Be Back When I'm Done Blooming
Torn between self-care and care for Democracy, not to mention my cats
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
— E. B. White
I’m about to be offline for a week. I’m not even packing my laptop, and for those of you who’ve known me and my commuter backpack awhile, you know that’s a big leap for me.
It’s been a year of a month already, and I never even wrote my Christmas letter. I’ve been torn between self-care and care for Democracy, not to mention my cats and family and loved ones. I keep thinking about these words of wisdom from Thomas Merton:
To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of her own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
~Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Image Doubleday, 1989).
I have been moved to tears and moral outrage by the injustices and illegal killings, kidnappings, etc. etc. etc. that are happening these days. I’ve been following countless substackers who are documenting the progress, the setbacks, offering inspiration and information. I’ve been co-organizing with my local community activists through our group we call L.A.C.E. (local action, community engagement) in solidarity with many more local groups of committed, compassionate people.
One event I’m proud of was hosting my author Leni de Mik for a conversation via zoom with our local community on January 6th, inspired (and joined in conversation) by Ollie and Janice Pedersen, founders of the revived Paperclip Resistance.
Below is the recording of our January 6th event. Leni (pronounced “Lainey”) shared about her early years, born in Nazi-occupied Holland, emigrating at age 8 to Canada, inspired by her father’s courage in the Dutch Resistance, offering wisdom about our own forms of Resistance today. The next morning after that event, Renée Good was killed less than 4 miles from Leni’s home in Minneapolis. Since then, I keep returning especially to Leni’s words of encouragement in the first 45 seconds! The world continues to become an even smaller place needing compassion.
As you may know, I published Leni’s book last September, How Shall I Stand Between River and Land? Heart Questions for Uncertain Times. It was Leni’s recurring question “for whom shall I risk?” that gave me the courage to become an activist in 2025. She continues to inspire me.
Leni and a friend just put together another book that just came out via Amazon called Courage for Our Times: Practices for Courage in Uncertain Times. It feels like a love-letter to her neighbors in Minneapolis and meditation practice with a favorite mentor. With both books, Leni reminds us that courage is not a single heroic act, but a daily practice: returning to breath, reclaiming the ‘helm,’ refusing dehumanization, and weaving the self into the whole.
I wish I could sit down with you and just talk over tea about all that’s going on in this crazy world right now, and ask you about your true-self-care actions and choices. Taking time out for walks, life, love, and star-gazing, not to mention friends, good food, sleep if you can get it, is all part of my self-care plan for 2026. That and meaningful work, too!
I revived my favorite out-of-office message from my years in Seattle, the stanza in bold from this whole wonderful poem by Lynn Ungar, “Camas Lilies.”
Consider the liles of the field,
the blue banks of camas opening
into acres of sky along the road.
Would the longing to lie down
and be washed by that beauty
abate if you knew their usefulness,
how the natives ground their bulbs
for flour, how the settlers’ hogs
uprooted them, grunting in gleeful
oblivion as the flowers fell?
And you—what of your rushed
and useful life? Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything—
leaving only a note: “Gone
to the fields to be lovely. Be back
when I’m through with blooming.”
Even now, unneeded and uneaten,
the camas lilies gaze out above the grass
from their tender blue eyes.
Even in sleep your life will shine.
Make no mistake. Of course
your work will always matter.
Yet Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.
Potent Questions for Reflection:
From my friend Helen’s blog Ageless Possibilities: How Would You Live an Unwitnessed Life?
From Penny Williamson and Darcy Shaw and their Writing Together blog: When did an act of kindness open your heart, move you to hope?
A song and thoughts from Carrie Newcomer: According To Our Gifts & Sanctuary who asks “What do you think about the idea of having very different kinds of gifts to share, AND the idea that when we give from what we love and who we genuinely are, the gift becomes more powerful?”
And one more beautiful blessing:
Like Emily Dickinson once wrote, “I wish you a kinder sea.” 🌊
I wish you waves that lift instead of overwhelm. Waters that rinse the sorrow from your skin and leave you lighter than before. Currents that lead you somewhere new and beautiful. And sunsets that feel like peace. 🍀💖—As seen on Threads @talesbythecrescentmoon
And this call to collective courage in action:
“We have become accustomed to understanding ourselves as spectators of a world out of our control. If we want to be more than that, we must churn our discontent into a will to act together.”
—Yuval Levin, Catalysts of Agency.
May the coming days, months, year bring us closer to courage, compassion, and kindness, not to mention liberty and justice for all!!
