A few months ago I published an essay titled I’m in the Mood for Love.
I wrote it while struggling with the fierce anger I was feeling about the world we’re living in, the apparent future we’re facing, and the thugs who are wreaking a startling amount of havoc in our communities, in our homes.
But now it’s escalating. The haters are hurting immigrants and all people of color are at grave risk, immigrant or not, because how would the ICE thugs know? They all look alike. Right? The haters are oppressing women and destroying lives (otherwise known as murdering innocent people). They operate without an iota of conscience or morality. Those qualities are missing in action for all the players involved. Top down.
The essay I wrote in September reflected my thought process at the time. I opted to turn to love instead of hatred. I turned toward beauty and rejected ugliness. I turned toward building and sustaining community instead of fracture and isolation.
It’s amazing to me how feelings can shift in 4 months’ time. In a week, or a day, or a moment. The moment it takes to pull a trigger. Again.
I’m flooded with feelings right now, and I’m grateful for those feelings because it’s better than shutting down and numbing to what’s happening around us each day. It’s painful and overwhelming. It’s necessary for me to keep feeling. I’m glad I still have the ability to discern, to know that nothing is black and white. I can feel love in an instant and feel hatred just as quickly.
When that happens, I get to decide what to do with those feelings. I’ve noticed the tenor of my behavior this week. My old tendency, my reactivity, is on alert, it’s ramped up, and when I get triggered by the comments of others, my responses are often heated and blunt. The reactivity is rooted in fear.
My connection to Grace becomes as shaky as can be.
I’m overly sensitized to negativity, mansplaining, and nonsense in general. I’m offended by AI images and writing. I worry that a time will come when I won’t be able to detect it, it’s starting to get so good.
I let myself get sucked in, taken over by my emotions and ego. I engaged with male readers after getting a dose…or ten of mansplaining. Yes, those men who think they’re self-aware, so woke. I’ve picked a couple of fights this past week, and I was feeling justified, of course. That behavior woke me up. It reminded me to be on the lookout for emotional imbalance, reminding myself to pause, ground, and breathe before I respond. Sometimes I wait until the following day to reply. And because I’ve waited, sometimes I don’t reply at all. I’m grateful that I give myself a chance to be objective, rather than reacting in a blaze of anger.
When I’m feeling reactive and wait a day to respond, it’s a sign of health.
When I’m awake to myself, I take the time to question my motives.
I’m angry. I’m hurting, and yes, even though I don’t want to admit it, I feel scared. I go in and out of that feeling. But I’ll be damned if I give in to fear. The other day, I was reading the latest news, the heinous comments and threats from the Travesty Called Our Government, and I let fear take over. As a reaction to that fear, I went online and started researching gun shops and shooting ranges in my area. I’ve done this before. The first time was in 2017. Sometimes I surf for real estate in other countries and research immigration requirements to see if there’s another place I can go.
It scares the shit out of me that I could go to a place of buying in to the violence. So, I paused. I grounded. I took a breath. I pictured myself, standing in the middle of my living room, holding a shot gun against an intruder, an ICE agent, let’s say, and I could see myself trembling and sobbing. Not from fear, but from a place of deep sadness and disgust that this is who we are, who we’ve become. I cannot imagine taking someone’s life in real life. But I allow myself the fantasy. I’m giving myself permission to have all the thoughts, to not judge them.
Because they’re just thoughts. Not actions.
All that surfing is a form of spinning, but it also temporarily soothes a need in me to feel in control of this situation, our situation. Then, I swing back to the real world, to my true self. The self that knows that in the end it’s the fear that will get me, and not the people who use violence and aggression against us. It helps me remember what I can control and what I can’t.
When I’m there, Grace is by my side.
That’s what separates someone like me from someone like the “man” (?) who murdered Renee Good. It separates me from the army of villains. And honestly, I’m nowhere close to being able to extend Jonathan Ross a shred of compassion for the damage he’s most obviously suffered in his personal history. I’ll probably never get to that place. There are certain acts that to me, are unforgivable.
Yesterday morning, I read the thank-you letter that Rebecca Good, Renee Good’s wife, sent out to the interwebs. It was suffused with Grace, it was gentle. She celebrated her wife’s memory; she spoke of the spark that emanated from her poet partner. There was no blame, no anger, it had more dignity to it than anything I’ve read. It’s longish, and it’s worth your time.
“On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns.”
I’m amazed at Rebecca Brown Good’s equanimity, and yet, I also find it worrying. How do we stay kind in the face of such evil? And should we?
I watched the videos, finally. Is anyone talking about Rebecca Good’s actions that morning? Be clear that this is not about blaming victims. She spoke to truth to power, which can be a very frightening thing to do. I’m sure her words in those moments did nothing to help their situation. The reason I’m mentioning it, is we have to be smart. I’m saying that for me as much as for anyone else.
These men are living examples of short fuses waiting to explode. Let’s not give them more reasons. Let’s be smart.
I have no answer for you today. On Friday night, I got into bed at 5:30, thoroughly and blearily exhausted. I invited my dogs to cuddle, laptop open to Stranger Things. I wanted to see the good guys win against the MONSTERS, even in a fantasy. I needed that. It turned out I didn’t watch much, because I’d posted in Notes that I was going to bed and what time it was and why. The love and witnessing that came back to me was stunning.
The reason I’m telling you this is because instead of isolating and bearing my grief and anger alone, I talked about it with my dear friend Eileen, I wrote about it and shared it in the Substack feed. I reached out and shared the other side of me, the one who isn’t funny, upbeat, nice Nan. I made myself vulnerable.
I am indeed that woman sobbing in the middle of her living room floor.
After a lifetime of choosing to go it alone, I’ve learned that building community is the most self-loving, healthy thing I can do. This road we’re walking down together? It’s hard, we have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, or in the next minute, but community is the thing that makes us strong.
We must keep coming together.
I’m publishing this essay early this week, for two reasons. One, because it’s timely, but primarily because I’ll be getting ready for the first Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! event on January 17, 2026. There’s still a lot for us to do. I’m mentioning it because this project is my effort toward building community in the world and on Substack. It’s my act of love and resistance. I’m creating this space with Eileen Dougharty and our do-nothing figurehead and feminist inspiration, Slamone de Beauvoir. Oh, and if you don’t know, Slamone’s not real, we made her up, because we think she’s funny.
She’s our version of Vera Peterson, of Maris Crane. And yes, our Ugly Naked Guy.
Not a stitch of AI was used in her creation.
Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! is a space for women storytellers and others who don’t identify as male to come tell stories. It’s a space for us to share our lives with others. To share all the feelings. The joy, the laughter, the outrage, the astonishment, the grief.
To say yes to some things and no to others. To be together.
And to those you who identify as male? You’re welcome to support Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! as an audience member and donor. Your job is to be there and for once in your life, hold your mansplaining tongues and listen.
xoNan
And, if you want more information about the first story slam, which takes place on Saturday January 17, 2026 at 5pm ET, click the button, claim your seat and celebrate the art of spoken word storytelling.
We’re dedicating our first show to Renee Good’s memory, and a portion of our proceeds will be donated to her family.
