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:
- A ton of people stepped up to buy movie tickets to send Philly girls to see Hidden Figures
- Church World Service Lancaster’s benefit concert had an enormous response
- The Outline (which is beautiful; check it out if you haven’t yet) published a really lovely article and video of Lancaster and its history of support for refugees
- Reputable news sources are calling lies lies. There are too many examples here to link to, praise be.
- Beyonce’s maternity photo shoot. It was the strange and beautiful distraction we all needed this week.
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!
- Cecily Kellogg’s Medium piece, We Can’t Keep Going Like This, Or We’ll All Be Hospitalized By Spring
- How to Avoid Being Psychologically Destroyed by Your Newsfeed, by Ann Douglas (h/t Ann Friedman)
- I think a lot of us are struggling with what and how much to share online, and I think Sarah von Bargen is doing a great job on Instagram. This post from Lisa Congdon on politics and social media was also really helpful to me.
- Everyone’s probably seen this already, but I should be reading this post, How to #StayOutraged Without Losing Your Mind, on the regular.
- And finally, tips from me: Take a bath, write, go to the gym, make something with your hands, read fiction or poetry or essays or whatever your mind needs. We’re gonna have to play the long game here, and that means we have to take breaks from the madness so this doesn’t become normal to us. ‘Cause it’s not.
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