The Ooh and the Ahh
The local resistance singers are gathered in a cool pleasant room called “Third Space” rehearsing our repertoire, beginning today with People Have the Power.
“The ooh and the ahh really help,” someone says, “but we were lost there. Are there any two people who know how to do it? And can demonstrate?”
Our intrepid leader Jan is directing, Laura keeps the rhythm on a drum, and everyone is expressing opinions and trying their best and sometimes it all comes together, a gathering of strong women singing their hearts out, each carrying her own sorrows and challenges, but standing up with song and spirit.
I’ve been back in California less than a week, and it has been a rough and discouraging re-entry. After a month abroad, I had expected to see more visible progress on the remodel, but everything is still pending or chaotic. We are ridiculously far away from our little family again and must get used to the renewed intensity of missing them. The aches of my body are exacerbated by fatigue and heat, and the usual stings and snafus of everyday life feel somehow extra daunting. Meanwhile, on the bigger screen, the lunacy continues, more extreme than ever, and I feel useless and incompetent, yearning to do something but uncertain of my role.
And I’m not saying that my morning with the resistance singers changed all that, but it certainly helped to be among kindred spirits and remember that I am part of a vibrant and caring community. And once I climbed out of the self-indulgent and self-defeating negativity, I began to gain momentum.
In the evening, we had dinner with our dear friends Bill and Kelley. We walked home at dusk and the air had finally cooled and the sky was streaked with magenta and a coyote appeared in front of us and ran into the woods along the road, and the earth counseled me to have some faith. I’m home, I thought.
My friend Diane and I met with LV, a former student of ours, at the local botanic garden, and I felt proud to have been a part of LV’s life, that special gift old teachers understand. We cooed and ahhed over her baby, Atticus, and made some wishes at the wishing tree.
On a different day, when a petty and hurtful conflict took us by surprise, a beloved friend intervened and stood by us, and I am still humble and giddy as I contemplate his loyalty and love.
I have gathered some postcards to send to voters, signed up for strategy meetings, and returned to a project I had begun and was neglecting.
Meanwhile, it’s true that our national nightmare has only gotten worse. We are seeing an aggressive and deliberate desecration of so much that we hold dear: alliances, institutions, the environment, human rights, basic decency…even the physical symbols of our national identity have been defiled to accommodate the narcissism and vulgarity.
I find that I have nothing new to say about it, but I flipped back through this blog and came upon an essay I had written right after the election in November 2024. I was in shock then, but the words I wrote still resonate. First, I quoted Timothy Snyder on responding to authoritarianism, then wondered aloud what we could do, and shared the following:
I spoke to a trusted advisor, otherwise known as my husband, who happens to have a deep understanding of policy, politics, and strategic thinking. “It’s a long game,” he tells me. “Don’t spin out of control, don’t panic, conserve your energy to channel it intelligently. Stay strong, and watch what unfolds. There will be tangible roles and opportunities to act. Be ready for these.”
I hold fast to my belief that friendship and community will sustain us. I have already derived so much wisdom and encouragement from these sources. We must tend to one another, take the time to notice the beauty of our fragile earth, and be grateful for the wonders that continue. These things will replenish us, and we will stand up for what is right, and we’ll prevail. Our lives are imbued with meaning. I hereby resolve to love more fiercely than ever before, to live with a renewed intensity, to respond by being stronger, kinder, and smarter than I was.
I re-resolve!
And I continue to be inspired by the many manifestations of human decency and defiance that have been happening all along and are becoming ever more apparent. As Robert Hubbell has said, we can never be complacent, but we have reason to be hopeful.
It’s like that sun-struck window on the bluff: when earnest human effort converges with the forces of nature, light beams like a beacon through darkness. I’m remembering, too a line by one of my favorite authors, Willa Cather: “Where there is great love there are always miracles.”
I still lived at the Ranch then, and that night I watched the moon rise above the hills like a huge white platter, perfectly round. The world seemed to exhale in a long sigh, and there was in that moment a genuine sense of peace.
That sense of peace still comes to me at times.
Things are shifting. I’m almost back. The oohs and the ahhs do help.