Keeping Kith with Cold

Much of the US is bracing for a massive winter storm, and the rest is bracing for more deep cold. Last week’s high winds have continued on and off for us as well. The weather feels like a metaphor for the kind of disruptions and hardships reflected in all manner of news, near and far. Putting one foot carefully in front of the other, trudging across the ice and snow, barely able to bend over because I’m so bundled up, feels like a metaphor almost too on-the-nose to believe. I am tired, and it’s a long time until spring.

I also am consumed with the question: ‘What is mine to do?’ The answer comes back clearly when I get still enough to listen. Keep Kith. Love your neighbors. Let them love you back.

But getting still enough to listen is the hardest part of the whole process. Lying in bed, the time that should be the quietest, is the time my mind is most likely to run wild with worry and dread. I lived in New York City during 9/11. I lived in China in the late ‘90s. I’ve known fear and chaos on a city-wide scale. I’ve seen firsthand the conditions wrought by authoritarianism. And I don’t want any of that for us.

I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life that I was certain I was right about. I’ve been humbled again and again by the ways the circumstances of my life blinded me to the suffering of others until I was forced, often in embarrassing and painful ways, to examine how much of what I assumed was available to everyone was not. It has made it difficult for me to trust myself. My default setting is now to always look for the other side of the story. To question my assumptions before barreling blindly ahead.

What I’m trying to say is the struggle is real, but it’s worth it. So let’s keep trying to be better neighbors to each other, to the grasses and the birds, and to ourselves. Let’s keep kith together. We all deserve it.