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Asha Sanaker's avatar

Love this, Garrett. It's so well and lovingly explicated. And I'm also aware, at least in myself, that there's work to do around strengthening our own circles of care now as well. In my case, first, in order to fuel my work in community. But not everyone is wired like me, so I'll just suggest *also*.

The following is something I spontaneously wrote in Notes about it this morning, but I'm rarely on Notes so no one much will see it. But because of the nature of this community, I'll share it here. Sorry that it's long:

"When I was a little girl and got sent to my Grandma Mary’s house in Memphis in the summer I loved it. Except for the part where she talked to everybody, and I mean, everybody— the bus driver, the trash collector, the check-out lady at the grocery store— everywhere we went. She’d say hello and chat a bit about whatever while I hung behind her with anticipatory mortification for when she would inevitably pull me forward and introduce me (to these people she didn’t even know!) as her granddaughter.

If she had long enough, say, in the grocery line, she’d pull a little notebook out of her purse. She’d already managed to file away in her brain whatever little things they would mention about themselves (that their kid was sick or they were behind on rent or whatever poured out of them in the face of her endless empathy). Then she’d write their name and their birthday carefully in her little book and she’d promise to remember.

They never seemed to believe her, but they didn’t know my grandma.

See, my grandma had a daily prayer practice. Every morning she would get up, first thing, and she would settle in and talk to God. Just like she talked to the lady at the grocery store. Out loud, I mean. She’d recite some prayers and then she’d start her list. First, her family (which was not small) and then her friends, and then all the random people she had written in her book. She’d explain to God what was going on with each of them, what they needed, and then she would ask Him, sincerely, to hold them lovingly and tenderly in His hand.

Then, on their birthday, she would send them a birthday card. In the mail! People she barely knew. Because she believed everyone deserves to know, at the very least on their birthday, that someone is thinking of them.

I started pondering Grandma after the election. About the way she instinctually understood what it was to create a community of care. I thought about how I could follow in her footsteps, being the introverted one I am, who also tends towards self-isolation beyond, even, the normal boundaries of introversion, and who has learned over a lifetime to freeze up in the face of any experience that vibrates in my body like trauma.

I also don’t have a conversational relationship with God. I am not going to sit in my special chair in my den, or on my front porch when the weather allows, to talk, out loud, to God every morning. Maybe I should. It would probably be good for me. But that’s not the one I am.

I am, however, a woman who is blessed to love and be loved by a host of people near and far, so I am leaning into that. It’s not a daily prayer practice, as much as a daily love practice. But then, so was Grandma’s, you know?

Every morning now and since the election I send 13 little love notes via text or FB Messenger out to my mom, my brother, my bio and bonus kids, and my dearest friends both near and far. Nothing fancy, just some version of “Good morning. I love you.” I warned them the first time that I was going to start doing this and that response was never required. This was my practice, not theirs’. But, damn, if my brother, who otherwise tends towards sending me inexplicable memes and political clips from YouTube, didn’t beat me to the punch on Sunday. Sent me an “I love you” before I’d even made my coffee. I don’t expect he’ll do that most days and that’s fine. That was never the point.

I am the point, my heart and my sense of isolation from other people. My tendency to freeze in the face of trauma and let despair creep in.

They want my despair and goddamn if I’m going to give them that.

There are other things that will need to be done. Out in the wider world and out in the streets kinds of things. But this thing, this small, daily thing that reminds me of the love in my life, that allows me, like my grandma before me, to let the people I love know I am thinking of them, this thing that resists despair, is the foundation and fuel for all of that.

In the midst of my divorce a dozen years ago I thought repeatedly when my ex would be vengeful and hateful, as if he thought he could break me, “Honey, I have survived much more evil and sadistic men than you. You clearly don’t understand which one I am.”

I *have* survived horrible, horrible things with a heart so full of love and a whole web of people to share it with and none of these petty, vengeful motherfuckers can take that from me. Or from you.

Love your people, friends, every day, in whatever way you can. It is the foundation and fuel for everything else that we’re going to have to do. Grandma Mary taught us that, and she was the smartest."

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lee's avatar

I think the content of this is really good and important but I also want to say how much I always appreciate the sincerity and open-heartedness and emotional candour of your writing.

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