Writing in a Time of Anxiety

How an anxious robin brought me back to the page

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."

—William Wordsworth

I've loved to write since I was able—first, letters and poems, then personal essays and memoir. My subject has always been reality. These days, reality is killing me! I can’t complete a sentence. All I can manage is a rant, now and then.

"Maybe, you should not watch the news," my husband says. He worries about my mood swings. It's not that I wish to overreact unpleasantly. I don't choose to feel this way—the buzzing anxiety, a slight but ongoing static like a radio having lost its signal. Blood pressure rises, breath quickens, and I feel an urge for handfuls of salty snacks.

I cannot turn away from what I see on television. In my kitchen, where I spend hours each day, the television is turned to silent. I watch masked men with guns handcuff men, women, and teenagers at high schools, Home Depots, landscaping companies, and bus stops. I read the chyrons announcing the disassembly of the US Agency for International Development and the Education Department. I see the EPA eliminating pollution controls. It’s just too much.

This must be what dictatorship looks like.

I know from experience that writing is therapeutic. So, I retreat to my sunroom porch. Here is where the light flickers through the leaves of the Japanese Maple. Here is where I watch nature carrying on despite the ways of the world. Here is where I study the birds with delight. The cardinals, the chickadee, the house finch—even the blue jay— shyly avoid the window feeder while I am in view. Not so the errant robin, who is compelled to attack his reflection in the windows before parking himself on the feeder to evacuate his bowels. Too often, I have windexed trails of bird excreta streaked down multiple windows.

The cursor flashes on my laptop screen.

All I can write is a few words about the sun and the birds and my dog snoring nearby, her head propped up on the arm of the yellow polka-dotted chair. I watch Ida chasing something in her sleep. She barks into her cheeks. Her legs run in place. She is probably thinking of the neighbor's cat or, perhaps, the fox that traverses our yard at dawn.

Even Ernest Hemingway found writing difficult at times. "You have always written before, and you will write now." He says this to himself while throwing orange peels into a fireplace, studying how the flame colors change. Then, while looking out the window at the rooftops of Paris, he continues worrying. You might wonder why anyone would worry while looking at the rooftops in Paris. But writers are grateful for his famous revelation—

"All you have to do is write one true sentence . . . Write the truest sentence that you know."

from A Moveable Feast

I distract myself with Web research. It's a cave I can get lost in. Hemingway had the roofs of Paris; I have Google. So be it. Time and circumstances offer different solutions.

The purpose of my Web search is to explore "anxiety," not how it feels but why it happens. WordHippo.com describes itself as "a thesaurus and word tools for your creative needs." Along with synonyms and definitions, the site provides context. Anxiety is a consequence of the following—

• · The state or quality of being unstable or insecure

• · A doubt about the truth or validity of something

• · An anxious awareness of danger

· Instability. Insecurity. Doubt. Danger.

It occurs to me that my animal self is reacting to perceived threats, just as the robin who attacks my sunporch windows with beak and excreta. I feel a twinge of empathy for this bird, who, for some reason, finds it necessary to attack his reflection. I don’t know whether to fight or flee.

I am continually on edge. Wondering if I have done enough or too little.

I try to respect everyone. But feel anger at my fellow citizens who voted for a man who is running the country like a start-up business. Disrupt. Break everything. See what remains.

Love one another. This I learned during the hallelujah-hootenanny guitar masses of my Catholic childhood. At St Agnes Academy for Girls, we sang, They will know we are Christians by our love while marching to communion. Now, I find myself suspecting, not loving, my neighbors. I have succumbed to stereotypes.

I curse at red pick-up trucks, especially those with super-sized wide-axle tires. I wonder at each person I see at the park. Who is a Trump supporter?

One day, on a walk in the park, I struck up a conversation with a man about my age, who had just greeted another man—"How about that Trump!?!" I thought he was joking. I was wrong. He seemed ‘pleased as punch,’ as my mother used to say. "Twelve more years of Republicans!" he said, gleefully.

"I am a Democrat," I told the MAGA man. This felt like a bold confession. He smiled benevolently.

Recently, I assumed a man wearing a ‘wife-beater’ shirt was MAGA. We were in line at a convenience store. When he offered to carry a 16-gallon package of water to my car, I had to accept. Sixteen gallons is a heavy lift. This stranger made it possible for me to help my daughter, whose pipes had burst. I thanked the man. Told him to have a good afternoon. This felt right. A small, good thing.

From the early days of President Trump's second term, I have looked for ways to calm my anxiety without withdrawing from protesting in a variety of ways. To begin with, I consulted with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I am weary of my elder contemporaries, who simply won't let go. Stodgy father-knows-best types.

As AOC spoke in a 50-minute Facebook video, I scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. She described the Administration's strategy as, 'flooding the zone". I imagined a wall of water overtopping its banks, flooding basements, then houses lifting cars into the rushing river. I imagined people on roofs and in boats. Flotsam and jetsam floating by (the specter of flooding feels especially tragic since the July 4^th Texas tragedy).

Via Web research, I discovered, per Idiom.org, that "flooding the zone" is a football strategy, which Republican politicians have co-opted for the political playing field—

Flooding the zone ". . . overwhelm(s) a specific area or situation with an excessive amount of something like information or resources. It is a proactive and concerted effort to dominate or control a particular space, often with the intention of overpowering others."

What I had expected when watching the AOC video in early 2025 was a call to action. What I received were survival skills—Breathe. Educate yourself. Choose a focus. Lock-in. Repeat. We're in this for the long haul—four years at least.

Six months hence, I have educated myself but lose focus easily. I forget to breathe.

I have discovered peace in protest. At each gathering, I chant with the crowd— This is what Democracy looks like! I leave phone messages for my representatives in Congress. I join the Democratic Volunteers as well as an organization responding to the needs of immigrants. I attend my sweet Episcopal church, where I am reminded to love my neighbor and turn the other cheek. I read Bible verses such as—

"Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.

Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6:34 ESV

How true, this lovely message. But my mind seems to occupy the past and the future. Living in the moment is aspirational. I cannot stop thinking about tomorrow.

"You know this won't do any good," an acquaintance says when announcing I will deliver a letter to Senator Mitch McConnell's office in downtown Louisville. I tell her I have ridden in this Mitch rodeo. The best I can expect is a form letter. But the process makes me feel powerful, if only for a few minutes.

Thanks to Mitch, my writing flows. Maybe it’s because I expect nothing but the satisfaction of self-expression. Here is an excerpt—

. . . . Like many of us in our later years, you might want to be remembered for your courage to take a risk . . . I am horrified each time I see masked Federal agents arresting persons without warrants and without checking documents that might affirm legal status. I can't believe you support the use of the National Guard and Marines to monitor mostly peaceful protests.

. . . . I ask you to speak your mind to the Senate and your constituents if you believe this administration has gone too far with the militaristic behavior of ICE.

I hand the letter to the senator's young staffer, who says the Senator will read it. She is accustomed to greeting the disagreeing public. The staffer and I chat about the steamy Kentucky summer while I wait for a fellow Democrat to complete a comment form. She and I return to stand on the sidewalk to join protesters gathered with protest signs. Cars honk their approval.

Free speech is a deep cleansing breath.

Poet Molly Peacock says the benefit of writing is that the "world becomes more beautiful simply because it is noticed" (How to Read a Poem). Paying attention to the externals in life is good for the body and soul. And the world provides spectacular material for narratives.

My Pilates teacher says, "Good noticing," when I tell her I feel my glutes. At my age, glutes are the key to sitting down and standing up, kneeling and getting back up, and staying upright. I suppose, "good noticing" means noticing everything—offensive robin behavior, included.

Image by Bunting Wild Photography via Unsplash

Today I found a robin inert on the concrete ledge of our patio fountain. The robin’s body was a few inches from the bubbling water. This might be the bird that had attacked and excreted upon my sunporch windows. In any event, it had laid down its body by the cool water. I stood over the bird’s remains and said a prayer for both of us. I gathered the bird into a hammock of plastic and laid him in ground cover, to return to the earth. This felt like a holy moment.

Let the breathing begin.

Learn more about Kimberly at memoircoachshapeandflow.com