'Cause I know you got soul

It's time to make a plan

I’ll confess.

Back in 2020, when restaurants were closing and hospitals were filling and sometimes you couldn’t buy toilet paper, when we were all masking up and distancing ourselves to avoid dying horribly, there were aspects of COVID life that I liked.

I liked going to work in a quiet office, freed from the sometimes-distracting chatter and clatter of fellow employees. I liked that nobody was looking over my shoulder, so I could wear shorts and chucks to work and take my skateboard down to the basement for a quick 15 minutes to clear my head. I liked the convenience of abundant free parking, right outside the downtown building.

I liked the sea shanties fad on TikTok. I liked reading about the reduction in air pollution, the unexpectedly clear vistas, as people and their cars stayed at home. I liked …

Well, that’s about it. The rest was harsh. And the gain wasn’t worth the losses: losses of local landmarks, like The Lighthouse.

The loss of life, more than 1.2 million Americans, more than any other country.

The loss of reverence for the truth, as opportunistic conservative pundits lied about facts and downplayed medical professionals’ qualifications and instructions and the crowded morgues to undermine respected authorities for personal and political gain.

I thought the other day about tea party activist Herman Cain, part of the “don’t worry, it’s not so bad” crowd, who died of COVID after mingling unmasked at a Trump rally. (“We killed Herman Cain,” Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows is rumored to have said at the time.)

The loss of the assurance that we were all in this together, that in the face of a life-threatening disaster, we would rise above partisanship. (“We need to stop saying ‘avoid it like the plague,’” comedian Steve Hoffstetter stated. “Clearly we are terrible at avoiding plagues.”)

We feel the aftershocks of that era today; the irrational anger and dysfunction it elicited lingers — as well as, likely, memory lapses. Maybe that explains the second election of former president and convicted felon Donald Trump.

Something has to explain how the most thoroughly corrupt and unlikeable character of the 21^st century (so far, with not much competition) has risen to the heights of power.

If you could lie about COVID, its risk, effects and reputed cures, you could lie about anything.

But there were glimmers of light even on those dark days. We coped; we endured; we came back from the edge and lived to tell the tale.

Now there’s a new challenge. Tomorrow, a new era begins in America, as our country’s reins are turned over to a fascist wanna-be dictator to whom millions have pledged allegiance and millions have accepted as just the way it is. We can’t pretend this is normal.

Tens of thousands marched in DC yesterday, “singin’ songs and a-carryin’ signs,” in protest of the new regime. They were enthusiastic and joyful. But there were far fewer than in 2017, when there were over a million. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” German philosopher Friedrich Nietzshe’s oft-repeated slogan goes. But sometimes, what doesn’t kill you just wears you down.

Watching the congressional interviews with Trump nominee Pete Hegseth, perhaps the most troubling and least qualified candidate for his Cabinet, the thing that struck me the most wasn’t his lack of geopolitical knowledge, which was severe. It wasn’t even his refusal to state that he would choose to obey the U.S. Constitution rather than Trump. It was the sneer on his face. It was his sheer arrogance, in the face of his many personal flaws, which he attributed to his religious beliefs. (This is a characteristic we’re likely to see repeated.) He didn’t have to answer questions; he already knows he’s in, and he’s eager to use his “in” against his fellow Americans.

This idea has been floating around anti-intellectual spheres in the country for a while now, that amateurs like Hegseth are actually smarter and more capable than experts.

“Experts built the Titanic,” they say, “but an amateur built the ark.”

Funny thing: We know where the Titanic is. We’ve got film of it, preserved on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, 400 nautical miles from Newfoundland. If you’re an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos, you could pay for a high-tech voyage to its resting place.

We’ve also got stronger ships now, built upon the lessons of failure.

Not so much, this ark. Nothing exists to prove it was ever more than a fantastical story.

Not that this argument would mean much to the amateurs who have learned, from the app formerly known as Twitter, everything from virology to constitutional law to international relations.

But we’re going to see this idea tested in real time as Trump places loyalists whose only qualification is that they choose Trump over the U.S. Constitution in high positions of influence and power. We’ll see how that plays out.

We’ll see how his MAGA supporters react as he continues to back-pedal on his campaign promises, hiring cheap immigrant labor rather than “America First!” proponents to work at his golf resorts, doing nothing that lowers the price of groceries and gasoline, allowing Putin to thumb his nose at the West, sending his son off on jaunts to Greenland, maybe the Moon or Mars, finding, every week, some shiny new gewgaw to distract his followers from his failure to deliver what he promised. Our economy will plunge as he raises prices on imported goods (like food) and shovels even more money to his billionaire buddies. Our society will suffer as he inspires bigotry, division and violence, just like he did from 2016 to 2020.

So I envision. The truth is that nobody knows what will happen next.

I’m reading this book, “When Things Fall Apart,” by Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron, in which she advises me to surrender my hope.

That’s an odd suggestion, I think. Hope is what keeps me going.

But this, she says, what I’ve got now ― the fears about our economic future, about the threat of Trump-inspired violence against vulnerable minorities, about the Russian confederates in Congress ― along with the misplaced document bag, the car engine that hesitates to turn over in the morning, the house that remains cluttered despite my best efforts to clean ― this is what life is. It’s not going to change. There will always be dissatisfactions.

Accept your life, she says. If it hurts, let it hurt, she says. Sit with the pain. That will reduce its power.

I’m not sure I’m there yet, but I sense wisdom in the approach.

Life is also Little Seba, who purrs me awake in the morning; Thursday breakfast with the guys; the crisp, hot French fries at Doss’ Old Fashion Ice Cream in Kernersville.

It’s Heather Cox Richardson in my mailbox.

It’s yoga at the YW.

It’s the wildlife at Fox-a-Lago.

It’s standing in unison with other community members to resist tyranny.

These next few years are going to be tough. But there will be flowers rising through the cracks in the sidewalk. There will be hands to hold; songs to stir our hearts; laughter and pleasure and inspiration.

We’ll rally together. We’ll refuse to obey in advance. We’ll believe in truth and be as courageous as we can.

And this time, we’re not isolated.

Still, we’ll take care of ourselves, finding every day a bit of music or poetry or puzzles, exercise, nature walks, hot baths, fuzzy puppies, whatever we need to maintain mental, emotional and physical health. Make a plan for it. Make a survival pack, filled with peanut-butter sandwiches, chewing gum, trashy novels and flashlights. Take it to the library, to the park.

Who wants to join my coloring book club?

Don’t be afraid to cry. I do.

We’re going to persevere.

We’re going to get good at it.

And one day we’ll look back with satisfaction, knowing we did the right thing.

…..

Overflow:

It’s tomorrow; join us. We have Girl Scout cookies.

If you can’t be there in person, you can zoom in:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81064710839?pwd=z4gLzwgyE6wZk9MU2FzNayhQrSoAao.1

And tomorrow evening, 7 p.m., join us at the NC Black Rep 2025 MLK Jr. Birthday Celebration at Hanesbrand Theater in downtown Winston-Salem. The cultural celebration will showcase performing arts talent from the Triad. Bring three non-perishable food items which will benefit the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC.

Listen, my buddy David Lusk has been posting performances from his home studio on his substack account and they’re charming, David, they’re charming. Live and learn, Jubilee.

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Pete Hegseth’s nomination is very comforting — to our enemies:

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/01/the-hegseth-hearing-was-a-national-embarrassment/681315/

Hegseth’s own writing reveals that he intends to use the military against Americans, scholar Timothy Snyder says:

The Crusade against America

Many of Trump’s nominees were asked, essentially, if given the choice, when given the choice, whether they would support Trump or the Constitution. They refused to answer.

I don’t blame them, not really. If they chose Trump, they would disqualify themselves to Congress. If they chose the Constitution, they would disqualify themselves to Trump.

Jesus said you can’t serve two masters, for you’ll love one and hate the other.

Which will they love? Which will they hate?

We’re going to find out.

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Hate crimes and racial violence rose under Trump and likely will again:

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/07/14/891144579/trump-says-more-white-people-killed-by-police-violence-than-blacks

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/white-nationalist-hate-groups-southern-poverty-law-center

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/racism-in-the-era-of-trump-an-oral-history/

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Herman Cain’s COVID death inspired the “Herman Cain Award subreddit,” in which the humor is a little dark:

https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/?rdt=35198

Been so long, we’ve forgotten that Trump seems to have inspired a mass shooting in 2019; unfortunately, I think we can expect more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/06/trump-el-paso-dayton-visit-protest

In cat news: Casper managed to escape his appointment with the vet just over a week ago, a prerequisite to entering the house with Seba. We’ll try again next month.

That cage just doesn’t look very safe, Mick.

I think he’d be OK in here.

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My books are for sale at Bookmarks, Book Ferret and The Eclectible Shop. “Stardust” is also available from the publisher, Press 53. And both are available directly from me.

A song for the year ahead:

Thanks for being here today. And tomorrow. If you know anyone who should be with us, send them this way.