Let me start by saying that I, too, am scared. I am scared for the students—especially disabled students, who rely on IDEA funding to receive educational services. I am scared for all disabled people, who will be affected not only by regressive policy changes but also by the horrific ideology that some disabled people “should just die.” I am scared for the racialized and queer people who will, according to the data, be victims of more hate crimes. I am scared for the people who will be detained, deported, or worse. I am scared for the economically disadvantaged among us, who will face even more hardship if the proposed tariffs are implemented—not to mention the increased income taxes that all but the richest 5% of Americans will be compelled to pay. I am scared for the people who can only afford health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. I am scared for all who, without robust literacy (scientific and otherwise), will fall for the pseudoscience nonsense of anti-vaxxers. I am scared for further loss of reproductive freedom and increased misogyny in general. I am scared for non-Americans all over the globe: Palestinians. Ukrainians. Citizens of the Global South, who are disproportionately hurt by climate change. I am scared for the future of our country—our government, our public schools, our society. I could go on.

Selfishly, I am scared for myself—which seems a bit ridiculous, given how fortunate and privileged I am as a middle-class white woman with a huge safety net. But it’s true: I’m terrified. In a red state and red city, I feel that I have few protections against a far-right federal government. I rely on the ACA for affordable healthcare. What if I lose my insurance? Will I be able to afford my mental-health medication and therapy? I am planning to try to become a mom in the next couple of years; will I be able to afford prenatal and postnatal care? Or labor and delivery, which could cost over $35,000? Or, what if I get pregnant with a nonviable pregnancy but am unable to access the life-saving abortion I need? What if my child is female, queer, disabled, ill? What if increased income taxes are imposed on single mothers, as proposed? Will there be high-quality, secular public schools available where I live, run by teachers who are empowered, fairly compensated, and intelligent? Will my child be safe at school from gun violence?

There are innumerable reasons to be terrified. And.

The Democratic Party was not going to save us. The Democrats have failed to codify Roe v. Wade into law and have failed to enact sweeping gun reform. They continue to send weapons to Israel to carry out genocide. They support a wall at our southern border. They continue to shift the Overton Window to the right; at the 2024 DNC, Harris said that, as president, she would ensure that the U.S. military was the “most lethal fighting force” in the world. Would my life and future be more secure with a democrat in the White House? Certainly—but it’s not all about me.

When I went to bed on Tuesday night, I knew Trump was going to win. I woke up on Wednesday morning, made a cup of coffee, and rolled out my yoga mat. I needed to stretch, meditate, and consult with my ancestors.

I think of my ancestors not only as the predecessors in my genetic lineage but also in my political and spiritual lineage. I think of the brilliant, loving, tough-as-nails women who came before me and, in myriad ways, made my life possible. My two deceased grandmothers, Nell Palmer Orr and Bonnie Horne Orr. My beloved therapist Joan Marie Cook. Colleen Shanks, Maggie Minter, Brenna Murphy, and Annika Lange—all dear humans and friends and inspirations to me. I regularly turn to them all for guidance, support, and comfort—but I most often find myself talking to three women in particular:

• Ellen Briley Hart or “Grandma,” my maternal great-grandmother, the matriarch who worked tirelessly her entire life, survived the hardships of reproductive and sexist oppression, and taught me from a young age to consider how my behavior affects other beings. My namesake and first soulmate.

• Ruby Goldman Orr, my paternal great-grandmother, whom I never met but who influences me every day. A devoted methodist, she was known as “Mrs. Texarkana” for her ceaseless community involvement. She paid the poll taxes for her domestic workers and proudly “canceled out” her husband’s votes. She took Jesus at his word when he said to care for “the least of these.”

• Linda Miller Smith, who lived her values loudly and made the world brighter and smarter and kinder just by existing. Linda’s self-penned obituary stated that “[h]er mission was to rescue the perishing, deliver the oppressed, and defy evil through kindness and laughter or ridicule.” It ended with the directive to “be an interesting, challenging, thoughtful, kind, and loving person . . . and if you can’t do that, then go pound sand up your ass!”

On Wednesday, I talked to Grandma, Ruby, and Linda. I asked them: what do I do now?

And then I listened.

(This is about to get even more woo-woo, so those of you who are uncomfortable with that, buckle up.)

I pulled out two decks of cards. The first was a tarot deck—specifically the Marseille Cat Tarot deck—that had belonged to Linda. The second deck was the Literary Witches Oracle deck. I started with the cats, shuffling the cards in my hands with my eyes closed, focusing on my breathing and thinking of Linda, until one card jumped out onto my mat: The Sun. I repeated the process with the oracle deck, this time calling for Grandma and Ruby. That deck spit out the Lantern card.

The ancestors were clear: I am not to succumb to the darkness. I am to seek out and provide light. To give off warmth. To illuminate paths. To be steadfast. To trust the pilot light of my intuition, which is also the intuition of my ancestors and my descendants. To draw people in and care for them. To resist with love; to return again and again to Dr. Martin Luther King’s words:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

I still worry. I still rage. I still mourn. I will continue to make space for all of those important experiences. But I refuse to be pulled into the quicksand of despair. I have too much work to do.

On Thursday, I donated blood—my go-to move whenever I (erroneously) feel helpless in the face of large-scale pain. Then, I committed to the following tasks:

• Loving my people.
• Continuing my work as an educator.
• Volunteering with my local literacy council (because illiteracy is a huge part of what got us into this mess).
• Taking a course from the University of Michigan on Community Organizing for Social Justice, in the hopes that I will learn how to be a more effective community activist.
• Reevaluating how and where I spend and donate money.
• Refusing to surrender my hopes and joys—and in fact making an intentional effort to pursue more pleasure and vitality and dreaming in my life.
• Reading a lot.
• Wearing my damn mask.
• Having conversations with people who are interested in forging a path together.
• Thinking. Imagining. Wondering. Questioning.
• Resting.
• Leaning on art—as comfort, fuel, mirroring, education, expression, hope, joy.

A few other links:

• The European Council on Foreign Relation’s “Imaging Trump 2.0”
• Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” Substack
• Peter Beinart’s Substack
• A Gazan friend of a friend’s GFM page
• “What’s Going On” with Linda Sarsour
• The Bitter Southerner

Love and solidarity.