I’m not always great about doing all of the routine things that responsible car owners do. For instance, I just renewed my registration today–six months late. (You missed me, coppers!) And, thankfully my husband changes my oil, or I’m sure I would be remiss on that, too. One of the maintenance things I tend to notice, though, is when my car is out of alignment; that subtle (or, not so subtle) pull to the right or left really annoys me, and even though I always intend to take care of it right away, I sometimes lose track of what I’m doing and suffer the problem longer than is good for me, or my car. I’m always so relieved when I’m back on the straight-and-narrow, as it were.
The burst of energy I’ve been feeling the past couple of days, particularly in the morning which is NOT my time, is an indicator that I, too, am subtly (but, actually very obviously) out of alignment. And, it seems that the cause might be related to my work, since my absence from it is the only thing that’s changed in the past 48 hours. This isn’t a post where I’m about to dunk on my boss (who is seriously an angel sent from heaven), or my employer (which is a Big Green beset with many of the problems other Big Greens have). But, it is a space where I want to contemplate what I might do when faced with the knowledge that, for me, something is just… off.
It would be easy to blame the difficulty of the work itself. Like I said yesterday, pushing for solutions to climate change in a state where many don’t even believe it’s happening, is hard. Super, super hard. And, knowing that there are those who are getting rich and/or powerful off of disinformation is maddening. But, I don’t think it’s either of those things, exactly. I mean, people have been lying and profiting off the pain of others for a long time, so it’s not like this is exactly new.
I think what’s really getting to me is that it’s all a constant fight. And, I’m tired of fighting. Especially because, with my front row seat to the carnage, I need the space to grieve all that has already been lost: the mountains leveled, communities drained, species vanished, and opportunities stolen from future generations. Weirdly, this grief fills me with tenderness for the wretched animals that wrought such destruction: us. What spiritual malady must we have that allows us to continue on in this way? Aren’t we just a pitiful band of lost children?
What would it mean to stop fighting—not out of defeat, but because I want to offer compassion to myself, and all of my neighbors who are suffering so, whether they realize it or not. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a constant state of battle.
What I want now is something smaller, quieter. Work that’s hands-on and rooted in place. I want to help people heal—not just from policy failure or systemic injustice, but from the toll of being human in a broken world.
I want my work to be local. Personal. Less about convincing lawmakers at the Capitol and more about showing up in my community with love—for the land, for the animals, for my neighbors. Not just the ones who agree with me, but all of us. Even the ones who voted differently, worship differently, see the world through a different lens. Especially them.
This isn’t some big revelatory announcement. It’s just that, at the very least, I need to reframe the work I’ve been doing, or move on to something else. At the risk of continuing a clumsy metaphor, I guess you could say it’s time for a tune-up.
wemustkeepthe fight