Dear Friends, First, I hope that you all are healthy and safe at this moment. My family and I began social distancing over two weeks ago, and I have gone through so many turbulent emotions in that time: anger and despondency, anxiety and weariness, fear and very fleeting hope. I am not an optimist about this moment. I do not think it will help us heal our planet, or bring us productively closer as families, or prompt us all to revisit those things which are most important, or lead our children to remember this as "the best part of their childhoods" (source: various memes that claim profundity but make me want to scream). This is a health crisis that will physically weaken us and bring us grief; it is an economic crisis that will endure for a decade; it is a political crisis that will threaten the very core of our democracy. We have a great deal of work to do, and many Americans are largely unable to do it, either because they are currently overburdened with work and parenting in strange times, or because their financial futures are tenuous and grim, or because the strain of the moment taxes our collective mental health and capacity.
Gretchen's List: April 2020
Gretchen's List: April 2020
Gretchen's List: April 2020
Dear Friends, First, I hope that you all are healthy and safe at this moment. My family and I began social distancing over two weeks ago, and I have gone through so many turbulent emotions in that time: anger and despondency, anxiety and weariness, fear and very fleeting hope. I am not an optimist about this moment. I do not think it will help us heal our planet, or bring us productively closer as families, or prompt us all to revisit those things which are most important, or lead our children to remember this as "the best part of their childhoods" (source: various memes that claim profundity but make me want to scream). This is a health crisis that will physically weaken us and bring us grief; it is an economic crisis that will endure for a decade; it is a political crisis that will threaten the very core of our democracy. We have a great deal of work to do, and many Americans are largely unable to do it, either because they are currently overburdened with work and parenting in strange times, or because their financial futures are tenuous and grim, or because the strain of the moment taxes our collective mental health and capacity.