Writing Light When the World is Heavy

Making sense of a world of stark contrasts, turning to the Gilmore Girls, and the gift of offering comfort to readers

Despite the trad moms trending on TikTok and the barrage of unsolicited skincare and fashion advice on Instagram, there is a whole stratosphere of difficult, heartwrenching activity happening everywhere. I don’t have to spell it out or name each atrocity for you to understand. The world is heavy on my heart as I imagine it is on yours too.

Between the violence and suffering of innocent people and the incompetency and greed of those in power, there is so much to condemn. But like others, I’m often at a loss for how to hold those dark realities alongside the privilege of my own life. I find myself toggling between the headlines of the NY Times and Instagram reels of white moms selling fantasy lifestyles and I think, “Are we even all living on the same planet?”

I share this, in part, to feed a desire of my own, which is to simply acknowledge what’s going on: The world is heavy and full of unsettling contradictions.

It begs many questions: What’s right? Do we sit in the darkness? Do we take on other people’s pain as our own? Where does our responsibility to the world's pain begin and where does it end?

For a lot of my life, I was porous, empathetic to an extreme, and unable to separate my experiences from others. I’d carry the weight of an emotional book or movie for days. I’d cry if I saw someone sitting alone in the cafeteria. It’s what made me a good teacher and an observant writer. It also led to swift burnout.

As was the case in 2016 with the emotions that consumed me following the election. Outrage and empathy, it seems, are two sides of the same coin. That period opened my eyes to problems I didn’t know existed. It expanded my awareness of my identity. It challenged my notions of “good people” and “good intentions.” But the hours spent nursing a newborn as I doom-scrolled Twitter, reactivating my post-traumatic fight or flight response were not the best use of my time. I’m thinking about it now as I prepare my energy, my creative world, and my heart to navigate future upheaval.

I miss the clan of Stars Hollow. Especially that saucy Michel.

Sometimes finding lightness in a dark world means starting with Netflix. A few months ago, my daughter and I started watching Gilmore Girls from the beginning. I came of age at the same time as Rory Gilmore and I’d forgotten what a different world it was: one without smartphones and the barrage of information and misinformation. Not everything has aged well (no thanks to the undercurrents of homophobia/racism), but man, in a lot of ways, that world felt safer. Smaller. More easily controlled.

That’s how I prefer much of the content I’ve been consuming lately. I’m not interested in TV shows that involve murder and gratuitous violence. Likewise, I don’t want to read about serial killers and child abuse in a book I’m picking up for entertainment. Which is why I’m finding it difficult to write about the heavy things.

Three years ago I began a book project, the first draft of which sits on my desk side-eying me daily. It’s an important story, a really important one, and it’s my attempt at answering the question I posed earlier, Where does our responsibility begin and end?

But I just can’t seem to make myself work on it right now.

Instead, my mind is wandering backward (this could also be a symptom of middle age). To the times when life was simpler, even if it felt just as serious. To that formative period when friends were everything and the adult world was new and first experiences were thrilling and scary and self-defining.

It’s fun to revisit and it’s fun to write about. And as someone who learned to eschew fun (defriend it even) at a relatively young age, I’m working to relearn its value. Fun is not a dirty word. Nor is lightness. Especially at a moment in which both feel elusive.

If, like me, you need permission to embrace the two, let’s remember the facts:

We are in charge of taking care of ourselves. As humans, as creatives, we can only serve others if there’s water in our own well. Navigating a heavy world requires us to be even more tenacious in our self-care. It means being conscientious about what we consume and what we output. Often what we need is what others need as well, which is why…

Comfort is no small gift. When we write to soothe our own souls, we end up soothing others. This is a wonderful moment to remind each other about what’s beautiful in the world: love, friendship, humor. Why wouldn’t we celebrate these crowning achievements of humanity? Why wouldn’t we offer them to others?

I’m currently writing in service to these two beliefs. And also to preserve a world I sure wish I could revisit once in a while: a world in which a girl, her sister, and her best friend can get derailed in the middle of the Australian continent and find themselves in a podunk outback town drinking beer and eating chicken wings at 2AM. A world in which relationships break but become mended over time. A world of inside jokes and late-night secrets and the possibility that a better future awaits us tomorrow.

I, for one, still believe it does.

Current inspiration? Train derailment in the outback, circa 2005. All fun and games until the food car ran dry.

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A Little Comfort Consumption for the Month of March

GOOD MATERIAL by Dolly Alderton: I was lucky to hear Dolly in conversation with Karin Tanabe last week at Sixth & I. They were both brilliant and witty and like Dolly’s previous works, this new book is equal parts heartbreak, laughter, and the absurdity of being human. Is there anything better than laughing out loud while you read, really?

ONE DAY on Netflix: I’m not saying this series isn’t going to emotionally destroy you. (It will). I’m just saying you’re going to laugh a lot along the way and then you’re going to fall in love with two flawed and delightful characters, who you’ll think about long after binge-watching. And then you might start watching it again from the beginning.