I choose Decency. I choose Dignity. I choose Joy.

Donald Trump is an embarrassment, a scourge, a menace. He doesn't belong where he is. I won't rest until he's gone, and that's a promise I intend to keep. But there's more to life than Trump.

I hear Spring is here. Well, maybe not here… (Author’s photo)

Yesterday, in the early hours of the morning, I wrote an entire post that read like a call to give up. It was how I woke up feeling and I wrote it fast as it came to me, my own personal cry for some semblance of understanding. Because the truth is, I do not understand.

I wrote, in part:

I resent how I’m feeling now. It may be too much caffeine this morning, but my heart is pounding, just like it did before I took that amazing cruise. I did come back refreshed and ready to go, that wasn’t a fib, but the news, just in this past week, is overwhelming and overbearing.

Trump hasn’t been stopped. Not in a way that might be meaningful, anyway. Any little victory is just that: little. And precarious. Institutions are crumbling, begging to be mortified, and the Trump regime is only too happy to oblige.

Democrats—my Democrats—have disappointed me again, giving in to the fear of job loss—or whatever—when they should be fearing the devastating effects on the people they’re supposed to serve.

Half the country is shouting, trying to fight back, and all it’s done so far is…nothing.

I went on. And I went on. I finished it and very nearly hit the ‘Publish’ button. But I didn’t. Instead, I put it aside and went to Notes, where I read what other writers were saying about the same concerns. And everything changed.

I read

your weirdo friend

’s story about one small deed that led to another that reinforced the need for art in our resistance efforts. And everything changed.

I re-read

Robert Hubbell

’s piece, A Time for Personal Courage—and Compassion, where he says,

Trump's kryptonite is a person with courage.

He cannot understand, much less abide, a person who refuses to cower in the face of ugly threats and presidential menace.

Trump's only talent is the ability to smell fear and identify the weak. His only strategy is to cull the herd. He wilts in the face of organized opposition. He wins by dividing us. He loses when we unite.

My heart stopped pounding.

That’s the might of our community. We hold each other up. We give each other reasons to go on. We tell ourselves the work ahead is hard but will be worth it. There is no giving up. And I believe that, as long as we stick together.

I read yesterday that Trump had pulled the original Declaration of Independence from its public place in the National Archives and now has it hanging in the Oval Office, where the public will never see it. My heart started pounding again. These documents are ours. OURS. But as I’m sputtering “He can’t do that!” I find out it’s more likely a copy. He has a copy of the Declaration placed carefully behind closed drapes so as not to let light damage it. He invites Fox News in to see it. A copy. And I burst out laughing. The dam broke. And everything changed.

I read

Elizabeth Marro

’s piece called “Find the Funny” (with the subtitle, “Laughing broke the curse and made me brave again”), where she says,

I’d forgotten what it felt like to laugh hard for a couple of hours. I’d forgotten the extra jolt of endorphins that comes when you’re laughing along with a crowd of other people. Here’s what surprised me: the effects lasted. I woke up last Sunday morning no longer slave to the fear, sadness, anger, and anxiety that have been leading me around by the nose for the last few months. Nearly a week later, as I write these words, I’m still okay. The world hasn’t changed, but the part of me that is sick of being sick and tired has. I’m a little braver, a little more limber, less fragile. I’ve stopped fantasizing about experimenting with MDMA. At least for now.

And everything changed.

(A personal aside: I’ve signed up for a five-day Writers Retreat at Interlochen in June, and the workshop I’ve signed up for is on writing humor. So, come summer, I should be funnier. Here’s hoping!)

I want to relax. I want to feel what I felt when our cruise ship was bobbing along through the Gulf of MEXICO and all was right with my world. So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to relax when I can, and I’m going to fight like hell when I need to. It’s a reasonable compromise. I can’t be angry all the time. I can’t be complacent EVER. I can be vigilant when I need to be, and I can be doing something fun, like maybe watching every episode of every season of “Ted Lasso” for the third time. Or “Suits”. Also for the third time.

There has to be a balance. I mean, Trump golfs, right? He doesn’t spend every minute being diabolical—unless it’s figuring out ways to cheat at golf, which he really doesn’t need to do, since all he has to do is say “I won”, and he wins.

But the point is, we need those moments when we’re not feeling crushed. We need our R&R. It’s essential. We shouldn’t feel guilty about stopping work for a while. Taking a break. And if we can figure out how to feel refreshed while we work—as our Weirdo Friend did when she hauled out her paint buckets—all the better.

We need to be kind to ourselves and each other. We need to feel less guilty about laughing while our world is falling apart. Even the Ukranians find time for jokes, and lord knows…

So… I feel better now. A great load lifted. How about you?

(But just to let you know, there are several volcanoes threatening to erupt in various parts of our planet, including in our own state of Alaska. In case you still want something to worry about.)

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