It’s been a wild week. Most of my Austin team goes without heat and water and power and it’s a long week still. We are not recovering yet. I feel blessed for the infrastructure of the North where it is colder but the lights stay on and we buy generators ahead of time. I spend my time canceling meetings and answer support tickets and wondering why I can feel sick with a sore throat all day when I don’t see anyone to get sick from (maybe that very cold run on Monday had something to do with it . . .).
I think about how it’s the boring things, the things that are easy to ignore and underinvest in, the infrastructure that breaks us the most. So it is with pandemic response and energy grids and so it is with ourselves: sleep, movement, gratitude, laughter. We need systems and layers to catch us when the worst happens. And the worst does happen.
My energy is drained by the time I type my last email, but then I discover the Miraculous Ladybug New York Special on Disney+ and spend a beautiful how laughing and blushing and squealing at a show I can get nobody else to watch but I love. I’ll spend the next hour reading fluffy fanfiction about it. My entertainment comfort food. My laughter, my gratitude, my joy. It’s the little things.
With love,
Natalie