"They may think it's a movement"

The first MTI cap fresh off the needles

Like so many of us, I have been watching - bearing witness - to ordinary citizens being subjected to brutality by their own government. Unlike so many times in history, this isn't happening in some far away country while we sit on our sofas in front our our televisions wallowing in smug satisfaction over our democracy. No. This is our crisis. This is our country falling into ruin before our eyes. 

I live in a "blue" state - I put that in quotes because I think that classification of blue vs red states is a false dichotomy. Yes, our nation is fractured, but it's not so easy to delineate where those fault lines are. And it's certainly not purely geography. 

And while there have been incidents of ICE disappearing people here in Massachusetts, we have not seen  the militarization of our state by swarms of masked armed and booted thugs like Minnesota and Illinois and Oregon and Washington, DC and so many more have. 

I feel powerless against this. What can one person do against an impending avalanche except stand there and wait to be swept away? 

So, I write letters and leave messages for my elected officials. I donate to mutual aid, activist, and charitable organizations in places that need it most. I have invested my time, energy, and money into my small community because the old hippie saying "think globally, act locally" is still true. Still critically important. 

It doesn't feel like enough. 

I'm a 62 year old woman recovering from major surgery. I can't put my body on the line in a protest - at least for now. There are stand outs in many of the little communities near me that I have participated in and will go again. Being around even a small group of people who believe as I do that no one is illegal and constitutional rights are granted to all is energizing. These small gathering aren't going to make ICE leave Minneapolis, but they add to the chorus of voices all over the US saying this isn't right. And that's important.

This week, protest has looked like a lot of red yarn on knitting needles and crochet hooks. I attend a weekly knitting group made up of mostly other post-menopausal ladies with white hair. We are just ordinary women. Making items for our loved ones and ourselves. We bring in our works in progress to ooh and ahh over. I am working on mastering cables. Another woman, toe up socks knitted two at a time, Still another, stranded colorwork. 

We are setting aside those projects and making the "Melt the Ice" red protest hat. 

Does it matter? 

I think it does. I think seeing a handful of woman walking around town wearing tasseled peaked red hats is a symbol. And when each of those women make several more hats (I'm on number 3) and more and more people walk around wearing them? Well, in the immortal words of Arlo Guthrie from 'Alice's Restaurant' well, "they may think it's a movement." 

I understand why there are some criticizing this as merely performative. But for one thing, the pattern has been purchased by thousands and thousands of yarn artists with all the proceeds going to support immigrants in Minnesota. (You can buy the pattern here.)  That's not nothing. Several hundred thousand dollars and going strong. But mostly, here's what I think: We need to show who we are and what we believe. Staying silent in the face of evil is evil. And if one person stops me and asks, "hey, what's with all the red hats," maybe that's a chance to divert the avalanche. 

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Radical Empathy; Fierce Kindness

Gigi - our dog who, like Aloka, brings peace to our hearts

 

The contrast between my internal life and the external world is stark. Painful. It's not as if I don't know what's happening in places like Minneapolis and all the other cities where innocent people are being terrorized by uniformed thugs. It's not as if I don't write my elected officials, make calls, go to local rallies, provide money to mutual aide. It's not as if I don't witness, horrified, as executions are taking place on our streets and we are being lied to at a scale that feels apocalyptic. 

I live in a tiny, rural town on 50+ acres of woodlands. It is a place of profound quiet. The chatter of birdsong and rushing water. The wind through trees. The call of coyotes. On clear nights, the stars are intensely bright. 

It's hard to reconcile that peace with the horror. How can both of those things exist at the same time in the same world? And yet, it has always been so. That is the terrible irony of being human - that we are capable of such beauty and such cruelty. 

During the same weeks as Renee Good and Alex Pretti were murdered, I have been following the journey of a group of Buddhist monks  as they walk from Texas to Washington DC spreading a message of peace. One of the aspects of their walk that has captured my heart is the story of Aloka, the Peace Dog. Aloka was a stray dog in India that began to travel with the monks, adopting them as his charge. The photos of him and the Monks caring for him illustrates some of the best of humanity. There is power in the simplicity of caring. 

I weep for Renee and Alex. For their loved ones. Their friends. The lives they touched. She was a poet. He was an ICU nurse. Decent people trying to make the world around them a better place. Their passion and caring didn't protect them. It makes me want to rage in fury at the unfairness of it all. It makes me afraid. 

I have two sons who are kind and lovely people. The type of people like Renee and Alex. They, too, have spoken out against fascism. They, too, have been to protests. I could see either of them doing what Renee or Alex had done - witnessing and protecting because it is the right thing to do.

Doing the right thing will not save us. 

Empathy and kindness are not shields against bullets.  

And yet.

And yet. 

Without radical empathy, without fierce kindness, we have no humanity. 

I don't want anyone's child or partner or parent or friend in harm's way.  

Doing the right thing will not save us. 

And yet.

And yet.  

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"What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye"

 

 

“What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye”*

Lisa Janice Cohen
January 14, 2026 

The road curves. It leans into hillsides shaped

by the ghosts of trees long since felled to make

way for hardscrabble pastures, stone walls, dour

farmers who believed in progress until the day

it flattened them beneath its broad wheels. Houses

ground to rubble and sticks, moving the dead

expedient. Only the living left to complain.

In the end, we are the ones owned by geography.

What grows is changed by sunlight and soil

until we rarely recognize ourselves outside

of the places we were first planted. We are all

interlopers here. Even those who count lineage

through faded headstones and common names.

I am still new enough to be struck silent by the ice

coated glitter of a bare maple. A white birch

glows against the leaden sky and I want to weep

with the futility of explaining why

you should care about a single ordinary tree

when the world contains forest after forest.

It would be easy to blame the first miner

who carved coal from a seam deep in the earth.

Or the first roustabout who drove a drill

through the ground for oil. But we have always

been remaking the world, deciding this mountain,

this lake, this town means little in our abundance.

Trading our futures for gold as if joy and sorrow

both were fungible assets. The sky spits

rain and snow, unable to decide the season.

I return to the road, now cut through a farm

on the valley floor. Horses in winter coats

graze, incurious about the ribbon that divides

their pasture. None of the beauty that undoes me

is ancient or original. Everywhere, everything

is built on loss. Not far from here, a farmer

discovered a single elm sapling growing

straight and true toward the sun, splitting

the rotted stump of what we were certain

had already died. Maybe the universe

isn’t finished with us yet. I choose to believe

this is a promise, not a threat.

* Title is a quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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Nurturing Creativity: looking ahead to 2026

 

 

 

You are not obligated to complete the work of perfecting the world, but neither are you free to abandon it.

—Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot

 

“…give us the vision to see that the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth, too small for anything but love.”

—William Sloane Coffin, from Memorial Day: A Prayer*

 

When I look back on my creative life in 2025, I am so very proud of this book. Over 6 years in the drafting, revising (and revising), editing, and production. This was the book that almost broke me as a writer. The story that wouldn't let me abandon it, no matter how many times I tried to walk away.

It's a different kind of story than I had written before - still in the realm of speculative fiction (it is a multiverse story, after all), but it's set in the real world of current day Boston, primarily in a makeshift homeless encampment. Not the usual fare of science fiction or fantasy. 

 

I honestly believe it's the best thing I've ever written. And while it was hard to write, and I promised myself the next project I tackled would be lighter and have fewer points of view and storylines, I realized the story arc wasn't complete. So I'm back in this complex world and 2/3 through the sequel. The provisional title is EVERY SKY A STRANGER and my timeline is to have it published by summer of 2026.

 

The landscape is hard for writers now. Especially for ones like me who are indie published. I would love to see this story find a wider readership. If you've enjoyed any of my work, please give this one a try. If you've read it, please leave a review and recommend it to a friend. If you have a book blog and would like a free ebook copy for review, let me know.

 

And not only is the business of writing difficult, but the landscape of creativity is as well. There are some artists who are able to use their creativity as a way to push through the chaos of the world. And there were times in my life when I could use my hyperfocus to write, despite (to spite?) the difficulties I encountered. For me, that led to massive burnout which was another reason LITANY took so long to write. 

 

I am learning how to be kinder to myself, to nurture my creativity rather than see it as something to be consumed. If that means the writing will be slower and more deliberate, I will accept that. Because the alternative is to quench the spark that ignites my stories. 

 

I have to quiet the inner voices of fear that try to convince me if I don't publish more and faster, my work will be irrelevant, neglected, unread. First of all, I write because it's how I navigate and comprehend the world. Second, (here comes my snarky self) who am I to believe I'm owed an audience? That's ego talking. (Yes, yes, I know I spent the first part of this post complaining about a lack of readership. I'm human. I embrace my contradictions.)  And third, (something I know and have to remind myself of over and over) there are seasons of plenty and seasons of lying fallow. This is as true in growing a garden as it is in living a creative life. 

 

My intention going forward is to practice compassion and patience, both for myself and in my community and live according to the principals in the quotes that begin this post. 

 

May 2026 bring creativity, light, and joy to you.

 

*These quotes are the epigraphs that begin LITANY FOR A BROKEN WORLD.

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Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction in multiple drm-free formats. Your privacy will always be respected.