how are you? (Patreon)

how are you? i just posted this to both twitter and instagram and wanted to ask here as well.

reading all the answers is fascinating (you can go look - it’s my latest post on both platforms). there is such a wide wide variance.

from the hundreds of responses, these were some of the biggest takeaways.

1. most feel there will be no returning to what was once normal

2. people in brazil are among the most upset about the state of things

3. people in my home state of massachusetts are wikkid pissed at the way things are going

4. many people are getting vaccinated but many can’t access a vaccine. paradox everywhere. anger at the paradoxes.

5. there’s hope, but it’s soaked in existential exhaustion.

europe is sad and frustrated. poland throws its hands up. india pretty despairing. UK pretty hopeful.

ok, dear patrons - talk. the more you can include, the better. your work, whether you’re working, how you’re working...how old you are...how your family is (or isn’t). just share what feels like it wants to be shared.

the comments are here for everyone. we are a community.

and a reminder .... over here on our corner of the internet, you’re encouraged to talk to and empathize with “strangers”. so respond to comments.

talk to your fellow people.

hug. show kindness. share your stories. we are all here.

.....

me? well, i’m well. :)

tired but....good, and feeling a kind of inner release and peace i haven’t felt in many moons. pulling the handbrake up on the amount of “work” i have to do is having a slow but palpable effect on my daily mental health. i feel able to breathe. i am not in a panic. it helps that my loved ones overseas are getting vaccinated and no longer in the darkest depths.

the vaccine won’t roll out here for a while, but neil will likely be in line before me. it is odd to not be too concerned about it - but we live in the Land of No Covid.

here’s ash at the market yesterday, picking out a treasure. he chose a charm bracelet. he still won’t let us cut his hair. he’s developed a kiwi accent. he calls me MUM.

and

we took ash out on a boat last night, a beautiful invitation from a stranger i met through a friend of the son of my old landlords in hawkes bay. i bumped into them in a cafe and they invited me to see their boat, which they live in. life here is still...like that.

you can meet a stranger and then go on their boat. unmasked. drinking wine from the same bottle and sharing a plate of olives brined on the mainland.

i don’t take a second of it for granted.

we are also discovering that ash...loves boats. like, LOVES. boats are his love. his thing. his passion. his calling. not toy boats. real boats. he now says he wants to live on a boat. he did not want to leave the boat last night. he wanted to sleep on the boat, sail the boat, lick the boat.

the boy likes boats.

for me..the setting sun and monster clouds over the wine-dark waiheke water was the best part of the boat visit. the actual wine helped. but i swear the picture is tilted due to the waves. not the wine. maybe it was both.

talk to me.

i love you and i hope wherever you are, you’re hanging in there.

oh and one quick tip...if you’re wanting a great daily digest of american politics (in historical context), i cannot recommend subscribing to heather cox-richardson’s substack more emphatically. i have stopped doom-scrolling the NY times app quite as hard and i find her writing incredibly hopeful, smart and calming. she’s here....

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

🌊🍷♥️

xxx

afp