dear america…and everywhere else. how are you? what’s it like now?

hi loves.

i’m back, asking you.

it’s time for another post where i ask you where you are and how you are. i’ve done general COVID/culture-heart-weather posts like this a few times over the past year, and i have to say, i find the Direct Human News Report a lot easier to digest than trying to figure out what things are feeling like around the world by simply reading the new york times, the guardian, the washington post and so forth.

you may have seen that i posted this image to social media a few days ago, over the weekend.

i spent the best part of sunday and money night – after ash fell asleep – reading over 2,000 comments from facebook, twitter and instagram. (you can find those posts if you go to each feed, they’re towards the top.)

i imagine i’ll get many comments here, too, and i’ll spend time over the next week reading them all.

the majority of the responses run on a repeating theme. people are exhausted. confused. out of spoons. out of energy. and extremely frustrated with their human neighbors.

i want to also remind you that i don’t just do these posts for me …. i do them because i happen to have a wide audience of relatively kind, compassionate, sane people, and i know that reading about everybody’s various situations and trials and tribulations actually brings me a lot of comfort.

so i hope it brings you comfort.

i read the comments, i gather information, but i also feel less alone.

so the comments are not just for me. they’re for everybody here. we are a family.

share your story so we will all feel a little less alone.

i didn’t say it on social media, to keep things more compact, but i’ll say it here:

the news about the climate crisis cannot be left off the table.

the unpredictable nature of covid plus the impending climate problems is – in me, at least – creating an explosive cocktail of low-burn anxiety.

it’s also creating a desire to listen more deeply to what is necessary in this moment. if my old script was already smoldering, it’s now in flames. what is needed…right now?

for me? for you? for this patreon? for my staff? for the climate? for my family?

what’s the most important thing to do right now?

and if i’ve learned anything from the past few years, this follows on: how can i be in a calm enough, mindful enough state of mind to do whatever NEEDS to be done? how can i prepare myself for the work, whatever the work is to be?

so tell me.

everybody, not just the USA.

tell us where you are, how covid is, how vaccines and masks are, how your jobs are, how your climate is, how your state (inner and outer) is, how your kiddos and parents and partners are…just lay it on us.

together, we will see a mosaic of the times.

i love you all so, so much.

thank you for being here.

how am i? i’m exhausted. by everything. but doing okay, and ash is thriving. i’ve been counting my blessings to be here in NZ more than ever lately, despite the homesickness…especially with the sad news over in australia. they are back in lockdown with delta raging.

i’m deeply settled inside, but i’m scattered on the surface. uncertainty is disrupting my sleep. new zealand still has no covid, no restrictions, and life is like it was in 2019…except people wear masks on public transport like airplanes and ferries and busses.

neil and i are north double-vaxxed with pfizer. the whole country isn’t yet 50% vaccinated but we are getting there. ash has still never had to wear a mask. i am hoping we don’t go back into lockdown because delta leaks into the country. it feels close and our bubble is fragile.

and yet; we are homesick. and yet; ash is safe and loving his little steiner school. the kids here have barely any awareness that covid exists Out There and that other kids (in our case, back in new york) have had their lives disrupted and school schedules altered by covid. they’re just being kids.

i’m going to try to work hard for the next week and a half so that i can take another offline mental health break for a week.

that’s news from here.

now you.

xx

AFP

p.s. the $10+ webcast/ask me anything has been scheduled (finally) for next week. post about that is here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/54707183