And yet, however slowly, she turns.

Starting is always the hardest part, whatever I’m doing. I want to write about cynicism, about hope, about exercising the muscle that keeps us striving for a better future, in spite of the morass of violence and fear and poverty and strife that rolls upon us in waves. The moon makes tides and we move by our own reaping. But I never know where to start. 

I get caught up in the cycles, wondering if it felt like the world was heading towards destruction in the 60s and 70s, with war and assassinations, revolution and hostages, and nuclear weapons heading towards Cuba. Or in the first half of the century, with two world wars, bridged by the absurdity, vacuity, glitter of the 20s, the deprivation and rising fascism of the 30s. To which vindictive, anti-democratic president are we referring? To which reactionary, bigoted Congress? To which proxy war, totalitarian regime? To which Russian invasion of Ukraine? Which stolen land, and which thieves? Which genocide? We have always been at war with ourselves. 

And yet through all that turmoil, we have done powerful things together - civil rights, queer rights, women’s rights. We closed the hole in the ozone layer, and eradicated smallpox. We went to space and to the bottom of the sea. Are we the cycles, the ever present rise and fall of war, or are we the moral arc of the universe, bending slowly, much too slowly, but still bending towards justice? 

I had hoped to feel more uncomplicated optimism as we head towards the new year. There’s a lot to be grateful for. We kept the far right from completely taking back Congress, from taking over Wisconsin and Virginia and Pennsylvania. Workers across the country, in all kinds of industries rose up to demand better and won. North Carolina expanded medicaid, granting access to health insurance to more than 600,000 people. President Biden has shifted the balance of the judiciary across the country - two thirds of the judges he’s appointed have been women and two thirds are people of color. His administration has forgiven over $130 billion in student loans for more than $3.5 million people. 

And yet tens of thousands of Palestinians are dead because of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, and thousands of them are children. More than 75% of the population of Gaza has been displaced in a campaign of violence our government funds and supports. Whatever advocacy against these attacks the Biden administration has made with their Israeli counterparts in private, it pales in comparison to the public support and even more devastatingly, public funds. In the Sudan, civil war is once again threatening to turn into genocide. Republicans seem content to let Ukraine fall slowly and painfully to Russia and global efforts to fight the climate crisis has again fallen into the climate crisis’s worst perpetrators. 

We are once again fighting for abortion rights. We are once again fighting insurrectionists and corruption in our government. We are once again gravely disappointed by those we chose to represent us in this fight. Every election is existential, the most important election in our lifetimes, until the next one. It would be easy to dismiss it all as the same again, to watch history repeat and wonder why we even bother when next year, in five more, in twenty more, in fifty more we’ll be doing it all again. 

And yet, who am I to get caught up in the cycles that predate me? Who am I to surrender to history? When across the world, hundreds of thousands are pouring into the streets to protest the violence done in their names, when those who marched in 1973 are out marching again now, when so many face bigotry, school shootings, discrimination, and show up to run for office, to try again and again and again to make space in government for all of us. 

Rebecca Solnit wrote “hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky.... hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.” Hope is not passive, it does not wait for fortune. Nor is hope finite or certain. Hope does not believe that one candidate, one election, one law, one court decision, will suddenly and finally make everything better. And when those fail, or fall, or come out greyer and more ravaged than expected, hope says try again. Hope takes every chance it can to create more possibility, to keep the door open, to build a longer table. 

Our challenges in the next year are legion. We face a presidential contest where the person currently most likely to win might have to govern from prison after trying to overthrow the government he’d be leading. We face not only a resilient right wing determined to use hate and bigotry to divide us, to rig the game to enrich themselves while they shove us into smaller and smaller boxes - we also face our own cynicism, the bitter acrimony of fear and clawing panic of grief. 

I’ve felt it myself, the desire to turn away, to let my disappointment dissuade me from action. I want to use this newsletter to help people feel empowered to fight back, to know that your voices and your votes make a difference, because they do. But that doesn’t mean I’m not occasionally stymied by intransigence, by this slow moving ship that changes direction minutely even when the world cries out for a turn on a dime. 

And yet, however slowly, she turns. 

Hope does not require my certainty, only my commitment. If we knew how to win the fights at hand, then the future would be inevitable and we would not need hope. But every day is an opportunity to make things better, to help more people, to build more bridges, to embrace each other. I commit myself to this, to always make space for possibility. And I hope that you will too. 

Sending you and your families love and joy in whatever and however you celebrate this December. See you next year!