I have a client in the Twin Cities - a mother of two little brown boys. She put copies of their passports in their backpacks, and goes to meetings at their school to hear the plan should heavily-armed, masked men enter.
Ahh, the things we get to plan for. In America. In 2026.
My client draws from a deep well of regulation and calm, so she's doing a good job explaining things to her kids, without terror or sugarcoating.
But she worries if she's doing "enough" to resist the incursion, and to support others in her city who are doing so. I had just read this quote from Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield and it helped me, so I shared it with her.
"Tend to the part of the garden you can touch."
I like that, because it's important our hands stay in the dirt, but we're free of the overwhelm that comes with tending the whole field.
I grieved a lot in 2025.
While I couldn't have guessed what specific horrors this Administration would bring, the general ones were obvious and predictable. Literally, thousands of credible people warned us, again and again, and folks voted for it anyway.
The morning I saw the election results, my dog Newt looked me dead in the eyes and peed on my favorite rug β like an omen.
But when 2026 rolled around, something in me finally shifted. I was done grieving and ready to get up and find my way. My sense was:
"Here's a 100-acre garden, and it is a mess now. What do you want to do with your 10-square feet of it β the part you can touch?"
Turns out, I want to knit.
Not scarves. Social fabric.
In 2023, the US Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic, calling it a health crisis impacting nearly half of American adults - many of them young.
Our fierce love of independence and privacy, the ravages of late-stage capitalism, and convenience culture has morphed our behavior into something our ancestors would not recognize.
As Researcher and Harvard Professor Robert Putnam said in his 2001 book Bowling Alone, Americans have become radically less connected, and itβs weakening democracy itself.
Now that's dirt I can reach.
I'm a retreat host. We've done 14 events over the last nine years and many of those attendees are still very good friends. I love that.
So in early January, I thought, heck with it, and booked a couple of locations. I starting talking to caterers, built sales pages, and oh, reworked my entire website. It's been kind of a lot.
Here's what we're solving for:
- IT IS harder to make and keep friends as an adult.
- People feel shame for being lonely.
- Our culture encourages isolation because it's profitable.
- Many people consider canceling plans "self-care."
- Places where friendship once grew organically, are unattended now.
- Many people work all the time out of habit.
- Many people work all the time to survive.
My Antidote β Friend Camp.
We just opened registration on our first Firelight Adventure of the year. It's a live, all-women, 4-day slumber party with hikes and hottubs, in a sprawling hacienda in Taos, New Mexico.
It's all about friendship and rebuilding your social fabric. If I'm teaching anything at this event, it's this:
How to be, make and keep good local friends
in 21st century America. β€οΈ
We center kindness, belonging and fun at all my events, but this one will be extra. We'll learn by doing, make some durable connections and send you off with a friend-making practice you can bravely replicate at home.
Want more friends? Come practice with us April 10-13 in Taos, New Mexico, you can find all the info here.
Neighborism.
Someone has invented a name to describe the nature of the resistance in Minneapolis. They called it "Neighborism," and I immediately fell in love with the term.
Won't you be my neighbor?
To quote former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
"We are called to build a movement to mend the social fabric of our nation. It will take all of us ... working together to destigmatize loneliness and change our cultural and policy response to it."
I know where my garden is, and I'm well-postioned to tend it. I don't have to be frozen or helpless. I'm not, and you aren't either.
Join us in Taos. All the info is here.
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