You're upset because it’s upsetting.

"I feel bone weary from carrying around heavy things," Elizabeth Oldfield writes. "I hate that the monsters exist and that they often win. And that some of them live in me."

I wrote this two weeks ago and forgot to post it. Already it feels dated. The world is moving so fast—too fast for slow-moving, sensitive souls. But there are things that need saying. So here it is - and, in it’s own way, it’s right on time.
xxoo
~ Amy

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I started reading Fully Alive last month morning—Elizabeth Oldfield’s reflection on tending to the soul in turbulent times. I was only partway into the introduction when tears filled my eyes.

"I feel bone weary from carrying around heavy things," she writes. "I hate that the monsters exist and that they often win. And that some of them live in me."

Her grief is not just for the world, but for herself—for the innocence she has lost.

"I would like to put the apple back on the tree, please. Because the knowledge of good and evil is just too damn painful."

I carry these heavy things, too. The ache of being a grown woman who sees the pattern and still doesn’t know what to do about it. The grief of witnessing things I thought were permanent—democracy, our precious climate—teeter on the brink of collapse.

I am still vulnerable to marvelous things. The color of this tea in my cup—a translucent red-gold—can transfix me for a full minute. The scent of spring on a breeze. The starlings lifting from the lawn, murmurating across the sunrise.
A new day spreading over the world still causes the cells of my body to sigh,
to reorganize and settle.

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There is a strange dissonance—beauty and heartbreak, golden cups of tea, angels and atrocities.

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It takes me longer now—when I go out walking—to catch myself arriving, released from the stories on the screens I scan all day long. As if born from one world into another—finally here.

Not thinking about who is president or who is addicted to ketamine. Not thinking about national security or The White Lotus or what to make for dinner. Not checking how many people have liked the Note I left on Substack that seems to be going viral.

As those things released me, I found myself thinking about my son, stressed with a new business while still holding a full-time job. Then about my daughter, living a creative life on the edge of her means, trying to make something beautiful and sustainable. And then… that released me too.

I arrived.

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Yesterday, my husband invited me for a walk on the farm across the road. Then he got a phone call, so I went on alone.

I found farmer Megan—tall, skinny, freckle-faced—perched high upon a tractor, driving up and down the planting beds, turning the soil into long furrowed rows. Along the edges, tiny green shoots were sprouting—parsley and weeds and volunteers from last year’s crop.

Three dappled horses circled the corral. A mother cow quietly munched hay while her calf pressed close to her legs. White clouds chased each other across a deep blue sky.

My husband came back out and walked me home. An hour later—thunder and lightning. The sky cracked open and shook the house again and again.

It was invigorating. Everything was alive. Everything around me was real. Not displayed on a screen. Close enough to smell, to hear, to touch. And I was out in it—also alive—and it was touching me, reminding me: you are real too.

As if dropped into this green landscape by an alien ship, I looked around and noticed what was here with me. That’s when I noticed Megan, and the color of her tractor. That’s when I started feeling my feet on the ground. The wind whipping my hair around.

I was being. Experiencing what was happening, where I was, when I was. There was relief, gladness, and a kind of grief—that I had somehow missed so much of it. Where was I when I was NOT here? How does this even happen?

I thought again of Oldfield's quiet question: What kind of person am I becoming? and What part am I playing in the tragicomedy we all find ourselves in?

She quotes Marilynne Robinson:

"I find my own soul interesting company."

So do I. Especially in the age of constant scrolling and swirling catastrophe. She reminds me to sit quietly with the ache, the tension, the not-knowing. To remember that what I’m looking for is never found out there—and certainly not on a screen.

It’s (always) right here. In the quiet of my home. In the awareness of my senses scanning the world: listening, noticing, smelling, and tasting this life.

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My husband wakes up later than I do. By the time he walks into the living room, I’m already deep in writing. Sometimes I don’t notice him right away. Then, a moment later, I remember.

“Oh, hello,” I say. “Good morning. I see that you are in the room where I am.”

I get up and follow him into the kitchen. I make tea. He stirs oatmeal into hot water. We talk as we prepare the meal—as we sit together. He tells me how he slept. What he shouldn’t have eaten last night. I ask him what his day looks like.

And then one of us remembers something from the news. And suddenly—they’re here. The strangers in our kitchen.

We’re talking about politics. Democracy. Corruption. Collapse. And every morning I notice we’ve slipped out of this world into that one.

“Wait,” I say. “I don’t want these strangers in my kitchen this morning.”

Sometimes he pushes back. “I just need to say this one thing.” Sometimes the roles reverse. I’m the one trying to make a point. Trying to be heard. Trying to save the world.

And then… we let it go.
He gets dressed. I return to my writing.

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Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Unsplash

In the movie Being There, Peter Sellers plays Chauncey Gardner, a man raised entirely by television. When he meets someone he doesn’t like, he tries to “click them off” with his remote.

I’ve caught myself doing something similar. Trying to swipe the page of a paperback. Trying to click a word in a magazine. Trying to tap a photo on a printed page.

It bothers me—that I can’t seem to stop checking who has noticed me. That I can’t be in a room without my phone.

I leave the phone in the bathroom at night so I don’t keep checking it. Then, I get up and bring it back to bed… so I can check it.

Still, I’m more aware now. I check what I’m listening to. What I’m watching. What I’m making real.

There is so much more than what we see on our screens. And most of it is good. Most of it is just getting on with its life, with no thought whatsoever about which human is sitting in the White House.

The deer are chomping on the tulips again. The dew is falling on the grass.

Every evening, now that it’s warm, there’s one wasp in the upstairs bathroom. Sitting on the window screen, waiting to be let out. I wonder if it’s the same one, playing a game of hide-and-seek with us.

I know it’s not. We need to find and patch the hole where they’re getting in.

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I could make this a metaphor for intrusion. A symbol of what’s taking up our time. I want to take a bath—but first I must once again negotiate with the threat in the bathroom.

We are upset because it’s upsetting.

It’s upsetting to be alive right now and to witness the cruelty being enacted in the seat of power—in the United States and around the world. You are upset because you feel out of control—and you are. That’s a reasonable response.

So maybe now is the time to remember the tools we’ve been practicing.

The box breath.
The momentary pause.
The remembering of who we are, where we are.

The tools that calm our nervous systems. That remind us what’s real—not what’s on the screen, but what’s here.

Because what’s on the screen right now is an endless, cascading story of civilization driving off a cliff.

And being upset doesn’t change what’s happening.

Also, being upset is meant for local things—an argument about the cap on the toothpaste.

Being upset is meant to move us. To do something. Something useful.

We are designed to help, to care—to clean up the mess in the kitchen. To call a friend. To reach for a hand. To connect.

But in these times, when I get upset, I often find I can’t connect. Sometimes I can’t even move. I can, however, care. And I do. A lot. Which leads to a painful loop: Outrage. Powerlessness. More upsetting news. Paralysis.

I forget. We forget.
I forget what I already know: That angels are real. That beauty is real. That the world is mostly good. It’s just that showing the bad stuff 24/7 gets more clicks.

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This year, I began sharing my new book, chapter by chapter. And I said, right at the beginning:

It may seem strange—even counterintuitive—to talk about angels while the world is burning. But I can think of no better time to discover that angels are real.

And I meant it.

This is a critical fact of the reality we live in: That alongside the mess that man and woman have made, there is a flow of good moving through this planet. The world we witness on TV is only part of the story—mostly the part that we made.

But I was talking about angels.
And how they are part of this world, too.

They speak now through the very devices that distract us. Sending an image, a song - that makes us gasp with recognition. Something bright and beautiful is here, flowing alongside us, meeting us in the mess. They don’t need a cathedral—they find their way in wherever we are. Staring at a screen or walking in the forest.

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I have more to say about this. But right now, I need to go to bed.

As I write, I’m having hot flashes. My body is activated. My thoughts are stirring up energy. This is how I know I need to slow down. Because it is not healthy to live in this kind of activation all the time.

There are angels.
And also—this is the world we’re living in.

Both are true. And the bridge between them is not denial.
It’s presence.

Sometimes that means looking up at the sky. Sometimes it means saying good morning to the person who just walked into the room. Sometimes it means choosing not to let the news in—just yet.

This is not giving up. This is remembering the real world. And that’s where the angels are.