Think What Our Lives Will Look Like When We Get Them Back
One essay + many reports
In This Newsletter:
Big Essay on Stress
Invitation to Open Mic
Garden Journaling With Me
Phenology
Farm Report
What I’m Reading
Radical Sustainability
Small Kindnesses
Keep Stress From Overpopulating
An alarming number of people have confided to me lately their inability to accomplish more than the basic maintenance of life. You know the reason.
The news coming out of the U.S. frightens most of us, whether we recognize the feeling as fright or not. Even Americans who voted for President Trump are becoming nervous as funding freezes, layoffs, closures, and falling economic markets hit close to home. The Social Security office in Vidalia, GA—closest to me—has shuttered, part of DOGE’s plan to board up 47 SSI offices nationwide. Of these, 5 were in Georgia.
Let me warn you here that this is going to be a difficult post. Consider this sentence a trigger warning. I’m going to look closely at stress and the zeitgeist of 2025, and for a minute it won’t be easy.
Then I’ll talk about ways to defuse, deactivate, and neutralize stress. These are strategies you already know. Don’t take them as suggestions. Take them as mandates.
To avoid a stressful couple of paragraphs, skip down to the section that starts “How the Body Reacts.”
This Is a Stressful Section
Last week I attended by livestream a memorial service for a democratic activist who committed suicide after the inauguration of the president. She had confided her plan to a couple of close friends, one of whom is close to a close friend. The rage hit me somewhere behind the eyes. It was white and hot, and I felt blinded by it.
I’m always preaching about not dropping out. Read the introduction to The Seed Underground if you want to hear more about that. The question I ask there came from a bluegrass song, “What will you be doing when you are called away?”
My life is demanding, as if some kind of angelic drill sergeant is in charge.
Plant a couple of kiwi, it commanded me yesterday. You see the first hummingbird at the redbud?—you have to plant more redbud. Start looking for clearcut land you can replant in longleaf, now that you’re finally making money, and plant a tree for every one of your books that ever sold. Write “You’re Fired” on a postcard and send it to the White House. Get that place book finished. And get back on the Ocmulgee National Park book. You need to get on the street with a sign. Oh, and do all this while holding an 8-month-old baby.
Tell her I need her, I told my friend, who of course was also bound to secrecy. She can live in the guest cottage and help me raise this baby.
The activist is gone now, at least from this realm. At the service one of those close to her said, “She was not in despair. She did not want to see the suffering that this Administration would bring.”
I am not in despair. I am not done. I have not done enough. I am not giving up. Perhaps I can alleviate a tiny bit of the suffering. “Let me be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe,” wrote Mary Oliver.
The Stress That Interferes
Many people feel a formidable and puzzling stress these days, and for many writers it is affecting their ability to the “great work,” as Rilke calls it—the work that is not daily life.
For somewhere there is an ancient enmity
between our daily life and the great work.
Help me in saying it, to understand it.
I work with lots of writers, mostly in an online course called Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction, and for them their writing is the “great work.” In this role of teacher and guide I learn information that is beyond personal, “of a person;” it verges into intimate.
To this confessional of a relationship writers bring all the maladies, hazards, and man-eating dragons set loose in the world.
From draft essays I’ve learned what life is like when your 9-year-old is suddenly a Type-1 diabetic. I learned what a prison visit is like when a close family member is incarcerated for child molestation. I learned what the fear is like when your husband, with four young children at home, is diagnosed with serious cancer. And much more.
Not Your Normal Stress
Recently, however, the stress that folks are bringing is different. It’s immediate, it’s gripping, it’s consuming. Who can hear that 42 people were killed in last week’s line of storms and not feel pummeled? Who can read Michael Moore’s report of Mahmoud Khalil’s illegal arrest and not feel thrashed? (Trigger warning with that.) Who can hear that a 4-year-old in Vidalia has died violently under circumstances of parental drug usage and remain upright?
How the Body Reacts
When we are in pain or stressed, adrenaline increases, followed by higher levels of the hormone cortisol. Paying attention and concentrating become difficult. Excessive and habitual stress can lead to disease.
The hormones to encourage are the “feel-good” ones—dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins—that promote well-being and happiness.
Spring Back
In a chapter “Stormy Weather” in my last book, Craft & Current (a writing manual) I write that bad news comes and it has a cycle—shock, recovery, shock, recovery. For this you need resilience, which means “to spring back.”
How To Tap Into Feel-good Hormones
Do things that bring you pleasure
Do things that make you feel more powerful and in control
Spend time with friends
Get exercise
Enjoy nature
Bring flowers into the house
Walk
Sun
Ground
Rest
Laugh (comedies, jokes, stand-up)
Cuddle
Make love
Sleep
Eat healthy
Cook
Of course, limit news and social media
Start therapy, if you haven’t already
Breathe with awareness
Meditate
Pray
Resilience is less an action than a habit cultivated inside, but the habits start with the actions.
Always remember, Bad news comes. But so does the good.
My Advice Has Changed
I am one to preach Seth Godin’s advice in The Practice: Shipping Creative Work that says Creativity isn’t a gift. It’s a skill that can be developed through practice. And, The practice requires a commitment to a series of steps, not a miracle. You have to show up. And, you can’t control the outcome. All you can control is the process.
However, these are not normal times. My advice is to be easy on yourself.
If you can stick to your process, by all means, stick to it. Do the great work. But if stress and worry has dried up your creativity, your passion, and your motivation, and you can barely do the daily work, then do more of the things on the list above.
As for Me
I enjoy a tremendous number of privileges, including a college education and a wild farm, and my life is easy. Even so, I too feel the stress in a major way. So I am responding.
On a single day this week, for example
I did 15 minutes of yoga while the baby played on a blanket beside me.
I met my friend Stephanie for a walk, baby in a backpack carrier, at the state park in our village.
I napped with the baby on my chest after we got home.
I cooked a pot of split-pea soup.
I lay naked in the sun on the ground for about 10 minutes this evening while my partner, Raven, took the baby for a drive on the electric golf cart.
While sunning I smelled fruit trees blooming in our little handmade orchard. I watched two bluebirds chasing each other. I talked to the mule, Tecumseh, through the wire fence.
Most of Us Have To Work
Just in case, reading that list, you think I’m independently wealthy and don’t need to work, I’d like to list 5 things I managed to do the same day.
At 5 a.m. I worked my way through 2 months of mail (before the baby woke).
At noon I held Office Hours for the writers in my current course (while putting a baby to sleep and then holding a sleeping baby).
I responded to a few dozen emails, created a receipt for someone who needed it for taxes.
I packaged & mailed 3 books that sold through my website (while watching a baby).
I planned a session of class and started this plea to you to go easy on yourself.
Where Stress Is Written
Stress inscribes itself on people’s faces. I’m always watching for it. Everybody, even a baby—especially a baby—can recognize stress.
If you serve people and your face is smudged with stress, some of your stress reproduces, flies off, and clings to other people.
So be aware of that. Be careful not to make more of the stuff.
Regarding what you already have, get rid of as much of it as you can. Again, see list above.
I’m thinking about you.
Question for Community Discussion
What are you doing to neutralize stress?
You Are Invited To an Open Mic of Stories
Writers in my creative nonfiction course invite you to an Open Mic of their stories on Tuesday, March 25 at 7 pm Eastern US/Canada Time. Each reader reads for 2-3 minutes. Join us if you like. You’ll need to contact me for the Zoom link.
Join Me in Journaling the Garden
The first session of garden journaling happened last Sunday, but these are stand-alone sessions. If you would like to join, you’ll have 5 sessions of garden journaling with me & other phenomenal guest artists + access to the Google Drive, where you will find the recording from last Sunday & all the handouts. Handouts so far include
a poem template “Ritual for Paying Attention in the Garden”
2 pages of border ideas
a page of corners
a page of banners to draw
a diagram for doing weed studies.
The series is by donation, so you don’t have to worry about money.
Phenology of Coastal Plains Georgia
What a wild world these days. Pine pollen is dusting everything to gold. The pollen is so thick I can sweep up dustpans of it off the porches. We have seen a bald eagle twice fly over our north pasture. One day it tried to join two swallow-tailed kites, just back from South America, who weren’t so keen on the idea. The purple martins are back, in the gourds. House finches have a nest under the back eaves. Bluebirds are chasing each other around the fruit trees, and I think one pair is nesting in a martin gourd. I saw the first ruby-throat flitting around redbud blooms. Buckeyes are blooming. Yellow jessamine is almost done, but wild plums have started. Fields are red with sheep sorrel—it looks amazing but means the soil is acidic. Our trees are full of green mulberries; give them two more weeks. The leaves of wild muscadines are about the size of mice ears.
Small Farm Report
The quarterhorse Lakota is still walking through wire fences to get to greener grass. We have four horses, and their pasture hasn’t sufficiently greened for their comfort, so we’re still tractoring rounds of hay to them and also to the cows. I put them in the pecan pasture one day this week, and then the next day we opened the gate to the barnyard for them. One of the old Paso Finos, Apache, has the scours (diarrhea). She has been wormed, and I have added minerals to her feed, but she keeps losing weight, and I guess I need to find a vet. Lately I’ve been putting a raw egg in her feed—that’s how we always treated scours in bottle-fed calves—but she hates it. She takes one sniff and refuses to eat the grain. I’m going to have to separate her at feeding time so she can’t run the other horses away from their feed bowls.
For St. Patrick’s Day Raven made corned beef and cabbage, and the cabbage came from the garden. Managing to provide a few things for ourselves makes us feel good these days. I’m amazed we’re still able to keep a garden going at all. Raven pulled a crib out to the garden yesterday and put the baby in it while he prepped the first new bed of the season. I have not started any seeds, so I guess we’ll be purchasing seedlings this year.
We have so many farm eggs that I sent a notice to friends in town that we have eggs $4/dozen. I took 7 dozen with me to town yesterday, and probably 7 more dozen await on the counter.
What I’m Reading
Somebody recommended Tom Cox’s Substack to me, and I subscribed. I didn’t know that he is a Sunday Times bestselling author. He’s having trouble getting paid by his publisher, Unbound, for his latest book, and he posted a book sale. I wanted to support him, so I took him up on his offer, although postage across the ocean is pricey. The two books that arrived are hardcover copies of Notebook and Villager. I started Notebook first. I thought it was a novel, but it’s pieces lifted from his real-life diary.
People who get lost in a digital life have a toilsome time returning to reading, plus during stressful times reading becomes more difficult. One friend said just this week that she hasn’t read since the big hurricane, Helene, hit her place.
I’ve been experiencing a malaise when it comes to books, and mine is not stress, but because I look hard and long to find one that delights me. I’m happy to report that Tom Cox’s Notebook enthralled me. Cox has a wicked sense of humor, and I found myself laughing aloud. Mostly I read while I gave the baby a bottle, usually in the rocking chair, and altogether it has been a joyful experience. I rock, she nurses, I read, I laugh, she laughs.
Radical Sustainability
Journey in Place Book Update
If you participated in the year-long course Journey in Place during 2024, please don’t despair that you’ll never see your copy of the place book. I thought it would be designed and printed by now too. I’m back home from my appointment at Beloit College, I’ve settled in, and the book is first on my to-do list. I thank you for your patience. You will be first to receive a copy. After that, I may run a Kickstarter to launch it.
Small Kindnesses
Our local mail clerk fell in love with Little Fawn when she first arrived, and a number of times the clerk has said to me, stoutly, “Do not come here unless you bring the baby.”
So this week I had the baby with me when I stopped to mail a few packages. The clerk reached across the desk, Little Fawn went to her, and they had a big hug-a-thon. Little Fawn reached up and stroked the mail clerk’s cheek, and the clerk got tears in her eyes.
In comes another customer, then another, then another, and happily we wait for the mail clerk to get a dose of baby-love, until finally the clerk checks all of us out with one arm. This quadruples the length of my post-office visit, but because of it an extra 20 minutes have been added to the end of my life.
Waiting was a kindness. The baby’s soft hands were kindness. The clerk’s affection was kindness. You reading this creates more kindness.
Please do not tell DOGE about this.
From your introduction : "I want to tell you about the most hopeful thing in the world. It is a seed. In the era of dying, it is all life."
The snow has mostly melted and I will begin to sow seeds this weekend. The seed library I founded in my small village has 120 members and they are borrowing so many seeds, that I fear the seed library will be empty by May. But then a donation of hope - in the form of seeds - is left in the donated seeds box. Kindness offered to strangers.
I met with new a massage therapist yesterday to help with a frozen shoulder. On the verge of tears, I confess that the political cruelty and chaos has made me emotionally ill. She is 72 and we talk about the possible impact of losing the safety nets of SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. When she begins the therapy, she starts on the shoulder that is not in pain and probes deep into the muscles. She diagnoses the muscle as "pissed off."
What am I doing?
Back to walking two miles each day.
Listening to the birds: this morning, northern flicker, Stellar jay, Robin, junco, red-breasted nuthatch
I am relying on the writing of many on Substack. Especially honest, truth-speaking realities of every day people.
I am in the garden journaling sessions and laughing at my child-like drawings.
I just opened Amy Tan's The Backyard Bird Chronicles and it is full of hope and appreciation. She was 64 when she took her first drawing class. Her illustrations are beautiful.
I deleted my FB acct.
I scheduled a mini-writing retreat in the first week of April. Meeting up with a writer I met through your Place course and we plan to hike and attend a reading by poet Ellen Waterston.
Thank you for dropping by my inbox with your letter of hope and kindness.
What a beautiful newsletter! Just yesterday I finally got my focus for reading back, after nearly two months without it. And I'm making sure get some outside time every day, despite a lingering winter here in Missoula -- listening to birds in my backyard, walking where the snow has melted, scouting for sagebrush buttercups. Your delightful photo of Little Fawn gives me renewed hope as well. Thank you. Alexia