We Can Do Hard Things

And other thoughts about America in this moment.

Hello, dear one, and how are you this morning? I ask myself this question upon waking. The good news is that I’ve slept. Seven, sometimes eight precious hours of much-needed unconsciousness, interrupted often by anxiety dreams. But sleep, thanks to CBD/THC gummies.* Otherwise there’d be no sleeping. We drink little alcohol, but this I need, for now, to remain calm and resilient for whatever is coming our way. According to the latest news, a trade war.

I lie in bed for a few minutes, where I feel safe. The minute I swing one foot out of the coziness, I must prepare for the daily assault. Some mornings I truly wonder if I’m living through the end of the American experiment. I think often about my grandparents and my mother and uncles, who woke up in Vienna in early March of 1938 and still felt safe and cozy in their beds, despite the saber-rattling on the Austrian border with Germany. And then, ten days later, they were not safe. Overnight, they had become citizens of nowhere.

So, these days are becoming a new kind of experiment. Small, controlled doses of news and some meaningful action each day, my small part in a show of collective force against the unconstitutional takeover of our government.

Boycotts can work. The Montgomery bus boycott lasted over a year, a show of fortitude rewarded at last when that city government changed its racist laws. While the strike was on, people who relied on bus service had to find other transport, and these were the very people least likely to own cars. This boycott remains a model for how people who feel powerless can reclaim power. No one in our current regime in the White House cares about people, their real needs, and fears. So, we will have to remind them, especially those of us who have some disposable income and options about where to spend money beyond necessities.

I am fortunate to live in a community where I can buy food from local farms. I haven’t stepped inside a Walmart since last spring and I am done with that company. We shop once a month at a large grocery store for staples. We buy office supplies at Staples. My partner buys construction materials at Lowe’s. Home Despot (as we call it) is on the bad company list.

I thought giving up Amazon would be easy enough. Yes, I’ve bought books and my favorite Scottish oatcakes and watched shows and movies on Amazon Prime. I didn’t think I had an Amazon habit until I closed out my account. That’s when I understood what a lazy ass I’d become. How easy it’s been to queue up whatever I wanted in the moment and then delight in a box showing up the next day. Perhaps humans are hardwired for almost-instant gratification, something so rare in previous times, and now online shopping has made this too easy. Like those Scottish biscuits that I’ll have to order elsewhere. So crunchy, so yummy with a shmear of butter and Clark’s mom’s homemade jam.

The Amazon boycott posts you may have seen flooding Instagram ask for a week of no shopping. But I’ve concluded that it will be easier to quit Amazon cold turkey and never look back. Maybe Jeff Bezos was an okay guy when he was shipping out books from his garage. Then he became a tech-bro and a douche who is proud to be seen with despicable people. I do applaud his ex-wife for her commitment to sharing the fruits of her divorce.

Quitting people is hard. Breakups are a misery and inspiration for a million sad songs. Here’s one: “I Can’t Quit You, Baby.” ** He wants to leave, but he just can’t do it. We’ve all been there, without a song to sing, just the tears.

Breaking up with stuff is a different kind of hard. A bit of retail therapy is a refuge during times of stress, the empty hope that just maybe, money can buy some happiness. Remember Carrie Bradshaw and her many bags of fabulous shoes? I’ve offered myself gifts for a job well done, because I was sad, because something I wanted was on sale, or because an indescribable feeling of want overwhelmed my defenses.

Apart from bad boyfriends, the hardest thing I ever quit was nicotine. I spent a decade quitting. I tried cutting back slowly. I’ll just have this one with a cup of coffee. I’ll just have this one because I’m so stressed about… I’ll just have this one, cuz everyone else at this party is smoking and I love smoking. Every time I tried this approach, it was a fail and I’d be at the bodega the next day, buying a pack. In the end, cold turkey was the only way. It was a misery. Once I was over the worst of withdrawal, I swore I’d never touch another cigarette again. And yet, even now, more than thirty years later, I sometimes (and every day since January 20) get a weird yen for a smoke, even though the aroma of cigarette smoke repels me. It’s not the nicotine I want. It’s a feeling of power that smoking gave me.

From this experience I learned that I can do hard things. And also that doing hard things might save my life.

Now we have to save each other.

Some years ago, I bought a delightful book by the artist Sarah Lazarovich titled, helpfully, A Bunch of Pretty Things I Did Not Buy. It’s a perfect bathroom read for a grim morning when I feel all out of self-control. She writes: “The Internet quickens the pace of shopping. Instead of that magical feeling of happening upon something I’ve long wanted, I feel anxious. The immediacy of the find makes me feel I need to purchase equally swiftly. . . . The act of not shopping, however contrived, has been a willful barricade against the flow of stuff that comes at me.” Amazon has made a fortune capitalizing on the anxiety she describes.

I share her conclusions below. Next week I will join my daughter for a visible mending workshop at a yarn store in Brooklyn where I hope to learn skills that will help me buy less and enjoy what I already have more. And whatever I buy in the future, it won’t come from Amazon.

*All my sympathies to those in weedless states who must rely on alcohol and tranquilizers.

** I can recommend Led Zeppelin’s version of this song, cue up live at Albert Hall. Would have been great if they’d credited Willie Dixon.

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I work privately with memoir writers. You can reach out via my website: juliemetz.com.