It’s said that joy is an act of resistance, but what does that really mean? When you’re full of rage and terror and upset that makes you nauseous, how can you find space for anything else? When so many are suffering real and serious harm, isn’t it a selfish and frivolous indulgence?

No. joy is powerful, and authoritarians know it. Not consciously, probably, because these are emotionally empty people, but in some deeply instinctual way. Because one of the things that every repressive regime has in common is trying to tamp down joy. Music, dancing, art, stories, fashion, creative expression of any kind…even interior design! All of these and more are subject to control if they’re not forbidden altogether in repressive regimes. And because authoritarians really, really, really cannot stand to be mocked, humor and comedy is right out. Laughter? Total buzzkill for fascists.

Joy is energy, it’s change, it’s organic and authentic and wildly uncontainable. Joy is beauty and laughter and delight and inspiration and contentment and creative spark. Joy is a force of nature, a collective momentum, it cannot be controlled. And if there’s one thing that authoritarians fear more than anything else, it’s what they can’t control.

“And remember this: the Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.” – Nemik’s Manifesto, 'Andor'

So yes, joy is resistance, and it’s as vital as speaking up against oppression and showing up to fight it. It takes many forms, big and small and in-between, and there’s no right or wrong way to do joy. It’s all about remembering the things that make life worth living to keep ourselves resilient so we stay in the fight and remember just what we’re fighting for.

To that end, then, I've put together some practical, concrete strategies for joy that've been helping me and that might be helpful to you, too. Or at the very least, give you ideas for your own joy strategies. Because let's face it, shit is bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S, and we can't just meditate and hydrate ourselves out of doom spiraling.

Laugh more

It sounds silly to say, but I had to actually decide to consciously laugh more. I’ve been so upset and scared that very little made me laugh. Even my husband, who is hilarious, often couldn’t get more than a smile from me. I had to make myself lighten up, let myself be playful, respond to a joke with another joke. It’s weird to say that I had to work at fun, but that’s just how it was for awhile. I’m still working on it, but I’ve felt a little lighter ever since I started making the effort.

Look for opportunities to build community

I recently wrote a post called “the power of circles” about the importance of connection in these times and all the different Circles (and opportunity for Circles) we have in our lives.

One of the ways that's played out for me/us is with a small group of like-minded neighbors. We started as a meetup a month after the election, prompted by each person in the group expressing a need and desire for community and mutual support to the neighbors who organized the whole thing.

The group was small and we weren’t sure what to expect it to become. But like everyone else there, we were craving nearby connection to offset the fear that made us feel so alone and isolated. So we took a chance and showed up. The group was diverse in age and background and belief, each person engaged and informed, and the conversation was supportive and empathetic. By the end of the meeting, we were already making plans for the next one.

We’ve met every month since. We vent and comfort and support each other. We share knowledge and wisdom and information. We have a group text thread and group email chain. Members have gone to protests together, traded books, discussed favorite shows, discovered a shared love for Legos and board games, and even had a movie group watch with talk of more to come. It’s been an unexpected but very, very welcome gift to have this little community of still-getting-to-know-each-other friends, and it’s become a solid anchor for me and us in the last several months.

Make and create

No surprise on this recommendation, I know. The struggle to find the mental space for creativity is real, but it’s worth prioritizing anyway, if only because creation is rebellious AF. It looks hate and harm in the eye and says, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m stronger than you’ll ever be.”

I confess that my time in the studio had been largely non-existent for months, for a couple of reasons. Not only has my time and attention been taken up by all that frantic preparation work I mentioned in my last newsletter, but the studio itself didn’t feel conducive to creativity, either. (More on that below.) But I’ve finally made enough space – literally and figuratively – that I’m ready to get back in there to see what kind of messes I can make. My calendar hasn’t been cooperating, but I’m intent on carving out time for this essential part of my well-being.

I’ve also resumed work on my book AND even started a new, completely different story. (Oh right, some of you may not know: I wrote a book/ am (re)writing a book/ have been working on a book for longer than I care to admit.) No, I haven’t stopped working on my book, although it surely has felt that way at times. It’s just fun to have a totally different story idea to play around with.

Enjoy good stories

Speaking of stories…escaping into books, movies, shows, etc is always a solid choice when the world feels Too Much. (That very much includes revisiting favorite books, comfort shows, etc.) Stories in any form are how we learn to know ourselves – both individually and collectively – so losing yourself in a good story isn’t so much an escape as it is a return to yourself.

My library card has been getting a bigger workout for the last several months (support libraries!) and my teetering “to be read” (TBR) pile is shrinking, too. I recently loaded up my podcast app with a ton of fiction podcasts based on a Reddit recommendations thread. And if you’re looking for a fantastic watch recommendation, that show I quoted further up, Andor, is unparalleled.

Inject more music in the day

Changing up my audio diet to get more music-listening in my day has noticeably helped my mental health. I used to listen to podcasts on the way home from work but now I alternate with music. After the election I switched over from the public radio station to the local classical station in the mornings. Which came with an unexpected little treasure: Warren Black, the morning host, gives the weather report around 8:15 and always concludes by saying, “I hope that your internal weather is whatever you would like it to be.” It’s become the touchstone of my weekday mornings. And in the evenings while we're making dinner, we're often listening to one of our Pandora stations.

Another fun thing is swapping music favorites with someone. A month or so ago, Sal and I spent an evening introducing each other to different songs we thought he/I would like. It was like a real-time mix tape exchange!

But here’s my real hot tip for delighting your brain: listen to some of your old playlists you haven’t listened to in a really long time. I recently started listening to some of my playlists from 2005 – 2010 or so, and gotta tell you, fam…they still slap. They were definitely a time and a place – in the world, in music, in my life – and listening to them now reminds me my life is and has been more than just the time I’m in now. I’ve been swimming in nostalgia vibes for weeks, falling in love with the earlier versions of me who made these soundtracks for herself.

Reclaim space

I’m a strong believer that our home spaces should be our sanctuary. What that means is an individual thing, but I think it’s good to periodically assess whether your home still feels like a sanctuary to you and changing it until it does.

So I, for instance, need my home to be a place that makes me feel content, safe, comforted, relaxed, and inspired. That has never been more true than now. In light of all the work we’ve been doing in preparation for the difficulties we’ve been expecting since the election, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I/we need each room to do and to be, taking stock of what is and isn’t working currently, assessing what kind of changes are needed and what my resources are (furniture, organizers/storage, decorative stuff) that can be repurposed or utilized differently. We’ve been slowly working our way through different parts of the house, cleaning and changing and clearing out. My goal is to reorient our home to what will sustain us going forward. The work we’ve done already has been making a big difference for both of us.

The studio was one of the rooms that really needed a reorientation. The room that used to make me so happy to walk into and spend time in didn’t feel that way anymore – all I could see were the supplies that needed a permanent home, the stack of art journals that needed a better place to sit than on whatever surface was clear enough, the collage papers that were overflowing their trays, and a dozen other things that made the space feel stressful instead of inviting. It didn’t need substantial changes like moving furniture, it was mostly a reorganization to fit how we use the space now versus how it was set up many years ago.

I also took the time to rearrange some of the art on the walls, moving pictures around, getting new artwork hung that had been waiting for a place to put it, and editing out some of the decorative items or relocating them somewhere else in the house. The room feels better now and the creative, cheerful energy it used to have is back. Which boosts my creative energy!

Learn/deepen a homesteading skill (or skills)

I’m using the term “homesteading skills” as a big umbrella to cover the type of things taught in Home Ec or Shop classes, or in 4-H. Or maybe that you (like me) might’ve learned from a parent or grandparent. I’m thinking of things like food preservation, woodworking, knitting, car repair, or gardening, but it could be pretty much anything. It might be something that you already do, maybe as a craft, that you want to dive deeper into, or something you’ve always wanted to try. It could come in handy, but more importantly, it could just make you happy.

One of the homesteading skills we’ve been working on is sewing and mending. I know how to sew, but I call myself a “necessity sewist”: I only really sew when I need some kind of specific fabric solution that I can’t get any other way. Things like curtains – which I’ve made a lot of over the years, as well as three sets of Roman shades (never again) – and box-cushion covers for an old couch we got for free for our first apartment. A lap quilt and a large bedspread. Occasionally to mend something, but only if it was something I really wanted to salvage.

But sharpening my sewing skills seems prudent these days. And Sal, it turns out, always wanted to learn to sew and mend things, so we’ve begun treating it as a fun new thing to do together. (My mother, a decades-long quilter, is delighted.) A few months ago, we spent a Saturday night practicing visible mending on a whole stack of different clothes while we rocked out to 80s music. And we recently stopped at a small neighborhood fabric store to get some fat quarters and fun colors of thread to play around with. We’re going to try our hand at darning socks, as well, and who knows what else?

Grow things as an act of rebellion

Whether it’s a vegetable garden, wildflowers and native plants, trees or bushes, or even just pots of herbs on your kitchen windowsill, encouraging life to continue in spite of everything can be a visual reminder of encouraging life to continue in spite of everything. Growing things benefits you and the animals and the insects and the air and water.

We’re leaning in hard on our vegetable garden this year. We added extensively to our existing seed inventory to build up a seed bank for a garden that has a different purpose than in the past. Our goal is to attempt year-round gardening, something we’ve talked about for years but never got around to trying. We bought books on building hoop houses, winter gardening, and year-round gardening in the PNW. We’ve installed drip irrigation in all our raised beds and plan to build our hoop houses this summer. We created a planting schedule through next spring. How successful any of that will be, I have no idea. But it’s felt like important work worth doing, and it brought peace and inner quiet when nothing else did.

Throughout our outdoor space and over many years, we’ve planted edible and medicinal plants, native plants, plants for pollinators and plants to sustain and shelter wildlife. It is both home and habitat, food and flora. Expanding our food growing capability has felt like a natural extension of that philosophy.

The point of all of this is to provide food for the two of us, yes, but it’s bigger than that. It’s about self-reliance so we’re less dependent on systems that are being destabilized. It’s about using resources at hand. It’s about providing for our Circles, contributing to anyone in our community who needs it. It’s about creating something that breaks free of the old ways that didn’t work, draws from the deep knowledge of even older ways that did work, and embraces a new way of thinking

Wash your face

I recently made this little comment on a friend’s FB post about grandma wisdoms, and I think it’s useful information for everyone:

One of my Grandmother’s go-tos was “go wash your face”. Which meant run a clean wash cloth under some water and wipe your face. Not because it was dirty, but because it would make you feel better. Water should be hot or cold, depending on the need.

Upset tummy? Go wash your face with a cold cloth.

Long day at work? Go wash your face with a hot cloth, rest your eyes for a minute.

Overheated? Go wash your face with a cold cloth, be sure to wash the back of your neck with it, too.

Trouble sleeping? Go wash your face with a warm cloth.

Headache, cold, flu? Go wash your face with a hot cloth, unless you have a fever then the cloth should be as cold as you can get it.

Ugly crying from heartache? Go wash your face with a hot cloth until it starts to cool, then with a cold cloth until it starts to warm, then eat some ice cream and don’t skimp on the chocolate sauce.