This is Not Normal, But Let’s Take Care of Ourselves

This Is Not Normal Illustration by Sarah Moore
The lovely Sarah Moore illustrated this piece for the Cry Babies Art Show. Shared here with permission.

It’s been a wild few weeks, hasn’t it? [EDIT: Correction. It’s been two weeks. Only two weeks. 👀] I’ve been wanting to write and share here, but I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m sad and angry, but I’m also grateful for the responses in places like Philly and Lancaster. I’m proud of and grateful for the amazing sanctuary city I moved from, and I’m reassured that Lancaster was a great choice for our move.

The internet has not been a comforting or healthy place for me to spend too much time, and I want to acknowledge that, while also noting that it’s been key in connecting with others who are working so hard to improve things (shoutout to Tuesdays with Toomey!).

So for today, I thought I’d compile lists of encouraging things that are happening (mainly around Lancaster and the huge numbers of refugees this little city welcomes and has been welcoming for years), resources for how to keep going, and a few self-care tidbits. This list is just as much for myself as it is for anyone else. Maybe I’ll add to it later.

Encouraging things:

I think I’m gonna start publishing a post every Friday detailing a list of good things from the week. We could all use a little more of that these days, yeah?

Resources for resistance:

  • Sarah Kendzior, who studies and writes about authoritarianism and so far has called all of it
  • The FourFiftyOne, a podcast for #theresistance, by Summer Brennan, Jonathan Mann, and Jesse Hirsch
  • Resist Tinyletter is a daily newsletter with an update and an action you can take.
  • 5Calls.org makes it super easy to call your elected officials
  • Fax Zero has made it really easy to fax your senators. This is great for those of us whose dear senators have gone totally missing or just taken all their phones off the hook (ahem, looking at you, Pat Toomey)!

Take care of yourself! This is hard stuff!


Comments

2 responses to “This is Not Normal, But Let’s Take Care of Ourselves”

  1. This was so helpful!! Thank you thank you!

    1. I’m so glad! Thanks for reading!

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