sharing our gifts.

figuring out what the hell to offer each other.

At the dinner table on Monday night, my kids lingered longer than usual. They wanted answers about what this new president was going to do. They wanted reassurances we couldn’t offer that we live in a place where fires will never burn. They wanted dictionary definitions of ceasefire and immigrant and deportation. They wanted to know if we had any chocolate ice cream for dessert.

It’s hard to know exactly how to process the battery of assaults that the new administration has pummeled us with in the last forty-eight hours, let alone how to discuss them with children. On the subject of climate alone, the executive orders are so damning as to be almost unbelievable. To consider the barrage within the larger context of an already malfunctioning and morally corrupt government spinning out of control on an overheating planet, is to become instantly sick to my stomach.

There’s only so much that I, or any of us, can do personally to change the general course of things, which does absolutely nothing to exempt us from trying. It’s become a cliché to say it, only because it’s true: systemic change, movement building, and communities are formed through the commitment and cooperation of individuals. The more readily we each accept our role in that larger ecosystem, the more resilient that ecosystem can become. So, how does one find their role in tumultuous times? I think one place to start is by considering our gifts. What do each of us have, literally and figuratively, to offer each other?

In the past two weeks, in the wake of the absolute devastation caused by the Los Angeles wildfires, we’ve collectively witnessed incredible examples of community and care. A vast and long-established mutual aid network has risen to visibility across the country, resources have been pooled, goods have been distributed, people have asked for help and received it. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about this phenomenon of disaster spurring our collective impulse to help one another in her book The Serviceberry: “When human survival is threatened, compassionate acts overrule market economies. People give freely to one another, and bonds of ownership disappear when everyone pools their resources of food and labor and blankets in solidarity. When systems of governance and market economies are disrupted, networks of mutual aid arise.”

As it happened in Asheville, and in countless other places before that, in Los Angeles calamity exposed both the incredible necessity of care and our capacity for it. By now most of you reading this have likely also read the stories about tangible gifts that have been offered—food and water and goods—as well as the incredible organization and offering of skills and services. As the climate crisis worsens, and as our own government pledges to do more harm than good, these gifts will be essential. Nurturing our aptitude for giving freely and generously won’t only help in weathering the next climate disaster, but also in combating more broadly the isolation and despair this administration seems driven to accelerate. As we enter what feels like a bottomlessly dark chapter, Kimmerer’s guidance has offered me some comfort this week: “We know how to do this—and what’s more, we crave doing it, feeling more alive with every gift exchange.”

Still, there’s some evidence that we’re out of practice. Distance from circular systems of care and reciprocity can make us ill-equipped to offer gifts meaningfully, even in times of crisis. In Los Angeles and Asheville, I’ve also seen photographs and descriptions of donation sites inundated with trash. Gifts of broken home goods, soiled clothing, and inedible food aren’t only unhelpful, they’re active hindrances to getting folks what they need. Unprecedented access to cheap goods hasn't made us more generous, it’s isolated us from a real understanding of value and need and each other. Donations culled from the excesses of rampant accumulation are less gifts than they are burdens, offering greater relief to the givers than the recipients. In the piles of useless clothing and goods we see plainly how accumulation without gratitude leads to disposal instead of gift giving; those with lots jettisoning their unwanted goods without considering the needs or dignity of those with nothing. “Economies,” Kimmerer writes, “have grown so large and impersonal that they extinguish rather than nurture community well-being.” So, in the shadow of faceless corporations and cowardly, impersonal systems of governance, our task is to be almost unbearably human. We’ll survive by knowing our neighbors, offering to them what we’re able and accepting their help in return.

What would you take with you if your house was on fire? If we’re lucky, it’s a hypothetical question. (For too many it’s been anything but.) As a philosophical question more than a practical one, it probes at our connection to the material items we value most much more than it questions our disaster preparedness. It’s also a question that centers ownership and the individual. What if instead we asked each other, “What would you offer to someone whose house burned down?” What if we so valued reciprocity and community that when conjuring worst-case scenarios we reflexively thought of others first? What if when we saw our neighbor who needed socks, we consistently reached for our warmest pair?

As I plumb myself for what I can offer, I take comfort in knowing that I don’t need to invent new skills or services, I only need to know how to put those that I have to good use. I don’t have to give more than I’m able, but when I do give, I need to do so in the spirit of reciprocity, knowing that if I give generously, I will be given generously in return. It’s an old, old story, isn’t it? The root systems we’re working with are wide and deep and long. No one needs to start fresh, only to tap into existing networks of care. Still, it might take flexing muscles that are currently atrophied. It might take practice and persistence and probably messing up. In my case, I’m afraid, it will mean writing insufferably earnest essays. I’m not sure that’s really a gift, but it is one thing I have to offer.

Sending courage.

Action Items:

In case you’re curious about physical gifts, and responsible clothing recycling in particular, one quick action that I’ll repeat is sponsoring a Suay It Forward Textile Recycling Bag. The cost is $20 for a 20 lb bag and they’re currently working on the ground in LA to recycle unusable clothing and to keep donation centers operating smoothly.