tool kit for chaos

 Of course we can all feel it coming. Our collective nerves are on edge. Wars, bombs, genocide – an entire population nearly starved to death, the endless news feed of political rallies that sound more like Nazi Germany than America.

Ask anyone how they’re coping. It’s no joke, they say. It gets worse every day. A shrug. Eye rolling. The acrid smell of armpits that reek of helplessness, shame, impotence, and underneath that, fear, grief, a wail heard all the way to the furthest battlefield.

So I’m assembling a tool kit for chaos, what we’ll need to fortify ourselves and our loved ones for the journey ahead. How to prepare for sudden shifts in the weather, how to survive the unexpected, the unpredictable, how to sustain our faith during the long slow march into a chaotic darkness only the saints found the words to write about. How to lift our voices up singing Hallelujah anyway.

First, I think practicalities. I suggest we stock up on the herbs and homeopathics we’ll need to keep everyone heathy. I mean the natural antibiotics and antivirals. I mean the bitter plants to bring on an abortion because honey, we’re talking chaos, and we are the doctors, the nurses, the midwives and pharmacists now.

Walkie talkies would be nice. Some have a range of up to sixty miles. Because darling, do you really think your cell phone tower will be standing?

And seeds. Lots of them. Different varieties for different climates because who knows where the winds of chaos will blow us.

And for good cheer, candles and matches, of course. A solar battery or two and because I believe in joy, harmonicas and flutes, cymbals, a few drums, tambourines and why not, castanets.

But beyond all of that, darling, here’s where the tool kit digs down to the essentials: get to know your neighbors. They will form the safety net, the survival tent that we’re sheltered in together, the community that is the antidote to chaos, because of course we do not know when the power will come back on or when the grocery store will have their shelves stocked again.

But we have each other to offer comfort and warm food and laughter and someone has brought the guitar we forgot to pack to get us through the long night when the saints remind us that there’s always darkness, that chaos is not new, that chaos is another name for birth, for the bloody parts when labor is hard and sweaty and you think maybe you made a mistake but this is no mistake this is the tunnel to the hidden passageway through to the new world just waiting to get born and we are the laboring woman and the birth coach and all the neighbors bringing food afterwards saying oh look how beautiful. Look what got born in the night.

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If you have a grief story to share, join me and Laura Lentz, writer extraordinare, author of Freeing the Turkeys and STORYquest: The Writer, The Hero, The Journey for a three day online workshop April 5-6-7. Come explore multiple ways to write about grief through inspiring literary poetry and essays. Write and read your work in an intimate small group that becomes holy ground, a place to open our hearts and creativity in a safe community.

Writing About Grief