Community

Now more than ever

Hey You!

As I was wrapping up my 2025 over on Instagram, I posted that the highlights of my year was spending time with the people I love: our families and friends. And it’s this big social energy, this communal vibe, that I want to continue and increase in 2026.

Let's find a table and break sourdough.

I know I’m not the only one feeling this way or that this isn’t a new insight, but as the world quickly dissolves into chaos, fear, and violence, as America changes from a country I thought I knew into a country I don’t recognize (too bad I didn’t pay more attention in history class, that would have really paid off now), all I want is to hold the people I love closer and save the communities that are hurting - whether from the performative cruelty of those in power, the long lasting impact of climate change and natural disasters, or the economic woes that are very real despite corporations’ quarter reports. When 300,000+ people lose their jobs in one year, that’s not good business, that’s a problem that needs addressing. Lauren Bans does a bang up job writing about the loss of community that happens when the economy struggles due to corporations not giving a fuck post-pandemic and post-election and I highly recommend it. She’s a comedy writer, so you will have a few laughs, I promise. Here’s a guest link to the Vulture post.

Me in a snowstorm in Connecticut. The only noise was me screaming and our nephew laughing.

My heart is fucking broken over ICE murdering poet Renee Good. My heart is fucking broken over Minnesota. Every person I’ve met from there is smart, funny, talented and kind. They are the middle of America. And seeing them under attack feels weirdly personal. It’s one thing to attack the blue/elitist coasts, I understand why the administration misguidedly hates us and believes we’re their enemies, but Minnesota? Are you kidding me? My heart has broken a million times for California, for Portland, for Washington, for New York, for Illinois, and it will keep breaking each time one of our states, no longer united, are under attack from our own government. This administration’s attacks are about cruelty and control, fascism and fiction.

A Texas paper; a California bookstore

And so all of this brings me back to my point, which is to say, my real resolution this year is to defend innocent strangers while guarding my loves, creating community where it’s needed, and nourishing our own established communities, which evolve and shift as people move during all the uncertainties. 2026 will be Community First. People First. That’s it.

And now I’m going to exhale. Okay, much better.

Wide open spaces in Texas. No noise here.

This is a poem I’ve come back to over and over again and I hope Adam’s quiet words brings you hope. TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD was first published after 9/11. I’ve been reading it at least once a year since 2001, when it made its first appearance in the New Yorker. If you can’t read it right now, hit play, shut your eyes, and listen. Invite his words in, they’re accessible and heartfelt. If you want to read along, the poem is posted below the video.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World
By Adam Zagajewski 
Translated BY Clare Cavanag

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.


Copyright Credit: Adam Zagajewski, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" from Without End: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2002 by Adam Zagajewski. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC. http://us.macmillan.com/fsg. All rights reserved.

Love to you, your people, and your communities.

Kayla

And here’s one for the road…

Let’s make some flowers.