My New Tikkun Olam Meditative Exercise

The house I moved into was built in the 1950s and, as an investment rental property, has seen better days. This week, the landlord's contractor son came over to perform some much needed repairs that should have been reported earlier by the previous slew of tenants. He told me I didn't need to patch the literal dozens of holes in the walls of my new bedroom because they were going to have to re-do them anyway. Maybe he found it strange—like he apparently found distasteful the unorganized stacks of stuff we have inside and outside the house—that I demurred and said I'd like to fix the ones I can.

I described the giant bill passed earlier this week to my therapist as feeling catastrophic, akin to 9/11 except much of the country doesn't seem to understand what has happened. Obviously, I am not the only one feeling this way as many people have jumped to action now that millions are going to lose their health insurance and maybe just as many are going to face even more dire states of food insecurity. Or, I don't know. Food insecurity is what we called it when I worked in nonprofit nutrition, but now it seems too clinical and detached. Then there's "Alligator Alcatraz," which contains the exact opposite tone.

And there's nothing I can do about it, says my mother who never tries to do anything about it.

There has to be something we can do about it! says my friends who almost immediately start to make plans.

But I think about last time, just a few months ago somehow, where we all jumped in to do something about it. For my part, I established a local housing advocacy collective, which provided one slapshod educational presentation on the state of housing in my area. And then it fizzled... because even as my friends are unusually motivated, especially for my extremely laid back area, there was no momentum to put into it. Later, I read a post from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, where they advised that in order to make the biggest impact to find pre-existing orgs in your area that already have the process, the resources, the knowledge to which you can add your efforts.

I'm clumsy with social language so I try to tell this to my friends in a way that does not come off well. They admonish me for my privilege. I re-explain. The conversation heals and goes toward more progress. I still feel rejected and triggered.

So I go to my room where people I have never met have left damage. I take my tools and I patch some holes. I fix something that others broke.

Sometimes I think my neurodivergence is a family curse on my dad's side. None of us can eat without getting food on our clothes. We constantly say things with good intent that offend other people and we don't understand why. We accidentally break things a lot, to the point where I now try to avoid purchasing glass drinking vessels.

I wonder now, though, if I can make an art out of what I break. Eventually, I will have patched all the visible holes on my walls. I will need something else to fix.