We’re coming up on five years since we had to hunker down “for two weeks” and let this novel coronavirus thing burn itself out, remember that?

I am not about to start waxing nostalgic about 2020. I didn’t need a global pandemic in which we lost tens of millions of people worldwide to teach me that we need art to survive. That has been in my bones since I could hold a crayon. An article I was reading recently mentioned that over time, deeply traumatic events will give way in the mind to the memory of the hopeful, comforting moments that helped us survive it. This is why we end up with pandemic nostalgia.

I’m convinced that we need art, and frivolity, and joy, to survive unsurvivable things, or even just to make it through “Interesting Times.”

 

I was talking to someone I know who lost her house in the Eaton Fire recently, a lawyer who is giving a lot of time to look over the insurance policies of other Altadena residents who are going through the same. “Nobody is Fine,” she said, and as we were talking, she mentioned that she’s working so hard, in part, to try to keep calm.

“Yeah, but, like, give yourself some time to lose your shit,” I said. “Even if you have to put it on the schedule. Let yourself feel all of it or it’ll make a home inside of you.”

My therapist finally talked me into believing that we’ve got to let ourselves feel the full range of emotion or Bad Things start to happen to us, like chronic anxiety. So feel the rage, and fear, and despair. But on the other side of that, let yourself feel some relief too, to let your brain and body know that you’re on the other side of it. Or if you’re in the middle of it, know that that’s not the entirety of your existence.

It doesn’t have to be some grand lesson about resilience to be valuable. I suspect it’s even better if it’s not. Let’s allow for our brains to take a break every now and then and enjoy something pretty, or something stupid, or laugh at an immature joke.

I have some pretty grave concerns about what’s going on in the world right now. I don’t talk too publicly about what they are specifically— if you know me, you know what I’m talking about. Somebody I follow on Bluesky who is sharing English myths and lore talked about Enchantment as Resistance, and how that requires committing fully to both Resistance and Enchantment. We don’t have to stare into the abyss constantly to fight against it. Sometimes we must turn our faces toward the warmth of the sun.