I want to go back to bed and sleep for a thousand years. Where once I naively assumed that we just needed to survive the initial blast of the 2024 election, I now realize there are shockwaves which will be felt for years, if not generations. So what do we do when we feel helpless, trapped, and on the brink of tuning out forever? Tiny acts of rebellion.

A few days after the election, my brother texted me. While we hadn’t yet spoken, I had posted about canceling our Thanksgiving plans and had a feeling the ripples would start hitting shore. While the text was far from perfect, he hit upon some of the basic ways anyone who voted for Trump can care for the people in their lives reeling from this election.

Waking up and telling Michael that Trump won the election was like finding out Dad was locked in the nursing home with COVID all over again. I felt, and continue to feel, small, helpless, horrified. The top of my To Do list reads:

1. Confirm Michael’s prescription refills and continue researching international healthcare policies.

2. Re-submit Michael’s paperwork to NYC for birth certificate change.

3. Help Parker’s partner get a passport.

4. Cancel Thanksgiving.

There are twenty-one days until the 2024 election. Looking at the last seven days of our lives, four of them contained crying. Wait. Make that five.

This morning I received an email from my kid’s school. Inside was information about the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation which awards $20,000 to 150 U.S. high school students. I forwarded the website to my kid and told him to apply. Then I read through the bios of last year’s scholarship winners.

Remaking my idea of ‘home’ feels like building sandcastles at the sea’s edge. Yet, despite all the shedding, reimagining and redefining I do, there are pieces that stay.

Get yourself to a Rock and Roll show. Go sober. Throw your arms up and your head back and let the bass clean out your chest cavity. Dance with the strangers around you. Sing and scream. Last night we took a group energy shower together. Today I feel clean. And I have 38,000 new brothers and sisters.

You left the party. You said you’d be right back, but I could tell you needed to go. It’s ok. I know you wanted to stay and dance all night with us, but you had to get going.

Unlike the finger-caught-in-the-door surprise that’s waiting for us all the time and is never to be outrun, life also offers bits of healing through beauty, nature, friendship, Spirit. But this you’ve gotta work for. No one accidentally trips into a walk in the woods.

Tomorrow (10/30), PBS will air the documentary “Fire Through Dry Grass” on POV. I’ve watched the film five times now and re-living the trauma we all endured does not get easier. While I’m not in the film, I could not be prouder of this body of work or the amazing humans who brought it to the world.

Walking the carved stone and gravel paths through whispering pines and past famous trolls, I remembered what The Universe was showing me. Magic. I’d lost my connection to the magic.

So here’s me, standing in the crisp air of a Maine fall morning, poking about the sweetest farmer’s market known to man, proud to be standing upright, when a man turned to me. “Hey! It’s you!” he said, smile expanding. “Wow! I’m so glad to see you!” I had never seen this man before in my life.

This is my Uncle Frank. I spoke to him for the last time on Saturday. He apologized that he wouldn’t be around to read my book when it was finished. We laughed about the name of his high school mascot (the Authors) and said how much we love each other. A Mozart concerto played in the background. On Sunday, after a morning with family, Uncle Frank took his final pill.