On my walk today, I remembered the panic? anxiety? attack I had in Galway at the end of August, manifesting as a heavy, radiating pressure on my sternum, which pinned me to my bed, making it hard to leave for the birthday dinner I was supposed to attend. The summer had been weird, grief mixed with disturbances that didn't let up (hello, climate crisis). I managed to leave the hotel and meet my friends, who also confessed the same dread, of not knowing how they'd get up in the morning. C-L flicked the hair off my face, leaving her hand on my cheek briefly; a tender and necessary gesture.

Twitter talks alot about "the Resistance", but what is it? Maybe resistance means pushing up the hill against the tiredness of my legs and the inertia I feel facing daily tasks. Resistance isn't on social media, but in the streets, in the plazas of cities, even on a mountain in rural Leitrim. Resistance is heartfelt honest talks with people about their feelings about the state of the world, giving these feelings room to breathe--a space to share, even to release, pressure through tender gestures and laughter. Articulating pain sheds light on our monsters, revealing their shapes and how we might perservere in the face of them. Something productive might emerge from these conversations, something like hope.





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