To fight we must be strong

I used to think “self-care” was the special bullshit of the Me Decade (and beyond) privileged who wanted to feel less guilty about their spa days. “I need a little Me Time” was code for “I am a self-involved, selfish jerk. Why don’t you just shoulder my burden as well as your own while I go center myself.”

This was back when I was so protected from (and ignorant of) the kind of life that would have called for radical self-care that I could espouse such an attitude.

Now I know better. I know better because I am no longer protected. None of us are. And some of us never were, I realize that. I understand the privilege of that.

And here’s what I also understand:
I understand that to keep fighting we need energy, and to have energy we have to gather it within ourselves, to feed ourselves. I understand that to keep fighting we have to hold onto both our sanity and our optimism, which are eroded every day by the ongoing catastrophes of this place we call our country. And to hold on, we have to dig deep, and we can’t expect others to do that work for us. I understand that to keep fighting we have to keep resilient, to not just “bounce back” but to “bounce forward,” as a psychologist friend recently put it.

So: Self-care.

What to do? A foot massage would be lovely, but not now, so not-now. A long, leisurely coffee date with a good friend would be delightful. But there is no one outside my family who is in my bubble, and I don’t go outside my bubble. Speaking of which…a bubble bath. Sure right after I deep-scrub that tub, which is not, in my book, a good precursor to a self-care experience.

So I go outside. I don’t mean I bike, hike and run. I do all these things, and I believe they help keep me healthy (and dopamine-infused). I mean I sit on the porch and listen to the jays. I crouch in the garden and watch the quail. I kneel beside spider webs and take pictures of them. I try to take cues from my cat.

And, in the spirit of all that, I offer these images. May they help support whatever your version of self-care is.