^{Image credit: Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images file}


Please only consider voting in person in the November midterms if you are able. I know this is not possible for everyone, but if it is possible for you, please consider.

According to an extensive whistleblower report from within the USPS (United States Postal Service) and published by the office of Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal this morning, a “catastrophic failure” of the entire mail ballot handling system during November’s midterm elections is at risk, thanks to a new and untested digital system overseeing mail ballots that USPS reportedly intends to complete this month.

“Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” said the anonymous Postal Service whistleblower in the report. Sen. Blumenthal added that “the main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans. One-third of all Americans cast their ballots by mail, and the U.S.P.S. puts all of their votes at risk.”

According to States United Democracy Center, nearly 1 in 3 Americans (31%) voted by mail in the 2024 general election, accounting for more than 48 million votes. (Trump has famously almost always voted by mail.)

In the report, the whistleblower maintains that the verification process of the system is of particular concern, noting that it could potentially reject entire bulk-mailing batches of ballots (10,000 or more at one time) if “even one bar code on one single ballot” scanned improperly. The official blames the “slapdash” rush to implement the Trump regime's demands.

The disruption of vote-by-mail would be especially destructive in some of the most key swing states where control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate would be decided.

Trump's claim of widespread voter fraud has never been close to proven but it is his justification for voter suppression. According to the Brooking Institution, there are roughly four “fraudulent” votes per 10 million votes cast by mail in the United States, and even then, most of the singular cases come down to accidental user error of some kind.

Trump’s executive order places the Department of Homeland Security in control of many aspects of mail voting, creating “state citizenship lists” compiled from citizenship, naturalization, and Social Security records, to assemble what is essentially a national voter list. This list would then be sent to state election officials, who would be prosecuted by the federal government if they refuse to use the list in determining the eligibility of any given voter.

The USPS has declined to offer any comment on the report as of Tuesday morning.

MY PITCH: Please let your elderly and disabled neighbors know that you can help them get to voting centers on November 3, 2026. Anyone planning to vote by mail, please don't if you can help it. Trump is planning on actively interfering with your vote. 🗳

Usually my Dwell links lean more toward midcentury modern homes that make my heart do a happy dance, but this week, I’m sharing this short but heartfelt piece from the same media outlet about Dolly Parton’s childhood home, a one-bedroom cabin in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. There is so much I have been reading this week about how Dolly “escaped” the poverty of her childhood, when we know that she never ran away, and in the important things, her background was anything but impoverished. This piece asks you to think about what happens if you physically leave but never really run away from your beginning landscapes. It hit me right in the heart.

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Are you Dollied out? I’m not but even if you are, I can still recommend this powerful, beautiful tribute by Rebecca Solnit to Ms. Parton.

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The Atlantic analyzes MAGA’s over-the-top reaction to Jon Ossoff’s pretty innocuous words about Trump and his “special relationship” with Natalie Harp and it’s a valuable read. “So why did MAGA world respond as it did? One explanation is psychological. In 2016, Trump found a constituency already primed for grievance, and taught it to want more. His supporters have kept themselves in a state of frenzy ever since. They need to be perpetually outraged, aggrieved, and insulted. MAGA world has become addicted to the feeling. It delivers a jolt of adrenaline, it provides a feeling of social belonging, and it gives people a sharpened sense of purpose. They see themselves as warriors in a drama of their own construction.” [Gift article.]

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A pilot program offering free bus transportation for Detroit students from K-12 has become permanent!

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If you missed Robert Reich with Heather Cox Richardson’s conversation last week, I recommend it. You’re in luck because it was recorded. It’s only about 30 minutes and it left me craving so much more because there is so much in this historic moment of the U.S. (The Talking Heads line, “Well, how did I get here?” keeps going through my mind) but it is still so worth it. I’m going to watch it again soon to absorb it better because we were watching it live from the porch and, damn, the cicadas were so loud!

***

Even as someone who doesn’t drink coffee, regular or decaffeinated, I found this investigation of how coffee beans lose their caffeine (silly me, I never gave it much thought but I just assumed there were beans specially cultivated without it, but, eh, that’s not it) fascinating, and why people are paying more now for de-caf in smaller bags, which has to do with climate change, strippers (not that kind), increasing demand, not enough specialty processors and, yes, Trump and his tariffs. Again, really interesting stuff, even if you’re not a coffee-drinker. It also gives you some good tips on not being ripped off. “When you do the full math, peak C-market price, yield loss at that price, elevated tolling fees, inflated freight for inefficient routing, and worst-case tariffs, the landed cost of decaffeinated green coffee at the height of the crisis was roughly 330 percent of what it had been in 2023. Industry executives quoted in the press saying they’d seen a ‘300 percent increase’ were not exaggerating.”

***

Speaking of, well, not so much coffee but Starbucks, but a story about how the Workers United union that represents workers at more than 700 locations used their organizational muscle to have a blending powder commonly used in the chain’s “blended refresher” drinks removed after baristas complained of headaches, hives, tickling throats and asthma attacks from using the product. Refreshers are a $2-billion-a-year business for Starbucks but this week, the powder was removed. Collective action works!

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I’m sorry – did a Democratic Socialist in Oklahoma just win the Senate primary runoff against her much more deep-pocketed opponent, a more moderate, establishment Democrat? Yes, yes, she did. N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas, a 31-year-old nurse and member of the Chickasaw Nation will face Republican Kevin Hern in November. He is heavily favored to win Markwayne Mullin’s vacated seat (as he was against her opponent in this very red state) but this is still a good sign of progress and ain’t over ‘til it’s over, you know?

***

While it is disheartening to hear about the harassment women athletes are experiencing in arenas, specifically the WNBA, it was so reassuring to learn about the deep work that some organizations, like the Chicago Sky, is doing in partnering with the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, or PERIL, based at American University, to combat it. By the way, I appreciate that NPR’s reporter on domestic extremism is covering the misogyny female athletes face regularly because that is what it is: Domestic extremism.

***

And this all leads me to my favorite re-humaning moment of the week. When professional basketball player Cameron Brink of the Los Angeles Sparks spent a few moments speaking about a serial harasser at WNBA games, some washed-up former player who has been showing up to get attention, disrupt games and try to carve out a niche for himself as an anti-trans influencer, and she zinged him pretty good. (The creep has been banned from Chicago Sky games!)

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Yours in re-humaning,

Marla

I remember hearing an interview with Dolly Parton on NPR a number of years ago when she was asked about her song, "I Will Always Love You."

She told a story as she did best...

Elvis wanted to record the song when Dolly was just getting her start, which would have been such a boon for her career and she was ready for it, but Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis's manager, told her at the last moment this meant she would be signing over half the rights because that was always how he did it and it was just business. Dolly had told everyone Elvis was recording this song, something she wanted more than anything in the world, when Parker put this to her. Can you imagine that as a singer-songwriter country artist, turning that down, Elvis Presley recording your song? She had to back out, though. She cried and was deeply disappointed but she stuck to her principles. Her songs were her children. Elvis died and she didn't know if she did the right thing or made an extremely foolish mistake, but she did what she'd always done, which was hold on to her artistic properties with grace but also tenacity.

Years later, Whitney Houston would record "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack of The Bodyguard and it was a massive, massive hit. Dolly Parton was already a huge success and longtime household name, but because she held on to her rights, this one song helped to fund so many philanthropic initiatives in literacy, in vaccine development, in student scholarships, in relief for families whose homes had been destroyed in natural disasters, more than I can mention, and also bringing industry to her beloved community with Dollywood and her other creative ventures.

My heart is heavy. But in this age of greed and tech bros, of widespread sexism, bigotry, blind hatred of the poor and AI literally threatening the livelihoods of artists of all stripe, Dolly Parton shines as a beacon and patron saint.

Hold on to your rights no matter how scary it is. Dolly would be cheering you on.

Oh, and fuck the bad guys forever. They will claim in the next day or two to have been big fans of Ms. Parton. They were her exact antithesis but she would have been too kind and gracious to say it. I am not that kind or gracious.

Be like Dolly. Hold what she stood for in your heart

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You could put your name on everything because you're self-important, you need recognition, and your ego is both that fragile and voracious.

You put your name on everything to try to immortalize yourself.

Or...

You could put your name on everything and be willing to poke fun at yourself and your image because you're universally loved and you uplift by assoc…

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Hi, friends!

I decided to take my own advice and spend some time re-humaning this weekend, so I’m taking a day off from my usual Supplement and will be back next week with a double issue.

Have a wonderful day and I will see you then!

Yours in re-humaning,

Marla

^{Credit: Jean-Baptise Santerre}

I originally wrote much of this in April of 2019, just a couple of months after my husband was diagnosed with a sudden and very aggressive form of leukemia. I’m not going to keep you in suspense: He survived and is in remission. He’s actually in the kitchen making his breakfast as I write this. Thanks to an incredible medical team, a dedicated caregiver (me!), innovations in the treatment of his kind of leukemia – this is the kind of progress that is now being stalled under the direction of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr – endless support from our friends, his own resilience and just sheer good luck, John is fine, but it was a really precarious and scary couple of years, especially as his most vulnerable time of having a zeroed out immune system completely teed up with the COVID pandemic.

Before my husband became sick, though, I had experience as a caregiver when my mother, who had Lewy Body Dementia and a form of Parkinson’s disease, lived with us for two years before her passing in 2013. While my husband had a long, uncertain and circuitous path to recovery, he generally had an optimistic attitude and prognosis once the first weeks were behind us. My mother’s disease, though, was progressive in the worst sense of the word with a steep downward trend to expect. The best we could hope for was maintaining and that was a distant dream. Understandably, the diseases hit her and her loved ones very hard physically and emotionally.

Caring for my mother was like observing the milestones one might track with her baby, instead in this instance, it was the reversal, the unraveling of her precious independence. Instead of learning how to sit up on their own or pull themselves to stand as they transition from baby to toddler, people with worsening diseases might not be able to dress themselves one day. That is a new milestone to adapt to, mentally and organizationally, for the afflicted but also caregivers and loved ones. Instead of learning how to lift the spoon up and feed themselves as toddlers do when they gain skills in caring for themselves, an adult with an acute, worsening disease may lose their ability to feed themselves. It is a change in one’s autonomy and a painful marker of a new normal that will likely not change as the disease worsens.

These experiences in the trenches with my mother and then my husband taught me that many people are well-intentioned but don’t realize the ways in which they may compound the emotional burden as well as actual labor of caregivers. I also learned how simple but singularly helpful other approaches can be for supporting someone who is caring for a loved one facing a scary health crisis. People often don’t realize how little it takes to hurt or help a caregiver.

I should be clear that my thoughts here are just that: My thoughts. They will not resonate with all other caregivers and I would never presume to speak for anyone else. Mileages will vary. Some people may consider the things on my personal “what not to do” list to be supportive and others may find the ones that brought me relief to be hurtful. Ideally, if you want to be the best support for a caregiver, the best thing is to pay attention and stay connected to that person so you can be as sensitive to their needs as possible.

Six Things that are Hurtful to Caregivers

1. Unsolicited dietary advice is not helpful

This is among the worst things with which to burden a caregiver who is already overwhelmed in my opinion. One thing I heard: “My grandmother recovered from Stage Four breast cancer by eating hemp seeds.” Along these same lines, other assorted tidbits of dietary advice like “Have you thought of a juice fast?,” “Raw foodists don’t get cancer,” or, conversely, “Maybe you should stop being vegan and drink bone broth,” etc. are super-duper, four-alarm fire not helpful.

If you want to give dietary advice to people, here is what I suggest you do: Become a dietitian. Become very knowledgeable. Become very familiar with the specific disease you are advising about. Then and only then, share your advice with your clients or those who expressly solicit it. I have noticed that people who are inclined spit out dietary advice like Pez dispensers will claim that they “only want” to help; they may also say cruel like “Well, fine, if you want so-and-so to stay sick, if you want to be a victim, keep doing things the way you have been,” as if you’re just a helpless whiner and they are the tough truth-tellers. It is not helpful. It’s actually mean. It’s also uninformed. You can drink green smoothies every day of your life and still fall down a staircase, or — guess what? —get leukemia. Yes, even that.

Speaking of, offering pseudoscience, like the myth about alkaline, instead of genuine care, is not only false, it is harmful. Please keep this and other fallacious explanations away from sick people and their caregivers. It is a form of what I call playing “pin the tail on the cause,” an attempt to find answers and order in a chaotic world that doesn’t always follow our expectations or beliefs about what is right and fair. Before saying something like this, I’d ask you to ask yourself: “Am I saying this because I am uncomfortable about my feelings of mortality and lack of control, or am I saying this because I know it to be helpful? If I can honestly answer that I am saying this to be helpful, did the person ask for my help or is this unsolicited? If it is unsolicited, can I keep in mind that what I am thinking about saying might very well be adding to the emotional burden on someone who is under a lot of stress and hardship right now and trying to navigate a lot of advice from a lot of directions?”

I am going to go against my general rule against giving unsolicited advice here and offer some: Avoid self-appointed dietary advisers like the plague if you are able to do so. If you are not able to fully avoid them, set some ironclad boundaries and stick to them like your mental health depends on it, because it does. As a caregiver, it is your priority to keep yourself as healthy and peaceful as possible.

2. Woo promoters also need to stop with that

Listen, as someone who has about 30 tarot decks and an appreciation for the mystical (Aquarius sun and rising, yo!), there is a time and a place for your speculations. That time and place really shouldn’t ever be with an overburdened caregiver, unless, of course, you know that they want to hear things like how chemtrails cause cancer, that there’s a $5,000-a-day wellness center constructed entirely out of crystals and pyramids that will cure your loved one, or, speaking of cures, have they tried water fasts, and while I’m at it, did you know that bad thoughts are what cause disease???

Once someone has determined their treatment approach, jumping in with recommendations to far-flung spas, healing centers, influencers and sketchy YouTube videos/channels is super unhelpful. Again, unless someone is asking for recommendations, it is best to keep that to yourself. If you cannot resist, know that you can always keep these suggestions in your back pocket if a health crisis arises in your own life.

There is a deep-seated, often unexamined notion in this country, perhaps rooted in Judeo-Christian notions of sinfulness and godliness, that people bring their diseases upon themselves. I am a believer in the power of optimism but this mentality is garbage-thinking and gibberish that desperately tries to find a reason why unfortunate things happen to good people.

Let’s look at Fred Rogers, for example. Mr. Rogers was one of the most loving and progressive public figures I can think of, someone who embodied goodness, kindness and sensitivity, helping to model living in the world as a different kind of male years before we ever heard the words “gender fluidity”. He was miles ahead of most everyone else in the 1960s and 1970s and even helped to save PBS from Nixon’s chopping block. (Well, I mean, it’s back on there but…) He was also slim, exercised daily and was a vegetarian. Yet he died of stomach cancer. Was his cancer evidence of “bad thoughts” or is this yet another convenient rationale that those who are uncomfortable with mortality are eager to slap on something to believe that there is order and fairness in the universe? I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.

3. Empty platitudes can make a caregiver feel worse.

For example, “Everything happens for a reason.”

Really? Everything? You might want to think about that because if everything happens for a reason, you must include child abuse in that maxim. Also: Genocide, airplanes falling from the sky, stepping on landmines, parents outliving their children, train crashes, domestic abuse and cruelty to animals. Obviously, I could go on and on. If you’re uncomfortable with chaos and unfairness, well, join the club. So am I. Please don’t chalk things up to “God’s Divine Plan” or New Age claptrap unless you want to imply that those who are facing a very challenging and scary time in their life or recovering from a tragic event just need to “trust in the universe.” Oh, yeah. Please don’t say that, either. People in these circumstances are often managing their best and deserve to be able to express their feelings without unhelpful clichés being tossed their way.

Your discomfort is yours to own. Keep it to yourself.

Other broad platitudes like “You’re so brave” or “You’re so strong” felt condescending and like I was being pitied. Make no mistake, this is well-intentioned and kind but I believe it is generally not helpful. When something terrible happens to someone, they are not necessarily brave or strong: they are dealing with a bad situation that has presented itself in their lives the best they can, a situation they didn’t seek out. Telling someone that they are brave or strong may also be subtly and unintentionally communicating that they need to not cry or show fear and vulnerability lest they no longer qualify as brave or strong. Again, I think it’s meant well, just not always helpful.

4. Battle language can be hurtful

As with the point above, this is well-intentioned but I have known good, deserving people who were fighting cancer with all they had who had less than positive outcomes and this sentiment made them feel like failures. Definitely dispense this with caution. My husband, the one directly in the health crisis, didn’t mind it, but it landed poorly with me. I’m not the only one who feels this way.

One of the more stressful binaries for someone facing a life-threatening disease is they either win or they lose. The “battle” language seems to be especially strong with those dealing with cancer. The fear of judgment or disappointing people when things are not going well is reinforced through this kind of verbiage. While on the surface, it may be seen as cheering a person on — we love our David vs. Goliath story arcs  — sentiments like this can add more weight to the emotional load that person and their caregiver is already carrying. As a supporter, the best approach is to follow the patient or caregiver’s lead on this kind of verbiage.

5. Don’t put the onus on the caregiver for updates

It’s understandable if you’re feeling hurt if you were not one of the first people contacted about someone’s illness or you heard secondhand; the same applies to not getting personal updates. I get it. That said, the life of a caregiver is very overwhelming and at times, it can feel like your ability to remain upright is as precarious as a tall Jenga block tower. I had to let go of my people pleasing tendencies and just accept that my main priority was keeping my husband alive, not reach out personally to people.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Susan Silk developed a concept called The Ring Theory. It’s a very basic practice, but it’s one that offers so much relief to stressed out caregivers if people will abide by it. Again, the premise is simple: The Ring Theory says that whoever is most immediately in the center of the ring, or the middle, of the crisis, should not receive any stress from outside rings, which represent different kinds of relationships to the person in the center. To visualize, you could draw a circle in the middle of a piece of paper. Then write the name of the afflicted person in that center ring. Bull’s eye. Draw another ring. This ring holds those closest to the person in crisis: Partners and children, for example. The next ring is dear friends and close cousins, for example. The next ring is friendly colleagues, for example, or former roommates. With each concentric ring, it gets further from those most personally involved in this crisis. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means it’s just less directly felt.

The Ring Theory says that you should avoid dumping stress into the more interior rings. Comfort in, stress out. If you ask, “Why didn’t you call me?” or ask an abundance of questions to a ring that is closer to the center, especially the caregiver or person directly afflicted, you are dumping stress in. The farther from the center, the more okay it is to “dump” stress and worries; toward the center, you only want to send support and comfort. Don’t compound the stress and grief of those in the inner-ring by dumping stress in.

6. Reminders to sleep

Don’t remind caregivers to sleep, to take care of themselves, to rest. Like many of these recommendations I’m making here, it is well-intended but in many cases, it is an empty exhortation that compounds stress and pressure. In my case, my husband was in a virtual quarantine aside from doctors. I was the only one who was allowed to care for him, making sure he got his medications, ate adequate calories, was taken to appointments, and so on. Realistically, how was I going to rest? Instead of telling people to do something (else) that feels impossible, it’s more helpful to figure out ways that you can relieve the stress burden, like (if the care allows for it), staying with the person under care while the caregiver is taking a break, or sending food if not. More on this below.

Six Things that are Helpful for Caregivers

1. Stay in touch

This may sound contradictory to my general message of not overwhelming a caregiver, but in all the time I spent in caregiving mode, it never added to my stress to just hear simple messages of thought and love from the people in my life. As long as it didn’t have added expectations of returning messages, they were always gratefully received. Telling someone you love them over text can be just the medicine an overloaded caregiver needs. Sending an email that you’re thinking of them can make a caregiver feel less alone. Leaving a voicemail just as a reminder that you are sending best thoughts may feel trite but it can be so uplifting to someone who feels barely afloat in churning waters. It matters so very much.

Illness can be a very isolating experience and it can sometimes make those going through it, including their caregivers, remove themselves from interacting with others because they don’t want to be downers. Reminding a caregiver that you’re thinking about them  is a way of throwing a lifeline out to someone who is perhaps feeling more and more alone and close to burnout. Letting the caregiver know that they are being thought of might seem like stating the obvious, but, trust me, it’s not. Lives are busy and stressful for everyone; we understand that. Taking a minute out to touch base with a caregiver in your life doesn’t take too much effort and it makes a big difference in their lives.

2. Allow the caregiver space to be real about what they’re experiencing

The fact is, you don’t have to offer unsolicited advice, so-called cures or forced cheerfulness; you can just allow caregivers the freedom to process the messy human experience honestly without trying to “love and light” a difficult time and without judgment. One of the most powerfully supportive things you can do is acknowledge the pain this person is in and sit with the uncertainty of it with them without trying to fix things or force your way out of the discomfort of vulnerability.

If you have the kind of emotional intimacy with the caregiver where this would be appropriate, it can be valuable to communicate that they can off-load to you both the victories and the difficulties of their lives. It’s a great relief for caregivers to know there is someone who not only cares about them but wants to understand the reality of their lives without judgment. Keep in mind, though, that it is up to the caregiver what they want to speak about and don’t add additional pressure by insisting the person reveal more than is comfortable at that time. As always, take their cue.

3. Offer specific ways you can help.

When people ask, “How can I help?” it is kind, thoughtful and appreciated but can often add to the sense of overwhelm a caregiver may be experiencing. It’s also possible that there is SO much needed, the caregiver can’t even come up with one idea. Further, some people are just uneasy in the role of stating what they need. Caregivers are often just putting one foot in front of the next, not able to run through the multitude of ways someone can relieve their burden. The goal in all of this is to lighten the load on caregivers, after all. This is why I suggest offering specific ways of helping, like saying, “I am going to the grocery store. Can I drop some things off on your porch?” or “I’d love to babysit your kids on Saturday afternoon so you can get some alone time,” or “We’re going to have a bake sale to help defray some of your medical costs and earning loss. Is April 17 okay? You don’t have to be there!” We had friends who took it upon themselves to send us meal kits, slip-on shoes for John, medical supplies and more, which was so considerate and helpful. We had one particular angel who organized our whole support network via a spreadsheet and updated everyone over email.

You don’t need to be near to help. Being an ally in this doesn’t need to mean spending money but figuring out ways you can help reduce stress on caregivers facing difficulties and offering specific ways definitely relieves the load. A bunch of great ideas for supporting a caregiver can be found here, and if you are long-distance, you can always stay in touch, offer to be the go-between for communications to the caregiver’s community, organize an online medical relief fundraiser and that sort of thing. There are many things you can do from afar.

4. Offer heartfelt compliments.

Just thinking about this makes me cry.

Navigating a medical environment can be deeply humbling, frightening and difficult. It can make you feel like a failure and you can also be short-tempered or impatient with the person in your care, which may just heighten any feelings of guilt. Not everyone is a born caregiver. I know I’m not but it was the role I found myself in. As such, it’s often uncomfortable and mistakes are made. Tempers can flare. Hearing someone acknowledge that even if it is challenging and you’re not perfect, you are doing a great job is so important. Caregivers may not hear it from the person they’re caring for; they have their own battles and shouldn’t be expected to have that fall on them. Acknowledgement from others, though, is so helpful; again, it’s a lifeline for someone who may feel like she’s barely keeping her head above water at times. We are doing our best but often incredibly fragile. This small acknowledgement can revitalize us. There were many times my friends helped me off the metaphorical ledge in the middle of the night, and I don’t know what I would have done without them. General compliments are great – “You are doing such a good job!” – but specific ones can feel more real. For example, “I love the way you ask for the help you need,” “Your organizational skills are impressive!” and “Your mother looks so happy in this photo – you’re doing an amazing job.”

5. Remind them of their lives before caregiving

Caregiving can be such an overloading experience, caregivers can lose touch with who they were in the “before times”. If you have fun or meaningful memories together, that can be a joy for someone in the deep, heavy throes of caregiving to relive. Did the caregiver love to dance before they found themselves in the role of caregiving? Did they make pottery? Garden? Remind them that there is a life again after caregiving and that they were vibrant, three-dimensional people before this time. Sometimes just bringing up a passion that has nothing to do with caregiving can be a welcome opportunity to think and talk about something else. One of the most disconcerting aspects of caregiving for me was how robotic I could feel at times as I was trying to schedule appointments, give medications, clean the house, etc. Reminders that we are human beings beyond this experience is helpful.

6. Include them

Tell them about your life. Include them in your plans even if they can’t join you. Just inviting a caregiver in helps to relieve the sense of seclusion. It reminds them that life is more than this one difficult situation they may feel mired in at the moment.

Okay, now we are now officially at The Worst Thing you can possibly do to someone with a loved one who is facing a life-threatening disease. The very worst thing is…to say nothing. To ghost. To disappear. To be so wrapped up in awkwardness or discomfort or fear of mortality or whatever and say nothing. Of course this depends on your relationship with the caregiver and your level of intimacy; I also understand that it can be awkward and uncomfortable.

Saying things like, “I didn’t want to bother you when you were so busy,” well, I’m sorry, that is a cop out, unless you know that the caregiver did not want to be reached. Knowing that it takes so little to acknowledge what someone is going through or that you’re thinking of them, and it helps caregivers so much, I’d say to just reach out without expectations with decent consistency. (Being mindful of the Ring Theory best practices, you can also reach out to someone who knows more of how you can be helpful.) Acknowledge what is going on. Understand that you may be uncomfortable or feel bad that you can’t do more. That is OKAY. Sometimes, too, there are old wounds that can get in the way of communication. Caregivers understand this. What is difficult to accept or forgive, though, is dipping out entirely.

I hope this helps and, as a reminder, these are just my thoughts. The best way to know how to be there for individual caregivers is the simple gift of your presence, your kindness and ability to listen without judgment.

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They’re selling us the idea of health: How chasing the Next Big Thing keeps us all terrible treadmills, addicted to algorithms and consumerism. It’s nothing we don’t know, this essay just made it more clear. “[A]nother word will replace protein.maybe cortisol. maybe inflammation. maybe longevity. maybe mitochondrial health, which already sounds expensive. the basic promise will remain the same. your body is a problem, the solution is available in a new flavour.”

This Atlantic Monthly article describing what this newfangled thing called pizza is to a post-war audience in 1949 is as quaint as it sounds.

The dramatic rescue of a 10-year-old child from turbulent waves at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz, CA by a 16-year-old lifeguard and a bunch of citizen helpers gave me hope for humanity. Weekend Edition also talked to an ocean lifeguard captain about best practices for avoiding dangerous riptides, which was also illuminating.

Librarians are hosting workshops on how to avoid AI and I want to take a class ASAP. It’s yet another example of how libraries and librarians are so essential to elevating the human experience.

The problem of grocery store consolidation explained in human terms.

Meta’s “smart glasses” are getting rightfully trolled. Let’s hope this is another failed Zuckerberg venture.

Yours in re-humaning,

Marla


Over the weekend, John and I got to visit the new Obama Presidential Center in Chicago with friends. From the start as we stood in line waiting to get in, it was a people watcher’s paradise just being able to see so many lively humans in their matching family reunion and organization t-shirts at a time that otherwise feels so heavy and isolating. Immediately, I felt like I was transported to a happier, more spirited era and I wasn’t even in the building yet. As soon as we walked in, though, a sense of bittersweetness washed over me and that feeling remained firmly intact through each of the five floors. It wasn’t unpleasant. I have something of an affinity for the bittersweet in life. It was simply reality.

There were so many reminders everywhere that, as Martin Luther King Jr. observed, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Oh, that long moral universe arc, though. It’s a doozy. In that arc, there is injustice, ignorance, cruelty, bigotry, brutality. In the bending toward justice, there are small gains steadfastly, tirelessly fought for and, when achieved, add up to real progress. On this path, we walk three steps forward, two steps back, or the reversal, and to me, that has never been more painfully clear than now.

Walking through the Center, I also couldn’t help but viscerally remember November 4, 2008 in Chicago, when Barack Obama was elected for his first term. We met friends downtown, and watched the election returns together in a condo building’s party room with fluttery nerves but also optimism. When it became clear there was no path to victory for John McCain, I finally felt like I could exhale. At home, I’d baked dozens of vegan mini-cupcakes and put bright little Obama victory toothpick flags in them, some for our gathering and more just to hand out. (I wish I had a photo!) I think it was when Pennsylvania was called for Obama that we cheered and danced and embraced and took a very joyous elevator ride down to celebrate with hundreds of thousands of equally ecstatic strangers spilling and spreading out in Grant Park, a ten-minute walk from my friend’s building made much longer by all the high-fives, hugs and cupcakes that were shared along the way with our fellow celebrants. It just so happened that the future president would be accepting his win at Grant Park. We were smack dab in the center of the world that night and it felt magical beyond description.

The first Black president. The first president from Chicago. A man who got his start in community organizing, as VP candidate Sarah Palin liked to spit out as if it were an insult. After eight years of George W. Bush, it felt so overwhelmingly like sheer relief, I don’t know what percentage was joy. We could celebrate. We could have hope. We could work with this administration toward positive change.

It meant something.

I just want to say two things before I get into the heart of what I really wanted to write about because I can already feel people itching to “yeah, but” me about Mr. Obama’s leadership and legacy. If you’re going to comment, please read this first because it matters that much. I fan-girl to no one. I genuflect to no one. (Well, okay, there’s a small club including Kate Bush and a few others but...) I try to be clear-eyed about the big picture. I certainly do not worship at the altar of the Democratic Party. I am also old enough that my idealism is tempered by the fact that the most we can expect for progress is that it is incremental at best. At this point, I am fine with flawed but better, though. We can work with better.

I also wanted to note that as the first Black president, there were obstacles Obama faced in office and in public perception that those of us who aren’t of color would have a hard time even imagining. If he were to come off as anything but breezy and friendly, he was a threatening thug to these Fox News-addled minds. If he was diplomatic and eloquent, that meant he was an elite snob who had doors opened to him through Affirmative Action. If he was confident and he knew his worth, he was seen as arrogant. If he spoke passionately about matters that were important to him, he was called divisive. He could not win. Criticize him, sure, that is your right and prerogative in a democracy. We should never be complacent, but please acknowledge the impediments that Obama singularly faced in that office, not the least of which was having a proudly obstructionist Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, dedicated to blocking him every step of the way so that very little actual progress could actually trickle out.

This is not to make excuses. This is to say there are real reasons why a president, especially one from a minority plagued with bigoted baggage that was not of his own doing, might not be able to make sweeping changes single-handedly in a political landscape that is less about legislation and more about casualties. It is a position of deep compromise to even be able to get your foot in the door. This does not mean, though, that I wasn’t filled with a bittersweet reminder of progress we’d made that has since been reversed and what could have been possible as I walked my way through the Center.

I had to get that out of the way for…reasons…but what I really want to write about is the contrast I noticed. Not the contrast between what was included in the Center as compared to what we can imagine in an equivalent future Trump location but the contrast of spirit. There was art in and around the space, colorful, abstract tapestries and sculptures, not grotesque tributes to one unhinged man’s high opinion of himself. The flow made good chronological and evolving sense, not just appeasing the preferences of one guy who doesn’t care about anyone else’s experience.

As you may already know, the grounds around the Obama Presidential Center are just as meaningful as the displays, art and artifacts inside it. Even without a ticket to the Center, a day on the grounds is worth your time. There’s a wetland walk, a flower garden, a fruit and vegetable garden, a great lawn with hills and picnic tables, an ADA-accessible playground, a beautiful new Chicago public library branch and a regulation basketball facility that is free to use. You can say a lot about Barack and Michelle Obama, but one thing that seems quite a point of pride is the intentionality they bring to their projects and work together. These public spaces are named in homage to heroes like John Lewis and Eleanor Roosevelt, not just slapping the Obama name on everything as another branding opportunity, as the current White House occupant does. The overarching sense I got as a visitor is one of being warmly received and included.

Instead of fences blocking things off, there were people moving through the environment at their own pace. Instead of treating a temporary home as something they own and can destroy at will, there is a generous gift for the neighborhood and all visitors to enjoy. Instead of ripping out a historic garden, there is the planting of gardens. Instead of a UFC cage match on the lawn, there are flowers and picnic tables. Instead of a monument to oneself, there is the spirit of inclusion and community.

What I felt most as we walked the grounds was just the feeling of peace and relief that pervaded. The ugly, persistent suspiciousness and paranoia of the Trump administration was nowhere to be found. There were peppers and tomatoes on the vine in the garden but no one was eyeballing visitors like we were all potential thieves. There were actual seating areas, not what is referred to as hostile architecture, designed to discourage extended comfortable public use and keep out the “undesirables”. I am sure there were security cameras around, but there was no sense of the kind of Big Brother surveillance that the Trump regime proudly flaunts. At the little water pumps in the playground, no one was trying to charge the children a dollar a turn.

In contrast, we have…

^{Fences blocking off the Reflecting Pool. Image credit: Raul Candia/7News}

^{Proposed permanent fencing around Lafayette Square, a historic park for protesting, Washington, DC. Image credit: NBC News}

^{Demolition of the White House East Wing and East Corridor. Image credit: Eric Lee/Getty Images}

^{Former White House Rose Garden. Image credit: Saul Loeb AFP via Getty Images}

^{UFC “The Claw.” Credit: AP News}

It shouldn’t be shocking to enjoy a public space that emphasizes the free, simple joys of life. It shouldn’t be shocking to notice the absence of meanness, of possessiveness, or guardedness. It shouldn’t be shocking to see generosity and trust. When it is observable, though, that should be a wake up to us all. The march toward acquisition – of publicly enjoyed; free spaces; of our privacy; of our birthright to move through the world without the creeping overreach of the oligarchs – and toward totalitarianism is a joyless, grey slog into isolation and despair.

It doesn’t have to be that way, though, because why not moved toward…

Beauty, instead?

Community?

Trust, humanity and generosity?

Why not bring out the best in each other instead of acting on a presumption of seeing the worst?

I know what side I’m on. I refuse to accept the Trump regime’s rhetoric that authoritarianism and greed is what we want because, no, I do not accept the life they propose. I know a better way and so do you.

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“Do not judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” - Nelson Mandela

I can’t pinpoint the first time I felt anxiety, but stray moments of it probably became more part of my normal daily experience at around age 12. I could say that games like Operation and Don’t Break the Ice laid the groundwork but millions of other kids played them and didn’t grow up to have anxiety disorders. Mr. Milton Bradley, though, you sure didn’t help.

When I think of the grades sixth through eighth, most of what I can remember the most keenly is the somatic feeling of anxiety. Walking to school? I was anxious. (Knots in my stomach.) First bell? I was anxious. (My chest is tight.) Gym class? I was anxious. (God, if we’re picking teams again, I’m going to die.) Looking for a friend in the cafeteria? I was anxious. (Where is she???) Getting called on in class? I was anxious. (Has anyone ever died of nerves?) Walking home from school? I was anxious. (Breathe, breathe, breathe…) It’s not that I hadn’t worried or felt nervous before but this was when what I will call real anxiety really took the wheel.

Here is what real anxiety feels like to me: it is a whole body state rather than a concentrated sensation that is mainly felt around the head and chest. It’s a sense of pervasive dread and unending circular thoughts rather than something fleeting; it’s all-encompassing rather than constrained. It is all the nervous, terrible feelings in my body – the quickened pulse, the shallow breathing, the dread in the pit of my stomach, the muscle tension that leaves me sore – but it’s much more than these corporeal responses. When I have anxiety, it’s a stubbornly adhesive state that lays claim to my whole body and spirit, and the message it pulses with and repeats is “Not safe.” It’s not rational usually, but what disorder, mental or otherwise, is rational? And when real anxiety hits, it permeates everything around me.

The word itself is almost an onomatopoeia in that the sound of it suggests the meaning. Anxious derives from the Latin anxius, meaning “uneasy, troubled in mind,” from angere, meaning “to choke, squeeze” from the root angh-, meaning “tight, painfully constricted.” That tracks. As humans, we have a well-honed fight, flight or freeze system, which evolved to ensure our survival as a species. For those like me with anxiety, our fight or flight system is hijacked, often switched on to “angry rhinoceros is chasing me” when it doesn’t need to be. When your car’s check engine light pops up, it’s stressful but it may be alerting you to something important and necessary. With anxiety, our check engine light is flashing but it. Won’t. Turn. off. While we should be grateful when nothing’s really serious, the stuck-on flashing light itself is the problem.

Not that you need the reassurance, but here are some famous people who have struggled with anxiety: Judy Blume, Stephen Colbert, Emma Stone, and there is speculation that Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson and Shirley Jackson also had anxiety. Fictional characters with anxiety add great flavor to a story or cast. Think of Daria Morgendorffer, Frodo Baggins, Lisa Simpson and Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 4.4 percent of the global population lives with an anxiety disorder.

Again, if you are someone with anxiety, you don’t need the affirmation to justify your condition, but you are in good company. In the old days, with women at least, someone with an agitated nature could easily be burned at the stake or tucked away into horrific asylums, her children taken from her, but today society seems to have more or less made peace with the fact that for some of us, peace itself is a rare thing.

Anxiety is so much a part of me and my life experience at this point that it’s hard to separate it from me. It feels yoked to me, woven and wrapped around me like ribbons on a maypole. I have many moments and hours free of it, sometimes multiple glorious days in a row, but when anxiety creeps back in, it feels as innate to me as any other aspect of my person.

In especially bad moments in 7th grade, anxiety felt like my whole stomach could drop out of me: Phlump. Today, anxiety feels different, less dramatic but also more persistent. It’s a buzzing in my upper torso, like I swallowed a hive of really pissed off bees. It’s the feeling that if I could just press on my chest in the right way, I could reset my nervous system to some kind of equilibrium, but that’s not possible because I’ve tried. It’s endlessly restless, circular thoughts in the middle of the night that won’t be pacified until they finally exhaust me, hours later, and, if I’m lucky, I fall asleep, utterly depleted by anxiety.

Breathing exercises can alleviate the anxiety somewhat, as do some other strategies for finding peace in my often hypervigilant body. Medications have helped somewhat, but they zeroed out the rest of my feelings. At first, that was such a lovely reprieve but it’s not how I want to live. EMDR therapy for easing the PTSD that has added extra carbonation to the anxiety cocktail has helped a lot. Supplements in the daytime, like ashwagandha and kava, and gummies at nighttime, can be helpful. Talking to friends, exercising and spending as much time as I can outside also help. I have my toolbox, sometimes I add to it or subtract from it, but generally, I have kept my anxiety to a more-or-less functional level.

I don’t want you to think I walk around afraid, because I don’t. I am courageous despite the fact that I have anxiety. I also want to say that anxiety isn’t nervousness or worry any more than depression is simply feeling sad. These things are aspects of anxiety but not the whole experience by any means. It is reductive and simplistic to distill it down to such broad characterizations when we know that anxiety, like depression, is much more complex and nuanced. It’s a true mind-body-spirit immersion rather than VR glasses you can put on and take off.

That said, while it’s clear that anxiety has been a difficult factor in my life, as I learned from taking medications, I wouldn’t get rid of it entirely if I could because anxiety, as much of a pain in the ass as it is, is also my superpower. If I had to choose between anxiety and depression, I’d chose anxiety every time.

Anxiety is the shot of espresso that gets me off my ass.

Anxiety is my cure for inertia.

Anxiety is my antidote to powerlessness.

Anxiety is part of my guardrail system against acting like a shitty person, because I know I’ll pay for it later.

Yes, anxiety is what torments me at night, but it’s also what compels me to create change during the day. If I want to sleep better, I know I need to work on things in daylight.

There are probably healthier, less stressful ways to motivate myself but nothing quite nips at my heels and tugs at my attention like anxiety for getting shit done. I heed the call to do something – anything! – and then the anxiety dissipates like a fog until it rolls back in again. It’s all I know. It’s how I operate. Some people are methodical and orderly. I need anxiety to spit fire balls and throw lightning bolts at me. I tried to create change without anxiety and it was futile. I was Jeff Spicoli-ing in the back of the classroom.

Anxiety is what has made me an activist because I couldn’t handle the feeling of not doing enough about the things that I find unbearable to simply witness. Anxiety is why I’m a writer, because somehow I think the world will be more reasonable and understandable if I can just hold it down on paper. Anxiety is what keeps me from feeling defeated because it sticks to me until I find a relief valve for the uncomfortable pressure that’s causing it and that relief valve is action.

It looks like this:

Anxiety about the climate? Create vegan recipes to try to encourage more people away from eating animals.

Anxiety about food scarcity in my community? Open a Little Free Pantry.

Anxiety about the Trump regime? Make a sign, call my representatives and find a protest.

Anxiety about some new nightmare in the news? Write about it, try to inform and influence.

It looks like anything to try to make the bad feelings dissipate, even for a few moments.

Unless something dramatic changes, I am guessing that anxiety is with me for my lifetime, or at least as long as I can notice things that upset me. I can live with that. If you see me looking like I want to jump out of my skin because I saw or heard something unbearable, though, just know that anxiety is at the door and I need to answer it. I’ll be better. Just give me a chance to deal with the source.

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In sitting down to write this, trying to describe a feeling or a state that feels at times like an ever-present dense fog around me and other times like the most shifting, prickly mood, the sentence that kept popping up in my head is that we were not designed for this.

It’s hard to put words to it, let alone comprehend, but I’m going to try. Here are the most immediate things I can tease apart we were not designed for, in no particular order:

• We were not designed to consume and metabolize a 24-hour news cycle. Even if you don’t watch the news, which I don’t, you’re still steeping in it, it’s just a little more diluted. If you’re like me, you make an effort to extract yourself but then you worry that you’re missing too much, perhaps something that’s essential to know. As my bumper sticker says, “Can’t sleep, clowns will govern me,” and it’s only a little exaggerated. My bumper sticker is far more accurate than it is wrong.

• We were also not designed for the endless interruptions, the jackhammering on our attention. If you’ve ever been the parent of a toddler or two, you know how frustrating it can be to not have a moment to concentrate or, when you do have a moment, you can’t enjoy it because you’re anticipating it to be abruptly snatched from you. Having a bunch of toddlers climbing on me, pulling on me, calling for me, needing me, is what the technological demands feel like. By the way, I have almost all notifications silenced.

• We were not designed to quickly be able to discern what is real and what is fabricated. My husband showed me a video yesterday that was meant to be funny of famous dead people in Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao’s hospital setting, interacting and moving in the scene. It was meant to highlight the absurdity of believing anything shared by his proof-of-life people as authentic. It was clever. I didn’t find it funny, though. I found it scary how good AI has gotten in a short time at replicating and manipulating reality. This is going to be a problem of immense proportion going forward. People are going to believe what they shouldn’t and be skeptical about observable reality. The net result will be lots of confusion and disengagement.

• We were not designed for this ceaseless dump of fresh bad news heaped upon heartbreaking news that has somehow already become stale and outdated a day later. We were not designed to navigate a world where algorithms determine what we know, and the news must be constructed as either click- or rage-bate.

If you’re like me, you’re overwhelmed and maybe anxious or depressed. You may go through much of your day feeling disembodied. I think this is all normal for what daily life has become for most of us. This makes it understandable if you have more moments of overwhelm and detachment than calm and connection. When we are that tapped out and enervated, it can be next to impossible to meet our basic needs, let alone face the other things in life that really deserve our attention, like climate change, like building more equitable societies.

Where do we go from this, though, this knowing that things are a mess to something closer to resembling what feels like a natural internal and external environment for humans?

We’re reminded that we don’t thrive in this kind of mechanical chaos and noise when we’re reintroduced to what feels better. When we put our phones out of sight in meeting a friend and we end up feeling so refreshed. When a beautiful bird song reaches us and pulls us back into the moment. When we lose ourselves in a book or a drawing or a conversation or a garden and we feel something like…Freedom. Relief. Just human again.

We observe when an animal isn’t thriving. Among other things, elephants in captivity will sway, developing a host of adaptive behaviors to try to cope with the stress. Dogs pant, pace and hide during fireworks. Dolphins in confinement exhibit repetitive behaviors like head-bobbing. We are not in confinement, clearly. With rare exception, people are free to come and go, able to remove ourselves from stressful environments. What happens when modern life itself has hijacked your nervous system, though? Not just the tech (and the beeps and the notifications) and the endless terrible news cycles, but the disconnection, stress and loneliness that comes along with the erosion of our basic human nature?

That basic human nature that craves connection and meaning. That basic human nature that longs for periods of uninterrupted concentration and community. These are not just empty words, meaningless concepts. This is part of our human nature to crave, just as honeybees are driven by ancient orders to pollinate and bears to hibernate in dens and caves, when we’re stripped of so much of our human birthright for these drives and behaviors, we suffer just as surely as other species do when they’re trapped in alien settings.

It’s the reason why I started this Substack last July and named it Re-Humaning. I believe that we vary quite a bit between people but our innate humanity is pretty consistent: We yearn for meaning, for connection, for authenticity, for community. When we neglect those things and lean too much on the things that distract, upset and disconnect us, well, bad things happen. I don’t have the answers but I do know how I feel my best: getting back to the basics. Staring at flowers and bees. Laughing with friends. Taking walks. Writing. Reading.

Life is hard. We don’t have to make it harder. To me, re-humaning is all the things that make it softer and reconnect me to my joy.

What helps you to re-human?

Thank you for being with me in this project.

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After coming off a week of triple-digit temperatures, I think it’s better to try to end data centers than complain about the heat. That said, we do have these ridiculous temperatures so we may as well try to take care of ourselves as we work to stop tech billionaires from trying to cook us alive. (Here are some resources, but please remember that there is a lot we can do in our own spheres, such as shift toward a plant-based diet.)

Alright, folks, let’s fire up our blenders!

Whether it’s because of the heat or you simply want a quick, easy meal or treat with minimal clean-up, you can’t go wrong with a blender (or sometimes a food processor). I happen to be ride-or-die with my trusted Vitamix but really, any blender will do. Enjoy!

Breakfast bonanzas

I am a diehard enthusiast for the morning smoothie breakfast. Depending on the ingredients, it can be a filling and nutritious way to start your day, not to mention quick and easy.

Chocolate Banana Oat Breakfast Smoothie via The First Mess
Berry Bakery Muffin Smoothie via Vegan Street
Banana Smoothie Bowl via Yuzu Bakes
5-Minute Acai Bowl via Bakerita
Triple Almond Joy Smoothie via Vegan Street

Lunch soups

Perhaps even more refreshing than these soups themselves is the fact that making them won’t heat up your kitchen.

Spinach Pesto Soup via Labeless Nutrition
Best Gazpacho via The New York Times (gift recipe)
Avocado Soup via Avocado Pesto
Thai Spiced Coconut Blender Soup via Vegan Street
Chilled Cucumber and Avocado Soup via Pickles & Honey

Dinner spreads

Make a meal of it with bread, veggies, crackers. You can even fancy it up by making a charcuterie board of it all.

Pesto via Delish Knowledge
Easy Vegan Ricotta via Rainbow Plant Life
Edamame Dip with Jalapeno, Mint and Lime via The First Mess
Muhammara (Roasted Red Pepper Dip) via The Mediterranean Dish
Chipotle Bitchin’ Sauce Recipe via Food is a Four Letter Word

Dreamy desserts

It’s the time of year for cold, creamy treats that don’t require the oven. Lean into it! Most just require a little time for the freezer and you’re good.

Rainbow Smoothie Popsicles via Taste.com
Best Banana Milkshake via Ele Vegan
Raspberry Vegan Cheesecake via Love & Lemons
Chocolate Frosty Milkshakes with Whippity Whip via Post Punk Kitchen
Birthday Cake Banana Ice Cream via Nutriciously

Stay cool!

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After muttering threats under my breath at the grey, rainy skies through all of June, let’s just say that the warm weather I was wishing for has finally arrived with that extra bit of “This is what you wanted? You got it,” energy. I’m not going to take all of the blame, but I’ll accept a little. With a heat index of about 105 degrees and the heat dome acting as a kind of scorching wok with us as the ingredients trapped under it, that axiom of being careful of what you wish for ricochets around in my overheated mind. “We’re cooked,” I think as droplets of sweat collect in my bra cups. Then I laugh at the double meaning. Then I whimper and melt into a puddle on the floor, a small white flag turning lazy circles on its side all that remains from me.

It’s hot. You get it. There’s not much that’s more annoying to me than complaining about the weather because, really, what are you going to do? And that question leads to my current state.

A recurring theme of my life is that once I truly face unvarnished darkness, I can gather my courage and find my way toward solutions. I know that ignoring difficult realities and slapping a cheerful bow on them does not work for me. That said, as a vegan and ecological activist since the 1990s, I haven’t exactly spared myself from the bleak reality of this anthropocene era but as dark as it’s gotten, I’d always been able to shift things toward positive action: Large and small things we can do to educate, encourage and empower in the direction of a more compassionate and caring world. That’s always been how I cope with things that bother me. Hunger in my community? Put together a food pantry. Companion animals without a home? Try to get them adopted. Wanting to spread the message of compassionate living? Put on a free vegan festival. This is not to sound superior but to say that this is how I face the things that would otherwise fester and break my heart. “It’s not everything but it’s something” is my approach. I’ve been this way since college.

This historic moment, though, is just pitch black for me. I am feeling all around but I cannot find an escape hatch that relieves that trapped, suffocating, helpless, drowning feeling. It’s mourning what we are losing in real time during the sixth great extinction. It’s the data centers guzzling our water and vomiting out riches for bros along with desertification. It’s the Trump Family Syndicate becoming billionaires on planet-destroying crypto and extraction garbage and feeling powerless to do anything. It’s the AI used against humanity, a warped, cynical travesty of “innovation” at which inventors and engineers of the past would be aghast. (“Technology that doesn’t help us???”) It’s knowing that if Hunger Games were real, millions would joyfully watch it and millions more would be made on the prediction gambling market.

As trite as it sounds next to all that, it’s the adorable vegan place in town that checked all the boxes and still went out of business.

Watching as the inhabitants of this planet commit ecocide is a kind of accelerating horror show that is hard to put into words. It is hard for me to work from this place of hopelessness because hope, against all odds, foolish but tantalizing hope, has been my reliable fail-safe default for decades.

I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but I cannot take much more of this, certainly not when every idea I have just seems so pointless and insufficient. I may as well just throw tomatoes at a wall. Who am I if hope is gone? I think part of me worries that what’s waiting on the other side if all my reserves of hope are drained is apathy, and, frankly, I’d rather be dead.

Last week, we saw my friend, author and writing professor Deb Olin Unferth when she came to Chicago to do a reading from her latest novel, Earth 7. Deb and I have been friends since high school. We stayed in touch and went through our twenties together. We both were a little (heh) on the reckless side when we were young and unfettered. It’s a small miracle we’re both still alive. We sure had a lot of fun, though. Youth was not wasted on us.

As I said, Deb is a novelist and Earth 7 is her latest, published in June. Deb’s writing is luminous, original and full of delicious detours, especially this most recent novel. While sci-fi is not my usual fare, and anything dystopian-adjacent threatens to upend my fragile equilibrium, I loved this novel, and not just because I love Deb. I’d put it in the pantheon along with Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin and George Orwell. Deb brings her own voice and perspective to this rarified company – she is doggedly interested in human nature, philosophy and, as a vegan, she puts her beliefs about compassion and justice into daily practice – but she fits right in.

This is already getting long, so instead of describing Earth 7, I will link to this interview with Deb, but suffice it to say, I highly recommend this novel. I finished it last week and the weight of it keeps reverberating and pulling me back to my thoughts. Let’s just say, it’s not a hero’s journey with a happy ending (see a Pixar film for that) but it is lyrical, complex (it requires some patience, but not in a bad way) and compelling. There’s a love story in it (maybe more, depending on one’s definition), and adventures, quests, loss, grief and looking at the things we never notice much, like sand, with a microscopic curiosity and focus. It’s just a beautiful novel.

What is sticking most with me right now, though, is a moment during Deb’s author chat, when her interviewer mentioned that Deb’s hope was clear in her prose. (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)

Deb reacted with a little surprise in her voice. She said in that perfectly sardonic Deb Unferth kind of way, “Hope? No, I don’t have hope.” Some of us laughed at her naked candor. Deb then clarified, “I don’t have hope but I do love this planet.”

As if that were perfectly reasonable? To love something, watch it being destroyed, have no hope, but to keep living, keep loving, because what else are you going to do? To be honest, those words rattled something in me, her calmness and straightforwardness in declaring herself free of hope. Free of hope, but still full of love. Full of love but deeply in grief.

I’ve been sad ever since.

To be honest, though, don’t know who I’d be if I didn’t have hope. Hope is youthfulness. Hope is encouragement. Hope also strings us along. Maybe love and appreciation with no strings attached is how I do it for the good of my mental health. That said, I genuinely don’t know how to be an activist without hope. I think I’ll hold on to a bit of it. Without it, what hope do I have? \

I know the Windy City has the reputation among some of being a crime-ridden, frozen pre-Batman Gotham but that’s coming from (almost exclusively) reactionary, Fox News brain-addled folks who are quivering in their La-Z-Boys, petrified of every leaf blowing through the air. Do you really want to take travel advice from the marketing bull’s-eye of Guns & Ammo magazine?

If not, I offer this: Come to Chicago. Why Chicago? I’ve got a few reasons…

• Chicago is a City of Neighborhoods

Chicago is rightfully famous for the Magnificent Mile along Michigan Avenue, but at its heart, this is a city of neighborhoods, all ready for you to check out. I’m going to recommend: Andersonville, Rogers Park, Edgewater, Hyde Park, Logan Square, Wicker Park, Chinatown, Lincoln Square, Little Village and Pilsen just off the top of my head, for culture and a focus on independent businesses, but there are many more.

• Lake Michigan

Chicago boasts a gorgeous lakefront that stretches from north to south on our eastern edge. With 26 miles of shoreline and more than two dozen sandy beaches, you will certainly find one for your preferences but I personally love Loyola Beach for its chill vibes and proximity to Blue Jay Café, which has vegan options, or Promontory Point in Burnham Park for stunning views along rough-and-tumble limestone. 🌭🍦🌊🏖️

• Museums Galore

The traveling Anne Frank exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry through early 2027 is highly recommended, and the Field Museum is always impressive. While you’re at the MSI, check out the grounds: This is where the World’s Columbian Exposition took place in 1893. The Japanese Garden in MSI’s Jackson Park is beautiful to stroll, especially the Garden of the Phoenix. My favorite museum is the Art Institute of Chicago. The modern wing is worth it on its own, but the whole museum deserves at least a couple of days. Come visit when the Willem de Kooning drawing exhibit is in town through September, oh, and while you’re at the Art Institute, pop down to see the Thorne miniature rooms. The American Writer’s Museum on Michigan Avenue is also affordable and fun to visit, as are the Chicago History Museum, the Adler Planetarium, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures in Hyde Park. There are so many to see and visit.

• Obama Presidential Center

Speaking of, if you’re in the verdant Jackson Park neighborhood, also visit the Obama Presidential Center, also known as a “Garbage Can” if you’re a racist yokel. As I write this, I believe tickets are booked for through November, but if you don’t have tickets, there are free places you can visit on the grounds of the center, including the Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable garden, wetlands, a playground and more.

• Route 66

Okay, so this year is the 100th birthday of Route 66 and the Mother Road has a lot of significance locally as it stretches from downtown Chicago to Santa Monica, CA. If you’re in town on August 29, I recommend the Route 66 Car Show, which happens in Berwyn, IL, an inner-ring suburb of Chicago. Ogden, which goes right to downtown Chicago, is part of Route 66 here and where the annual show is staged, featuring lots of nerdy grease monkeys in their element with exquisite vintage cars that have been beautifully maintained and lovingly adapted all along the route. We also live a five-minute walk from one entry point of the car show and would be happy to hang and offer you a refreshment.

• Chow Down Town

Being a melting pot city, there are restaurants and grocery stores spanning the globe located in Chicago that authentically cover every ethnicity. I always hear that Chicago is a “food town,” and I don’t quite understand what that means because food is life regardless of where you are, but I do know people take it quite seriously here in that very unpretentious local way. I’m vegan, so I am not going to recommend anything else, but I recommend checking out Happy Cow for suggestions.

• Support Small and Local Shops

Women & Children First Bookstore; Wolfbait and B-Girls; RR #1; Myopic Books; Quimby’s; the shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art; Merz Apothecary; Atlas Stationers; Paper & Pencil; Humboldt House; Armadillo’s Pillow; Shady Rest Vintage and Vinyl; the vintage shop Beyond Grandma’s House (in the boiler room of the old American Licorice Company), the Steel Petal Press and Toy de Jour.

• Downtown

Check out Millennium Park; Maggie Daley Park; Water Tower, and the Chicago Riverwalk for starters, but there is so much more, like the aforementioned Mag Mile, State Street (that great street!), and, yes, it’s touristy, but sometimes that fills a need, especially if you have kids in tow: Navy Pier.

• Old Skool Chicago

Check out Merz Apothecary; Mario’s Italian Lemonade; the old Marshall Fields on State Street (now called Macy’s but in the original building); the Green Mill (where I met my husband); Marge’s Still, a tavern that opened right around the Chicago fire, and the city’s oldest shop for books and funky novelties, the Occult Bookstore. Want to chill in a historic movie theater with all the bells-and-whistles? Check out the Music Box, the Logan or the Davis theater for all the classic moviehouse vibes.

• Nature in the City

The lakefront and the riverwalk, of course; the aforementioned Japanese Garden in Jackson Park; Graceland Cemetery; a water taxi ride (the one from Michigan Avenue to Chinatown is quick but fun); it’s indoors, but the Garfield Park Conservatory is a true gem in the city; North Park Village Nature Center; the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool; the Nature Boardwalk in Lincoln Park (it’s not in the zoo, don’t worry!); Lurie Garden in Millennium Park; the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary; Ping Tom Memorial Park; the Wild Mile and Humboldt Park. For an architectural stroll, check out the Pullman National Historic Park, the Prairie Avenue Historic District and the Astor Street Historic District. All have tours. Speaking of, we recently did an architecture boat tour for the first time – there are several – but this is the one I can personally recommend. If you get Hillary as your guide as we did, you will be so lucky! I fell in love again with the city on this tour down the Chicago River.

• Live Music, Performances and Festivals

I’m a bit of a hermit who doesn’t go out at night, but if I did, Chicago has some of the most illustrious venues, from the Green Mill to the Steppenwolf theater, Delilah’s to the Goodman theater and a million small neighborhood bars and scrappy performance spaces worth your patronage. Of course, there’s Broadway in Chicago, free Millennium Park concerts, Second City, the Neo-Futurists, the Salt Shed and so much more. We also have a ton of free events, like festivals, fairs, concerts and films, going on year-round, indoors and outdoors. Hit up the Chicago Reader, our free arts and culture monthly, Block Club Chicago and Time Out Chicago for ideas on what is going on when you’re in town.

This is just off the top of my head. Come to Chicago this summer. I’ll meet you for an Italian ice. There’s a lot of great stuff in some of the suburbs as well, but I just wanted to keep things within city limits.

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