We blew up our TV, threw away our paper, moved to the country built us a home, had a lot of children, fed em on peaches they all found Jesus on their own

From John Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream (Blow Up Your TV)“

Today I want to blow up my TV. Blowing up my TV, in this sense, means running full steam away from my heart-felt anger, existential dread, deep sadness, physical unraveling, mental exhaustion, and fear-based spiraling that permeates my being right now. (Ostriches and sand come to mind.) At the very least, blowing up my TV means deleting Twitter from my phone and replacing it with a meditation app. Somewhere in the middle means, making a list of daily non-news related, self-care activities and actually doing them, daily. Also, in the middle, I think about scheduling (and following through on) opportunities for play and joy (though scheduling and following through seem antithetical to play and joy, but drastic times call for drastic measures). Blowing up my TV, in the most serious sense means moving somewhere, like to New Zealand or Bali, to flee it all (though that seems to be a cynical and powerless response in which I let the bad guys win).

So, I am left in the middle of my Spanish pipe dream. Somewhere in the middle between Twitter and New Zealand. Somewhere in the middle between living on my computer screen or in my bed. Somewhere in the middle between yelling at everyone and silently hating enough people to make me really sick. So what do I do? When I think about it, getting outdoors consistently seems like a radical act of self preservation at this time. Paying attention, in the form of gratitude lists and thank you notes and yoga, seems important. Actively cultivating beauty by creating things like meals and books and art is balm for my soul. Seeking joy while I dance to live music, smell magnolia in spring, and savor delicious food connects me to life, too. I want to look directly into the face of my desire to burn it all down and give it a big hug. To hold it and say, “You are loved. You have been loved all along. The part of you that thinks about loving kindness, wide-awakeness, and generations is sacred and holy. You weep because we are so far from that world. I am with you through it all.”