This Week: Describing the Solution
Have I unlocked a new level of parenting? Of course not, but it was still an interesting week.
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Dear friends and family,
Sometime last week, I got tired of Big Kid’s whining. I mean, I’d always been tired of it, but in this moment I was just done. He was asking me to do something for him (pick up a toy? move a doll? I honestly cannot remember) and kept saying the problem over and over, in an increasingly whiny voice. “It’s stuck, Mama,” he was whining (or something like that), growing louder with each repetition, “It’s STUCK!”
I snapped. “I see it’s stuck. What do you think we should do about it?” I asked, hands full of dishes and wipes and Baby. “It’s STUCK!” he yelled, “I can’t GET IT.”
“I see that, baby,” said I, “but you’re still telling me the problem. What’s the solution? How do you fix it? Describe the solution to me. With words”
Huh. He stopped yelling, maybe because I surprised him. Or maybe just to take a breath. Either way, he stopped and looked. “Oh! I need to move this!” exclaimed an elated Big Kid, “solving the problem himself. Within seconds, he’d forgotten the whole exchange.
Sweet Lord, I thought, have I unlocked a secret level of parenting wherein I don’t have to solve every damn thing myself? I felt like a genius.
Friends, I was not a genius. There are no secret levels to parenthood; if something worked one day it will not reliably work the next day. Still, it was a helpful reframing, and I have used it since, with mixed results. Sometimes Big Kid is not in the headspace to imagine and describe a solution — too tired, or hangry, or overstimulated, or whatever — but sometimes he gets this big, goofy grin on his face as he figures out how to solve his problem. I initially offered this new avenue as a way of saving me trouble, but I think what I inadvertently did was give him more independence and agency. So, that’s cool.
As I asked Big Kid to describe the solution over and over again this week, I thought about how powerful it is to say the answer to a problem out loud. Truthfully, I think this has been as useful a reframing to me as it has been to the kiddo. I mean, I have plenty of problems I need to solve. Almost all of them seem impossible or unmanageable. I am constantly overwhelmed by the idea of the future and all the uncertainty it holds.
For the last few days, my wife and I have been trying to describe our own solutions. In words. Detailed words. And, I should say, this is not a magic cure-all woo-woo manifesting thing. The other day, Big Kid got frustrated he didn’t have long enough hair to head-bang like his favorite metal drummer and I asked him to describe the solution. He looked at me and said, incredulous, “I have to keep growing it. But I want it now!”
It’s not uncommon to hear folks recommend imagining a resolution, or dreaming a future, or something like that. I want to suggest that taking things out of realm of fantasy is much more powerful. Sure, if you can dream it you can achieve it, but if you actually say the words it almost conjures the path into existence.
Something about saying things out loud makes them real, you know? Sometimes it feels like I’m in a dark room, fumbling for the door to whatever will make all this easier. I know the door is there — it’s not a matter of having enough faith — I just can’t find the damn handle.
As I write this, the hot mess that is the world itself is on my mind as well. You know what scares me these days? The despair. Maybe it’s because I’m basically a geriatric Millennial1, and our generation is known for our anxiety memes and hopelessness, but I don’t hear a lot of solution-minded folks around me. And I mean no judgement with this statement— I, too, am more cynical, more hopeless than I thought I’d be in adulthood.
Is growing up about becoming jaded? Because this week the news cycle was grim. I listen to the news every morning as I make breakfast, and oof every morning was a gut-punch.
Just a few highlights:
A boat carrying 800 migrants capsized in Grecian waters; 500 people are missing, at least 82 people are dead, and everyone else, I think we can say without too much doubt, is not doing well. The Greek Coast Guard didn’t help (in fact, may have hindered the situation,), possibly because they were hoping the boat would float into Italy’s waters and become the Italians’ problem, per reporting by The New York Times.
In Israel, our extremist government saw fit to loosen what restrictions there were on building settlements in the West Bank2, which emboldened far-right Israeli extremists to quite literally burn Palestinian villages to the ground every night this week. Hundreds of people took part in these violent rampages (Israeli newspaper Haaretz called it a “storm of violence” and warned the West Bank may descend into anarchy), but only three people were arrested. Palestinian extremists responded to the news of expanded settlements by killing four Israeli civilians in the settlement of Eli; only one attacker was detained (and not by Palestinian authorities, who have not made moves to curb extremist violence). Egypt’s government responded to Israeli desecration of a mosque and ripping up of a Quran by saying it had “uproot[ed] any chance of coexistence.”
Over in Ukraine, of course, the war rages on. Last week, Russia destroyed a key dam, causing a catastrophic flood and creating what AP News called a “long-term environmental catastrophe affecting drinking water, food supplies and ecosystems reaching into the Black Sea.” Meanwhile, as I write these words, a mercenary militia in Russia is staging what is definitely not a coup3 because they promised it wasn’t, which we should all feel super secure about because Putin is known for levelheadedness and being reasonable. I’m sure nothing bad will come of this.
Oh, and five billionaires spent a quarter of a million dollars each to sink to the bottom of the ocean in a questionable tank with no navigation system, while nearly 600,000 Americans are unhoused, and 44 million people worldwide now live in poverty.
Woof. Things are objectively bad, folks.
Do you feel despair? ‘Cause I do. I don’t know, friends, it seems like we humans have well and truly messed things up. Is there a way out of this mess that doesn’t include mass destruction?
I have no answers to offer you. I have tried to describe the solution, but I find myself at a loss for words. I do not like this kind of chaos.
In fact, to suggest that describing the solution could be helpful seems almost too naive to type. People are dying, Mikhal, what the heck are you talking about?, I think, dismissing the idea of talking it out as ridiculous, inane even.
But maybe, as Occam once famously declared, keeping it simple is actually a good idea.
I mean, truly, what else can we do except describe what needs to be done and go do it? Isn’t that what activists and world-changers start with — an idea, crazy as all get-out, but describable and detailed? Is it not by describing our varied solutions to one another, discovering how the diverge (often wildly!) and actually listening to one another, as painful as it may be, that we find new meaning and possibilities?
I’m grasping at straws for hope for the world. I have to; I have kids. I brought them here, and now I’ll be damned before I let them live in this kind of shitty chaos.
As I was organizing the house this evening, I listened to my favorite comfort podcast, A Way With Words. One of the hosts, the incomparable Martha Barnette, quoted a letter written by E.B White in 1973. I’d begun writing this newsletter this afternoon, but couldn’t figure out how to end it. Martha, through E.B., gave me this:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
And I’ll leave you with that.
Love you very much. Please tell me how you’re finding hope these days, either by email or in the comments below.
Shabbat shalom,
Mikhal
What I’m Reading
There are some books I return to periodically, just to revel in how beautiful the writing is or because I’ve missed the characters. Annie Dillard’s staggering 1974 masterwork Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is one of these and it’s what I’ve been reading this week. Every sentence is perfect, every word exactly as it should be. I have no idea how anyone could write so spectacular a manuscript but I’m grateful Dillard did.
What I’m Listening To
Well, my comfort podcast. And the news. But what I want to recommend is this episode of Maintenance Phase by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbes that debunks everything you thought you knew about sugar, Down by the Water by Abigail Lapell, and my wife’s new single Shapeshifting.
What I’m Writing
This! And a lot of fun interviews with interesting folks for the Chaos Palace. I spoke with vocalist, librettist, and actor Patty Roache about queer opera, with artist, activist, and designer Mars Wright about trans rights, queer spirituality, and why trans joy is resistance. And I started a Chaotic Convo about why body hair is a mindfuck — tell me your thoughts!
a term I’m not okay with.
for a history of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and an explanation on why building settlements is problematic, this article by the Israeli NGO Ir Amim is one helpful source as well as this one by the Israel Policy Forum.
Just kidding, it definitely is a coup. We just don’t know if it’s a successful one yet.