Notes on Stepping Outside

mother trees, worry warts, and bearing witness

I'm writing this after a week at home with the children. A full week— and like many working parents know— left little space for my brain. I've left my house less these days (these days, not simply the past week, but the past dozen weeks), opting for grocery delivery or store pick-ups and asking my husband to do the honors. Last night, when I had to work, he asked if I should go somewhere else. "You won't want to," he said. "You'll be too cold."

He's right. I have an entire list of reasons I wish were valid for getting out of commitments:

• It is too cold. (Mind you, I'm in Florida.)

• It is raining. (My driving is always impaired, certainly more in inclement weather.)

• I realized I said yes to this, but that was before [fill in the blank] hyperfixation, and I am in a flow.

But I hate flaking on things, so I rarely opt-out. I simply stay in and don't commit. I have an entire ecosystem in my home—cozy blankets and heating pads and cats who must perch themselves on the nest that is my lap. Dogs who must be let out so they don't shit, and laundry and dishes that perpetually must be done. I have no less than 10 workstations at any time, and my days are spent simply alternating between them.

I curse myself as I pour another cup of coffee to try to make the words better. Words that don't end—writing, emails, editing, clients—and outside, a world carries on.

I looked up my third-grade teacher this weekend. She was one of my favorites—except that she called me a "Worry Wart" more often than my own name. (Why can't we pick a cuter alliteration? Worry Worm? Worry Wombat?) The link came up with one obituary—not her. And one Facebook page—a platform I swore off since 2020— her. I clicked on her page, maybe to see if my memory accurately colored in the picture of what she looked like, and I found post after post of reshares of conspiracy theories and vitriolic political jargon.

"Welp, this is why you don't go searching, Lex."

And I retreat back into the little sanctum I've created.

But then I see friends, and we begin to talk, and they casually slip into conversation major events—like death, or divorce, or how they've been sitting in a deep depression and can't get out.

And I wish I had been there. I wish I could have helped them. I wish I could have helped carry some of that pain or been a place they could call to rail against the world and how life can very much be lonely and unfair.

For the past month, the question of what we owe one another has been swirling through my brain. I've turned to books. I've turned to thinkers.

From moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt writes: "Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into teams, it binds us into tribes, and it blinds us to the moral insights of outsiders."

bell hooks wrote that we owe one another love that goes beyond sentiment: active care, commitment to supporting one another's healing, and the hard work of confronting systems of domination. "When we choose to love," she says, "we choose to move against fear—against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect—to find ourselves in the other."

From the Bible, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Every quote can be parsed in a million ways.

"But who is my neighbor?"

"But protection from harm means this harm."

"No, these are the systems of domination."

Nature also has an answer to this question. Through underground networks of mycelium, trees in need can send signals when they are weary or under-resourced. The rooted, nutrient-rich mother trees respond by sharing what they have to spare.

I read about this shortly after the election, and then a friend called. She, who works in women's advocacy, was feeling discouraged. "Oh my gosh. Let me tell you about fungus!" I oozed.

I told her, and she was silent. "You're a mother tree!" I exclaimed.

"That's all fine and good, Lex, but people hate women."

"Women don't hate women!" I shot back without thinking.

And then we half-laughed. Only half, because can we really laugh about that?

And then I stumble upon a quote shared on Instagram, and I sit still as I read James Baldwin's words: "So what can we really do for each other except— just love each other and be each other's witness?"

And so this is my proclamation—a work in progress, like all of us. It will shift and evolve as I learn more, experience more, and understand how little I truly know.

I owe others love— not just the passive kind, but the active witnessing of their lives. I owe them my own healing work, so what I bring to our shared spaces is love rather than harm. I owe them consideration that extends beyond myself— in my daily choices, my vote, my spending, my way of moving through the world. I owe them the kind of empathy that sees and acknowledges their full humanity, that bears witness to their struggles and their triumphs.

And just as a I share this proclamation, I retreat back into my little sanctuary, and scold myself for not stepping outside. Not waving to the neighbors. Not opening my life and myself in the way I wish I did.

And then I meet with a friend who had a rough week, and then I watch the news and see grieving families half a world away. And then I open Instagram, and then I look at my third grade teacher's Facebook. And then I think about half-laughing about people hating women, and then I remember that I am responsible for my own actions, that I have the power to change myself only.

And then I step outside.