Dear Little Sister

The “first” time Donald J. Trump was elected to the highest office in the land, I stopped writing altogether. I was a practicing nourishment guide with a flourishing blog and a cadre of classes like Clueless in the Kitchen, The Well-Nourished Woman, and the Luscious Legacy Project, but nothing felt particularly luscious at that moment in time. I took a sabbatical from my practice and joined a group of like-minded souls who were equally distraught and committed to doing the work of resistance. My new friends were older, wiser, and well-versed in acts of lobbying and protest. They knew exactly how to begin. Our efforts included White House protests and vigils, letters, phone calls, visits to our representatives in the House and Senate, and massive postcard-writing efforts to get people to the polls. At times, it felt like a full-time job, but it was necessary work.

Fast forward eight years. Donald J. Trump has wormed his way back into the White House, and this round will undoubtedly be much worse—a reign of retribution, rage, and performative cruelty. This time, I refuse to stop living the life I love. I refuse to stop writing. I refuse to let this administration stop me from finding ways to resist. There are so many marginalized populations who need our help right now. If you’re feeling the weight of these times, please know that I see you.

Today’s post is an excerpt (or two) from my “little sister series.” When the results of the 2024 election were called, I gave myself a week to wallow, and then I began writing these letters. One each day for the remainder of November. The epistolary form dates back to the early 1600s, but I wasn’t trying to fit these missives into a literary device; I just knew I had to write, and this is what emerged.

I have no little sister, so these letters are written to a figment of my imagination. I’ll post a couple of them right here.

November 17, 2024

Dear Little Sister,

I’ve been thinking about the power of images and how, for me, memory is a series of snapshots. Some of them are actual photographs, and others, a snapshot in my mind: Grandma’s kitchen, the canopy of chestnut trees on 10th Street, the chalkboard in my second-grade classroom.

I have snapshot memories of world events, too, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I remember a social media post depicting a warm and sunny kitchen. There’s a cake on the table and a mug of hot coffee. I save it because I don’t ever want to forget how fragile life is, how easily it can turn: “And here we are at noon, on the day when full-blown war started in our country, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and eating cake.”

Two hours later, these two women are headed to a bomb shelter.

Sometimes I wonder which images will surface years from now when we’re looking back on this moment. Will it be that iconic photo of Kamala’s niece looking up at her aunt as she spoke at The Democratic National Convention? Or our president-elect driving around in a garbage truck a week before the election?

Yesterday I took a walk through the neighborhood to get some fresh air and to see what was happening with the trees. The oaks are always the last to shed their leaves— as if they simply can’t bear to let them go. On my way home, I came upon a crack in the road. It was filled with a cluster of old leaves and new, along with some wheat-colored grass—a tangle of obstinate beauty. It was truly the loveliest pile of yard waste I’d ever seen. I took a picture and made it my cover photo on Facebook.

I’m sure there’s a message here for me. We’re going to have a lot of rubbish to sift through in the weeks (months, years) ahead, but there will surely be obstinate beauty.

I miss you.

Love,
Sue Ann

November 24, 2024

Dear Little Sister,

I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to navigate this [brave] new world we’re entering. I was watching Deadline Whitehouse on MSNBC the other night; the featured guest said we need to start forming conscious communities so that we have support systems in place when things get crazy and/or when we find ourselves feeling isolated or alone.

Recently, I found myself placing the people I know and love into categories: those who can hold the full catastrophe of me—the worries, the fears, the depth—and those who appear to want only the joy. I am enormously grateful for my online communities (writers and poets wear their hearts on the page) and for individuals in my local community who are ready “to get the hell up and try again.” (I stole that quote from Lidia Yuknavitch).

I’ve never been good at compartmentalizing, and I don’t have an answer for any of this, but yesterday I was listening to a talk by Pam Houston, a writer I deeply admire. This is what she had to say about joy:

“Finding joy in a broken world is not denial. It’s trying to be alive. Because whatever is coming at us, and it’s going to be a lot, we’re going to need the flower, or the horse, or the dog, or the friend. And we’re going to need to keep writing about both of those things. It’s about holding the pain next to the beauty. That’s what art has always been.”

That made me feel a little less lonely and a lot more compassionate toward people who are checking out or just not as inclined to have more serious conversations about what’s happening in our country.

Maybe they’re just “trying to be alive.”

So, in that light, I’ll leave you with a beautiful piece of writing that popped into my inbox today: The Amazement Teacher by

Rona Maynard

. This, by the way, is why I’ve chosen Substack over BlueSky. I want to immerse myself in extraordinary writing, and I love it when something like this lands directly in my inbox. Just the medicine I needed today! Enjoy.

I’m off to the park to do some toddler spotting. Little people make me grin.

Love,
Sue Ann

Dear reader,

Leave me a comment and let me know how you’re navigating these times. Where are you finding pinpricks of light? And if you’d like to gather in a warm and welcoming “conscious community,” I’m holding a “Dear Little Sister” generative writing circle on Thursday, December 19th from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST. There’s no charge for this call, and you needn’t consider yourself “a writer” to join us. If you’re interested, simply hit reply (or send me a PM with your email address) and I’ll send you a Zoom link a day or two before we meet. 💕