The Empower Hour

One thing you can do right now to get unstuck.

There are a million places to direct your attention right now, so consider this just a breath in, and a breath out. A patch of clear ground to put your feet. A friend sliding her arm through yours, whispering, “I love you. Let’s walk.”

The past few weeks have really clarified what I’m doing here. Wild Story started out as a collection of essays from the place where a life outdoors meets creative writing. Sure, that’s still part of it. But at the heart of all this is a creative quest to stay wild, tender, awake, and connected in a world that would have us forget that’s who we are.

I used to hide notes for strangers in airplane bathroom ashtrays. I’d scribble them on receipts, on torn pages from my journal, on the smooth blank paper of my ticket. They’d say things that felt urgent at the time, things I’d seen spray painted on abandoned buildings, like: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Or they were one-sentence letters written straight from my desire: Hello dear friend, you are so much wilder than you have been told.

Nobody else I know looks in airplane bathroom ashtrays for notes. Well, maybe now you might. If I knew you would, I might start leaving them again. But for a while it was just me. It took me until recently to realize that maybe I was talking to myself. Leaving breadcrumbs. Tiny prayers.

There’s something eerily beautiful, though, about whispering into the dark.

---

It seems to me like one of the best things we can do right now is help each other get unstuck.

I have a lot of people in my life who are feeling powerless. For most, it’s a crisis of capacity. Being human in a broken system is already a big job, all this regulating of nervous systems and trying to make money and keeping up (with what, I don’t quite know) and doing the best we can.

This is how they want us to feel. Overwhelmed. Like their power is inevitable. But dear god, it’s not.

My sister and I have started doing this thing that we call “Empower Hour.” It’s a weekly standing date on our calendar where we show up for one hour and do what needs to be done.

Do I think an hour a week is enough? Oh no. But it opens the door, lets the light in. Builds my muscles for doing more.

Here’s how you do it:

Directions for an Empower Hour

1. Physically block out an hour on your calendar. Do it now. This post is maybe about a five minute read, seven if you savor it, so why not make it part of your first one? Only 53 minutes to go and you’ve done it!

2. Make an email folder for all the action requests that are coming in. Label it “Empower Hour” or something else that will make you excited to return to it. If you don’t get action requests by email, some great places to start are Indivisible and Americans of Conscience, both of which offer bite-sized weekly actions and provide easy scripts for calling senators. The ACLU, Standing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) the Appalachian Mountain Club Conservation Action Network (CAN) and National Resource Council of Maine are a few more I get. There are a million! Look nationally, and especially locally. Leave your favorites in the comments! Find a few that resonate with you, and start there. When the emails start coming in, put ‘em in the folder. It sounds so simple it’s dumb, but trust me. They’ll be there for you when you’re ready for them, instead of yelling at you urgently from between that bill from the dog groomer and that email from your mom.

3. When Empower Hour comes, open the folder. Do the actions. Delete the ones you’ve done. It feels great.

4. Find a buddy. (This one’s important.) It can be me! DM me for an accountability spreadsheet I started for myself, complete with snarky commentary and mess-ups. Rev me up by adding your own. I’d love to do this with you.

That’s it.

Design for what works. Sometimes my hour bleeds into two. Sometimes I bring snacks and something bubbly and make it a party. I am a very carrot oriented human.

Here’s the thing about starting with an hour: you’re starting. As of this moment, 229 people subscribe to my Substack. (If you enjoy Wild Story, please share with other wildhearted people & help us all find each other!)

That’s 229 hours (plus mine, so 230). 230 different voices ringing senators and standing up for our rights adds up fast. Let’s make it 500. Let’s make it all of us.

Wild, tender, awake, and connected.

So, back to the beginning. Back to the quest. They change all the time, but here’s what these words mean to me right now:

Wild: Ungovernable, fiercely joyful, loyal only to the communities and creatures and places I love and the pulls of my own damn heart.

Tender: letting it all in, staying soft and human and alive.

Awake: Clear-eyed about the urgency of this moment, that the worst of history could (and will) repeat itself if we do nothing. Simultaneously awake to wonder, awe, beauty, and everything worth protecting.

Connected: to myself, to you, and to the world. Always, always, always. Isn’t that the point?

It’s the only way, y’all.

Now, for the love of all that is holy, go outside and touch a tree. Nobody gets to take your joy, so don’t you dare give it away for free.

---

Sorrow Is Not My Name
by Ross Gay

—after Gwendolyn Brooks

No matter the pull toward brink. No
matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.
There is a time for everything. Look,
just this morning a vulture
nodded his red, grizzled head at me,
and I looked at him, admiring
the sickle of his beak.
Then the wind kicked up, and,
after arranging that good suit of feathers
he up and took off.
Just like that. And to boot,
there are, on this planet alone, something like two
million naturally occurring sweet things,
some with names so generous as to kick
the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon,
stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks
at the market. Think of that. The long night,
the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me
on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah.
But look; my niece is running through a field
calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel
and at the end of my block is a basketball court.
I remember. My color’s green. I’m spring.