I grew up on dystopian science fiction. I was fascinated with reading about how people might survive after the collapse of civilization as we know it… I’d have little daydreams of “oh, I’ll remember this in case there’s ever an “after”….” …. (you can’t tell me that someone who saw The Day After on TV when they were 13 didn’t grow up thinking it was a matter of when, not if). I just never thought I would need those skills BEFORE the collapse. I guess, instead of Randy Bragg, learning how to do things, take care of people, and form a community after the war, I’m Admiral Hazzard, aware that it’s coming but feeling powerless to do anything about it. Weird.
Anyway.
Like a lot of people who have an ounce of compassion, empathy, anxiety, and practicality, I’ve been thinking a lot since the election results about how I want to move through the next four years… if not the rest of time – the end of my life, or the end of a mostly free America, whichever comes first. The clown car administration that’s heading our way in a car with no brakes is going to shape the country for a long, long time, and not for the better. But I don’t want this post to be about an election autopsy, or a breakdown of why he’s advancing the absolute worst people to the front of a line they’re not even qualified to be in, or even about how a lot of people who voted for him are going to find out (if they’re not already) – I’ve heard stories of people finding out their family members will no longer talk to them, of people suddenly discovering that Obamacare is the ACA, of people being told that tariffs are something that THEY are responsible for paying, not companies. There are going to be stories like this every day for the next however many years, I don’t need to hash them out here. People dance, people gotta pay the piper.
***
Goddess, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
I can not change the outcome of the election. I can not change the myriad of reasons why people think one side is better than the other side. I can’t even change why people think in things like “sides” when we’re all on this single planet that seems to be suffering from cascading organ failure and we should all be working together to save all of us *and* our planet. I don’t have the energy to get involved in every discussion, champion a side in every world event, or even champion a side in every single crazy thing that’s going to happen every day of the next four years.
People are going to tell me I should. People are going to tell me that I should take a stand, choose a side, about every single thing that happens everywhere. You know what happens when I do that? I don’t get all the facts about everything. I don’t have time to see all the nuance. I don’t have energy to devote to things closest to me (problems my friends or family are having, taking adequate care of myself, even cleaning my house) when I’m using that energy to get involved in every single crisis. I am NOT saying that everyone should ignore every world event, not by a long shot. If you have stakes in a thing – family, friends, personal history, ties to a place or a people – by all means, get involved. Events NEED people to get involved. But nobody can do everything, and the best we can do is choose the things we can do. I hope that makes sense. I would rather give five things important to me all of my attention than divide all of my attention into five hundred things important to everyone.
Not to mention that one way to keep people off balance, unable to fully help their community (however they define their community) is to keep us in constant chaos. Constantly having small fires to put out keeps people busy, and keeps their eyes off the prize. A lot of times we are taught to think in binaries; I can choose to do this *or* I can choose to do that. But there’s always another way. It may take time to figure out that way, it may take courage, it may take a willingness to look as if you don’t care when really your heart is breaking for the whole world. You have to figure out what works best for you. What you can best put your energy in. Where you feel you are best able to help. Where you are able to be a force for good, for change.
I feel like I am best able to help, locally. I feel like I can help the most by supporting the community of friends I have around me.
***
If you’re shipwrecked on a desert island, or your plane crashes on the side of a mountain, or whatever (who was that guy who did those TV shows about how to survive various accidents where you’re stranded?) there are certain things that become a priority. The big three are shelter, water, and food. Of course there is getting rescued, or making it easy for rescuers to find you, but I’ll get to that in a second. This is how I see those three things in this sort of …. existential dread emergency, rather than a plane crash or a boat sinking.
Shelter. I have shelter. I have a house and 15 acres. I do need to finish up filing all that paperwork with Wells Fargo that Tim left me with, but as soon as I pay off the mortgage (my second priority after I get home) (my first priority is the craft show six days after I get back). Once I pay off the mortgage, I still have to regularly pay insurance and taxes, but the land will be fully mine and I’ll be beholden to no heartless large company, so no fears about getting kicked off suddenly. And if I have shelter, people I know have shelter. If we have to put ten tiny homes in and around my property, all running on solar power, with my house as the main kitchen and social spaces, so be it. If I have shelter, people I love have shelter, is what I’m saying. If I have friends who aren’t safe, or get evicted, or can’t afford to keep living where they’re living… shelter.
Water. I have a well, so I’m not on city water. The bad side of that is that it’s an electric well. I mean, I’m not expecting, like in the post-nuclear war books I’ve read, that power will shut down nation-wide. (Or am I???) I do have two generators and one of them does power the well, but I’d like to get a solar powered hand pump for emergencies. My friend John has one and I plan to ask him where he got it and what it was like to install it (John’s great, and has built most of his house by himself – his brain is absolutely one I want to pick). The well water is clean and safe for drinking (you know, at least until companies are allowed to start dumping waste into the aquafers, sigh). Time to look into rain barrels, though, or a way to reuse gray water for the garden I want to put in.
Which brings me to… food! It’s not that I think food is going to become suddenly scarce… it’s more that, let’s be honest, a LOT of fruit and vegetable picking is done by migrants who may or may not have papers. Which personally I don’t give a shit about – you can be in a country illegally but no HUMAN PERSON is illegal. It is not illegal to be a human being, and no scare tactic phrasing will make me think any differently. Harvesting food is hard fucking work, and my hat is off to people who come here to try to make a better life and do back-breaking hard work for little money. I don’t know that I could do it, and that makes them a lot tougher and stronger than I am. Anyway. Food isn’t going to disappear, but it is going to get even more expensive. So I want to look into gardening – herbs, fruits, vegetables. Maybe even beekeeping, although I’m afraid of bees so I don’t know how well that’s going to work. No sense in me doing chickens if it’s just me out there, since I’m allergic to them. (However if you want to move to my property and live in a tiny house and have chickens? Come on over! How do you feel about bees?) I want to produce not just food that I like, for me, but also for my friends. Yes, I want to be that annoying friend who leaves bags of eggplant on your doorstep and runs away, you’re welcome.
There are a gazillion more words I could say about this but I’m already at almost 1500 and that’s about the top word count I can do before people stop reading, haha.
Anyway, those are just some of the thoughts that have been floating around in my head since … good lord, was it only ten days ago? It’s going to be a long-ass few years. Let’s try to get through it together, yeah?
xoxo, y’all
…”beholding to no human {……..} ” Let’s Ellsworth the hecks out of the next scene. Bees are easy but heavy and almost constant work. Give ’em some smoke and they care not for any other thing. Bonus : we know how to fix Neo’s sweater too !
Well said. I remember Alas Babylon and am currently writing about the Simplification in Leibowitz. Triumph was another one that scared me. May I suggest a propane generator? We have a well, a septic tank, and a generator. We’re on two acres bordering a protected wetlands and a state forest. And we’re on a rise away from water. It is a solid house.
I remember when Nixon won. Same sort of apocalypticism but not as much meanness of spirit. Day by day, we endured.
I admire your strength in dealing with your paperwork while reaching out in travel to the larger world. Company is coming over. We are using the charcuterie board we got from Haldeworks.