Wren’s life flashed before my eyes this afternoon. It was another gorgeous day, and I’d been working in the yarden, hanging laundry, catching up with people in phone calls, telling an old friend how good she is, how fast she comes when I whistle, every time, that’s she’s an oxytocin factory. I walked outside the gate to place an ornamental rock on the newly created pedestals of a fire mitigation stump. I read a text, then whistled for Wren. She tends to race up the driveway and get caught up in smells, so I walked a little way up, past the badger hole, whistling and calling. Nothing. Minutes elapsed. Never, not once, in the nearly three years she’s been with me has she failed to come running by the second whistle. Panic rose in me. Another couple of minutes calling, looking. It felt unreal. The only reason she would not come would be that she could not come. I imagined her killed in an instant by a bobcat or lion, or caught in a barbed wire fence. My life without her loomed too horrible to imagine. What made it even worse was that since I only stepped outside the fence for a moment, I hadn’t put on her ID collar… if someone found her, alive or…

I called my best neighbors north and south to enlist a search party. Then, and only then, did I breathe, pause, and consider alternatives. I’ve become so accustomed to her stealth accompaniment with my every move that I often call her and she’s right behind me. Could she possibly be inside? So I hurried down to the house, opened the door, and there she was bouncing up and down, so relieved to see me, though not nearly as relieved as I was to see her precious face. I canceled the Wred alert, with gratitude knowing that my neighbors would be as relieved as I, and not annoyed with my calling for help. That’s what we do, and we all share the joy in a happy outcome.

That my go-to was panic when I couldn’t find Wren speaks to the underlying tension many of us are living with these days. A month ago it would have occurred to me much sooner that she was probably in the house. I am far better internally resourced to handle the stress of this hostile administrative coup than I was during the first regime, but all that means is that the anxiety isn’t crippling, not that it isn’t there. I’m hearing more specific accounts of people who’ve lost their jobs to the DOGE axe (including a fired federal worker who is now suicidal – I’m sure he’s not the only one), and the offensive letters they’ve been fired with. But I keep coming back to the message of courage and resilience as I also speak with more people each day who are jumping on the action bandwagon. Resistance is not futile: in fact, our future depends on it.

This morning I listened to a fabulous talk by Rebecca Solnit, about MLK, interconnectedness, climate chaos, and the nihilist ideology of isolationism and authoritarianism, among other things. She wraps it up with a marvelous message of interdependence and belonging. I also downloaded an app suggested by a friend, which makes it super easy to call your representatives: it provides scripts on a wide range of concerns, and even dials for you: “5 Calls – Contact Your Congress.” Resistbot is another good app to use to send letters to your reps. Spread the word, and remember the economic blackout this Friday, from midnight to midnight. Don’t spend money for one day. Let’s see what happens. I’m grateful for comprehending interdependence, and the feeling of belonging, of interbeing, that arises from that understanding.