Mind the Gap

A Pause for Breath in Search of Elusive Peace When the World Is on Fire

The common joke goes like this: “This week has been a long year.” Or some iteration of that. It became common in 2020, when a pandemic swept the world and changed us in ways we’re still unpacking. If the pandemic wasn’t enough of a threat in 2020, we were also under the guidance of an incompetent president who mused that light could just “kill it,” or even worse, “maybe a disinfectant injection could kill it.”

The journey from 2020 to 2026 has apparently taught us nothing, because here we are again under the leadership of the same incompetent president who has convinced too many Christians that he’s out here doing their lord’s work.

If there was ever a testament to the power of Christian patriarchal indoctrination, it is this: the unwavering belief that Donald Trump is somehow ordained by God to usher in the return of Jesus.

I could get distracted by explaining this indoctrination, but at this point it’s been said, repeated, then repeated again. But it is part of the important path that informs my writings each day and points me to the places where the understory of Christian patriarchy is behind everything happening in our country right now.

That is where my mind goes in the mornings. More often than not, upon awakening, I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, and wondering how this will all end. “This” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. “This” holds our slow spiral into fascism. I watch words float across the ceiling that describe this slow spiral:

-The normalization of language that once would have shocked us, words like “enemy,” “vermin,” “infestation,” “treasonous,” “radical left lunatics.” Now said plainly, proudly, and repeated often enough that they start to feel like background noise.
-Courts reshaped in ways that will echo for decades.
-The steady erosion of voting access.
-Environmental protections eroded, as if the earth is expendable and not the very thing sustaining us.
-Climate science sidelined.
-Food safety protections weakened.
-Healthcare decisions that deny access to care for the most vulnerable among us.
-The deliberate targeting of transgender people.
-The annihilation of women’s rights to the joy of those screaming “your body/my choice!”
-Books removed, curricula rewritten, history rewritten.
-Protest reframed as threat, dissent recast as danger.
-Immigration policies rooted in bigotry and families separated.
-Government agencies hollowed out.
-The disintegration of church and state separation to prioritize Christian Nationalism as the only authorized voice to speak on behalf of all faith traditions.
-The normalization of cruelty.
-The constant redirection, one crisis layered on top of another, so that attention fractures and nothing is held long enough to fully reckon with.

And underneath it all, the quiet questions that keep returning: how much has already shifted without us noticing, and how much more will shift while we are too exhausted to see it?

Those words threaten to overwhelm and exhaust me. I sense the spiral getting tighter. We’re moving faster toward its ultimate end—fascism in its purest form with a healthy blend of kleptocracy and authoritarianism. I am neither a history or sociology expert, but those are the labels that I keep hearing from those who are.

Regardless, I know a dying democracy when I see one—and we are it.

Taking a deep, concentrated breath, filling my lungs and expanding my belly upward, I set intentions for the day ahead to do my part to ensure this democracy remains on life support. With each of us doing our part, I still have hope. Label me insane for believing that good can prevail, and I’ll respond that if hope means I’m crazy, then I’ll wear the label proudly—honorably even.

Then I make the mental checklist for the day:

✓ Support Black educators & learn from them
✓ Read the news, listen to news stories
✓ Find the relevancy in those for deconstructing Christians
✓ Write my next blog on sacred activism
✓ Record & edit the accompanying video
✓ Answer emails, comments, block the trolls
✓ Research local & statewide movements
✓ lather - rinse - repeat

I take this work seriously. If I’m not writing, there are words dancing in my head, asking to be organized into some kind of cohesiveness that would make sense to you, dear reader. There are so many words that they often elude me before I even make it to the computer to capture the idea. I think of something Robert Plant said years ago, and it has always stuck with me. Paraphrasing his words when asked about his prolificity to write songs, he said that it was a matter of which songs were the loudest in his head, asking to be written. Even before I knew I had a passion for writing, Plant’s words struck me as the words of a genius. I would never put my work on the level of Robert Plant, but something can be said for the creative mind when the faucet is turned on, and words dance in one’s mind.

A Pause for Breath – Minding the Gap

Still, the one thing I seek—time to research and write—can be the very thing that contributes to my instability. I sit too long, my legs stiffen and my back aches. I open too many tabs (65 as of this morning, and yes, I counted them) and go down so many rabbit holes that I forget what I was researching. My dog sleeps beside me, waiting for the walk that may or may not come if I keep opening tabs and finding more to discover. I forget to drink water. And while I’m being honest and vulnerable, in the height of a personal crisis, I embarrassingly forgot to even eat.

I have, for way too many days, months, years even, allowed the urgency of the moment within a dying democracy to jeopardize my well-being. That is until the gentle reminders from my daughter, saying, “It’s time, Koko,” an oft-used family phrase in honor of a stubborn beagle mix that we had to repeatedly command “It’s time, Koko!” before she finally released the sandwich she stole, the cake she swiped off the counter or would pretend she didn’t hear when it was time to go into her crate.

God, I miss that dog, and my daughter was right. It is time to make intentional movements toward well-being and a peace that sometimes feels within my reach then other times feels impossible.

Which is why I called this writing “Mind the Gap,” a well-known phrase to warn passengers of the London Underground about the space between the train and platform. The sign itself has evolved into a cultural symbol. Metaphorically, it’s a quiet warning to stay alert to what isn’t immediately visible—the subtle risks, the overlooked dangers, the places where we could easily misstep if we’re not paying attention.

Those words, “Mind the Gap,” are what I hear when I finally stand after sitting for too long and my body stiffens. I hear them when I set eyes on my water bottle across the room, untouched for hours as I typed furiously on a well-worn keyboard. They come to me in the middle of the words dancing in my head, asking to be written. For whatever reason, after a trip to London years ago where I repeatedly minded the gap, “Mind the Gap” stays with me and calls to me when something is off and needs attention.

If you thought this was going to be a “5 ways to find inner peace” writing, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Not that there is anything wrong with succinct, easy-to-follow directions on life skills, it just isn’t me. My thoughts are messy, layered and sporadic, pulling me in many ways, and I refuse to be labeled as flawed because of it. This magnificent brain has gifted me with sentences that astonish even me.

And here’s the thing that astounds me the most about the elusivity of peace…

The very thing that frightens me is empowering me.

What do I mean?

For similar reasons that I knew that in 2015 that Trump would indeed be elected President, I knew after the election in 2024 that things were going to get very bad in America. I had family and friends literally laugh at me when I said Trump would win in 2015, then I had followers mock me in 2024 when I said “Prepare for what is coming.” Now, with global supply chains falling apart, gas prices high and inflation increasing, I am not the only one realizing that we are at risk of seeing massive waves of food shortages and supply disruptions that our country has never experienced.

That foreshadowing of the impending crisis has resulted in my becoming an accidental homesteader—just not that kind of homesteader. If you spend any time on homesteading TikTok, you know what I mean: the vaccine denying, immigrants are to blame for everything, democrats are evil types of homesteaders. I even cringe at the label “homesteader,” because it’s just a garden, and chickens, and canning/freezing, and water storage….

Okay, I’m a homesteader.

But as it turns out, it’s a return to my childhood, when my grandfather was a dairy farmer, and my grandmother’s garden fed us. It harkens back to a time when milk sat in buckets* in the fridge, and fresh eggs were in a bowl on the kitchen table. Memories of the countless mud-pies I made while the adults toiled in the fields come flooding back as I kneel to plant the potatoes, broccoli and cabbage.

By tending to the needs of things growing, I’m tending to something needing healed inside of me.

By turning off yet another political podcast and listening to the birds as I walk my dog, I accept their melody as music to my soul.

By cutting the peonies and placing them in vases, I’m reminded that creation invites us to pause and wonder at its beauty.

By lifting weights, I’m reminding my body that it is still strong and capable of incredible things.

By stretching my body, I have no choice but to breathe into the poses and repeat the mantra asking to be said, reminding me to “be still and know that, even if it is just for a moment, that all is well.”

By taking my tea and making my way to my bench on the porch to watch the birds frolic in the fountain, I’m reminded that I am worthy of rest.

By pausing to look upward and giving thanks to something that is beyond my understanding I’m reminded that goodness, kindness, compassion and empathy are the way to a more just and equitable humanity.

That is all, Beautiful Soul.

This is all I have to offer you for today.
I’ll close with this.
Remembering to mind the gap and stepping away from the fire, even if it is just long enough to tend to the seedlings…

my thoughts are clearer
the words still dance in my head but they dance more freely
my breath is smoother
my mind is calmer

I don’t know what tomorrow brings for me, you, or the world.
But I do know that collective resistance will arise from those who believe we are worth saving.
Mind the gap.
Step over the chaos, and return to self in whatever way that is healing and meaningful for you.

May it be so.

*do NOT drink raw milk.

Resource:

Robert Plant said he hasn’t been writing new music because ‘the world is in such a mess’