What grief, friendship, community, and leadership—together—feel like. The reminder I needed.

I snapped at a sweet friend this week. Publicly, on his social media page. [Deep breath out, deep breath in. Continue.]

I snapped at a lovely human who took his baby to the beach in another country for a few days of much-needed rest during this very painful week for much of world, or much of the U.S., or for your people, or for your family, or your coworkers, and/or you, depending on your perspective at the moment. Unfortunately for my friend, he is a good man. He is an always-safe-to-be-with man. He is a man who you can speak your whole mind to and be safe the whole time with, too, no matter what. A man who knows grief well. And he cultivates and spreads a sense of safety in concentric circles of friendship and community, outward, into the world.

He's a dying breed in the U.S.—it feels like this week—at least to women and everyone else constantly defending themselves from men who attack and attack and attack and attack us, and seek to hurt almost everyone, while we’re constantly grieving, and holding down jobs, and holding our families and communities together, and trying to stay well ourselves, and also still expected to smile, even this week, here in the U.S.

So, when this wonderful man wrote a post about AI and that he’s certain that almost all of our jobs will be taken away by AI not in 10+ years but in the next 1 to 5 years—this week of all weeks—I lost it. Not at the men I’m actually mad at, but at him. The good man. The strong man. The friend. This is what I said last night. I’m not proud of it this morning. But this, my friends, is what grief feels like:

"AI?! Good Lord I’m tired of men. I’m watching and supporting women and women-owned businesses around the country and even women simply baking sassy cookies in Texas (how dare they) receive death and rape threats online and in person this week. I’m seeing immigrant families being hauled away by ICE in Yakima today to God knows where and tech bros celebrating throwing Nazi salutes and people finding KKK meeting posters on their community boards and Black people receiving texts that they should prepare for slavery returning and native friends being told that the new administration won’t be acknowledging them as having been born in the U.S. and trans people being told they don’t even exist anymore. And our doctor told us the company now only allows them 10 minutes per person and insurance only wants them to talk about one thing per visit as if our pains aren’t interrelated. Oh, and also watching my friends in Gaza return to their city flattened into ash and nothingness. Seeing libraries they fought to build for their communities vaporized. And LA friends realizing they’ll never be able to rebuild after the fires and the neighborhood they love will likely go to millionaire developers like everything else does. AI?! You want us to also worry about fucking AI this week? Fuck off."

Whew. Hello grief, my old friend. That's what holding grief alone can feel like. Right.

And this is what friendship, community, and leadership–holding grief–feels like (hint: they’re all collective—so if you’re looking for them in just one of us, you’re missing the most important part). This was all publicly done as well:

Another guy friend of his (a stranger to me), to me: "I understand 100% of your issues and feel the same, minus the fokk off at the end."

Me, to my friend this morning: "Sorry friend, my grief overflowed on to you. It's not you. You're lovely. I'm just drowning in grief and pain this week and the additional thing to worry about pushed me over the edge."

My friend, to me: "understood. I’ve gotten to check out this week so I’m not swimming in all the muck right now. But I’ll be back in it soon sadly."

Me to him: "Friend, stay there on the beach as long as you possibly can."

[Tears.]

This single moment with a trusted friend and a stranger—and me being a jerk to a person I’m not actually angry with, and then not a jerk again, to the point of tears—brought me back from the depths of despair this week.

BTW, tears mean that we're in a moment, and learning something, that we want to remember, much like laughter. That they are something to be feared, or bothersome, or undignified, or mocked, or unmanly--that's all BS here. Defenses we were taught that we simply don't need anymore. I will never forget that man who first told me that crying was a sign of leadership. I was 37 at the time. But I digress.

This moment (shined? shone?) turned a bright light on my own loss and grief and isolation brought forth by my own culturally supported tendency to hold words of loss and sorrow back, to hide them to protect others (forgetting that we find protection in each other), and my tendency to take far, far too long to share that grief with trusted others to avoid weighing them down with my pain. [Two deep breaths now: this time with tears of gratitude, not just loss and fear.]

All of this real, lived loss. All these feelings of fear and loss and vulnerability and helplessness and rage and despair. All of this snapping at and screaming at each other publicly. That’s grief, friends. Name it. Feel it. See it in the responses of others. Share yours with people you love or trust. Grief is our sign that we still love this world, and life, and the living. We are still here for it. Even when everything is crashing down around us.

All this real, lived comfort. All of these feelings of solidarity and love and wanting to be there for friends and even strangers and not knowing exactly what to do or say but doing something for each other—trying—anyway. Even when it scares us. Even when we say the wrong thing and have to apologize for the hurt we caused. All this messing up and learning and unlearning and trying again and coming back from it stronger together. That’s friendship. Don't settle for an ally when you can have a friend. Remember what that feels like. Surround yourself with people and animals and plants who remind you what friendship feels like when you forget.

And when our friendship circles overlap and support us so well that we can be there for each other, including for angry strangers telling us or our friends to fuck off—the very moment those hurting, lashing out people need us the most—that’s community. That's us visible publicly at our best and our worst, and feeling loved and held, regardless. That's what community feels like. Being held and loved whether you deserve it or not at the moment. You don't have to be deserving to be part of a strong community. What a shit word "deserving" is. We're so much more than that. Messy, generous, sensitive, playful, connected, powerful beyond what we can imagine alone. Amazing.

Spend enough time as community, and you start to remember how to bravely stand beside those hurting the most at the moment—friends or strangers, near or far, wherever you're drawn—and you can show up for these others exactly when they need you. Exactly like all young children know how to do. Even if you're a complete mess and they're a complete mess. You can show up and say, somewhat awkwardly (if you're me) and beautifully, or simply demonstrate without words: “I’m here. And this sucks. And I’m still here. With you. I'm not going anywhere as long as you need me.” As community, we become mirrors for each other to see how beautiful life is, even at its worst. We can more courageously look into that mirror and clearly see loss and violence and horror and suffering and all attendant emotions, yes, and we can also see beauty. Given the time and space we need (we post-menopausal women, frankly, just take it, without apology, because waiting for someone to give us time and space is nonsensical and we are many things but nonsensical is not one of them), our smiles surface again of their own accord, eventually, together. Because we remember that we aren't alone. And never can be. Those who help us get to that point again--the smiling from within--they are leaders. The collective that gets you there, including you? That’s leadership. And it's every bit as collective today as friendship or community. It always has been. We know it when we feel it. And when we don't. All of us. Remember that when things are bleak.

Thanks to the two lovely men who extended kindness to me and my messy self this morning, this is now what I most want to say to all of you today:

We are with you in your grief.

This fucking sucks.

My people and I are here, beside you. Standing with you. Wishing and praying and playing and working for the best for you, for us, for all. We know how connected we all are. How much the grief and loss and injustice of this world hurts. And how our own grief–when held for too long alone–can cause us to do hurtful things.

My people know how beautiful this land, this planet, and all her people, are.

We won’t give up today, because we love life. We love this land, these forests and fields, our friends, our family, and yours. Strangers too.

Here, we love the living. And here, we are not alone. Join us whenever you'd like.

- Lori and friends  

P.S. If this essay is too rah-rah/cheerful/privileged/woke/whatever for you and you need to feel more of the rage and yelling and blame that is part of grief, feel free to read the longer essay that follows. I wrote the piece that follows yesterday. It's the essay that I thought I would be publishing today. It no longer feels needed here, by me, today, but it may help you if you’re still in the place where you need to more fully feel some of the pain and heartbreak and rage of your grief. It's also included here because I myself will very likely need it, again, tomorrow. If you thought the first essay was too long, definitely avoid this one like the plague...

 Beloved good men of the U.S.: Why?

If you have a kind and thoughtful answer to that simple question this week—why?—I’d love to hear it.

Warning: I’m just overflowing with questions for good men this week, so if you’d rather answer a different one. Here are a few more. Ok, a lot more. Take your pick.

What’s your red line for stepping up and into this fight beside us—and beside your children now—on the front lines? By that I mean this.

What has to happen—exactly—before you’ll take the time to witness what is happening to the rest of us now—almost daily? Notice what it’s like for women to see a rapist’s face or a Nazi’s face or hear an abuser’s voice every time she turns on a screen? Or learn that the administration has announced its now perfectly fine to pay women far less for the same work? For Black people to receive texts from strangers about the country’s imminent return to slavery or see KKK meeting posters proudly added to their neighborhood bulletin boards or see discrimination against whole huge groups of people celebrated as freedom? Or immigrant families actually being rounded up like cattle without trial and whisked off to detention centers God knows where? (happening in my own state this week, in Yakima, WA.) Or native families hearing that the new administration doesn’t intend to recognize them as being born in the U.S.? Or trans people being told that they don’t even exist?

Men, what does it feel like to be able to entirely hide your own grief, even from yourself? To not even notice when you foist your own grief and pain onto others, regularly—and without consequence? To not care about those who have to pick up the pieces?

And what exactly has to happen before you speak out against the daily bullying, harassment, and vile threats of violence, death, kidnapping, torture, and rape against us—including doxing of where we work and live—happening to women (and trans folk and other members of the LGBTQ+ community, Black people, immigrants, human rights workers, disabled community, and everyone else who has no choice AT ALL but to be courageous together) daily now in the U.S.? Immigrant families have already been torn apart, and it’s only Thursday.

Today I fear that the all rest of us non-straight-white-men are going to have to die—in huge 7-figure numbers that can’t be downplayed or hidden by corporate media anymore—for you to even notice let alone care what’s happening to almost everyone else now.

Or, if you’re a good man, but you think we’re all just a bunch of whiners who don’t know how good we have it and who should just keep our mouths shut and our heads down, I’ll ask my question this way instead. My friend, what will it take for you to speak out against the mass murdering and mass incarceration and mass deportations of good people here in the U.S. (This happens daily here, ask your kids if you don’t believe me, and almost always at the hands of very angry men, almost always angry white men, and usually—though not always—economically struggling men taking orders from billionaire men) or to speak out against the genocides of civilians in Sudan, the Congo, Gaza, or Ukraine? With almost all of their cities turned to rubble last year and 92% of housing and buildings destroyed or severely damaged, almost 18,000 children confirmed dead and another 20,000 children currently missing in Gaza—in the past 15 months alone—surely they’re not simply a bunch of whiners who just don’t know how good they have it. The people who regularly pick up tiny bloody bits of children and their elders and strangers and carry them in plastic shopping bags to try to find a proper burial resting place for the little bits all while U.S.-bought drones look on and bombs still fall? Surely they’re not just whiners who don’t know how good they have it—even if literally all the rest of us on planet earth are. Should they stop whining and just keep their mouths shut too? All 2.3 (likely far less now) million of them in Gaza? In Sudan? Ukraine?

I’m just really curious about it all this week.

Are you witnessing what’s happen to them, or us, each day now?

We are.

Are you working on yourself with other men or groups? Going deeper into why men are so angry and so prone to both threats and acts of violence against everyone who doesn’t look/think/act like them? So willing to take out their anger on everyone on earth except for the handful of billionaires who own most of the planet’s financial wealth and want more of it and who take zero steps—none beyond making empty promises and spreading lies—to help anyone but themselves or to ease the suffering of neighbors?

Women are.

We aren’t perfect, and we have a long way to go, too. And. The vast majority of women have been working on themselves their entire lives—we’re trained to blame ourselves and fix ourselves and bend ourselves in a million directions until almost nothing of our true self remains, actually. And, we never stop working on ourselves, improving ourselves and our children and communities, even when we’re abused or passed over at work because we’re women (now legal again apparently) or when we’re denied housing because we’re Black (now legal again apparently) or when we’re threatened online because we’re trans (impossible now, apparently, since trans people don’t even exist, right?) or raped in an ally, just because. We work on ourselves even after we realize that most of the things we were taught to believe about ourselves, and about you, growing up were total bullshit. We actually double down on learning about our real selves at that point. Double down on learning more about the experiences of all the unique and beautiful real selves and communities elsewhere that we were also maybe lied to about.

What are you doing to understand this time? What are you doing to change things for the better? To better understand yourself and your emotions and your ability to be easily controlled and manipulated by the corporate media and billionaire guys in charge when you ignore all the feelings except rage or lust, like you were trained to do? Or to understand your current ability to turn a blind eye and allow 9-year-old girls to battle nazi slogans on the front lines: in their schools and on their phones and in the streets and in the white house.

We get that times are hard. We do. Most of us make considerably less money than most of you. And that’s now likely to get far worse for all of us, not better. So, we get it.

We also get that everything is exponentially more expensive now—from food to housing to higher education to healthcare to utilities to vacations (what are those?), to, well, literally just being a walking, breathing human being in the U.S. now. We understand that wages don’t rise to keep up with all of that for most of us like they once did. That most of us will be in debt until we die. That we’re all becoming wage slaves together. So, we work ourselves into the ground, angry that we can’t keep up the way we once did. That we are among the first generation of American’s across all lines now likely to have worse lives, and die younger, than our parent’s generation. But, we’re in the fight. We also connect, listen, learn, organize, triage, say the wrong thing, make mistakes, apologize, ask for forgiveness (not expecting to receive it), unlearn, and fight together. Where are you, good men?

We also get that what many of our parents or grandparents could do on one income, it now takes most of us two or three jobs, plus side gigs—by every able-to-work family member—plus living with more roommates, to make happen. And women also get what it means to both work and worry and be exhausted, all the time: 24x7. We all do. Pro tip: If you’re not learning from Black women by this point, friend, you are unlikely to thrive or survive what’s comes next for almost all of us. Fascists are angry, violent, whiners when they lose and angry, violent, whiners when they win. They’re here. And they hate people you love, good men. They tend to hate old people and sick people and disabled people and foreigners and natives and women and trans folk and Black folk and sensitive people and loud people and too-quiet people and all people who think for themselves or people who won’t bow to them. Do you read history? Is that what you want America to be?

We get that with a handful of billionaires now owning most of the planet’s financial wealth and all the crumbling systems that fail more and more of us each year in favor of increasing shareholder value—including our U.S. for-profit “heath care” system that fails the good people working in it as badly as it fails those of us who are sick or wounded or disabled or dying. A doctor told us this week that insurance companies now give them only 10 minutes to talk to people and that they’re only allowed to talk about one thing. That everything they’re allowed to say is now controlled by bean counters trying to eke out more shareholder value. From sick people and nurses and doctors and everyone who works there. Everyone who cares. Failing elders and sick children. Bankrupting 500,000+ families a year now, I recently heard. Politician’s point the blame at the poor and grow trillions richer in the chaos. The “health care” system is beyond broken and will get worse, not better, under Donald “big business and billionaires fix everything, don’t worry” Trump. Imagine being told by a doctor that if you’re there to talk about recent high blood pressure spikes that you can’t also mention muscle pain in your upper chest or shoulder or the anxiety attacks caused by the high blood pressure, because that’s been deemed a different conversation, yet another office visit to pay for, by a business expert? Yeah, we don’t have to imagine that here. We lived it this week.

And.

What we don’t get is why you stay so silent in the face of all this.

And, worse, why do you only seem to punch down at us when you finally do speak up?

Why do you not stand with us when we are being threatened, harassed, and receiving death threats on the regular now? When women-led organizations are targeted? When child supporting non profits are targeted? When our lives and families and livelihoods are threatened by bullies and lawmakers and brute squads? Why in the bloody fucking hell do you still VOTE for these guys?! Do you really believe that all the rest of us poor people are the problem? Still? What’s it going to take?

Why do you not seem to care that children in U.S. schools, in addition to worrying about being slaughtered by a gunman every day, are now regularly hearing “Go back to where you came from.” and “Your body, my choice.” and so many vile racial slurs and rape threats that my white, middle-age fingers flat-out refuse to type them?

Why is it mostly only women and gender fluid folk and gay folk and indigenous folk and other marginalized folks showing up to defend women, and all children, and people of color, and members of the disability community, and the LGBTQ+ community, and immigrants, and rights, and freedom, and animals, and the environment?

Why does it take an utter disaster—like a massive hurricane wandering around inland and washing whole towns away or whole neighborhoods burning to the ground because of massive wildfires and enormous fire tornados(!) in wintertime—for you to show up and be great neighbors to everyone again? And even then, why do so many men show up just to poke at and further hurt the already suffering?

Where the fuck did all the good men go?! All the men brave enough to listen and learn and unlearn and help and simply be human beings together? Who could feel the pain of others and move to lessen it? We know you’re out there but we can’t hear you!

As a writer and reader and person who loves to connect with people and family at a distance, I’m online quite a bit. Online—where the rest of us are present to have conversations and learn or to create or relax or dream or connect with friends and family or shop or play or sell our wares or organize to help the suffering—why do men show up to belittle and threaten people? To call women names or tell us to shut up, roll over and take it, or die? To tell people of color their problems aren’t real? To tell immigrants to watch their backs—they’re next? To tell trans people they don’t fucking exist!

Why do men only seem to go after those you see as weaker than you? That one I really just don’t get at all. Isn’t that the coward’s path? Beat up on those already beaten down by the same realities that beat you down, too? Take out children with fancy advanced weaponry? What the fuck is that?!

We have to stop being cowards. This time, my we includes you. We have to have real conversations. It’s easier if you’ve been doing it all along. But friend, one tip: if somebody doesn’t feel physically safe in your presence, a real conversation cannot possibly happen. You must start there. You must recognize that a huge percentage of planet earth no longer feels safe in your presence because the bad men are so much louder and present than the good men. I know a bit about this reality as a white woman. I know that for many Black people in the U.S., given the history and present reality of this country, that there is almost nothing I can do to help some people feel safe in my presence. Because of the color of my skin. But I will never stop trying. To listen. To connect. To learn. To grow. To get to a point where we feel so safe that we can have meaningful conversations. And maybe work together. Or maybe come to the point where we can even be a bit silly together—have fun together. Even if it’s only for a moment. That moment matters. And our working together to make things better also matters. That’s what people who love life—and who love themselves and the living—do.

Say what you will about women these days, most of us are NOT cowards. Most days, we fight battles unarmed, and on a dozen fronts, and often alone, and if we’re visible, often with bullies judging our every move.

The time to ask the hard questions and have the hard conversations is always now. Right now. Ignoring or downplaying them, pretending they don’t exist, pretending suffering people aren’t really suffering, blaming poor people for literally all bad things that happen now and must happen to make the rest of us “safe,” and putting off hard conversations only makes things worse. Only leads to sitting on your plain until you’re blaming everyone and everything around you. Only causes the fear and anger to stagnate and fester within us. I regularly have difficult conversations. Yet clearly, wow, I’ve been holding these questions within me for too long. Or I wouldn’t have so damn many. Shit, here come more. Like…

Why do men go armed into schools with automatic weapons and mow down children and teachers? And into churches to kill parishioners? And into movie theaters to kill community members? Isn’t that the coward’s path?

Why do you not simply listen to and work with good people who differ with you on the problems we all face?

Your question to ask and answer—I don’t even need to understand. I just need you to do a little more of the work that all the rest of us are doing now. Or at least leave us the hell alone while we work together to make our communities safe places for all our kids and people to thrive.

This week I could ask specifics, such as... Why do men show up online and on the phone and in email to make death threats to women who bake cookies for a living in Texas? Cookies. Why do men show up online to make threats against a Christian bishop who dared to speak the words of Jesus to Trump and Company? The words of Jesus are not a woke democrat agenda. Love, kindness, compassion, mercy—why do these words threaten men and drive them into a livid rage to the point that they spew vile threats and women around the world now worry for the bishop’s life?

And here’s a question that really scares me to ask:

Why do you see men behaving like bullies and legislating like bullies and literally killing people daily and instead of standing against them, with us, why—dear God, WHY—do you join them?

We are not the enemy. We are just people. Like you.

Before you answer that last question, please allow me to return to my first question. A question I asked to help you, not us.

What is your own red line? What is it going to take for you to get into this fight with the rest of us?

Like I said, today I believe that the only way good men will step into this fight with us is when enough of us are murdered, disappeared, and imprisoned that even the billionaire-owned U.S. corporate media and government can’t downplay or hide it anymore. By us, here, I now mean women and other gender fluid folk, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people who are Black or indigenous and other folks of color, immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers, children and educators in schools and doctors and nurses and healers already dealing with gender-based violence and racial threats and violence, anyone already bravely speaking up against violence and fascists (including some of the bravest men I’ve ever seen—regardless of their politics—such as those who’ve lost children to school shooters and girldads in general most of whom just rock these days), and everyone who steps outside an entirely imagined-by-frightened-people “norm” who have targets on their backs simply because of how they look or because they speak up against bullying, threats, and violence. Bravely, and unarmed.

I don’t just ask this because I’ve noticed online that the people in the fight against violence are mostly women, trans folk, gay folk, disabled folk, Black and indigenous folk, and people of color. Folk whose bravery must be collective, because there’s no other option, and because being together, we’ve learned makes the ugrief and loss bearable and the good times more fun.

I ask—beloved good men—because I strongly suspect that if you don’t get into the real fight with us ASAP that you’re going to completely unnecessarily lose a beloved wife or child or cousin or parent, or favorite immigrant neighbor, or your Black coworker, or your trans librarian, or your favorite indigenous comedian, or the gay shop owner at your favorite store who helped you find the perfect gift for your kid. They will be dead. And you will have to live with the fact that you couldn’t even see it coming or that you didn’t do more. You CAN see it coming—you CAN stop violence in its tracks, even before it happens—you just have to believe us and join us and work with us!

I watched a fit and muscley young white man recently break down bawling, because he didn’t speak up to a friend of his at the gym who clearly hated and blamed women for everything that went wrong in his life. This good man said nothing to this friend for all 8 years he heard it. He just ignored it. That friend eventually snapped, burned his own wife and children to death in their car, and then killed himself. This beautiful man wept as he said “I failed her. For 8 years, I failed her. And him.” If you can’t do this for us, then do it for yourselves.

Who does your silence help? Who does your isolation help? Who does ignoring the threats and the nazi salutes and the draconian legislation and the stripping of American’s rights help? You’re helping somebody right now. Who is it?

We will continue to ask these questions of ourselves, too. Continue to hold ourselves accountable. Continue to make mistakes and try again. Those of us lucky enough to be allowed to make mistakes and try again. Lucky enough to know that doing things wrong and messing up and trying again are all privileges. Superpowers, even, when turned toward the common good.

Will you?

How many more people have to die before you get in the fight with us and fight on the side of those who love life, love the living, and those who have the audacity to drop all the bullshit and deeply love ourselves exactly as we are?

Good people talk, learn, join together. They don’t ignore horrors—or inflict them—then call themselves good and hired PR people to spin what they’ve done.

How do you know you’re doing the right thing these days?

When you care enough that you’re willing to work on yourself, unarmed, within community. And then when you begin to see somebody, almost every day, who is being threatened or attacked—in person, online, wherever you are—and you use whatever power that you have in that moment to simply stand with them. Be present. Witness. Believe them. Maybe begin to hold a tiny piece of their fear or pain, so they know they’re not alone anymore. We don’t try to fight stranger’s battles for them anymore, unless we’re invited to help. The trick is to be present long enough that you learn their signs of welcome, of being invited, which vary from human to human.

It’s not always pretty, and it doesn’t always work, and we mess up SO MUCH right now. But the more you try it, the safer and happier and more fun we all become. The calmer all our nervous systems get in each other’s presence. The less we need violence to be noticed or heard.

And lastly, if you want us to smile, don’t ask us to smile. Help us take back this country from the self-centered billionaires who hate everyone and the white supremacists who hate almost everyone and the remarkably unbelievably hypocritical evangelical Christians who literally can’t stand the words of Jesus being spoken to their president. Stand with us, beside us, and really know us, good men—as we fight for our lives and yours—and you’ll never need to ask us to smile again.