Last Thursday night, the pilot of Artemis II, Victor Glover, said, “You look amazing, you look beautiful,” in a video call with ABC News.

He meant the Earth, as seen through a window on the Orion capsule. “No matter where you are from or what you look like, we’re all one people,” he exclaimed.

Glover, the first Black astronaut to make it into deep space, is accompanied by Christina Koch,  Reid Wiseman, and the first Canadian Space Agency astronaut, Jeremy Hansen. A photo circulating last Friday from a NASA video feed showed them literally hanging out, with Ms. Koch’s infectious upside-down grin encouraging all of us to smile back.

These lovely, courageous people offer a sliver of hope for humanity at a time when most of us are holding our breath and waiting for Trump to do whatever Trumpian act of Epic Fury he intends to aim at Iran, complete with F-bombs.

Here’s the thing I wonder, though: If we’re all one people, why the hell is Trump so intent on wiping out an entire civilization?  

I know a lot about the politics and history that led to this war. One of our daughters married an Israeli, and they took refuge in our house for months after the Hamas attack on October 7. They are here again now, having made it out of Israel two hours before the airspace closed in Tel Aviv, when they received warnings from the American embassy about the impending conflict with Iran. Meanwhile, my sister-in-law and her family are supporting a nephew from Iran, whose family is still there.

Last night, I was so worried about the state of the world that I lay wide awake after shutting off my light, panic making my breath come in short gasps. I did all the right things to beat back insomnia: powered down my phone early, read a novel, did some yogic breathing, and opened the window to let in fresh air. When none of that worked, I decided to try reading some nonfiction. (I like to alternate reading fiction and nonfiction on the off chance that it’ll make me smarter.)

Unfortunately, the nonfiction book on my nightstand happens to be The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, a book that delves into the reasons why Earth is losing species at many times the usual rate, and why up to 50% of our planet’s species will be extinct by around 2050.

Did it help me sleep? Nope. If anything, I’d suggest not cracking that cover if you’re keen on hanging onto any shreds of optimism right now about our planet’s future.

I put that book down and went back to reading fiction, this time a fantasy novel with enough plot to hold my attention until it was time to take the dogs on their morning walk. As the dogs and I meandered around the block, I focused on trying to feel lucky that I live in a place where, to date, no missiles have taken out our roads, schools, bridges, buildings, and hospitals. The birds were singing. I saw two cardinals and a nuthatch. Then it started to snow, one of those spring showers where the snowflakes fall like lace doilies on the pavement.

Victor Grover was right: You look beautiful, Planet Earth. Thank you for this morning, whatever happens next.

President Trump took enough time off from threatening Iran with the end of its civilization to call the astronauts and congratulate them. During the call, he asked what it was like for the astronauts to have no communication with Earth when their ship slipped behind the moon, and Glover replied, “It was actually quite nice.”

I bet.

The post Sending Warm Wishes to Artemis II As We Wait for the World to End appeared first on Holly Robinson.

A couple of weeks ago, author Jane Ward and I celebrated the launch of her new novel, Should Have Told You Sooner, at Jabberwocky Bookshop. One of the questions from an audience member was about AI and whether either of us had ever used it.

There has been a lot of hand-wringing speculation lately about the death of reading and the demise of good writing. Who will need caffeine-fueled writers to create content anymore, now that AI can generate prose that fools even the most avid readers into thinking an actual human penned it? In fact, according to a recent quiz in The New York Times, a majority of people prefer the writing samples generated by AI in the style of famous authors like Cormac McCarthy and Carl Sagan.

In September 2025, the AI company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.B to settle the class-action lawsuit brought by authors (including me) whose work was used without permission to train Anthropic’s chatbot. Yet, most writers use AI, just like the rest of us.

I now employ AI tools for everything from brainstorming chapter titles to summarizing entire novels when I’m struggling to write a synopsis. While writing my last book proposal, I also used AI to help me research comparable titles in record time, a chore that used to take many tedious hours. I’ve even used AI to generate a podcast with two AI-generated “hosts” discussing the themes of a novel I’m working on. Among other surprises, the hosts asked decent questions about plot holes that led me to revise the novel. Whether we like it or not, AI has infiltrated our lives to the point where most of us probably wouldn’t work as efficiently without it.

As Jane and I answered questions from the audience at her book launch, the conversation touched on fictional techniques, politics, pets, first love, travel, and even our favorite recipes. Afterward, we browsed Jabberwocky’s impressive shelves to find books other people had recommended and stood around chatting while we waited for Jane to sign books. Reading and talking about books created a community that evening out of a roomful of strangers–something that AI won’t ever be able to do for us.

The post The One Thing AI Can’t Do for Us appeared first on Holly Robinson.

A friend of mine—a more successful writer than I am, one who rakes in the heavy-hitting literary accolades most fiction writers only dream about—surprised me last night when she said, “Sometimes I wonder why I still write books. I should just quit and watch TV at night like everybody else.”

That would certainly be an easier life. There would be no struggle with dialogue that falls flat on the page. No hair-pulling moments over a plot that moves too fast or too slow or not at all.

So why bother writing fiction in 2026, when the number of Americans who read for pleasure has declined by 40%?  

I’ve tried to quit the habit. Here’s what I tell myself: If I don’t write fiction, I would have more time to spend with friends and family, enjoy restaurants and museums, travel, hike with my dogs, take art classes, and yes, watch TV. I could read other people’s novels without worrying about whether I’ll ever publish another thing. My ordinary life—and it’s a good one–would go on just fine.

Nobody asked me to be a writer. Probably nobody asked you, either. Other than a few friends, nobody cares if I quit. Like you, I have other, more useful identities than novelist: parent, ghostwriter, marketing writer. Neighbor, volunteer, sister. So wouldn’t it be sensible to devote 2026 to all of those identities, rather than put on overalls that make me look like an Oompa Loompa and make up shit in my head?

 Yet, I’m itching to drop back into the worlds I’m creating, to find out whether those characters who are living in my head right now are going to do what I think they might, or whether they’ll surprise me. Published or not, the stories we create are portals to other realities, allowing us to step outside our own limited perspectives and experiences to live in different ways. Who wouldn’t want to keep doing that?

In other words, maybe the reason to keep writing fiction in 2026 is the same as it ever was: To find out what happens next and make sense of that ending.

The post Should You Even Bother Writing Fiction in 2026? appeared first on Holly Robinson.

My husband and I recently returned from Spain, where we finished walking El Camino del Norte to celebrate our wedding anniversary. The trail is hundreds of miles long, so we’ve been hiking it in sections. This particular leg started in Ribadeo, a small coastal town in northwestern Spain, so my first task was to figure out how to get there.

The cheapest flights from Boston to Spain are to Barcelona on Level Airlines, so I nabbed one of those, then found a connecting flight to A Coruña, the second-largest city in Galicia, figuring we could find a bus to Ribadeo from there.

Our problems began when the Barcelona flight was delayed due to the weather. I’ve experienced many flight delays, so this wasn’t particularly upsetting, because Barcelona’s airport is one of the few where you can GO OUTSIDE while you’re waiting for a flight, into a walled-off courtyard with a decent café. (The only issue is that this is also where smokers congregate, so you’ll feel like you’re hanging out in a bar in the 1990s.)

When we finally arrived in A Coruña, our luggage didn’t get off the plane with us. We filled out the usual tedious forms with a lovely but harried desk agent, who repeated our cell phone numbers multiple times.

“We will text you when we locate your luggage,” she promised.

We took a cab to the hotel, ate dinner at midnight, then showered and fell into a coma induced by traveling overnight in cheap seats, many hours of waiting in the smoky Barcelona airport, and jet lag.

The next morning, I wrapped a hotel blanket around me and went to sit on the balcony to watch the teal blue sea frill white against the sand, thinking, “None of yesterday matters. We’re lucky to be here.”  

“Did you get a text from the airline?” Dan asked, clearly worried. “Should we call them?”

“Let’s go to breakfast,” I said. “The luggage will come, don’t worry.” Secretly, I suspected the airline wouldn’t bother texting us; the suitcases would simply materialize, because why make more work for yourself by texting? I’ve spent a lot of time in Spain, and that’s not the Spanish way.

Without having to choose which clothes to wear, we were out the door in minutes. After breakfast, we wandered through the winding streets of A Coruña, admiring the architecture while listing various things we wished we’d been clever enough to carry in our backpacks.

Around 1 pm, with still no text from the airline, we headed back to the hotel, where we found our roller bags standing at attention in the lobby like a pair of loyal dogs. “Sus maletas!” the receptionist announced joyfully.

 The trip went smoothly from there, with many days of meditative walking through stone hamlets tucked into gorgeous Galician farmland and forests.  We reached our destination, Santiago de Compostela, and were scheduled to fly out a few days later to Barcelona, then home to Boston. Unfortunately, we arrived at the airport to find that our flight had been cancelled because of severe weather.

“We can get you on another plane from Santiago in three days,” the desk agent said after much clicking and clacking on his computer. He brightened. “But I can give you a meal voucher for lunch.”

By then, we’d been in the Santiago airport for two hours; now we hunkered down in a row of plastic chairs to sit on the phone with Expedia for another hour, until the agent managed to route us from Santiago to Boston with a layover in Madrid. Still a long haul, but better than waiting three days. We checked our luggage through to Boston and arrived at the Madrid airport hotel with only our backpacks—this time carrying what we needed for an overnight. Lesson learned: The joy of travel comes from new adventures, and sometimes those adventures require carrying a toothbrush and a lot of patience, and wrapping yourself in a blanket to enjoy the view.

The post Embracing Lost Luggage and Flight Delays appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Like many in the U.S., my family immigrated here. My great-grandfather left England by ship to work in the woolen mills in Massachusetts. My grandmother, pictured above with my mom and two uncles, came with him. She favored wool skirts and regular cups of tea until she died at age 99.

Like many in this country, too, I attended a university graduation this weekend. I won’t say where or who it was for, because that’s not the point. The point is that it set my hair on fire. Not the graduation itself, but the contrast between that ceremony, with its earnest speakers and hopeful graduates from all over the world, and the news feed on my phone.

That Friday evening, after my husband and I celebrated the graduation with two Latin American students and a recent Chinese graduate, I opened my phone to a news story about ICE agents rounding up a dozen men who were waiting at a gas station for vans to pick them up for roofing jobs. This news headline came on the heels of a story about more than 1800 international students having their student visas revoked, often without warning. Some have been arrested and deported.

Trump made an election promise to initiate “the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” But it looks to me like ICE is mostly targeting people who came here to support themselves and their families by roofing our buildings, preparing our food, cleaning our houses, mowing our lawns, taking care of our sickly grandparents, or studying to become the next generation of professionals.

I am not a divisive person. Nor am I typically politically outspoken. As the daughter of a Navy commander and a mother who wanted nothing more than Trump for President, my extended family includes kneejerk liberals who were Kamala all the way and Evangelical Christians who think JD Vance was doing the right goddamn thing when he made up stories about Haitians eating pets. But what can you do when your hair is on fire except scream?

Would Trump and Vance allow my white British family into the country now to work in the mills? Probably. I mean, look at the refugee resettlement program they suspended, then made an exception for, allowing white South Africans into this country because they’re allegedly facing “genocide.” Hello, people. What about the Congolese and Sudanese who are facing actual genocide? Is there any expedited program for them?

And what about the Afghans who came to this country legally, with protective status because they helped the U.S. military during the war, only to see that protective status rescinded despite their country being governed by the Taliban?

If the tariffs don’t sink the Republicans, their nutty deportation strategies will. Never mind the damage these strategies have already done to our global reputation as a compassionate, inclusive democracy where freedom rings.

With so few legal pathways open, people who immigrate here will be forced to live even more on the margins. Instead of diligently doing the paperwork required to be here legally, paying their social security, or sending their kids to school, immigrants will hide because they’re afraid. It’s already happening.

And those bright, ambitious young people? They’ll choose to study somewhere else, in countries where they won’t have to worry about being deported halfway through their graduate studies or, worse, arrested because they published an opinion that didn’t match the administration’s. Who can blame them for going elsewhere?

But it will be our country’s great loss, economically and morally.

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Recently, I streamed “Showing Up,” a movie starring Michelle Williams as a glum, frumpy sculptor working at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts in Portland. My husband was so bored that he walked out, grumbling, “There’s no plot.”

But I stuck it out. For me, the movie’s shots of Williams’s character painstakingly creating sculptures, along with footage of other artists at the college engaged in painting, throwing pots on a wheel, or just struggling with giant pieces of foam, served as a great reminder of the ordinariness of an artist’s daily life, and of the vast number of hours it takes to complete a project that will likely be unpaid, all while the world keeps throwing obstacles in your way.

The movie hit home because it has been nine years since I published my last novel, leading to uncomfortable remarks from friends and strangers, like, “Are you still writing?”

I am still writing, and joyfully so. But here’s the thing: writing and publishing are two different beasts. Sure, if you self-publish, you can take charge of your own publishing calendar. Some indie authors publish several novels a year, or even several novels each month. There is even chatter online about certain authors using AI tools to help them generate hundreds of novels a year. Good for them if they’ve figured out how to make a living as writers.

For better or worse, I am not one of those writers. My novels have been traditionally published, which means having an agent accept your work and shop it around to find an editor who wants to publish it. This process, as anyone knows who has tried it, is so damn daunting that it’s tempting to lie down and give up. Just querying agents can feel like a full-time job. And the rejections? Let’s not even talk about those.

Or no, let’s talk about them, because rejections in any artistic field are typically more common than acceptances. Since my last published novel, I have researched and written a novel based on the life of a 19^th-century poet, a psychological suspense novel set in San Francisco, and a suspense novel set along El Camino in Spain. None of them sold. My previous agent and I parted ways (amicably), which meant I had to find another agent.

My new agent, whose opinion is gold to me, liked the Spain novel but had suggestions for revisions. Another three months went by at my desk. Finally, the manuscript was ready to submit to my editor. She liked the first half of the novel, but saw problems in the second half, so it was back to my desk for another few months. Then I sent the book to the agent again.

And guess what? He made yet more suggestions, so I’ve revised it again. Now I’m hopeful that the book is ready. But if not, I will return to my desk and chew on it some more. Showing up in art, as in life, is everything. We must be accountable, present, and engaged in our daily lives, earning enough money to pay the mortgage, taking the kids to soccer practice, driving a friend to chemo, or volunteering in our communities. Our lives are made up of these tiny, seemingly inconsequential moments, as are the books we write, the music and paintings we create, and the sweaters we knit. Every time you show up, you are making progress, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

The post How Are You Showing Up? appeared first on Holly Robinson.

My youngest son called yesterday with an apology. “I’m sorry, Mom, but do you mind if I don’t spend Christmas with you?”

He had a valid reason: his girlfriend’s parents are coming to their apartment for Christmas, and she asked him to stay and share the holiday.

“No. I don’t mind at all,” I said. “Of course you should stay.” Then we hung up and I cried.

Why was I so sad? It was stupid. I know I should be ecstatic—and let’s be clear, I am—that my children are fully fledged, with partners, jobs, apartments, and busy lives. But like most of us, holidays are weighed down with an absurd amount of emotional baggage for me. I am a child of divorced parents. My childhood Christmases were fraught with tension. When I got divorced and was a single mom with two kids, then got remarried to a man with two kids of his own, I swore that our family Christmases would always be holidays of joy and abundance.

Our holidays have changed now that everyone is older and partnered. One or more kids have been missing from the Christmas table in past years. Sometimes that’s easier. Like all families, ours is full of Personalities with a capital “P.” There have been rifts, slights, and silences. But this is the first time I’m celebrating Christmas without a single child on the holiday itself, and it feels wrong.

To be fair, it’s partly our fault. For the first time in 30 years of marriage, my husband and I are not hosting Christmas. We are, instead, going to New York to my niece’s place because her parents, my brother and his wife, will be visiting from England. When we first hatched this plan, it was partly because two kids had already announced they would be on the West Coast for the holiday, visiting their in-laws.

So when we got the invitation from my niece, my husband looked at me and said, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be guests, just this once?  No buying a stupidly expensive roast and tree this year!” he added gleefully.

“No beds to change or sheets to wash. I’m not even putting up the lights,” I declared. “And forget wreaths.”

“Yup. Mr. and Mrs. Scrooge, that’s us,” my husband said.

Except then our youngest daughter, who lives abroad and has a two-year-old, was upset that we weren’t having Christmas. We hated disappointing them, so they got on a plane and came here for a Christmas celebration the second week of December. Yup, the whole she-bang: a tree, stockings, presents, a Christmas roast, and a wreath. And you know what? It was lovely, introducing the two-year-old to Santa and stockings, and seeing her face on “Christmas morning.”

Now our oldest daughter might come for an early Christmas, too. It’s a good thing we got the tree and I put those lights up after all. (All these years, I’m the one who wanted lights. I can admit that now.)

I’m adjusting to my new reality. The children will gather with us, and with each other, too—my oldest son and daughter just had an early Christmas dinner together in New York with their spouses—but on their timetable. And, on Christmas Eve, my husband and I will travel alone to New York, and maybe I’ll talk him into walking around Rockefeller Center and Central Park. Or we’ll see the light show at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. It won’t be the postcard-perfect holiday of an entire family gathered under the tree, but I’m discovering that the trick to feeling joyful lies in celebrating the moments we have, not the moments expected.

The post Making New Holiday Traditions When the Old Ones Break appeared first on Holly Robinson.

Nothing is on the oak desk except my humming laptop and notebook. Every window is an art installation with mobiles and colored glass bottles. The house is silent except for the dogs occasionally turning over in their sleep with soft snorts. I’m in heaven.

Thanks to my artist friend Tom, who needed someone to walk his dog today, I have a place to bring my dogs and write outside my house. You’d think I wouldn’t need a writing retreat to put words on the page. My kids are grown and I’m a seasoned writer with many published books. But you would be wrong.

Writing any book takes more head space than most of us have at home. Facing a blank page can spark a flurry of panic brought on by the steady drumbeat of “I’m writing crap.” It’s easy to let people or chores interrupt your concentration. A writing retreat can keep your manuscript moving forward.

There are many writing conferences where you can meet other writers, attend craft classes, and workshop your manuscripts. These serve a purpose. You might network and meet your dream agent, or a mentor might critique your manuscript in a way that lets in some fresh air. But you won’t put many words on the page at these conferences with so much stimulation.

If you’re lucky, you might qualify for one of the “real” writing residencies in a place like Yaddo, MacDowell, or Ragdale. These provide ideal spaces and quiet time for writing, but they’re often tough to get into and require a lengthy stay. And, if you don’t qualify for a scholarship, these residences can be expensive.

Luckily, there’s a solution: Create your own writing retreat. Borrow a friend’s empty house or rent a cheap place off-season (like in a beach town in the dead of winter or a ski area during mud season.)

If you don’t have friends with spare houses and can’t afford a rental, another solution is to join a site like TrustedHousesitters.com. In exchange for taking care of someone else’s pets, you can have a quiet retreat.

 Religious retreats are also an option. One place near me provides inexpensive private retreats to anyone in a contemplative mood; it’s an ensuite bedroom in a rambling house on a reservoir. For a few extra dollars I can take my meals in the cafeteria with the Unitarians and Episcopalians gathered for group retreats.

If none of these options are available, make use of your public library. Most offer tutorial rooms with doors that close, or you can find a quiet study carrel among the stacks of books. I’ve even driven to certain libraries outside of my town because they offer cafes or indoor atriums.

The toughest part of creating a retreat is believing in yourself enough to make it happen. If you make a habit of writing retreats, you’ll write more, guaranteed, because you’ll also start thinking of yourself as a writer.

The post How to Take a Writing Retreat without Breaking the Bank appeared first on Holly Robinson.

I gasped as the car navigated a hairpin turn and confronted new obstacles: a parked Amazon truck, a double-parked Toyota, and a woman pushing a stroller. To complicate matters, we were on such a steep San Francisco hill that I instinctively leaned forward in a misguided effort to keep the car from rolling backward.

“What will Waymo do?” I asked my husband.

“The system is trained to calculate situations like this. Relax.”

Waymo, in case you haven’t visited San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Phoenix lately, is Google’s fully self-driving robotaxi, and on a recent trip to San Francisco, we rode in one every day. To be clear, I’m more accustomed to robots than most people. My husband is a robotics engineer, and so is my son. I’m familiar with robots that do everything from climbing stairs in dog-shaped bodies to growing plants or loading boxes onto conveyor belts. Some have even become part of our family, like the little robot vacuum that committed Hari Kari when it swallowed one of my scarves in the closet.

Still, even for me, riding in a driverless car was a freaky experience. With Waymo, you use your phone to summon it the way you call an Uber or Lyft. When your sparkling white chariot arrives, it’s equipped with a swirly gadget on the roof and other protrusions. These are the lidar, cameras, and sensors that allow the car to “see” objects around it. You can see them, too, as a weird little video game playing out on screens inside the car. The pictures are fairly accurate: if a man is walking a dog on the sidewalk beside your Waymo, there’s a little cartoon man with a dog on a leash. Ditto with kids on skateboards and bikes.

There’s music, too. Entering a Waymo, you’re greeted by name, reminded to fasten your seatbelt, and then you hear space-age elevator music, enhancing that feeling of being caught in a Jetsons cartoon with flying cars. (Those, too, are coming soon.)

The Waymo, as my husband predicted, smoothly navigated the narrow channel between the two vehicles clogging the road and summited the hill with ease. Well done, Waymo.

After a few more rides, I trusted the vehicles not to lose their brakes on steep hills or hit anything, so it took me a while to realize why I still felt uneasy. Just to compare, we also called an Uber while we were in San Francisco. The driver was from Nigeria and we chatted as he drove. He told us about his three daughters: a lawyer, a nurse, and an engineer. “I miss my country, but it was worth coming to the U.S. to educate my girls,” he said.

For someone like my husband, who is fascinated by technology, Waymo was the transportation winner. For me, not so much.

Sure, Waymo cars are electric, and if people take Waymo, they don’t need to bring their cars into the city. The air is cleaner as a result. That’s great. But robotaxis also keep us separate from other people. Do we need to isolate ourselves even more than we do?

Think about it. Many of us no longer work in offices, thanks to remote work options. In the evenings, most of us aren’t out socializing, either, because we’re playing video games or streaming shows. (Okay, a few of us are still reading books.) Instead of walking, we ride around in our private cars or, increasingly, in robotaxis like Waymo. Even if we go to a bar or a diner, we’re apt to be on our phones instead of chatting up the strangers on either side of us. We like being in our safe bubbles.

Safe bubbles take the stress out of life. But the problem with being in a bubble is that you can’t feel the beat of a city. You might argue in favor of avoiding urban decay—I’ll admit that walking in downtown San Francisco can be a hellishly unpleasant experience at times– but, if we avoid seeing the people around us, and I mean all of the people, we’re less inclined to get involved with the humans sharing this planet. It takes all kinds of people to make the world go around. We need to acknowledge, and embrace, this shared humanity if we’re going to work toward making the planet better for everyone.

For me, the best option in any city is still to walk its streets or take public transportation and chat with the people I meet who are willing to lift their heads from their phones. Barring that, I’ll choose a conversation with an Uber driver over a car that drives itself.   

The post Whoa, I’m in a Waymo appeared first on Holly Robinson.

I visited my son and his wife in Brooklyn a few days before the election and went for an early run. The run took me through the projects and down along Broadway, beneath the screeching subway tracks, then to Domino Park, where I ran beneath the Williamsburg Bridge and watched tugboats and commuter ferries gliding through the molten-looking water.

On the other side of the river, the Empire State Building’s iconic silhouette reflected the morning sun, and the Chrysler Building, the queen jewel of Manhattan’s skyline, stood tall and elegant. From the water I looped back through Bushwick, running through Williamsburg’s tree-lined streets past vintage stores, coffee shops, and yoga studios.

Running through a different city is one of my favorite things to do. That day, though, midway through the route, I felt tears streaming down my face as I watched people walking their kids to school, climbing the daunting metal staircase to the overhead train, and sweeping the stoops of their corner stores. I cried when I passed a girl with pink hair smoking a cigarette, a sleeping woman sitting in her shopping cart of worldly belongings, and a pair of men in expensive jackets.

It took me another mile or so before I recognized that I was crying not because I was sad, but because I was so honored to be here, “on the green side of the sod,” as my Uncle Pete used to say. I felt privileged, ecstatic, even, to see the tattooed artist going into his studio, the guys in safety vests stopping at the corner store for their egg sandwiches, and the mom nursing her baby on a park bench. Life was flowing all around me on the streets of Brooklyn, people of all colors and sizes and histories, and I was flowing with it, one more speck of humanity being carried by her own feet, yes, but also by all of the lives around me.

Here’s the thing: whenever people talk about a divided nation, they forget that all of us are in this together. We live and work and raise our children the best we can alongside our neighbors. In Brooklyn, in San Francisco and Chicago, in Dallas and Portland, and every place in between, we are all doing our best to feed and house our families, and to do work that matters or at least a job that pays the rent. We are keeping our cars running and worrying about whether our sports teams will win or not, and maybe planning a special celebration for someone we love.

As the poet Mary Oliver wrote:

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

The world will go on after today’s election, and even if there is chaos in the days to come, and you and I will still belong to it. So go ahead and dare to be hopeful about the future.

The post Running and Crying in Brooklyn appeared first on Holly Robinson.