February Check-In
Good news for people who love bad news.
So, one month in and I can honestly say I didn’t see my birthday month being quite such a shitshow, but wow, what a shitshow.
First of all, I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind and thoughtful messages on my last post. I forget that lots of you have complicated family relationships and y’all always help me understand that I’m not alone in that, which I appreciate so much. You can love someone dearly but not always love how they treat you and it’s okay to talk about it. Mainly, I’m very sad and miss my mother but dealing with my many feelings has been a process.
I was supposed to go back to Richmond last weekend to continue working with my sister on my mother’s estate but instead we got a foot(!) of snow in North Carolina, a state that cannot handle it any better than Virginia could. It’s been more than 20 years since the Charlotte area got this much snow and, while pretty, it’s mostly been extremely annoying. I am losing my mind because this makes two weekends in a row of being stuck in the house due to weather. The first storm was mostly sleet and when last weekend’s snowstorm was forecast, we went looking for our snow shovel which is apparently somewhere in Oregon because it sure ain’t here.
I then tried, ahead of the storm, to purchase a new snow shovel which was met with hardware store employee sneers and eyerolls because SURELY, I MUST BE JOKING. There are none left to be purchased so when the storm was finished dumping itself everywhere we went outside armed with KITCHEN BROOMS and literally swept the stupid snow off the walkway and the cars. Luckily it was the fluffy kind but y’all, this is not recommended. At all.
Also, I am out of bird seed and I’m pretty sure the birds are working on a plan to storm the house. They are hungry and they want to know where the food is. Send help because birds are cute but also a scary in a teeny dinosaur kind of way. Update: I have managed to leave the house and purchase birdseed! Crisis averted.
And now by the time you read this I’ll finally be on my way back to Richmond to try to wrap some things up. More cleaning out of things from my mother’s house and a variety of the type of un-fun tasks involved in completely undoing a life. It’s a lot of work that nobody tells you about and it’s very depressing and final in a way that feels like tiny doors are clicking shut behind you forever. No more cellphone, no more bank accounts, many, many copies of a death certificate.
Before I go, I’d like to talk about The Horrors as it pertains to Substack.
Last month I mentioned that I’m trying to not write too much on my Substack about the state of our country, our holy terror of a president, and also, you know, the fucking ICE goons. Mostly because I find it too overwhelming and if I do post it’ll be an emotional/angry/fearful reaction to these things which is helpful to nobody.
That said, I’m seeing criticism online and in comments about various influencers/Substackers (none of them me so far) who aren’t speaking out enough about the state of our country and the atrocities that are happening and instead are continuing to post shopping links and talk about regular life things. (Some of these reader comments were directed at someone who’s Substack is literally about shopping.)
I’m not sure why people expect informed political/moral rhetoric from shopping influencers1. Is it just that they don’t want to support someone who might secretly be a racist bigot or is it just that it feels like that person is infuriatingly out of touch? Perhaps both and I totally get it, but to demand that an individual who mainly posts online about, like, their favorite beauty products should also be speaking out with the same level of authority about the state of the nation is kind of weird.
Honestly, I think people don’t always know what to do or say but they feel pressured to say something and then get it wrong because serious subjects require a more educated and nuanced approach. I’m of the mind that we should be reading Heather Cox Richardson and the like who can write about what’s going on from a much more informed place and not be so hard on each other to continuously shout into the void.
All this is to say, I think there’s got to be space between “you don’t say enough” and “you’re being performative.” I personally have my sources that I rely on for informed takes on the daily happenings but I’m also happy and relieved to read Substacks that are continuing to write about the regular ole personal things they write about. It calms my nervous system and relaxes me to read about everyday things.
Now I’m asking you: is it upsetting when the Substackers (or bloggers or influencers) you read are writing about personal things and not always (or at all) addressing the horrors? What’s the balance? I am open to your thoughts.
For the record, I do not consider myself a “shopping influencer” but I do post links and like to talk about stuff I’ve bought. Tomato/tomahto.
As a lifelong activist, I'm constantly feeling guilty that I'm not saying or doing more in the current moment, BUT it's ridiculous to berate other people for what they are or aren't doing right now. It's such a narrow (dare I say privileged) worldview to believe that everyone can drop what they're doing and focus 100% on protesting. My friends in small businesses and restaurants are struggling to survive after a week of being shut down by ice storms, so they had to say, "sorry we can't participate in the general strike, because we need to actually pay our workers" but that means they also need people to still shop and eat out. This stuff is complicated AND none of it is new. I'm glad that so many people are suddenly waking up to the horrors of our capitalist system and coming out of the woodwork to speak up. But does it actually change things to blog about it, doubtful. Hey, even Taylor Swift couldn't tip the last election and she's got a bazillion more followers than all of us combined. Online activism is mainly performative and thanks to the algorithms bubbles it's mostly people who already agree with each other seeing your posts and arguing over nuances. NO minds were ever dramatically changed on these platforms because of a well-worded post. People who know you, know you. Say what you want say, when you feel you need to. Add your own good to the world. We need more happiness, more joy right now. That's your part. It's not ignoring reality, it's creating the reality you want to live in and sharing it with others. And yes, I'm telling myself this as much as I'm telling you.
In the vein of "you never know what someone is going through", there are many reasons people in general may not speak out publicly and that doesn't mean they aren't making efforts in other ways. It's not up to me to demand it.