write. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. Truly. But, what you said about your friend who would probably say that poor little girl screaming in the car for her mommy needed to learn a lesson? Oh yes! I understand that very well. As a former yoga teacher I heard that over and over and over again and {I'm so ashamed to say} repeated something like that I'm sure. Perhaps not to someone personally but a general statement ~ "Look at life's challenges as lessons" bullshit. Then in early 2019 the shit hit the fan for my family and kept hitting for months and months without stop. I unfollowed all the influencers, the yoga teachers {except for you!} the wellness nonsense, and the glib meaningless quotes, bc they are meaningless when you're in the thick of tragedy. I couldn't see ANY lessons in what we were going through. When I see interviews {are they even real?} of people who say, "I didn't vote for this" when it hits their own pocketbooks or disrupts their personal lives, I scream back at the screen, YES YOU DID!!! Even Mikey Johnson says that everything trump does is out in the open ~ he told us all what he was going to do. They just stopped listening when they heard the words illegal, or undocumented or whatever 'other' term they used. For the 'other' the cruelty was ok, just not for them. Well, what does it say about my karma that I don't feel any sympathy or empathy for those people? But, when I see humans abusing 'other' humans for bravado, well, THOSE images make me cry also. I cry for the abused and I also cry for the abusers who are so damaged that they think these behaviors are ok. When did we become a nation of cruel people? I'm ashamed. Keep writing, Ally. I know it's hard and oh so tiresome, but your supporters all feel you.
When I was a newer teacher and all starry-eyed in my twenties I know I said or wrote things like “ everything happens for a reason” because I loved the idea of karmic debt and reincarnation and feeling that satisfying sense of quid pro quo. I’d love to get to travel with the same souls again and have that be the explanation for de ja vu, or feeling like you know someone you’ve just met. There are a lot of ways that all lines up so nicely but…I feel some things are unknowable until we get there. And if I don’t know something for sure I can’t offer it as comfort. I can offer a hug and my ear, but I can’t tell someone they’re going to travel with this person they’ve lost again, or this suffering is happening for the evolution of their soul. I don’t know what’s happening here. When my cousin’s little boy died it was the most devastating and heartbreaking experience. I still can’t talk about it. Can’t write about it without crying. I would never tell a grieving parent “everything happens for a reason” because I don’t know what happens after this or how things work and it would be crazy and arrogant to pretend I do. Things that make sense to me or are comforting to me might not be to someone else. So I never say stuff like that. I hope some of those things are true. I’d love to think there’s some rhyme or reason to this or that we get more than one chance to get it right. I’d love to think I’ll get to travel with my children again and my friends, how awesome would that be? But I don’t know. So I offer the comfort I can give, which is “I am here. I love you. I am so sorry. I know this hurts. I am not going anywhere.” And while I’m here I try to be kind. That’s my religion. I don’t understand people who are cruel and then pretend they’re religious. Go away. I have gotten to the point, and I said this to someone else in the comments, that I wish for the people who are is support of this continued cruelty that they get the lessons they need to be better people. I know hurt people hurt people. I realize they must have had terrible things happen along the way and I’m sorry about that, but it has become some kind of social contagion to be without empathy and it’s awful to see. So yes, that’s where I am. And I’m sending you so much love ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
I'm so sorry and I'm so glad your son and his girlfriend are ok and can you please run for president? (I know you don't want that, but wow...I'd be your biggest fan.)
I will take your "weird space" any day over the hellscape we are living in. We need the constant reminder as we walk around doing normal things every day when such atrocities are happening. My heart is breaking over and over. And I feel so damn useless.
Thank you, Michele. I’ve felt that for months. I think when you grow up with chaos and uncertainty, problem-solving is a gear you shift into. It feels and has felt like there are more things we should be *doing* and I keep thinking there must be better ways to fight. Nothing I’m doing feels like enough, but I know I’m trying to help and to fight in every way I can think of. Today I’m going to be doing those things from my couch, though. I am so beat. Thank you for being here and embracing my weird headspace this week, I appreciate you ❤️🙏🏼
I grew up the same and have been the problem solver my whole life. I even landed in Information Technology support as my day job, go figure. So, yeah, it is so hard not to be able to fix the things that need fixing. I am glad I am not alone. I appreciate you more than you know, Ally.
PS We are on the same frustrated wavelength today with our essays. "Like minds" and all that rot. ♥
PSS I forgot to send virtual hugs and tell you that am so glad your kids are okay. As a mom of three young adults, I know how scary things can be.
Honestly I got home last night and was like, can I even make sense right now? I had been “writing in my head” for a couple of days and kind of knew what I was going to write about, but I also knew I was in a pretty trippy, sleep-deprived state. Decided to lean into it lol. I am looking forward to your essay, yay. And yes, those calls you get, my god. My heart. Part of the gig of course, but not an easy part.
I had a feeling you were a sister problem-solver. It’s very hard to not be able to do more. I always know what to do in a crisis, but this one is so big and there are so many things that need doing, it feels overwhelming. I think the DNC would benefit from some help from eldest daughters or parentified daughters from chaotic homes, generally. I’d be organizing daily town halls on the steps of the Capitol, coming up with the topics for each day and the right person to speak on them, figuring out the best time to go live on each platform etc. THINGS THAT DON’T SEEM THAT HARD TO FIGURE OUT. Smh. Anyway, I feel your pain. We just do the most and the best we can I guess and hope that it’s enough. Hugs and more hugs, Michele. Thanks for the kind words ❤️
Ally, you nailed it again. I’ve been so exhausted and overwhelmed by the constant cruelty on display…none of this is normal….AND thank goodness your son and his girlfriend are both okay. Sending hugs and well wishes and hoping that kindness and humanity make a comeback.
It really is exhausting. I surprised myself sobbing in the car, but then I was like, of course I’m sobbing. That’s the most logical thing, what isn’t logical is going about the day like everything is normal. So I just let myself sob. I didn’t write about this but there was another point when I was driving through an apple orchard and there weren’t any other cars around and I thought, I could just scream here and no one would hear me. So I did that, too.
It’s all so much for those of us who feel this way. But as hard as it is, I am extremely grateful. This week was hard but it could have been so much worse. I think I will sleep a lot over the next few days. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you so much ❤️🩹
Thank you so much for this. I love that drive as well. I am glad everyone is okay.
Your “friend” is right about the function of karma. My Buddhist friends will remind me (gently, and at the right moment) that “bad things” happening to us is the burning away of negative karma. We choose our own lifelines and parents before we return.
But this is precisely the reason to engender empathy and practice compassion … because of our shared suffering in this illusion.
I mean, c’mon. It sucks for everyone (sometimes, eventually), stop being such an ass.
A warning from my root lama: once you understand emptiness, nihilism becomes tempting. It is the lazy way out.
Thank you so much, Michael. Of all the possibilities, that one resonates the most. Certainly a lot more than a man in the sky with a ledger, smiting people for touching themselves or…oh, whatever. All the things. I never believed in an angry, vindictive God, though.
I like the idea of reincarnation because I like so many things about it — getting to travel with the same souls more than once, getting as many chances as you need to evolve, feeling that there’s a path to enlightenment and liberation out there, and that “everything is happening for a reason” — I find it all comforting.
But I suppose I have the kind of personality that doesn’t accept a thing as fact unless it’s provable. Until then it’s theory to me. So I like that theory, and I can live my life thinking that might be what’s happening, but I can’t bank on it. So it doesn’t comfort me when I see someone suffering. I don’t think to myself well, this is terrible and my heart breaks for that kid, but her soul is evolving, she chose this before she got here. I just cannot accept that as fact. I suppose if I could maybe I’d have more peace on a long drive, or early in the morning when the house is quiet, or late at night when it’s quiet again, or anytime it’s quiet lol.
In the meantime I believe in kindness and empathy and being good to people. And appreciating a starry night or rain on the roof or that my kid is okay, and his girlfriend, too.
I just feel so sad that this is where we are as a country, and that so many people are suffering as a result. But I like what you said very much and I think that is the part with my friend. He’s lost the compassion thread in the mix. He’s veered way too far toward non-attachment. It isn’t pretty.
Anyway, thanks for these beautiful comments. You gave me a lot to ponder, and you’re such a good one, too ☺️
So sorry to hear about what happened to your son and his girlfriend but glad to hear that they're ok despite it all. What's happening in the US is horrifying. ''For there's isn't any time to waste, and cruelty is for the weak and the ignorant.''
Thank you, Yvonne. I’m so grateful and relived and exhausted. And I figured I’ll just start making up my own passages and verses at this point. Why not? Hugs and love ❤️🩹
ps “Obvious 1:2-3”….PREACH
I wasn’t sure anyone was going to understand what the hell I was going for there, but of course my people get it because they are fucking smart.
I will never ever understand the acceptance of cruelty and violence in the name of making things great again, but so much revolves around hubris. So many people think it won’t affect them so who cares. In discussions about health insurance (mostly revolving around what’s not covered, premiums went up, small gripes), I remind people that they are one banana peel (or e-bike) away from being on the fastest growing minority group ever….Team Disability. And when it’s YOU who has a million doctor’s appointments, you give a shit. I’m so so so relieved your son and his gf are okay. That is everything. But your bigger point, ugh. Even Marjorie Taylor Green gets it now and she’s as dumb as a bag of hair.
Dumb as a bag of hair is my new favorite. I find it so disgusting when people don’t care about a painful thing until it lands on their doorstep. Better late than never I suppose, but it’s such a shame to need to get the lessons that way.
And yes, health insurance. So crazy to have people yelling that Democrats are using SNAP benefits as political leverage “too” — like, don’t you think we should feed everyone AND have affordable healthcare? Did you ever watch schoolhouse rock? Did you skip civics? Do you not understand they are using the only tool they have, not signing a clean CR, to get their colleagues to negotiate…and the president is undermining the process at every turn? But they do not understand or they don’t want to understand. I’ll be taking a lot of naps this weekend. Thank you for making me laugh. Love+hugs ❤️
ps Schoolhouse Rock should be mandatory viewing for all.
Hard agree
Naps are life. 😴 sending love ❤️
Thanks Ally. I'm glad your son and his girlfriend are okay.
I saw that video. It's horrifying, and I'm sure there have been many brutalizations that were just not witnessed, and so not shared.
I'm beyond trying to understand how anyone can tolerate, let alone support or encourage this abuse.
And I hold everyone in government who allowed this to happen completely responsible. Including the six SCJs who decided the Constitution means nothing. Including every Democratic senator who voted for Trump's clown ship cabinet member. Including every callous "ordinary citizen" who turns their head instead of screaming about our democracy's destruction, because they have enough money to eat and pay for insurance.
I will never forgive them.
**For anyone contributing nonperishable items to a food bank, don't forget tampons and pads. They're expensive, and no one should have to do without them.
I’m with you. I’m a very forgiving person. In my personal life I think there have been times when I have been too forgiving, it’s a thing I contemplate sometimes. I am not a grudge-holder or list-keeper when it comes to keeping lists of ways a person has let me down. But I have reached the point in this particular horror where I can’t forgive people who look at a video like that and feel anything but devastation. If you’re cool with that I do not want to know you and I hope you get the lessons you need to regret ever feeling that superior. That’s where I’m at.
Tampons and pads, yes! So glad you said that, I meant to mention.
Thank you as always for being here. Sending you hugs, love and continued solidarity ❤️🩹
I’m glad everyone in your family is ok. Everyday, I can’t believe the cruelty and self righteousness of these people. Where are their souls? Do they even have hearts? This abuse has got to stop!
Thanks so much, and I know. It’s too much, it really hurts to see this happening and feel powerless to stop it. I have absolutely no clue how anyone can be in support of such cruelty and violence. It’s appalling and awful to see. Thank you for being here. It really does help to gather together with people who are equally devastated ❤️🩹❤️🩹🙏🏼
I’m so glad your son and his girlfriend are both okay. That is so scary and I’m so grateful those two episodes had a happy ending. I am not going to watch the video of the mother being taken away in front of her teenager because I think it would wreck me right now. I hadn’t heard about that and it is enraging. I cannot understand how people can be so cold and hardened to the pain they cause other people. That is the biggest question on my mind right now — like how on earth can someone withhold food from hungry families, including millions of children, just so they can take away affordable healthcare from millions of other families? And how can this continue to happen? I live in a completely different country than I thought I did. I never thought someone with those aims would get very far. Now I realize there are more people without empathy or reason than I ever thought there were that will simply let it happen. I want to help keep hope alive in whatever ways possible. Which I feel means focusing on all the good and caring counter actions to all this. I just feel like I’m still dazed from punches I did not expect to be coming. But I will recover and fight with doing good. I’m glad there are people like you who are full of empathy and reason. ❤️
I think it’s best not to look. Some of us who are already devastated don’t need to see every example of abuse because we already know it’s happening, and honestly it takes a toll. I’ve been crying all week. It’s all mixed in with my own kids, as it should be. I think it’s important to stay focused on the people who are helping. That’s why I started thinking about fleas and ants 🤣 I’m Team Ant every time. Bring on the monarchy if it’s a matriarchy lol.
And I’m so with you. I think that’s the hardest part. I feel gutted. I never imagined so many people could support this kind of callousness. It continues to shock me and I kind of wish I could get past the shock, but every time I see something that is so undeniably horrible I have this hope that they’re going to be like, okay. That’s too far for me. And it just doesn’t happen and then I feel despair again. I don’t want to give up on hope but I need to be more disciplined about where I pin it. Thank you for being here. Sending you love and hugs
Ant matriarchy for the win! 😄 I loved the ant and flea analogy - it’s accurate! It’s healing to hear someone else (thank you!) express the shock and despair that they feel about all this horrendous behavior too. I like that you said you need to be more careful about where you pin your hope. Me too!!! ME TOO!!! I truly believe that every human being has a potential innocent and beautiful soul at their core and I think that inherently makes me hopeful they’ll do reasonable and good things, but I know more than ever now that for many people that beautiful soul may stay hidden deep down and never manifest itself in this lifetime. And when people show me that, the only appropriate response is to send that soul deep down within them some love and still enforce all the appropriate boundaries and consequences. And act for good and protect others myself. I wish people couldn’t do so much harm to other people. It’s sad and scary. But I love what you said about cruelty coming from ignorance and weakness. That is profoundly true. And it helps me to remember that. Sending love and hugs right back to you! So glad you’re here, Ally. ❤️💓💓💓
I’m so glad you’re here, too, Jennifer🙏🏼❤️❤️
First and foremost thank goodness your son and his girlfriend are ok. How frightening for you and for him, I'm sure. This entire post is so wonderful and speaks to everything I think of but not articulate enough to write. Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. Truly. But, what you said about your friend who would probably say that poor little girl screaming in the car for her mommy needed to learn a lesson? Oh yes! I understand that very well. As a former yoga teacher I heard that over and over and over again and {I'm so ashamed to say} repeated something like that I'm sure. Perhaps not to someone personally but a general statement ~ "Look at life's challenges as lessons" bullshit. Then in early 2019 the shit hit the fan for my family and kept hitting for months and months without stop. I unfollowed all the influencers, the yoga teachers {except for you!} the wellness nonsense, and the glib meaningless quotes, bc they are meaningless when you're in the thick of tragedy. I couldn't see ANY lessons in what we were going through. When I see interviews {are they even real?} of people who say, "I didn't vote for this" when it hits their own pocketbooks or disrupts their personal lives, I scream back at the screen, YES YOU DID!!! Even Mikey Johnson says that everything trump does is out in the open ~ he told us all what he was going to do. They just stopped listening when they heard the words illegal, or undocumented or whatever 'other' term they used. For the 'other' the cruelty was ok, just not for them. Well, what does it say about my karma that I don't feel any sympathy or empathy for those people? But, when I see humans abusing 'other' humans for bravado, well, THOSE images make me cry also. I cry for the abused and I also cry for the abusers who are so damaged that they think these behaviors are ok. When did we become a nation of cruel people? I'm ashamed. Keep writing, Ally. I know it's hard and oh so tiresome, but your supporters all feel you.
When I was a newer teacher and all starry-eyed in my twenties I know I said or wrote things like “ everything happens for a reason” because I loved the idea of karmic debt and reincarnation and feeling that satisfying sense of quid pro quo. I’d love to get to travel with the same souls again and have that be the explanation for de ja vu, or feeling like you know someone you’ve just met. There are a lot of ways that all lines up so nicely but…I feel some things are unknowable until we get there. And if I don’t know something for sure I can’t offer it as comfort. I can offer a hug and my ear, but I can’t tell someone they’re going to travel with this person they’ve lost again, or this suffering is happening for the evolution of their soul. I don’t know what’s happening here. When my cousin’s little boy died it was the most devastating and heartbreaking experience. I still can’t talk about it. Can’t write about it without crying. I would never tell a grieving parent “everything happens for a reason” because I don’t know what happens after this or how things work and it would be crazy and arrogant to pretend I do. Things that make sense to me or are comforting to me might not be to someone else. So I never say stuff like that. I hope some of those things are true. I’d love to think there’s some rhyme or reason to this or that we get more than one chance to get it right. I’d love to think I’ll get to travel with my children again and my friends, how awesome would that be? But I don’t know. So I offer the comfort I can give, which is “I am here. I love you. I am so sorry. I know this hurts. I am not going anywhere.” And while I’m here I try to be kind. That’s my religion. I don’t understand people who are cruel and then pretend they’re religious. Go away. I have gotten to the point, and I said this to someone else in the comments, that I wish for the people who are is support of this continued cruelty that they get the lessons they need to be better people. I know hurt people hurt people. I realize they must have had terrible things happen along the way and I’m sorry about that, but it has become some kind of social contagion to be without empathy and it’s awful to see. So yes, that’s where I am. And I’m sending you so much love ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
What a horrid chain of events, Ally. Sending love. x
Thank you, Wendy. Could have been a lot worse. It’s nothing a few naps and winning the lottery won’t solve🫠
I'm so sorry and I'm so glad your son and his girlfriend are ok and can you please run for president? (I know you don't want that, but wow...I'd be your biggest fan.)
Thank you, me too. And I love you so much. If I could be president without all the really awful parts about being president I’d totally do it lol.
I think of Jacinda Ardern and look at you and think: YUP. Same goodness and strength.
I will take your "weird space" any day over the hellscape we are living in. We need the constant reminder as we walk around doing normal things every day when such atrocities are happening. My heart is breaking over and over. And I feel so damn useless.
Thank you, Michele. I’ve felt that for months. I think when you grow up with chaos and uncertainty, problem-solving is a gear you shift into. It feels and has felt like there are more things we should be *doing* and I keep thinking there must be better ways to fight. Nothing I’m doing feels like enough, but I know I’m trying to help and to fight in every way I can think of. Today I’m going to be doing those things from my couch, though. I am so beat. Thank you for being here and embracing my weird headspace this week, I appreciate you ❤️🙏🏼
I grew up the same and have been the problem solver my whole life. I even landed in Information Technology support as my day job, go figure. So, yeah, it is so hard not to be able to fix the things that need fixing. I am glad I am not alone. I appreciate you more than you know, Ally.
PS We are on the same frustrated wavelength today with our essays. "Like minds" and all that rot. ♥
PSS I forgot to send virtual hugs and tell you that am so glad your kids are okay. As a mom of three young adults, I know how scary things can be.
Honestly I got home last night and was like, can I even make sense right now? I had been “writing in my head” for a couple of days and kind of knew what I was going to write about, but I also knew I was in a pretty trippy, sleep-deprived state. Decided to lean into it lol. I am looking forward to your essay, yay. And yes, those calls you get, my god. My heart. Part of the gig of course, but not an easy part.
I had a feeling you were a sister problem-solver. It’s very hard to not be able to do more. I always know what to do in a crisis, but this one is so big and there are so many things that need doing, it feels overwhelming. I think the DNC would benefit from some help from eldest daughters or parentified daughters from chaotic homes, generally. I’d be organizing daily town halls on the steps of the Capitol, coming up with the topics for each day and the right person to speak on them, figuring out the best time to go live on each platform etc. THINGS THAT DON’T SEEM THAT HARD TO FIGURE OUT. Smh. Anyway, I feel your pain. We just do the most and the best we can I guess and hope that it’s enough. Hugs and more hugs, Michele. Thanks for the kind words ❤️
Ally, you nailed it again. I’ve been so exhausted and overwhelmed by the constant cruelty on display…none of this is normal….AND thank goodness your son and his girlfriend are both okay. Sending hugs and well wishes and hoping that kindness and humanity make a comeback.
It really is exhausting. I surprised myself sobbing in the car, but then I was like, of course I’m sobbing. That’s the most logical thing, what isn’t logical is going about the day like everything is normal. So I just let myself sob. I didn’t write about this but there was another point when I was driving through an apple orchard and there weren’t any other cars around and I thought, I could just scream here and no one would hear me. So I did that, too.
It’s all so much for those of us who feel this way. But as hard as it is, I am extremely grateful. This week was hard but it could have been so much worse. I think I will sleep a lot over the next few days. Thank you for being here, I appreciate you so much ❤️🩹
Thanks Ally, I'm glad your peeps are OK.
Thanks so much, John. ME, TOO 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Thank you so much for this. I love that drive as well. I am glad everyone is okay.
Your “friend” is right about the function of karma. My Buddhist friends will remind me (gently, and at the right moment) that “bad things” happening to us is the burning away of negative karma. We choose our own lifelines and parents before we return.
But this is precisely the reason to engender empathy and practice compassion … because of our shared suffering in this illusion.
I mean, c’mon. It sucks for everyone (sometimes, eventually), stop being such an ass.
A warning from my root lama: once you understand emptiness, nihilism becomes tempting. It is the lazy way out.
You are such a good one, Ally.
Thank you so much, Michael. Of all the possibilities, that one resonates the most. Certainly a lot more than a man in the sky with a ledger, smiting people for touching themselves or…oh, whatever. All the things. I never believed in an angry, vindictive God, though.
I like the idea of reincarnation because I like so many things about it — getting to travel with the same souls more than once, getting as many chances as you need to evolve, feeling that there’s a path to enlightenment and liberation out there, and that “everything is happening for a reason” — I find it all comforting.
But I suppose I have the kind of personality that doesn’t accept a thing as fact unless it’s provable. Until then it’s theory to me. So I like that theory, and I can live my life thinking that might be what’s happening, but I can’t bank on it. So it doesn’t comfort me when I see someone suffering. I don’t think to myself well, this is terrible and my heart breaks for that kid, but her soul is evolving, she chose this before she got here. I just cannot accept that as fact. I suppose if I could maybe I’d have more peace on a long drive, or early in the morning when the house is quiet, or late at night when it’s quiet again, or anytime it’s quiet lol.
In the meantime I believe in kindness and empathy and being good to people. And appreciating a starry night or rain on the roof or that my kid is okay, and his girlfriend, too.
I just feel so sad that this is where we are as a country, and that so many people are suffering as a result. But I like what you said very much and I think that is the part with my friend. He’s lost the compassion thread in the mix. He’s veered way too far toward non-attachment. It isn’t pretty.
Anyway, thanks for these beautiful comments. You gave me a lot to ponder, and you’re such a good one, too ☺️
So sorry to hear about what happened to your son and his girlfriend but glad to hear that they're ok despite it all. What's happening in the US is horrifying. ''For there's isn't any time to waste, and cruelty is for the weak and the ignorant.''
Thank you, Yvonne. I’m so grateful and relived and exhausted. And I figured I’ll just start making up my own passages and verses at this point. Why not? Hugs and love ❤️🩹