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Hey, authors, how are you doing? Anything exciting going on in the world lately…?
HAHAHAHA, just kidding. Like no doubt many of you I’ve been prostrate under the fire hose of world events, a relentless stream that’s been pelting us for years and shows no signs of abating, and recently seems to have been turned up to industrial-pressure-washer levels.
We’re going to gently waltz over near politics and current events in this post, but don’t worry, they’re not on our dance card. But things are getting pretty heated up in the news these days, and I’m wondering how creatives are keeping it together amid the chaos.
Normally I start my day by reading the news, which arrives in my in-box every morning courtesy of several subscriptions. I have text chains with friends where throughout the day we may share what we’re hearing and seeing and our thoughts and concerns and sometimes our outrage, and my husband and I discuss current events as well.
I stay informed because I want to know what’s happening in my world, to be an engaged and aware citizen, to form informed opinions for myself, to avoid a bubble. It doesn’t always make me feel all that great—in fact most days it makes me a little hyperventilatey—but I feel as if it’s my civic duty, and as if putting my head in the sand is a copout when there’s so much suffering and strife in the world.
Read more: “How Can Writing Matter in the Face of Suffering?”
But in the last few weeks and months the recent shitstorm of precedent-busting, adrenaline-jacking, incessant hold-my-beer escalating of current events had begun to put a constant knot in my stomach, darken my outlook, and cast a shadow not just over my creative work, but my day-to-day life and state of mind.
I’ve been here before not that long ago. Collectively I think a lot of us have. And oh, hell, no, friends—I’m not going back.
So I decided to do a psychic cleanse, a little three-part number I’ve come up with to restore my equilibrium and reclaim my headspace and my happiness so I can work, so I can write…so I can function.
1. Control Your Narrative
Creatives tend to be such sensitively calibrated instruments that we may feel unrest and conflict around us even more keenly and constantly than most, and because imagination is our stock in trade, we can also easily spin out disaster scenarios that make the problems feel even more pressing and urgent and terrifying.
I’m not counseling anyone to stick their heads in the sand and completely retreat from civic life. I understand that now more than ever it may feel important to be informed and involved.
But I don’t think any of us are designed to take on the current levels of angst and turmoil. Until global news media and the internet and streaming services and social media, we had to grapple with the issues only in our immediate circle. Most of us get our fair share of difficulty in our lifetimes, and we aren’t constitutionally capable of handling the exponentially magnified, relentless influx of anxiety, anger, uncertainty, and suffering in the whole world.
And I don’t think it’s healthy to compound those very real issues with hypothetical disaster scenarios spun from our deepest fears.
There is a Chinese proverb that keeps coming to my mind. Not the one about living in interesting times, which I think we can all safely agree we are, but here’s the gist:
A farmer’s only horse runs away and all the townspeople commiserate over his misfortune. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” the farmer answers. He gets a second horse and his neighbors all congratulate him on this happy turn of events. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” he says again. While riding the horse, his son is badly thrown and breaks his leg. The townspeople console the farmer once again, but—you guessed it—“Good news, bad news, who can say?” the man says placidly.
And then war comes, and all the townspeople’s sons are conscripted to fight—except the man’s, whose son is spared because he is still recovering from the accident.
Good news, bad news—with any of the world-on-fire headlines, who can say?
Honestly, we have no way of predicting how any given events may ultimately affect us or our world. So I’ve been practicing a healthy detachment. Rather than letting myself be sucked into a frenzy of either despair or delight, I’m trying to simply observe, the way I used to sit in the backseat of New York City cabs when I lived in Manhattan and look out the windshield calmly thinking, “Gee, that looks really dangerous” as if I were watching a wild car chase scene in a movie.
There’s a line from the movie Bridge of Spies that perpetually comforts me. When a Russian spy in jail is facing a death sentence for his actions, his lawyer notes incredulously that he doesn’t seem worried.
“Would it help?” the man asks mildly.
The truth is that staying abreast of every last distressing reality in the world does nothing to affect them, and there’s little we can do about most of it. But we do get to decide how much of it we allow into our own lives.
I can control how much of the fire hose I choose to drink from, and in recent weeks I have stepped almost fully away from the stream, taking little sips now and then just to stay aware of what’s happening, ignoring my newsfeeds and not letting myself doom-scroll or get sucked into clickbait headlines and incendiary posts designed to sell publications or fan up engagement rather than to simply inform.
I can also decide what parts of the fire hose to drink from, and I’ve substituted several straightforward and nonpartisan news providers for my usual sources, which may be respected purveyors of information, but also present it with a certain slant. I don’t want to be told what to think or feel, or have my buttons pushed by inflammatory verbiage. I simply want a neutral report on what’s happening. (I like Tangle News and Straight Arrow News, both evenhanded and reputable.)
2. Take Agency
The second step in my recovery program is taking action in the areas where my efforts can potentially make a difference.
Instead of waking up and immediately sucking in that toxic stream, instead I use the time while my coffee is percolating to write letters through an organization designed to reach registered voters who don’t usually vote and encourage them to do so, using personal, handwritten stories. (It’s called Vote Forward, and if you’re interested it’s a wonderful and manageable way to feel you’re doing something, the kind of kitchen-table activism that even amid pressing deadlines I can find ten minutes a day for, and my stack of envelopes to mail to voters is steadily growing.)
Then I start my creative work in a calm, productive state of mind, instead of reeling with the noise of the world.
What else I can do proactively:
- I joined a neighborhood volunteer group trying to get the city to put in a crosswalk at the busy intersection at our street for the safety of kids walking and biking to the local high school, and feel as if I’m contributing to my community.
- I donate to the organizations that do have the power and heft and reach to be able to make meaningful change in the world and safeguard our rights.
- I subscribe to and support organizations working to mend our partisan divides: Braver Angels, Starts with Us, and When We All Vote.
- I can support and cheer my loved ones when things may feel dark for them and help keep them from the same pit of despair that I’m determined not to fall back into. I can reach out to them for support when my own equanimity wavers.
- I can try to notice and amplify the kindness of others. I can endeavor to model it in my own life. I can work to build understanding even with those who may virulently disagree with my views, through relationships with my ideologically opposed family and certain close friends, as we build bridges one person at a time that may hopefully radiate outward.
- I try not to add gasoline to the flames, and not to tend the bonfire inside myself. I make efforts to refrain from inflammatory language or to stoke up anyone else’s fire (or have mine stoked by them). I try to be curious and open-minded instead of angry and righteous. I don’t always succeed, but I keep working at it.
- I can help authors do their creative work, aiding their efforts and helping them get stories into the world that might make a difference. I can enjoy my own creativity as I finish up my newest book for authors, which I hope may offer something positive and helpful and good.
Read more: “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells the Stories?”
I can choose to live in anger or fear or despair that negatively affects the creative work that means so much to me and poisons every element of my life. Or I can do as the Serenity Prayer says, and strive to have the grace to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change those I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
3. Notice the Good
Most of all, while these current events are important and are shaping the world we will all live in and leave behind for those after us, I am reminding myself every day to notice and appreciate the life I have right here in my immediate radius. No matter how bad things may sometimes seem in the headlines, when I look around me I see so much that’s good.
I wake up and I hug and kiss my beloved husband, get down on the floor and cuddle with my ridiculous dogs. I make good coffee and go sit at a desk to do work I love. I go for walks and the sky is blue and the clouds are lovely and the world is so beautiful it makes my throat ache, and I feel so lucky that it is ours to live in.
I see and talk to dear friends and family who enrich my life beyond measure. I work on projects around a beautiful home I love and share with the souls I love most in this world. I listen to music and read books and watch movies and shows that nourish me, entertain me, delight me.
I laugh. A lot.
Read more: “Building Community in a Fractured World”
I am so often reminded of the perhaps apocryphal story of how John McCain survived five and a half years in a brutal North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp: that instead of focusing on all he lost and all he desperately hoped to get back to, he simply lived in the now, knowing that the only way to survive was to accept his present reality and try to do the best he could to get through it.
Most of us are fortunate enough to live in conditions far better than those in a POW camp–far better than those who came before us. I dare to hope most of us enjoy basic freedoms and security, a measure of love in our lives, a share of happiness, even if only in isolated moments. If we’re struggling in any area, I fervently hope we have resources and support and connection to help us through.
I’m not saying things may not be hard, incredibly hard for many, and maybe even sometimes bleak. But if we can find ways to notice even the smallest moments of light, I hope that may sustain us until the sun shines bright again.
Authors, how are you holding up? What are your coping devices to safeguard your psyche and your creativity? What are the good things around you that help you get through?
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32 Comments. Leave new
What with Trump and Putin what hope do any of us have? Seeing pictures of Americans with fake bandages on their ears depresses the hell out of me. And the lies he tells. And while we have to cut our personal emissions by changing to electric cars and stop eating red meat and not using plastic bags any more – does any of this do any good? The devastation from just one bomb probably does more harm to our planet than a million cars. And no one says anything about that.
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I can relate to your fears, Charles. I’ve battled many a dark night of the soul myself as I sometimes feel I don’t understand people or my country or the world the way I thought I did. But it does help me to look for the good around me–I realize I am SURROUNDED by it, that most of what’s in my direct day-to-day life is positive.
The powerlessness piece, weirdly, also helps me. If I can breathe and remember that I can’t control all of what happens in the world–but I can control how I react, and how much bandwidth and power I give it. That sense of agency is a comfort–it lets me realize that for all that we may face hardship, what’s inviolate is within us. I had the weirdest dream recently–I was being robbed at gunpoint, and I realized I was about to be shot. In the dream I remember so clearly thinking that I would not die in fear, and I consciously filled my mind with all the people I love. It was so comforting and affirming. (Coda to the dream–the robber asked me what I was doing, and I told him and said, “I believe you’re better than this,” and he didn’t kill me but instead said he needed to be reminded of that and could he have my cell number in case he ever needed to call and talk to me, so I gave it to him…. 😀 )
But the other thing that really helps me fend off despair and fear is taking what action I can–trying to put good into the world inasmuch as I am able, to counter the dark stuff. Maybe it’s the equivalent of the dream, refusing to let those dark things define my life, but it really does help. You’re already doing some of that, it sounds like, with your efforts to combat climate change (and yeah, that’s another terrifying topic that can suck the wind right out of me). Even if our efforts feel like a drop in the ocean, we’re taking action toward the good.
I often think of the familiar saying that one of the most powerful tools of those who wish to control others is robbing them of hope. I think that’s a choice we can make–not to let go of it. To always persist in trying to “bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.” It’s hard to hold on to that sometimes, but that’s when I reach for my support network, too, to help me remember it.
Sometimes none of that is possible for us. If you’re really feeling bleak and can’t pull out of that, Charles, please consider talking to someone–a professional therapist who can help. It has helped me more than once. ANd hang in there. I believe things will get better. <3
I’ve set up three meetings with nine different women (4 of us at each gathering) where we sit under the pergola and write letters to registered voters who tend to sit out some elections. We urge them to vote, tell them why voting is important to us personally. I serve iced tea and lemonade, provide the addresses from Vote Forward and we write together. The letters will go out in October. We have a lovely time chit-chatting while writing. When writing, our hands our busy, which means we must stop wringing our aprons, at least for a while. We know we’re all going to be all right. We’ve got each other. (My husband writes letters too, but tends to do it as a solo activity.)
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I love that you combine your efforts with camaraderie! I’ve seen that Vote Forward does online letter-writing calls, and did one once (with the cast of Hamilton, which was pretty badass). I’m like your husband–I do mine on my own, usually before dawn as I wait for my coffee to brew or sip it, and get a few letters written first thing. It sets a good tone for my day. 🙂
I might borrow your idea of having pals over to chat and write though–that sounds lovely. And yes–I love the Vote Forward approach, with the personal stories. I think that kind of thing forges a human connection and makes an impact. Thanks for sharing that!
What frightens me the most, even more than the orange-man, is the anti-Semitism I see in the publishing world, where I once worked.
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
Yes…that fear is understandable. I worry about antisemitism and other hate that seems to be on the rise. So much of the pain and disappointment of recent years for me has been seeing that attitudes I thought were lingering only among a fringe few seem to be more widespread than I realized.
I do try to remind myself we’re seeing those views perhaps artificially amplified for clickbait and sensationalism. But there’s no denying they’re out there. Maybe all we can do is keep fighting it, keep working to address it one person at a time.
I don’t know. The problems of the world can seem so overwhelming in the aggregate. I’m working hard to keep my eyes on the steps in front of me. I don’t know if that’s the “right” way, but it feels like what I can do to try to be part of the solution. Thanks for sharing your worries, Anmarie.
I have this weird theory that when it comes to my creativity, life will deliver whatever I need, whenever I need it. Your message today proves my point! So much wisdom and insight here, I can’t even summarize. I shared this post with my best writing buddy–a woman who struggles with getting sucked into the news cycle, and almost drowning.
We are both sensitive types and as you point out, we need to be cautious about what we take in. You have such great pointers (3 of them)–I’m printing them out as reminders.
I have found a metaphor for how I want to be in this world and it’s this: Hate is a virus and I may not be able to avoid getting exposed to it, but I can refuse to be a carrier.
Thanks so much for sending this into my world this morning–a HUGE gift!
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I love that attitude, Lynn–the creative universe will provide! I try to adopt it too, for the most part. I think that’s a big ingredient for a happier life, at least in my experience. I’m delighted to be part of that fortuitousness for you today. 🙂
I hear you on getting sucked in–it’s designed to do that. (Read some of the literature on that, like The Battle for Your Brain by Nita A. Farahany, or watch The Social Dilemma documentary about the addictive designs of social media to really get mad about it.) I recently quit sugar, because I know it’s bad for me, but I find I still have to battle that potent craving for sweets. I think that’s what news and social media is like: it’s hard to stay away from it because it has an almost addictive quality. But since I stepped away from sugar I feel so much better it’s stupid. And frankly, I almost instantly notice the same effect when I limit my intake of news and social media.
James Clear, in Atomic Habits, talks about subbing out another, more desirable/advantageous habit for the one you want to break, which is actually how/why I started the letter-writing work to get out the vote. Anytime I crave a hit of that sweet, sweet, but toxic news feed, I grab a letter instead and write. It helps.
I love your virus metaphor–it resonates for me too. I won’t live like that, in hate. That’s not the world I believe in. I hope we can counter it one person at a time. Thanks for sharing this. Your comment is part of that “good stuff” I see around me on the daily!
Ñòw, if we can just transmute that attitude into a virus–like covid maybe–and infect those we come into contact with…
It’s happening. I just signed up for Vote Forward after reading this post. It’s easy to take one tiny step. Let’s go infect the world! 🙂
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY! Watching my envelopes pile up into high stacks, even doing just a few a day, reminds me how significant even our smallest efforts can be, if enough of us do them. See you on the letter-writing trail, Heather! FIRED UP, READY TO GO!
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
YAAAASSSSS. But you know, Bob, I think it is like a virus, our positivity as well as our negativity, and infects those around us. Isn’t there some study that shows that couples who hang out with happy couples report being happier, and those whose friends fight or divorce report being markedly less happy? And there are the documented effects of prayer and positive thoughts on people, even when they have no idea they are on the receiving end. I’m a big believer in that kind of thing–that we’re connected on a level we may not understand yet, and our thoughts (and certainly our actions and behaviors) impact those around us. That’s one reason I’m trying so hard to lean into kindness, even when I’m faced with…well, not-kindness. I keep thinking it’s our only way out of this awful polarization and remembering we’re all so much more alike than we are different, and to honor each other’s humanity. Thanks for this comment–may your words come true!
I’m a news junkie and I drive for a living. The constant stream of news, mostly bad, has gotten to me. So when that happens, I switch over to audiobooks, sometimes about writing to remind myself of the sphere in which I might have some small impact.
We started raising four feral kittens two months ago. They make me laugh. Really laugh. So that has helped.
Vote Forward sounds like my kind of jam. I might have to check it out. Doing something sounds much better than the alternative right now.
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I love that you substitute something more positive like audiobooks, Kristen. It’s weird how easy it is to siphon the poison into our own ears (I always picture Hamlet’s uncle doing that to the king…)–and yet how easy (and hard!) it can be to simply stop, turn it off, change the channel. I use podcasts for that–SmartLess and Wiser Than Me (with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a bag of joy) and Just Jack & Will and Adam Grant’s Re: Thinking, among others. Or I phone a friend instead. 🙂
Oh, KITTENS! How can anybody be sad around KITTIES!? I feel that way about my dogs–they make me laugh every day. Fostering your kitties has the added bonus of doing such a good thing, putting a little love in the world, leaving the world “a little better than you found it,” as the Southern saying goes. That helps me too.
Thanks for sharing this little ray of sunshine!
I have a spring in my step, and a clarity in my head, this week that I hadn’t noticed (enough) was missing. I’d felt so isolated and alone and helpless about it all, but suddenly I’m calling friends, friends are calling me, and we’re taking ACTION. That’s HOPE! I don’t think we were breathing, and now it’s safe (for a while, at least) to breathe, and especially to have creative thoughts. I missed those!
Meanwhile, I’d heard undecideds say they were put off by the way Kamala Harris always made it sound like she thought she was smarter than everyone else. At the same time, I’d noticed that she prefaced most answers with, “Look…”, and that certainly does imply that she knows better. Of course she is probably the smartest person in the room, but that isn’t the point, it’s the aural optics of it. First thing I did on Sunday was to email 4 people — the Press Secretaries and Communications Directors of both her campaign and the office of the Vice President. I begged them to ask her to change that habit. This week, I haven’t heard her say that once. I’m not saying it was me personally that affected the change, but I think it may have been me and a million other people. I hope it sticks. What we take action on DOES matter!
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I love that lightness you’re feeling! I told a friend I didn’t realize the weight of anxiety and worry until mine began to lift as well. Action is hope–even in the dark times, but it can be easy for that knowledge to slip away when you’re in them, can’t it?
I love that your action involved offering input even at the highest levels. I always say you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, and you never know which of your actions may have an effect. I can think of some really seemingly small exchanges/interactions in my life I wouldn’t have thought were consequential–but they made a profound difference in my life. (And now I’m going to be watching those speeches for “Look”! 😀 ) Thanks for this comment, Claudia–your lightness of spirit shines through it and it’s nice to see.
This terrific post has motivated me to peek back out from under my rock. I just signed up for Vote Forward (exactly the kind of activism I was wishing I knew how to do!) and will be sharing your wise and encouraging words. Thank you!
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
Thanks for the kind comment, Heather, and as I said above, I LOVE that you’re doing this! It’s really the easiest activism, but the psychic payoff for me has been enormous.
Like you, I remember all too clearly the anxious times, and I refuse to go back. I’m a news junkie and I was reading the news and then doomscrolling for hours every morning. I finally decided to take action, so I installed an app to block my access to all social media until the evening. I switched my news consumption to late afternoon. It’s only been a few days but I feel like I’ve reclaimed wasted time and I start my days feeling a bit lighter.
I’m in the research phase of a new WIP so I haven’t been that productive in the writing department but the ideas are percolating.
The last election cycle, I signed up for Blue Wave Postcard Movement and mailed personal notes to voters. I will do the same this year.
Wishing you and everyone mental peace.
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
I love that you found a way to cordon off the newsfeeds and lower the stress they were causing you, Barb. It really does make a huge difference not to start your day with all that noise, doesn’t it?
I’ll be writing those letters too in solidarity, friend! It helps to be doing something.
I have a simple saying.
Let every success go to your heart, never your head.
Let every failure go to your head, never your heart.
So if I write a brilliant chapter, scene or sentence, I’m happy, not big-headed. If I write a crap chapter, scene or sentence, I’m analytical, not miserable.
You can apply this to sports, relationships or anything.
This way, I go through writing, golf, and life alternating between a happy or analytical frame of mind.
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
Mark, I LOVE your saying–truly. I may adopt it. 🙂
It reminds me a little of a mindset I came to when I was an entertainment reviewer for newspapers, and saw firsthand how reviews are simply one person’s opinion. So if you don’t take the bad ones that seriously, you can’t take the good ones that seriously either. That has always helped me not get too hung up on reviews for my work. Thanks for sharing this!
The bit about “never your head,” keeps you humble. When you are humble, you learn best. Ego gets in the way of learning. 🙂
The Real Person!
Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
So true! It reminds me of the parable you probably have heard of the spiritual teacher pouring the tea into the student’s cup even as it overflows. When the student objects and says the cup can hold no more, the master says the student is like the cup–that there’s no room for new knowledge unless he comes with an empty cup. I think we always have more to learn…till we’re dead. 🙂
What’s the Robert Frost quote, ‘everything I know about life; it goes on’. And every now and again, shit gets real.
Maybe I’m oddly insulated, hell, maybe I’m in denial, or just whatever, but all in all I’m good. Depends on perspective, but I don’t feel that we’re living in unprecedented times. Far from it. I grew up in a small city – and have returned to live om it after wanderings that took me to Atlanta and Phoenix – that changed hands more times during the Civil War than any town in the country. There were families, and I’ve known descendants of some of them, who kept both US and Confederate flags in the house and flew whichever one needed to be put on the porch on any given day. I was a child in the 1960s and while I didn’t understand much of it I remember MLK and Bobby Kennedy being killed within 2 months of each other. Just the other day I ran into an out of state acquaintance I hadn’t seen since pre-Covid, a woman older than I am, from Alabama and somehow we got to talking to the bad old days she’d experienced and people she knew during them . . . including a man she still refers to in the way she did as a child; ‘Mr. Scott’ . . . more commonly known as MLK’s father in law.
With all due respect, this stuff we’re living through ain’t nothin’ new and its been worse. The 1960’s as turmoil filled as they were, were also a time of incredible creativity. One of IMO Brian Wilson’s most beautiful songs, The Warmth of The Sun, was written as a response to JFK’s shooting.
Art goes on. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?
To riff on the Chinese proverb you mentioned of good thing / bad thing, when it comes to us writers I think of a story about a young reporter known to her friends as Peggy. She broke her ankle, couldn’t walk, couldn’t work. Seems pretty rough. Lots of time on her hands. Nothing better to do, so she might as well write a book. Well hell, if she’s gonna do that, then her lead was gonna be a resilient young woman. That busted ankle and determination worked out pretty well for Peggy, better known to fame as Margaret Mitchel.
And while I’m on original gangsta southern women, and my sense that weird shit comes and goes and we pass through the weird years and do good stuff on the other side of them . . . and yeah, I know this one comes from waaaay outta left field, Varina Davis. If anyone catches the name, I’m impressed. Before going further, in my WIP, one of my characters is a history prof at ASU who has written a bio of Varina. I couldn’t resist having her have done that. Varina was the decidedly younger wife of Jefferson Davis. She was also a far keener observer of people than her husband and a gifted writer. Introspective and highly intelligent she was unhappy as a political wife in 1850s Washington, Varina didn’t do superficial social, and miserable in Richmond during the war. When Jeff was jailed after the thing ended, and languished for a couple years, his fate uncertain, she asked for and was granted permission to reside in prison with him. After that was over she left the country for Europe. Returned in time, and leveraging family connections to the New York publishing biz -serious connections, as in the Pulitzer family – she made a name for herself as a newspaper columnist. Along the way she forged friendships with Ulysses Grant’s widow Julia and Grant’s close friend Mark Twain.
This woman who was up close and personal with a nation truly torn in half, married to a man who helped tear it, went from the dark hungry desperate days of the siege of Richmond to being a moderately big deal in NYC forging meaningful friendships with one time adversaries while continuing to be revered by many who’d worn the gray. No doubt there were dark nights of the soul 1864-65 when she figured ‘we’re hopelessly and irrevocably f*cked’ as Grant tightened the noose around Richmond, times when she couldn’t imagine she’d in time pal around with his wife . . . but life keeps going.
Besides . . . where’s Steinbeck without the Dust Bowl? Where’s Faulkner without Reconstruction? Where’s Jefferson Airplane without the 60’s. Take away the object poverty of share cropping (slavery by another name) and the evils of Jim Crow, not only do we not have those great delta bluesmen of the first half of the twentieth century, but without their influence the Rolling Stones might have had little more to aspire to than being second rate Beatles.
The story of human society is one of bumbling around, mucking up stuff six ways to Sunday and enduring, enduring, enduring.
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
It does help me to review the scope of history and remind myself that we’ve faced struggles before. Yes, we endure…but a lot of people suffer in the enduring–and some much more than others. Like you, I can appreciate the good that may come out of such struggles, but to me it doesn’t diminish the pain of them, especially to those most directly affected. Margaret Mitchell is an example of this–she may have turned her own personal challenges into art, but she did it by contributing in her work to the racism and stereotypes that were already making life so difficult for so many others. Davis’s wife seems, from your description, to have benefited from her social position, money, and skin color despite her husband having been Confederate president in a war started to keep Black people enslaved.
I have a hard time accepting strife and suffering as a “worth it” cost of creating great art, or thinking of that art as somehow justifying it.
But as you say, I do try to remind myself humans have endured worse than this–and yet also to look to history to hopefully recognize when we’re repeating mistakes we’ve made in the past. It helps me to be realistic, but hopeful–and to take what action I can.
I’m also a news addict, several newspapers a day and public radio. Then, a firestorm came to our valley and my village of 500 people is surrounded by flaming mountains. But this isn’t a tale of the walls of roaring fire propagating in its own climate, evacuations, crises centres, bombers dropping retardant, helicopters carrying buckets of water, or firefighters on the ground 90 hours/week to save us, although all of that is going on as I type. My partner and I walked through our lovely home filled with art we love, furniture we entertain on, hearth we gather round, souvenirs and photos and memorabilia and books we cherish. My story is my partner and me walking through the house, room by room, asking what we absolutely need to save in order to be whole people in this life, and then taking none of it when we left. We may have a home to return to. Or not. If it survives, we’ll rejoice. If it all burns, we’ll let it go. Right now, our loved ones are safe. The shitstorm that is the news of the world can’t darken my gratitude over that one fact.
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
Oh, Deborah, my heart hurts for you and your partner. I’m so sorry. Even with the equanimity and clarity it sounds like you have about the “stuff,” it all means something to us and must be hard to face losing. When I lived in Florida and hurricanes came through, I remember having the same realization–that if I had the souls I loved with me, safe, then nothing else mattered.
Thinking of you and your town, and hoping everything is okay. I love your grace and gratitude even amid this unrest.
I decided to run for election to a state senate seat here in Florida. That’s how I’m coping. It’s a huge stretch out of my comfort zone, and is taking up a huge amount of time that I really wanted to spend writing my first draft, but just talking to my fellow citizens about the mess we could be in if things go the wring way in November and having them be in awe that there’s another Democrat in the state (most people say things like, ‘I thought I was the only one’) is invigorating. I’m hopeful now that there is so much enthusiasm and that so many people who were never active in politics are doing things like the Vote Forward letters (I have 200 postcards to write) . We can stop the slide towards autocracy if we keep up the effort and keep the faith! Thanks for this blog post, it was really helpful!
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WOW, Marilyn, when you go, you go all in! I considered that idea back around 2015-16 too, but swiftly nixed it. I don’t think I have the wherewithal or temperament for it–and I’m not sure I’d be any good at it. I figured my efforts are better spent helping elect the people who are. I love that you’re taking such an active hand in effecting the change you want to see in the world. We had a councilwoman in a district here who ran after the 2016 election for reasons I think were similar to yours, and she swept into office–I think people were so grateful for an alternative!
Thanks for getting so involved in our governance–I think those who go into it for the right reasons are really torchbearers, full of dedication and courage. Good luck with your election! I’d love to hear how it goes. 🙂
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How ironic that I read this today since I’ll spend my evening addressing postcards to registered voters who haven’t voted recently! I, too, support Braver Angels and strive to be curious and to understand viewpoints that differ from mine. I must confess that I’ve been on a media boycott for 35 years (don’t read a newspaper, watch nightly news, or listen to news on the radio. I watch 60 Minutes and my husband filters newspaper articles which he knows I’m interested in. My stress level is lower than before I boycotted, and my quality of sleep is better. I guess I employ an extreme method of “Controlling Your Narrative.” Thank you for this timely article!
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Author Tiffany Yates Martin acts as a real person and passed all tests against spambots. Anti-Spam by CleanTalk.
That’s awesome, Lee! I just crested 200 letters to voters so far, and I’m hoping to get to 300 before the Big Send. Like you, it helps my psyche to do something positive and productive instead of siphoning a toxic news stream into my head. I still take in news–I’m just really careful about from where and how much. Glad the post resonated!