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These final days of June have been rough, a sweltering stink across the land. The porous North American border carrying troubling news on the northerly wind as women’s reproductive rights were slaughtered. I wanted to shut the windows and doors to the fetid air, but there’s no escaping. It seeps in through invisible cracks. My mind is thick with questions and worry and stories and data, a desire to speak out and up and an equal fear leading to self-censorship.

How do you tease apart the challenging news that sticks you to your spot, unable to move pen across page when that is exactly what you’ve been gifted to do in this world, for this world’s progress? When is creativity political? How to access the muse when you’re seething and dispirited and the only thing you want to write about is the thing making you feel that way? And so I stumble to find the words, my footing still unsure in this arena due to a lifetime of buttoning my lips, of people pleasing and avoidance. So these two paragraphs are the only original writing I can muster this edition to communicate to you that I’m struggling with finding my voice this week, and yet know that is exactly what must be done. To lose my voice is such a privilege compared to what others have lost.

Instead, I’ll share some writing that has resonated with me as I move between rage and sadness, hope and despair. Sometimes we build our muscle memory best by copying others, by learning from those braver than you.

• Rebecca Traister on The Necessity of Hope.
• Marlee Grace writes what I wish I had.
• Laura McKowen, one of my sobriety mentors, nails the push-pull of our personal “brands” (I hate that I’m calling it that) and our desire to advocate for change and injustice.

Take care,
Lisa
xo

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