I’ve been brought to my knees lately and again by the beauty of upstate NY. The heart shaped Linden tree leaves alone do me in— littered under my feet on the path every morning like they’re dying to let us know how much they love us. I want to write that poem without having to clear the literal man-made debris from my head and heart.
Reading your work always makes me feel less alone, less crazy, more hopeful, and more joyful because you clear the debris, and write about leaf sheep, and the world is better because of it and you. xo
You just made my whole everything. Thank you for this, I’ll come back and read it on the days when it’s hard 🥹🙏🏼 Linden trees are so beautiful. And I’m so glad you’re in the world.
I could cry with frustration. How is all of this not glaringly obvious? I mean, not all of it. You connect the dots and bring in poetry in a way that's uniquely, brilliantly you. (I did not know about leaf sheep. Now I have to paint one.) But the thought that anyone could read this and think otherwise is just insanity and evil.
I know you will get this - when I see something like Leaf Sheep I’m just done for the day. Like, what are we even doing? How incredible are they? Or certain flowers with a crazy pattern that doesn’t seem possible. Or those “walking” palm trees in Central and South American rainforests. Or looking at my kids sometimes and feeling astounded that they used to wrap their chubby little arms around my neck and now they’re taller than I am. Just things that take my breath away or make me laugh. It’s so incongruous with what is happening. It makes no sense. All those things are my “religion” and whatever this is we’re living through is just so sad when we could be celebrating. Anyway, preaching to the best choir, I know. I cannot wait to see your painting.
I do get it. It’s a gift that we see all of that improbable beauty with wonder and awe. A gift the psychopaths don’t have. Maybe that’s why they want to destroy it. And us. Jealousy. That honestly makes sense to me. I don’t know how this is all going to resolve. I saw an essay today that stated the pendulum only swings back and forth (between liberal and conservative) in a functioning democracy. And I think that’s accurate. I don’t know that love will win. I don’t know what will. But there are still (for now) Leaf Sheep. And I’m going to paint one.
It must be jealousy. Surely…? I don’t know. But yes, Abby, I watch the oleanders flower, and the gaura’s tiny petal perfection, and yes, think of my two perfect gorgeous adult kids and how I made them, and of how kind and supportive my husband is with me despite my illnesses preventing me from doing almost anything social a lot of the time, and I read your amazing strong words and yep, WTF?! Thank you for such an articulate piece ❤️
I think you either look around and are amazed by all the beauty and incredible people and joy, and also the grief when it comes, or something has gone very wrong. And I guess something has gone very wrong for a lot of people. Thank you so much for your comments, and I, like Wendy, am very glad you have such a wonderful partner. Clearly one of the people looking around and not taking love for granted ❤️🙏🏼
I’m coming to this via Wendy and Notes. (Full transparency: I have a love/hate relationship going on with Notes, but I’m ever so glad when it routes me to beautiful pieces like this.) I’m also coming to this with my first illness in more than five years. I’m one of those 🦄 🦄 that hasn’t had Covid and was sure my luck had finally run out when this crap came on, but no. Just a nasty cold. My head hurts, and my eyes feel too big, and I’m sooo tired. But the truth is, I was tired before, and I think that’s why this thing is laying me so low. I’m exhausted by the necessary vigilance. I’ve told so many people something like, “I just want to write about cats!” But I keep diving back into the poison of power, because how can I not?
It helps to know there are so many of us out here who would so much rather give ourselves over to leaf sheep. It helps turn the world right-side up again. It helps me know what to say to my adult daughters, or when to just cry with them. It really, truly helps! When you need to drop your armor for a bit, please know that there are folks out here who will rise up to give you time to sit in a field of sunflowers. Thank you. On we go…
Oh Elizabeth, thank you so much. Your comments just felt like the biggest hug and I’ll tell you in full transparency it’s a day when I needed a hug, so thank you. I’m sorry you’re sick and very glad it isn’t Covid.
I also feel worn down and have been doing everything I can to build myself up so I don’t get sick. It’s a lot for all of us and it really helps to have community. Not sure how we’d get through without each other. So I thank you for being here, for your very kind words and for the solidarity. I really hope you feel better soon. Sending you a lot of love, hoping we can all be writing about other things soon. For our sakes, for our kids’ sakes, for everyone’s sake ❤️🩹🙏🏼
Hi Thomas, I’m so glad you’re here, welcome☺️ And I know what you mean. He’s doing a tremendous amount of damage and I will never understand the appeal, but it’s more the people he has brought along with him into the Cabinet, and the cruelty that has infected the people who support him. I’m glad this cheered you up, though.
Robert I had to sit down and take that in. Thank you so much. I don’t think “staying angry” is really going to be an issue anytime soon, unfortunately. I’d love to wake up one of these days without so many reasons to be angry, but I appreciate your words so much, and I genuinely hope things get better for my daughter and your daughters and all of us. In the meantime I will keep burning through the rage so it doesn’t burn through me. Thank you, again ❤️🩹🙏🏼
The tragedy of the millions of Kim Davises doing the work of the misogynistic patriarchy for them is just beyond comprehension. What a dumpster fire evangelicalism is. But on some level I can’t judge them because I was part of that dumpster fire for five decades; so I have a degree of compassion for them.
My compassion doesn’t extend to not wanting them to feel the pain of their decisions, which they inevitably will.
And, may all the fuckwads leading this country experience the pain they are inflicting, though that may have to wait for whatever justice exists beyond the grave.
This is so movingly written. There’s so much beauty and so much horror and it’s all mixed together in this world, and we have to somehow keep going and keep loving. Thank you for the tears. (And the leaf sheep!)
Oh FFS, what is with these dipshits trying to classify sex as a marital duty? It's not about sex, it's about degradation to retain CONTROL. Having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with you SHOULD be something no one would ever want to have, yet somehow here we are. I have no doubt you are ensuring your daughter knows a thing or two about what she owes any man. Despite some dudes wanting us to turn back time, the educated Z's can drown them out. ps our neighbors have fifty plus sunflowers and they are hypnotically beautiful. 🌻🌻🌻🌻
There is this “under-hum” going on that has been getting louder and louder and it’s coming from so many different directions - that’s the part that is so alarming to me. And these dudes are not outliers, they are 100% in the highest offices in our government. They are responsible for the restrictive abortion bans and the SAVE Act and the tradwife surge and they are the freaking people worried about losing the white majority in 2045 if the trajectory and birth rates don’t change. Vance wants a national abortion ban and he’s second in command. Peter Thiel, his #1 investor and the reason he’s sitting where he is does not think women should have the vote. They just burned a warehouse full of $9.7 million in contraceptives sitting in Belgium thanks to the ending of USAID instead of distributing them. That cost us $167k. I truly do not think we are safe with these people. I think they want white babies and lots of them. So yeah, I think they want abortion bans, I think they will go after birth control, they want to get rid of no-fault divorce, they want husbands to vote for the household, they don’t value the lives of girls and women they way they do boys and men, they are racist af and they don’t like the LGBTQ community because women should have no options except to have a husband and fucking procreate. So, that’s who they are, they are everywhere in our government and they need to be stopped. Other than that, everything’s great 😬Yes my daughter knows she doesn’t owe anyone shit lol. But how do we keep ourselves safe in this world without getting these sick angry men out? I don’t think we do. So I’ll be over here doing whatever I can to make a lot of noise and fight the good fight and also point at the leaf sheep. I have faith in us, some days the hope wanes, but I always come back to that ❤️❤️❤️ Love thugs
This is indeed a new and supersized kind of white elitist fuckery, agreed. Did not mean to come off like "Oh, the Z's will handle it" *cue hair toss*...it is an all hands on deck 24/7 situation. I'm currently doing a deep dive on Hurricane Katrina, interesting to see governmental failure, then and now. I still have hope and faith in us, because I just can't give up. I didn't go through hell to get a new electric brain to give up. So I'll be here making noise in the Midwest Angry Lady satellite office. (Pritzker gives me life!)
Hahaha the day I think you’re being all “hair toss” casual about this is the day asshats fly. Pritzker is freaking awesome. And I have my issues with Newsom, but I have to say I love his trolling social media team (OMG how I love them) and I am all for this gloves off energy he’s bringing to the “maps game” - it’s about freaking time the governors (and everyone) got in the ring the correct way. Jesus! Look forward to your Katrina piece if you’re working on one. Adore you always.
How did the straight (and closeted) white men in this country become so sick and angry, so scared of loosing what they deem their 'power', which is no true power but just a bully pulpit hung onto by a thread? People with penises living in social democracies have long managed to become fully realized humans, allowed to cry when so moved, and to take the last name of their wife if it sounds better, be the stay-at-home parent if their spouse is better at making money, etc. without loosing their man credentials or cuddle privileges. Why and how die US American men get so caught up in the fear and hatred spiral? Dragging us all down with them... it boggles the mind. Is it the nature of cut-throat capitalism, which prizes the wants of an individual over the need of the many? No longer a rhetorical question.
Honestly I don’t know. I saw some insane video where the Tr*mp (can’t even bear to write that name) boys were being interviewed about how it’s standard for presidents to divest themselves of businesses that are going to create conflicts of interest let alone make billions off the Office of the Presidency and they were literally like whining about how all these banks had canceled their accounts overnight and what are they supposed to do and how are they supposed to live and it was ASTOUNDING. Like wow are you assholes completely delusional and divorced from reality if you think anyone is going to feel sorry for you while you make billions and cancel everyone’s health insurance and free lunch for kids. But that’s who they are. So, yeah. I don’t know what has gone wrong with a certain breed of man - the kind who want to control women and remove their options and rights and power, who want to crush every marginalized group while pounding their chests and also feeling victimized - but it’s scary.
6.45 am and I am having a lie-in, for once not woken by the heavy hand of fear clutching my heart in the early hours. He's away, so no-one but the dog will know I scroll for a bit before getting up, will they!?
And...that's my day complete!
All I need to know is here in one devastating and beautiful piece, and in the comments by people I know I love, even though we are just names in the ether to each other and an ocean apart.
May I just echo it all...your words, and the comments.
Oh Janey, I’m sending you so much love. I wish you so many more mornings where you can wake without fear and scroll to your heart’s content. Hugs across the ocean.
Just rereading my comment...to be absolutely clear, my fear is NEVER of him , but of the increasingly mad, bad world we find ourselves in.
And grief, which I used to talk to my therapist about as World Grief, but am more recently using the word Evergrief, borrowed from a Substack of that name
Love is entirely the point. I love that you wrote this, I love that people who experience love in this world will keep loving in spite of these asshats, I love the brilliant weirdness of nature’s delightful designs. 💖
Oh my goodness, so good to “see” you ❤️ And yes, I don’t think I can hold onto the current reality *without* holding onto the leaf sheep, too. That is the part they seem to want to crush out of us, and I think it’s the part we have to protect in ourselves and each other with everything we’ve got. It gave me such a lift to see you here, so thank you for that 🙏🏼🥹
Ally, you articulate arguments that I wish I could link and put together when someone says something entirely idiotic about the current administration. I think I am just going to print out this piece (and many of your others) and hand it to certain people and tell them I will respond to their stupidity once they have read your words.
Brilliant as always. I sincerely hope that one day we can just talk about sunflowers, space and time continuum and leaf sheep and not how mean and petty people can be.
Thank you, Chris. It’s an exhausting time to be alive right now, but I am still very grateful to be here. I never lose sight of all the beauty and incredible people and art and poetry. We just need to get through this and have a huge do-ever. We’ve totally lost the thread 😩 Thanks for being here, sending you lots of love.
The beauty that is found in your anger is simply stunning. Here I am, sitting in my own sadness and despair, unable to write anything that matters because I am stuck. I am drowning. And there you are, pouring love and wisdom and a lifeline into a world so full of ugliness and hate. You are simply remarkable, Ally. And I am so grateful you exist here with the sunflowers and the leaf sheep. 💙
Oh Katrina, I’m sorry you’re swimming in despair right now. I’ve had so many weeks like that. I swear it’s why I had to infuse this total shitstorm they’re throwing at us with an equal or greater amount of everything we have been given that is ours for the taking this week. These cruel and nasty people are beyond my comprehension but I’ll be damned if they’re taking leaf sheep away from us. Or sunflowers. Or the way we genuinely see each other. They’re not going to win. They’re not. The depravity is so cartoonish at this point I just do not believe people sitting on the sidelines are going to keep sitting down for this. Message me anytime. I’m not *always* hopeful, but I’m always here. And I refuse to give up. I’m stubborn af. It’s not always a good quality but it’s good for this❤️❤️🩹❤️❤️🩹
The beginning of this piece about sunflowers and leaf sheep is so Andrea Gibson-coded in the best way, which also makes it a beautiful accompaniment to your moving rage 🌻
Wow, that is a huge compliment. Thank you so much, Cody. I genuinely felt the need to dilute the rage with beauty this week, so it didn’t overpower the dish and leave anyone feeling sick. Including me! I have a feeling that’s how it’s going to be, seems like the only way through 🤍🤍
Loved this. So many threads woven together here. I am so lucky to be with a person who would never make me do anything I did not want to do. I hear all the time from my married friends how their husbands nag them for sex. I can’t imagine anything less arousing. The idea that we should be expected to give our bodies over whenever the whim hits men is so gross and awful. I can’t.
I cannot begin to fathom the headspace of a man who tells women they owe their husbands sex, or they have to submit to their husbands, or yes, things would be better if the man voted for the household. It’s wild and amazing and not it a leaf sheep kind of way. Hugs and love, Kari
It's utterly mystifying that they're so against abortion under any circumstances, AND YET they want to get rid of contraceptives??? I can't even get into the Epstein/Trump child rape stuff without simultaneously shedding tears and feeling sick to my stomach. On a lighter note, I never knew leaf sheep existed. How freaking amazing!
My God Ally, this piece was brilliant. I hope that you submit your work to The New York Times (or something else prestigious) someday… if you haven't already. 🙌
Thank you so much, I appreciate you 🙏🏼And yes the Epstein case is so dark and horrifying it is hard to take. My heart breaks for all the victims and their families who feel so used as political pawns at this point, after already having been traumatized and abused. It is all unconscionable and makes me so angry. As for the abortion bans and what I expect will be a push to make contraception harder to come by if these men get what they want - what they want is more white babies. What they want is for women to have no power and no options. No right to vote, no more no-fault divorce, no marriage equality because they want to make it as painful as possible to be anything other than a woman at home pushing out babies. That’s what they want. To them the value of a woman is her ability to grow babies. I know it sounds insane because it is, but this is not me grasping at straws - they say it. The words come out of their mouths. It isn’t pretty. Anyway. Leaf Sheep, those are amazing slugs. Those men? Awful slugs. Not the kind of people we need in power. I’m going to go and try to have some kind of night with my baby girl. Hugs and love, thank you again xx
I’ve been brought to my knees lately and again by the beauty of upstate NY. The heart shaped Linden tree leaves alone do me in— littered under my feet on the path every morning like they’re dying to let us know how much they love us. I want to write that poem without having to clear the literal man-made debris from my head and heart.
Reading your work always makes me feel less alone, less crazy, more hopeful, and more joyful because you clear the debris, and write about leaf sheep, and the world is better because of it and you. xo
You just made my whole everything. Thank you for this, I’ll come back and read it on the days when it’s hard 🥹🙏🏼 Linden trees are so beautiful. And I’m so glad you’re in the world.
Ally really does make the world better. This is the stuff they should be teaching kids in social studies!
I could cry with frustration. How is all of this not glaringly obvious? I mean, not all of it. You connect the dots and bring in poetry in a way that's uniquely, brilliantly you. (I did not know about leaf sheep. Now I have to paint one.) But the thought that anyone could read this and think otherwise is just insanity and evil.
I know you will get this - when I see something like Leaf Sheep I’m just done for the day. Like, what are we even doing? How incredible are they? Or certain flowers with a crazy pattern that doesn’t seem possible. Or those “walking” palm trees in Central and South American rainforests. Or looking at my kids sometimes and feeling astounded that they used to wrap their chubby little arms around my neck and now they’re taller than I am. Just things that take my breath away or make me laugh. It’s so incongruous with what is happening. It makes no sense. All those things are my “religion” and whatever this is we’re living through is just so sad when we could be celebrating. Anyway, preaching to the best choir, I know. I cannot wait to see your painting.
I do get it. It’s a gift that we see all of that improbable beauty with wonder and awe. A gift the psychopaths don’t have. Maybe that’s why they want to destroy it. And us. Jealousy. That honestly makes sense to me. I don’t know how this is all going to resolve. I saw an essay today that stated the pendulum only swings back and forth (between liberal and conservative) in a functioning democracy. And I think that’s accurate. I don’t know that love will win. I don’t know what will. But there are still (for now) Leaf Sheep. And I’m going to paint one.
It must be jealousy. Surely…? I don’t know. But yes, Abby, I watch the oleanders flower, and the gaura’s tiny petal perfection, and yes, think of my two perfect gorgeous adult kids and how I made them, and of how kind and supportive my husband is with me despite my illnesses preventing me from doing almost anything social a lot of the time, and I read your amazing strong words and yep, WTF?! Thank you for such an articulate piece ❤️
I think you either look around and are amazed by all the beauty and incredible people and joy, and also the grief when it comes, or something has gone very wrong. And I guess something has gone very wrong for a lot of people. Thank you so much for your comments, and I, like Wendy, am very glad you have such a wonderful partner. Clearly one of the people looking around and not taking love for granted ❤️🙏🏼
I’m coming to this via Wendy and Notes. (Full transparency: I have a love/hate relationship going on with Notes, but I’m ever so glad when it routes me to beautiful pieces like this.) I’m also coming to this with my first illness in more than five years. I’m one of those 🦄 🦄 that hasn’t had Covid and was sure my luck had finally run out when this crap came on, but no. Just a nasty cold. My head hurts, and my eyes feel too big, and I’m sooo tired. But the truth is, I was tired before, and I think that’s why this thing is laying me so low. I’m exhausted by the necessary vigilance. I’ve told so many people something like, “I just want to write about cats!” But I keep diving back into the poison of power, because how can I not?
It helps to know there are so many of us out here who would so much rather give ourselves over to leaf sheep. It helps turn the world right-side up again. It helps me know what to say to my adult daughters, or when to just cry with them. It really, truly helps! When you need to drop your armor for a bit, please know that there are folks out here who will rise up to give you time to sit in a field of sunflowers. Thank you. On we go…
Oh Elizabeth, thank you so much. Your comments just felt like the biggest hug and I’ll tell you in full transparency it’s a day when I needed a hug, so thank you. I’m sorry you’re sick and very glad it isn’t Covid.
I also feel worn down and have been doing everything I can to build myself up so I don’t get sick. It’s a lot for all of us and it really helps to have community. Not sure how we’d get through without each other. So I thank you for being here, for your very kind words and for the solidarity. I really hope you feel better soon. Sending you a lot of love, hoping we can all be writing about other things soon. For our sakes, for our kids’ sakes, for everyone’s sake ❤️🩹🙏🏼
She's amazing. And I'm so glad you have such a loving partner. ❤️
I have never been here. All I needed was to be cheered up. Thanks so much. Trump does not scare me; but his base scares the Hell out of me!
Hi Thomas, I’m so glad you’re here, welcome☺️ And I know what you mean. He’s doing a tremendous amount of damage and I will never understand the appeal, but it’s more the people he has brought along with him into the Cabinet, and the cruelty that has infected the people who support him. I’m glad this cheered you up, though.
I have leapt to my feet, in my living room, giving you a standing ovation 👏🏼 👏🏽👏🏽
I appreciate that so much, Dawn 🤓😍
Damn. You are an amazing writer, but you are next level here. Stay angry. You give me hope. I’m passing your stuff to my daughters.
Truly. You are doing great work; it’s an honor to breathe the same air as you. 👏🏼🙌🏼💪🏽
Robert I had to sit down and take that in. Thank you so much. I don’t think “staying angry” is really going to be an issue anytime soon, unfortunately. I’d love to wake up one of these days without so many reasons to be angry, but I appreciate your words so much, and I genuinely hope things get better for my daughter and your daughters and all of us. In the meantime I will keep burning through the rage so it doesn’t burn through me. Thank you, again ❤️🩹🙏🏼
The tragedy of the millions of Kim Davises doing the work of the misogynistic patriarchy for them is just beyond comprehension. What a dumpster fire evangelicalism is. But on some level I can’t judge them because I was part of that dumpster fire for five decades; so I have a degree of compassion for them.
My compassion doesn’t extend to not wanting them to feel the pain of their decisions, which they inevitably will.
And, may all the fuckwads leading this country experience the pain they are inflicting, though that may have to wait for whatever justice exists beyond the grave.
This is so movingly written. There’s so much beauty and so much horror and it’s all mixed together in this world, and we have to somehow keep going and keep loving. Thank you for the tears. (And the leaf sheep!)
Thank you so much for this beautiful comment. Somehow we do have to keep going. Going together helps ❤️🩹❤️🩹
Oh FFS, what is with these dipshits trying to classify sex as a marital duty? It's not about sex, it's about degradation to retain CONTROL. Having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with you SHOULD be something no one would ever want to have, yet somehow here we are. I have no doubt you are ensuring your daughter knows a thing or two about what she owes any man. Despite some dudes wanting us to turn back time, the educated Z's can drown them out. ps our neighbors have fifty plus sunflowers and they are hypnotically beautiful. 🌻🌻🌻🌻
There is this “under-hum” going on that has been getting louder and louder and it’s coming from so many different directions - that’s the part that is so alarming to me. And these dudes are not outliers, they are 100% in the highest offices in our government. They are responsible for the restrictive abortion bans and the SAVE Act and the tradwife surge and they are the freaking people worried about losing the white majority in 2045 if the trajectory and birth rates don’t change. Vance wants a national abortion ban and he’s second in command. Peter Thiel, his #1 investor and the reason he’s sitting where he is does not think women should have the vote. They just burned a warehouse full of $9.7 million in contraceptives sitting in Belgium thanks to the ending of USAID instead of distributing them. That cost us $167k. I truly do not think we are safe with these people. I think they want white babies and lots of them. So yeah, I think they want abortion bans, I think they will go after birth control, they want to get rid of no-fault divorce, they want husbands to vote for the household, they don’t value the lives of girls and women they way they do boys and men, they are racist af and they don’t like the LGBTQ community because women should have no options except to have a husband and fucking procreate. So, that’s who they are, they are everywhere in our government and they need to be stopped. Other than that, everything’s great 😬Yes my daughter knows she doesn’t owe anyone shit lol. But how do we keep ourselves safe in this world without getting these sick angry men out? I don’t think we do. So I’ll be over here doing whatever I can to make a lot of noise and fight the good fight and also point at the leaf sheep. I have faith in us, some days the hope wanes, but I always come back to that ❤️❤️❤️ Love thugs
This is indeed a new and supersized kind of white elitist fuckery, agreed. Did not mean to come off like "Oh, the Z's will handle it" *cue hair toss*...it is an all hands on deck 24/7 situation. I'm currently doing a deep dive on Hurricane Katrina, interesting to see governmental failure, then and now. I still have hope and faith in us, because I just can't give up. I didn't go through hell to get a new electric brain to give up. So I'll be here making noise in the Midwest Angry Lady satellite office. (Pritzker gives me life!)
Hahaha the day I think you’re being all “hair toss” casual about this is the day asshats fly. Pritzker is freaking awesome. And I have my issues with Newsom, but I have to say I love his trolling social media team (OMG how I love them) and I am all for this gloves off energy he’s bringing to the “maps game” - it’s about freaking time the governors (and everyone) got in the ring the correct way. Jesus! Look forward to your Katrina piece if you’re working on one. Adore you always.
How did the straight (and closeted) white men in this country become so sick and angry, so scared of loosing what they deem their 'power', which is no true power but just a bully pulpit hung onto by a thread? People with penises living in social democracies have long managed to become fully realized humans, allowed to cry when so moved, and to take the last name of their wife if it sounds better, be the stay-at-home parent if their spouse is better at making money, etc. without loosing their man credentials or cuddle privileges. Why and how die US American men get so caught up in the fear and hatred spiral? Dragging us all down with them... it boggles the mind. Is it the nature of cut-throat capitalism, which prizes the wants of an individual over the need of the many? No longer a rhetorical question.
Honestly I don’t know. I saw some insane video where the Tr*mp (can’t even bear to write that name) boys were being interviewed about how it’s standard for presidents to divest themselves of businesses that are going to create conflicts of interest let alone make billions off the Office of the Presidency and they were literally like whining about how all these banks had canceled their accounts overnight and what are they supposed to do and how are they supposed to live and it was ASTOUNDING. Like wow are you assholes completely delusional and divorced from reality if you think anyone is going to feel sorry for you while you make billions and cancel everyone’s health insurance and free lunch for kids. But that’s who they are. So, yeah. I don’t know what has gone wrong with a certain breed of man - the kind who want to control women and remove their options and rights and power, who want to crush every marginalized group while pounding their chests and also feeling victimized - but it’s scary.
very scary, agreed.
6.45 am and I am having a lie-in, for once not woken by the heavy hand of fear clutching my heart in the early hours. He's away, so no-one but the dog will know I scroll for a bit before getting up, will they!?
And...that's my day complete!
All I need to know is here in one devastating and beautiful piece, and in the comments by people I know I love, even though we are just names in the ether to each other and an ocean apart.
May I just echo it all...your words, and the comments.
And leaf-sheep ...
Oh Janey, I’m sending you so much love. I wish you so many more mornings where you can wake without fear and scroll to your heart’s content. Hugs across the ocean.
Just rereading my comment...to be absolutely clear, my fear is NEVER of him , but of the increasingly mad, bad world we find ourselves in.
And grief, which I used to talk to my therapist about as World Grief, but am more recently using the word Evergrief, borrowed from a Substack of that name
Love to you all across the ocean this morning xx
Evergrief, indeed. And I absolutely relate. I’m so glad you and your dog had a brief break from it all this morning, though 🙏🏼🤍
Love is entirely the point. I love that you wrote this, I love that people who experience love in this world will keep loving in spite of these asshats, I love the brilliant weirdness of nature’s delightful designs. 💖
Oh my gosh, and how much do I love these comments? So much. Thank you, Tammi. I love that you are here ❤️
Outstanding, Ally. I was instantly reminded of this poem by Adrienne Rich:
There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.
I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled
this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.
I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.
And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it's necessary
to talk about trees.
What Kind of Times Are These?
• Adrienne Rich
Oh Donna, this made me cry. Thank you so much.
You’re welcome. It’s a stunning poem.
It really is, and absolutely spot-on for this moment as it happens. She was/is/always will be such a force.
I love your Leaf Sheep seguways. Holding these two realities simultaneously is the thing, it's the perspective they want us to maniacally lose.
So happy to dip my toe back into being online with your writing as the initial coax.
Le grá from Ireland
Oh my goodness, so good to “see” you ❤️ And yes, I don’t think I can hold onto the current reality *without* holding onto the leaf sheep, too. That is the part they seem to want to crush out of us, and I think it’s the part we have to protect in ourselves and each other with everything we’ve got. It gave me such a lift to see you here, so thank you for that 🙏🏼🥹
Ally, you articulate arguments that I wish I could link and put together when someone says something entirely idiotic about the current administration. I think I am just going to print out this piece (and many of your others) and hand it to certain people and tell them I will respond to their stupidity once they have read your words.
Brilliant as always. I sincerely hope that one day we can just talk about sunflowers, space and time continuum and leaf sheep and not how mean and petty people can be.
Thank you, Chris. It’s an exhausting time to be alive right now, but I am still very grateful to be here. I never lose sight of all the beauty and incredible people and art and poetry. We just need to get through this and have a huge do-ever. We’ve totally lost the thread 😩 Thanks for being here, sending you lots of love.
Thank you, thank you. This should be obvious to everyone but since apparently it's not, thank you for putting these words into print.
Thank you for reading and for being here, Julie ❤️🙏🏼
The beauty that is found in your anger is simply stunning. Here I am, sitting in my own sadness and despair, unable to write anything that matters because I am stuck. I am drowning. And there you are, pouring love and wisdom and a lifeline into a world so full of ugliness and hate. You are simply remarkable, Ally. And I am so grateful you exist here with the sunflowers and the leaf sheep. 💙
Oh Katrina, I’m sorry you’re swimming in despair right now. I’ve had so many weeks like that. I swear it’s why I had to infuse this total shitstorm they’re throwing at us with an equal or greater amount of everything we have been given that is ours for the taking this week. These cruel and nasty people are beyond my comprehension but I’ll be damned if they’re taking leaf sheep away from us. Or sunflowers. Or the way we genuinely see each other. They’re not going to win. They’re not. The depravity is so cartoonish at this point I just do not believe people sitting on the sidelines are going to keep sitting down for this. Message me anytime. I’m not *always* hopeful, but I’m always here. And I refuse to give up. I’m stubborn af. It’s not always a good quality but it’s good for this❤️❤️🩹❤️❤️🩹
The beginning of this piece about sunflowers and leaf sheep is so Andrea Gibson-coded in the best way, which also makes it a beautiful accompaniment to your moving rage 🌻
Wow, that is a huge compliment. Thank you so much, Cody. I genuinely felt the need to dilute the rage with beauty this week, so it didn’t overpower the dish and leave anyone feeling sick. Including me! I have a feeling that’s how it’s going to be, seems like the only way through 🤍🤍
Loved this. So many threads woven together here. I am so lucky to be with a person who would never make me do anything I did not want to do. I hear all the time from my married friends how their husbands nag them for sex. I can’t imagine anything less arousing. The idea that we should be expected to give our bodies over whenever the whim hits men is so gross and awful. I can’t.
I cannot begin to fathom the headspace of a man who tells women they owe their husbands sex, or they have to submit to their husbands, or yes, things would be better if the man voted for the household. It’s wild and amazing and not it a leaf sheep kind of way. Hugs and love, Kari
It's utterly mystifying that they're so against abortion under any circumstances, AND YET they want to get rid of contraceptives??? I can't even get into the Epstein/Trump child rape stuff without simultaneously shedding tears and feeling sick to my stomach. On a lighter note, I never knew leaf sheep existed. How freaking amazing!
My God Ally, this piece was brilliant. I hope that you submit your work to The New York Times (or something else prestigious) someday… if you haven't already. 🙌
Thank you so much, I appreciate you 🙏🏼And yes the Epstein case is so dark and horrifying it is hard to take. My heart breaks for all the victims and their families who feel so used as political pawns at this point, after already having been traumatized and abused. It is all unconscionable and makes me so angry. As for the abortion bans and what I expect will be a push to make contraception harder to come by if these men get what they want - what they want is more white babies. What they want is for women to have no power and no options. No right to vote, no more no-fault divorce, no marriage equality because they want to make it as painful as possible to be anything other than a woman at home pushing out babies. That’s what they want. To them the value of a woman is her ability to grow babies. I know it sounds insane because it is, but this is not me grasping at straws - they say it. The words come out of their mouths. It isn’t pretty. Anyway. Leaf Sheep, those are amazing slugs. Those men? Awful slugs. Not the kind of people we need in power. I’m going to go and try to have some kind of night with my baby girl. Hugs and love, thank you again xx