Chaos, Large and Small

January 10, 2025

Photo by Haneen Krimly on Unsplash

I started out this week to write about routine—how it functions to help us live well, what happens when routine is disrupted, a few charming details of my own routines. That was Monday, when Bobby and I were working on housebreaking the puppy during an all-day snowstorm. Federal offices in the nation’s capital were closed. I have no idea when the U.S. Congress formally certified the presidential election, although I assume it’s been done by now. The National Zoo posted photos of its two new giant panda residents frolicking in the snow.

On Tuesday the storm continued to dump heavy snow, freezing rain, and ice over much of Canada and states throughout the central and eastern U.S., along with bone-numbing cold and blustery winds. Observances in Washington, D.C., began for former President Jimmy Carter.

On Wednesday the state funeral service was held in Washington National Cathedral. In between my dozen or so trips outdoors with Tjikko into the single-digits windchill, I began to hear the news of (by then) three fires spreading in Los Angeles County. The day became surreal.

My daughter lives in Los Angeles. One of her best friends had to evacuate, with her husband and their nine-month-old baby. Rachel picked up their dog and took him to a shelter. Then she packed her valuables and drove to a friend’s home a safe distance away, as her apartment complex lost power and water had to be boiled.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

On Instagram Rachel posts lists of people and places offering help—shelters for people and animals, free items, a video of a young woman demonstrating how to pack for evacuating. Rebecca Scolnick, writing from Beverly Hills, includes a wide-ranging list of shelters, support services, and mutual aid resources in her newsletter today. These lists are not only for the people in Los Angeles, but for all of us who want to help. I encourage you to read and share this newsletter.

My writing this week has gone back and forth between zoom lens, focusing on my personal disrupted routines, and wide lens, as I think of the thousands of people fleeing their homes, many losing their homes and all their possessions, and the deaths. The lens widens more, taking in all the places of devastating fires, earthquakes, floods, and drought. The catastrophic effects of climate change are worldwide and directly affecting more of us every day. And then there are the wars.

I cannot comprehend all the people who lose everything and have to remake from nothing their homes and environments, livelihoods, communities, and families. And so many of those people were living in precarious situations already, with not enough money to really live on, always with anxiety about survival, and then losing whatever grounding and comforting routines they had.

My lens zooms in again and focuses on my tiny routines: take Tjikko out when I arrive home from my barre class (while still wearing all the outer layers), then change clothes, brew coffee and, with luck and the puppy asleep on my bed, actually drink the coffee while journaling and writing a few notes for this newsletter before he awakes. That barre class, by the way, has become a 50-minute respite of routine—physically as hard as ever, but a decision-free time of following the teacher’s directions and feeling the energetic support of my workout companions.

A young puppy is a lot like a toddler, except that potty training a toddler usually doesn’t involve taking the kid out on his well-worn snowy/icy path with the bitter wind blowing unremittingly, every minute, day and night (we’re still going out two or three times in the middle of the night) since at least Monday. Probably longer, but Monday is as far back as I can remember. Tjikko, by the way, seems oblivious to the cold, watching every car in the street and bird in the nearby tree, frolicking in the snow, and chewing every twig and leaf.

My house and life are chaotic right now, but it’s a small, contained chaos. For guidance in self-care and open-hearted service as we face into large, devastating chaos, I recommend What Can One Old Woman Do? by Stephanie Raffelock.

Finally, Diana Butler Bass closes her post Apocalypse Not Yet? with a prayer by Rabbi Paul Kipnes, which ends with this:

Be with us now, these smoke and fire-filled days.

Draw us close to those harmed by these flames, hearing their cries, responding to their needs.

Lead us to support those who fight the fires, who care for the displaced, who bring healing to those suffering.

Though our attention spans seem so short, may we be slow to forget those in danger.

— adapted from a prayer by Rabbi Paul Kipnes