“What can I hold for you?”
Friend asked me at the end of lunch, after I had shared some hard things about life at the time. I have rarely felt quite so loved and cared for, so seen and utterly held, just in the asking.
This is my tenth consecutive annual 30 day blogging challenge. By now I have confidence that I can complete the task. The theme emerges easily and intuitively each year, always a pleasant and knowing surprise. The real challenge is to create thirty pieces that I’m proud to save and share, to not overthink, and not sacrifice sleep. Let’s go.
I had initially named this year’s theme “What I Wish for You.” That’s too passive. I do a lot more than wish things, especially the relationally meaningful and important things I intend to write about. I work for these things. So I turned onto “What I Hold for You; What I Do for Us.” But that was a bridge too far, somehow separating (elevating?) myself from people, which is not my MO.
I’m about connection in all circumstances.
Thus “What I Hold for Us.” That feels right. Holding is a gentle action, yet powerful and strong; active yet unobtrusive. It attunes and attends; it persists. It has depth and carries intention. Holding, like standing and planting, implies perseverance and resilience. This is what I want for us all, now and for the foreseeable future–we need it.
Doing this challenge in 2024 feels different from and higher stakes than in 2016 and 2020, the last two presidential election Novembers. Anxiety and tension have intensified; even the most equanimatous people I know are agitated. Conflict escalation feels inevitable; desperation and hopelessness lurk everywhere. I have ceased political activities for some years, and consume political news in the smallest possible bites. I have held that we are all humans, here doing our best every day, getting along close up even as we denigrate one another in groups from afar. We are tragically and heroically paradoxical, we humans, and I embrace it, love us for and despite it. Yet now, the week before voting closes, even I cannot escape the dread.
“‘What can I do, I am only one person?’ said seven billion people.” I can write.
This month, this year, in this season of society, we must resist the pull of toxic politics. I intend to hold this line: The line between connection and separation, between shared humanity and dehumanization. My political and policy leanings may show, and I will let them. They will always take a back seat, however, to my commitment to relationship and connection.
Six days now until who knows what. Deep breaths. We are all in this together, folks. Whoever you perceive as your enemy will not be vanquished. And it’s not about that anyway. We suffer from serious and significant differences, yes. It feels life- and liberty-threatening to people on both/all sides–existentially terrifying. Still, if we breathe deeply for a moment and look all around, the unassailable truth of collective human resilience and the potential for cooperation still shines through the cracks of rhetorical rubble. I will write from this emphatic perspective the whole month, rooted here with my entire being.
I Hold Us–All of Us.
Healing Through Connection 
Thank you, Cathy, for holding us all in this time! In speaking with friends, family and others, the nervousness about this presidential election is palpable. We also have 6 pages of local and state election topics that are a great opportunity to promote the role each of us can play in our microcosms.
I consider that this is a great time for me to start Gabapentin for hot flashes – it’s incredibly useful to mellow my overall outlook too! 😀
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Thank you, my friend, for reading and commenting. I think the overall stress of this election and all it portends affects us in ways we don’t even sense consciously…
*deep breath*
Not a bad idea about the gabapentin… we could maybe all benefit from a systemic de-excitatory agent right now…
xo cc
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Not surprisingly, a gentle, kind, and adult reflection and suggestion for all of us to keep things in perspective. Well done Catherine!
I love history, political philosophy, and current events and have fairly well formed political convictions. Books such as “Democracy in America” (Alexis de Tocqueville), “Restoration” (George F. Will), “Vision of the Anointed” (Thomas Sowell), “Free to Choose” (Milton Friedman) and many more are among my favorites. Some would concur, some would differ, some in between—and that’s fine. The essence of a free society that (rightly) places a high emphasis on individual liberty has as an essential and inevitable corollary the need for tolerance. Without individual tolerance our individual liberties are in jeopardy.
I take, in part, your message Catherine that we all “take a breath” and show tolerance and patience with each other. Indeed!
But your message is so much more.
George Will is fond of saying, “life should not be all about or even substantially about politics”—amen! There is so much more to do. People live their lives, correctly so, focused on the seemingly mundane but in reality, the most important and consequential things—things that lead to and sustain human flourishing. We all know them—loving our families, providing them sustenance and support, being an example of a good person and good life to your children, making sure the kids go to school and do their homework, contributions in your work and personal life that make a difference…the list goes on–but in short to pursue virtuous lives as best we can.
Catherine, the goodness of your soul and your personal virtue is in what you do and the care with which you write. Thank you. Look forward to the next one.
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Hi Jamie!
I’m so grateful to you for reading this blog and taking the time to write such long, thoughtful comments. It will take longer to reply in kind, so thank you also for your patience! 🙏🏼
I agree life should be mostly about the things you describe here. And the more we recognize that and get out of the weedy morass of futile political debate the better! The thorn in my side is that these central life activities are so much easier for many of than for so many more. 😞 We take what we have for granted and too easily forget the existential struggles of so many around us. Rather than debate adversarially in theory, I want thoughtful discussion for collaboration and executional comparison of systems meant to elevate more people from barely surviving to actually thriving. I tell the story that this is what we all want, and our visions for achievement diverge and compete. And we don’t try hard enough to co-create through our differences.
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