An Invitation to Keep Your Course

Today, there’s a swearing-in. Yesterday, three hostages were released. The day before, TikTok “went dark.” Last week, Zuckerberg decided to eliminate fact-checkers on Meta, citing a “cultural tipping point.” Last year, Musk created a reel using AI, putting words in Harris’ mouth, and called it a Parody. In the days of yonder, we called this slander. Today, we—the people—call it fake news.

Later today, number 47 will be sworn in for another term and you might feel like you’ve just dropped into the middle of a Sci-Fi-Drama-Comedy in an oligarchy society where the rules keep changing and the world shifts into multiverses at every blink. Some might call this the Gilded Age Redux.

 I want to remind you, You are an artist.

I want to remind you, there are ways to navigate the world and still hold true to yourself.

Here’s a few ideas

1. Keep your values as an artist, as a human. Check out ArtWife‘s Episode 17: THE COIN by Yasmin Zaber (And What it Can Teach Us About Artistic Values).
2. Maybe now is a good time to re-list those values. Prioritize your top ten. After, make another list of why they matter.
3. If you need to make hard choices over the next four years, return to your value-list (see #2, above) and ask, Does this choice align with my values?
4. Keep consuming. Knowledge is power.
5. Choose your consumption wisely. This includes meals, events, books, relationships, courses, energy, etc.
6. Keep engaging. Many of us will want to isolate and cocoon. This is how we feel safe, and yes, this response often works. And yes, if this is what you need—do this. I invite you, if you can, stay in the game. Keep playing. Play by your rules, your values.
7. Illegitimi non carborundum
8. Connect with communities that nourish you—your heart, your mind, your art.  
9. Remember that great communities include literature, libraries, films, radio.
10. Use your critical thinking caps. While you’re at it, teach critical thinking where you can. Many people carry a limited understanding of what AI/Creator skills can accomplish. Many struggle with recognizing false information. Many walk through life with limited knowledge and resources. I have sons and grandsons, friends and family, students and community. I can ask hard questions and showcase methods to research. I can reiterate the importance of questioning truth. Of questioning.
11. Remain a student. Keep stretching yourself. Garner wisdom from people you trust and respect.
12. Use social media and platforms to make a difference. Choose beauty. Choose community. MySpace launched social media for many of us, reminding us of our longing for connection and reconnection. Consider maintaining social media on your terms. Maybe it will shift to its original design—a space where we make new friends. Make old friends new again.
13. Encourage deep listening into conversations that weigh on your heart and on the world.
14. Become a deep listener.
15. Make a list of five ways to take great care of your precious self over the next four years. My list includes writing, reading, studying, watercolor, family-time, puppy-time, gardening, chai, bagels, music, meditation, and more.
16. Sage. I invite you to pack an enormous bundle of sage with you. Consider saging negative jerks. Can you imagine, someone cuts you off in traffic and at the next light, you exit your car, light your smudge stick, and offer a spirit-dance around their vehicle?
17. Reach out if you’re hurting. Ask for something on your list (#15, above). If you receive a text from me with the word Puppy, please do not bring me a puppy. Instead, understand that I need company and cuddles.

The only way to be part of the solution is to retain who you are.

I’m taking notes, one multiverse at a time. I’m sorting through this continuous rule-shifting game called life. I’m part of the resistance. I take my role seriously.

Let me take you to a powerful portal in my life when I left my universe of world-level athlete and entered motherhood.

Scene Set-Up: My son, Zach, is four hours old. His pediatric cardiologist, Eloisa, sits across from me at St. Luke’s NICU:

“I know we’ve found a lot of wrong things,” she says. She’s right. He can’t breathe on his own, eat on his own, his feet are deformed, his hands are twisted, he is gray instead of pink-baby-hue. His list of “defects” continues, down to less important, more aesthetic issues. Things I care little about.

“Remember, we are looking for wrong things,” she says. “He’s premature. He’s ill. He’s small. If we ran these same tests on every full-term baby, we’d find something wrong with everyone.”

Side by side, we watch my baby sleep. He wears a tiny diaper, electrodes, and his full head of hair. He is not worried; to him his heart works fine. Time is all that exists in this ward, and, like the other parents here, I am required to wait, watch, wonder how my son will develop. I wish I could make a plan, write a list of to-dos that could fix my baby.

Eloisa stands, offers an embrace, pats my back tenderly, as if to console.

“There are so many things that can go wrong with the human body,” she says. “I’m always amazed with the miraculous number of things that go right.”

This morning, I decided to stay committed to a choice I made 24 years ago—I will look for right things in the world and I will offer those things praise.

Last week, Zuckerberg’s decision to place power in the hands of the Meta user can do just that.

We—the people—choose who we gather with, what we read, what we think.

We—the people—can create art no matter.

Today, there’s a swearing in and, during this time, I invite you to re-oath as an artist.

Tomorrow, you can remind yourself, you are still an artist.

And if you forget, look me up. I’ll be under my stairwell, painting or reading, a bagel piled, a mug of steamy chai, and my heart, still holding hope.