Author: gracesmuggler

A story to serve as an analogy:

Earlier this year, while visiting Durham, North Carolina, I had the chance to stay in a tiny house. Not a small house – a tiny house: a self-contained residential unit of about 300–400 square feet.

And I fell in love with this cozy space.

Yes, it was small. But it was also deeply intentional. Everything had a place. Everything had a purpose. There was a kind of calm built into the space – a quiet coherence you could feel the moment you stepped inside. When you live in a place that small, you can only keep so much. What remains has to matter, whether functionally, aesthetically, or personally. There isn’t room for excess, or for things that don’t belong.

What surprised me most was how much that tiny house stayed with me after I left.

I don’t live in a large house, but it’s much bigger than that space. And still, I found myself thinking: what would it mean if every room in my home felt the way that tiny house felt?

So recently, I’ve been rearranging and reimagining my space. I’ve been more deliberate about what I bring into each room. Photos of people I love. Images from nature that steady me. Fewer things overall, and more intention behind the things that remain.

Here’s where I’m going with this: the feeling I experienced last spring didn’t disappear. It took shape. It transformed the rooms of my house.

And that’s what has stayed with me.

Communities can do that for people too. They can make us feel welcome. They can make us feel at ease. They can offer a sense of belonging that settles into our bodies and stays there long after we’ve left.

If a small, intentional space can reshape how we inhabit our own homes, what might be possible in the communities we build with one another?

What might take form – slowly, unexpectedly – if we created spaces of care and connection so thoughtfully that people carried them into places we could never predict?

—Renee Roederer

My birthday was weeks ago, but last weekend, a small circle of friends threw me the most hilarious birthday party. It was called the Reneesance Ball—i.e. Renaissance, pronounced in the European way that also happens to sound like my name.

Dressing up was optional, and some friends absolutely understood the assignment. There were paper planes, my favorite cocktail, but in the spirit of the era, we renamed them parchment carriages. Commitment matters.

As for me, I dressed as Elizabeth I. She reigned for the same number of years as my new age.

Ta da! Gloriana

But truly, get a silly circle of friends. They’re the best.

—Renee Roederer

I’d like to share a few paragraphs from Rebecca Solnit’s weekly newsletter, Meditations in an Emergency. This comes from her most recent post, “This Cold Winter, Love is a Superpower.”

In the wake of Alex Pretti’s killing, she writes:

Minneapolitans responded differently that evening, with candlelit memorials and songs. Veterans Administration intensive care nurse Alex Pretti’s name, true nature, and death at 37 will not be forgotten.

The powerful nationwide—and beyond—opposition to Trump and his authoritarian power grabs has come as a surprise to him and his gang. They believe devoutly in the power of violence and do not comprehend the power of nonviolence. They understand the power that the state has but do not understand the power that civil society has.

They understand their own motives—greed, a lust for power, an intolerance of difference—and are baffled or uncomprehending about generosity, about the desires for democracy and equality that are about wanting to share rather than hoard power, the tolerance and more than tolerance of difference. Tolerance is such a mediocre word; I recently saw Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi speak about her early days in the House—she entered Congress in 1987—when she would be told, “Oh, you tolerate gay people in San Francisco,” to which she says she would reply, “We don’t tolerate them; we take pride in them.”

On the other hand, “I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is ‘our diversity is our strength,’” said the dumbest and most unqualified Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, last February. Some of us take pride in the diversity of our cities and country; some of us care about people who are supposed to be divided from us by category but can be united with us by care.

For many in the Trump regime it seems incomprehensible—or a scam of sorts—that those not categorically under attack by ICE are so committed to solidarity with their neighbors who are, and thereby to universal human rights, to standing up on principle, and, since ICE’s murder of Renee Good, will risk their lives to do so.

They can’t understand love as a form of power.

Dillon White is an attorney in Minneapolis and a social media content creator under the handle @Dadchats. In this video, he talks about a vulnerable and tender conversation he had with his 7 year old son. I share this for anyone who has moments of missing themselves — alongside or in addition to any of the challenges we are witnessing.

–Photos by Renee Roederer

A memory from my childhood which is still so soothing and fun to watch. Also, I like how he pronounces crayons.

All feelings are valid.

All emotions are worthy of being felt and processed.

Every person — (you!) — gets to be complex, whole, off-kilter, centered, and back and forth.

It’s all worth it. You’re all worth it.

But

And

No person — no leader, no neighbor, no partner, no employer, no crafter-of-things-as-they-currently-are — gets to steal your joy and your wisdom of things-as-they-should-be.

Your things-as-they-could-be.

Your things-as-you-make-them.

—Renee Roederer

On Tuesday, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, delivered a prescient and powerhouse speech at the Davos World Economic Forum, which brought world leaders to an immediate standing ovation. I was deeply moved by what he shared. I also shuddered at its implications, knowing that despite all our national blustering, our weak-and-getting-weaker U.S. fortress may quickly become more isolated and economically squeezed out.

Still, I believe he speaks truth about where we are. And if we want to right the ship at home as best we can, we, too, can take our sign out of the window. We can start building a better world of cooperation.

Prime Minister Carney starts in French. His English remarks start at 1:17.

In an interview with the New York Times, Donald Trump spoke with reporters David Sanger and Katie Rogers for hours. At one point, they discussed Greenland. Here is part of that exchange.

“Why is ownership important here?” Sanger asked.

“Because that’s what I feel is psychologically needed for success,” Trump answered. “I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty. Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base.”

Katie Rogers followed up: “Psychologically important to you or to the United States?”

“Psychologically important for me,” Trump replied. “Now, maybe another president would feel differently, but so far I’ve been right about everything.”

Psychologically important for me.

How bonkers is it that we are on the precipice of global conflict — if not a full-blown world war — and on the edge of serious economic instability — if not a massive trade war or the devaluation of the dollar — because an insecure man who believes himself all-powerful insists that owning Greenland is psychologically important to him?

This is precisely the moment that calls for a Collective No.

A no from Greenland.
A no from Europe.
A no from the U.S. Congress.
A no from world leaders.
A no from the American people.

How can we allow a delusion this inane to generate so much violence, threat, and instability in the world?

It is truly bonkers.

How did we get here? And where else is our Collective No needed?

Of course, there are many answers to the question that people have been asking repeatedly for years, and lots of people have been saying some version of a Collective No for more than a decade. But I’m also asking myself another question, too. Apart from the person currently holding this delusion, how did we invest so much power in a single office that any one individual could credibly put the world in this position?

That also needs our Collective No.

—Renee Roederer

“Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” [1]

This is good advice spoken by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. In its original context, there is wisdom about avoiding oaths we don’t truly intend to keep — promises that overreach what we will actually do.

This is also good wisdom for the days we are living now.

Let your yes be yes, and let your no be no. And perhaps we can add this: let your no-s affirm and empower your best yes-es.

There are times when we have to say no to things that would genuinely be valuable to do. Not because they don’t matter, but because saying yes to them would mean we no longer have the energy, commitment, or capacity to say yes to the things we can do uniquely.

In the era we’re living in, we can’t do it all.

We can stay informed.
We can support people who are involved in areas where we are not able to be as active.
We can send our money in those directions.
We can offer encouragement.
And when we are asked for help, we can respond meaningfully and with care and action.

But there will also be things we simply cannot engage as deeply in because we need to carve out necessary space for the work, the roles, and the commitments we are best positioned to hold. That positioning comes from our talents, our skills, and the communities to whom we are connected.

I am deeply grateful for people who are working in areas where I am not able to be as active. I can support them. Likewise, there are needs and communities to which I can be especially present. I need the support of others as I do that.

So let your yes be yes.
Let your no be no.
And let your no-s affirm and empower your best yes-es.

—Renee Roederer

[1] Matthew 5:37