Emily loved to make lists. She made lists of things she didn’t like. She made lists of things she loved. And sometimes, she made lists of worries.
from Baby Baby blah blah blah!
written by Jonathan Shipton
illustrated by Francesca Chessa
Holiday House, 2009
I’m a list-maker. A list helps me assign priorities to my chores and errands. It helps me remember items I buy only once in a while, like toothpaste and teabags, when I add them to my grocery list. I don’t usually keep a list of the books I read. I like to just read them.
This past Saturday, I went to the “No Kings March” with a young friend of mine. I was feeling more anxious and emotional as the chants were chanted all around me, and I tried to read all the signs people brought and feel their angst (and my own). Their handmade ones and the printed ones, too. And the t-shirts, and the costumes.
Empath that she is, my friend asked if something was wrong.
“So much is wrong. So much needs to be fixed.
“Where does a person start? How do you even know what to do?” I asked her. “I’m overwhelmed.”
“You need a list.”
I thought that was exactly the right answer. It would help me identify and clarify what was bothering me, but I still felt overwhelmed.
“You don’t have to do everything on the list. Just pick one thing. What would happen if everybody did that? or even a lot of people? or even if some or a few did?”
I could have had that conversation with myself. I do have a lively internal monologue, after all.
But to satisfy my curiosity (and procrastinate a little), I needed to look up overwhelm before I could get to the list. It’s an old word. First used in the mid-14th century, overwhelm is derived from the Middle English whelmen, meaning “to cover.” By 1550, it expressed the sense of being completely covered, like a flood. Adding over to whelm implies “to turn upside down” or submerge.
Modern synonyms include the verb forms of swamp, saturate, glut, and overload. I’m sure you can think of others. This is where I find myself.
It’s time for the list.
What’s wrong? Here’s my answer in (for obvious reasons) no particular order.
The existential and looming threat of a Climate Catastrophe
Threatening to defund or actually pulling money and staff from
Medicare
Medicaid
Social Security
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System
(PBS)
Medical research
Environmental research
Affordable Care Act
National Park Service
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
National Institutes of Health (NIH) and much of their ongoing and vital
research
Dismantling the Department of Education
Cryptocurrency
RFK, Jr.
Defying Judges
Eliminating the promotion of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in all
government agencies
Rolling back progress on slowing our climate crisis
Stopping the SAVE Act to protect voting rights. Here's info about the
act.
Stopping the Budget Bill. Here's a link to the Congressional Budget
Office’s analysis of the Bill.
Where is governmental oversight? Oh, I remember. The people doing
those jobs have been fired. Right.
Retracting LGBTQIA+ rights
Retracting women’s rights, especially to healthcare
Refusing to put guardrails or boundaries on Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Gun violence
Russia and Ukraine
Hamas/Hezbollah/Iran and Israel
Nuclear weapons
Book bans
Lies
And I have another list, too, for the State of Ohio.
Gerrymandering
Defunding public education
Promoting School Vouchers
Book bans
Fracking is still a problem
Womens rights
Lies
It’s a long list. My fingers could hardly keep up with my brain, and I know I left out a LOT. I am in turn, angry, terrified, and grief-stricken.
Then I remembered a quote and had to stop writing to look it up. It’s from Angela Davis and used by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson in her book about dealing with Climate Change, What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures (One World, 2024).
“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”
So I’m back to saving the Earth. I have a project I have been thinking about for far too long. It’s time to reconnect with the contacts I’ve made early on and get to work.
I don’t have to really save the whole world, I only have to do what I can.
I only have to act as if it were possible. All the time.
I’m almost finished reading The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (Doubleday, 2023). Part mystery, part character study, Lawhon takes us back to post-Revolutionary America, where a small town in Maine revolves around Martha Ballard, a midwife, who, due to her position, is privy to many secrets. And due to her training and her journal-keeping becomes pivotal in solving a murder.
Be curious! (and try being a list-maker)
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