We’re Not Okay, and We’re Not Alone

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m living in a bad dystopian movie… but not in the middle of the action. More like I’m just an extra in the “calm before the storm” scene, where everything feels oddly normal, but something ominous is building in the background. Like the writers skipped ahead six months, and we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And yes, I know there are very real places where things are already terrible. The headlines are overwhelming, and the language being used in some parts of society is terrifying. But here in my day-to-day life, things are… weirdly okay. On the surface, everything seems fine, but there’s this deep undercurrent of dread I can’t quite shake.

It reminds me of that feeling when someone you love dies, and you walk outside and the world is still turning, people are grocery shopping, jogging, laughing. You want to scream, “Don’t you know everything just changed?”

That’s what this moment feels like: like we are not okay, even if things look normal on the outside.

When I reached out on social media recently to share how I was feeling, I heard from so many of you who said: Same.
Public comments, private messages, even a middle-of-the-night text from someone I hadn’t heard from in a long time. (It’s okay, I use Do Not Disturb.) That message surprised me when I saw it the next morning, but it also touched me deeply.

We really, truly need each other right now.

I’ve started meeting with people one or two at a time, just talking, listening, trying to figure out what our next steps might be. There’s this shared longing for hope and healing in community. And while that’s always been true (we’re wired for connection), when the world gets dark, we feel that need even more urgently.

In the midst of this, I’ve felt a strong pull to gather people together in some way. (I know, right? Like I’ve got extra time for that…) But I’m not talking about politics, as important as that is. I’m talking about something gentler, deeper. Something like group art therapy… or guided creative practice that helps us process what we’re living through.

On one of my weekly walking dates with my dear artist friend Angela, she started sharing some “rattly” thoughts she’d been holding. As she spoke, it hit me: the things she was feeling were deeply connected to the same undercurrent I’ve been sensing. Angela is an incredible artist and teacher with a gift for helping people process through creativity, this is her wheelhouse. And I’m so excited to see where this might lead.

That day we walked for nearly three hours, which gave us space to start dreaming. It’s still early—just the beginning of an idea—but something is forming. I’ll share more when we have the details worked out. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’ve got a couple of art receptions coming up:
🖼️ Thursday, July 17 at the General Gomez Arts Center in Auburn
🖼️ Saturday, July 19 at Blue Line Arts in Roseville

If you’re local, come find me. Let’s start practicing hope and healing in community, even before we have all the answers.

As cliché as it sounds, it’s true:
We really do need each other.

P.S. I just re-read A Wrinkle in Time, and wow—it’s exactly about this. If you haven’t read it in a while, give it another look. That’s your homework. Then let’s talk about how it might shape our next steps forward.