How to still have a full and meaningful life during an apocalypse.

Is arts and crafts the answer?

I’m certain that we are at the precipice of the end of the world.

The first time I knew I would live through the end of the world was 2002 or 2003. I remember sitting out on top of the rainwater catchment tank at my alternative middle school in the middle of the high desert in Arroyo Hondo and doing the math. At that time I was pretty sure the end would be the year 2020. I can’t recall exactly where or what I heard…but I think it had to do with the Mayan Calendar ending in the year 2020. In hindsight, being a 10 year old in a town full of conspiracy theorists who hated Bush and believed in aliens and ghosts (I still do!!) when 9/11 happened probably prepped me to buy in to the end of the world. We were basically as far away from New York City as one could get - on the outskirts of Taos, New Mexico - but I was stunned. I couldn’t stop imagining my little country day school turned into rubble. I imagine all American children felt this way?

Back on the rainwater catchment tank: staring up at the calm blue sky I did the math and decided that it would be okay if I only lived to 29. And then I forgot about it for the most part.

But then, 2020! In lockdown, at 29 I hunkered up in a beautiful house with a beautiful lawn with my grandparents and my two little dogs. I swam in their pool every night under the stars and walked along the cold beach alone. And I remembered that this was actually the end of the calendar. We were entering un-calendared territory. And ever since 2020, I’ve been acutely aware that none of this is life as usual. Things happen and they change the world forever. And the things that are happening right now are NOT on the calendar.

At 32, I am soooo not okay with the world ending. Actually, I’d like it to continue on very calmly and normally. Whatever that means. I want to live well into old age! I want to see nature in every season, over and over and over. I want to look forward every spring for the first flowers to pop up, I want to watch the leaves change, I want to wear a little sweater in the fall, and bundle up in winter. I want to greet the rain with joy for my plants who are thirsty, not fear that everything I know will be washed away in an atmospheric river. I want to put my feet on solid land, and settle into a home. I want to be a mother, and teach my baby about growing plants, and about the magic of the seasons. I want to pass along my family traditions. Sing songs. Laugh. And cry.

Sitting in Los Angeles in October with my AC on full blast scrolling through Threads of people desperately trying to figure out how to protect their cats in the SECOND record-breaking hurricane that’s headed their way…on the one year anniversary of bombs dropping on civilians and their homes. Bombs and hurricanes laying absolute waste to people’s lives, city infrastructure, everything. Dread. Useless dread.

I have no doubt that it’s coming for me too, eventually. I just didn’t know that I would be sitting in my air conditioned house, on my comfortable couch, with my three cats and my old dog waiting for it. I didn’t know how much the end of the world would be business as usual. And how long I’d have to mourn it in advance.

I want to tell myself I’m just being extra anxious cause I’m stuck at home these days. That I’m hormonal. That I just need to stop reading The Threads. I want to believe my grandparents who are oddly optimistic about it all. I want to believe that in their 80’s they’ve lived through many periods of uncertainty and tragedy and discontent that ushered in peace and security and progress. I want to be soothed by my partner when he says that we’re just not meant to have this much information rattling around in our brains, and actually things have always been like this.

Things have always been like this?

I’m sitting here cutting black craft paper with scissors that are way too big for the task into the shape of a bat.

I’m trying to thrift halloween decor because I am really into decorating my house for the seasons now that the weather isn’t doing it for me. I’m trying to daydream about getting out the halloween trunk with my future baby, but the thrift stores are just full of garbage.

Speaking of garbage, last week on trash collection day some guys came around and loaded all of our bins into the back of a truck and drove off. When I got home there were bigger, newer bins with a different company logo in their place. I finally got a new recycling bin after mine was stolen sometime last year. I even got a compost bin! But by the time I got out there to wheel them up the driveway the lids were soft and floppy in the heat…

I’m watching Monk, which is my current comfort show, while I draw the storm outside a window on my iPad with a stupid little plastic stylus.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my chair floating away from me and out the window into the storm I was just drawing.

The birds are singing outside. I have new roses in my garden. My cat is playing with her favorite toy. And I’m listening to a woman on the radio whose voice is shaking. She just opened her business less than a year ago in Asheville. She put her life’s saving into it. They didn’t get flood insurance because it cost $12,000 a year and based on the area’s historical weather data, there was less than a 1% chance they’d be hit by a flood.*

*See: “Is Asheville No Longer a “Climate Haven”? The Journal, October 7th, 2024

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I’m so angry. I’m so angry that nobody is doing anything! In fact, it feels like they (the powers that be: businesses, governments) are accelerating our demise and trying to wring out every single dime they can in the process. I’m enraged that I am paying for this “war” while I drive by people who have nowhere to live and no social support every single day. And the emissions from the bombs that are killing innocent people are outrageous. Destabilizing the environment more.

I’m disgusted over AI. And companies pumping billions into this technology that demands the same energy use per year as an entire country. This technology that I don’t want. That’s causing so much harm to my industry. That doesn’t seem to be contributing anything of value to people in return.

I guess it was too expensive to pay a real person a livable wage to make their original art on commission for your brand. An artist might use that money to buy food for themselves and their family. They might use it to shop in their local economies. They might use it to go to the damn thrift store…before every single one in LA was just full of garbage. I guess that isn’t worth paying for, when you can instead invest billions of dollars into building a machine to do it for “free”. At the expense of the environment that sustains us all.

Affordable housing was too expensive. Healthcare was too expensive. Investing in sustainable energy was…you guessed it, too expensive. But spending billions upon billions to destroy cities thousands of miles away is a worthwhile investment.

I’m recycling and composting and conserving water and shopping local and growing water-wise local plants. And my trashcans are melting in the heat.

I’m sick to my stomach about it…all the time.

I’m so angry and I’m so sad. And I’m so comfortable sitting in my air conditioned room, cause it’s too hot outside in October.

I pulled the Five of Disks from my Thoth deck yesterday. According to The Tarot Handbook by Angeles Arrien, “Whenever you pull this card, it indicates that in the next five weeks or the next five months, there is an opportunity to release worry about health, finances, work, creativity, relationships, or worry about communication.”

Unfortunately, this doesn’t address worry about the frickin’ end of the world.

Living on borrowed time through days that aren’t on the calendar I can’t help but notice every beautiful important little thing that surrounds me. I want to live. I want to see the seasons change, again and again and again.

xoxo?

Reesa