May the Fourth Be With You
What Just Happened, April 2025: Embracing demolition mode and the fallout of uncertainty
I appreciate the discipline this monthly letter forces me to practice, taking stock of the world and my life over the course of (roughly) thirty days.
Remember last month?
In February, we decided to bite the bullet and renovate our kitchen, which was original to the house, built in 1968, with the formica, fake walnut veneer, and textured linoleum to show for it.
We’d started urgently researching the cost and feasibility of renovation back in October, when my father-in-law Will was ailing but still alive and we were reasoning through the logistics of my in-laws moving in with us to provide for his care. His unexpectedly rapid decline and death eclipsed the urgency of the renovation, but we’d ordered the appliances during an early Black Friday sale in November, so we were already part-way on the hook. We’d also received generous wedding gifts earmarked for ktichen renovation. We decided to go for it.
In the final days of March, we packed away our entire kitchen as well as the room that had been a den but would become a dining room into boxes in our spare bedroom. On March 31, our contractor started pulling the cabinets off the walls, the linoleum off the plywood, and the molding sheetrock (we discovered) out from behind our 60-year-old sink.
By evening of the next day, the kitchen was bare. Two days later, an entire wall had been removed and replaced with a new ceiling beam. I marveled at how efficiently and quickly structures that seem permanent can be eliminated with a power drill and a hammer.
We made do with a makeshift kitchen for the better part of two weeks: a 4-in-1 microwave oven, a hot plate, a rice cooker, and a toaster oven atop a plastic folding table. We collected and washed dishes in a portable sink we’d bought for our wedding last June. And we spent five days in Florida and four days in New Hampshire, which meant we missed the loudest days of renovation altogether, and really only had to feed ourselves without a functional stove for 12 of the 21 days.
It takes so much longer to build a thing than it does to break it, a lesson we are learning ad nauseum at the level of institutions and federal policy these days. A cabinet comes off the wall and goes into a dumpster in less than 20 minutes. It takes hours to re-lay wires into new conduits, to direct new pipes, to reconnect plumbing and replace outlets, to carefully hang and trim cabinets, and caulk all the loose edges. Every part of construction takes its own time and has to happen in the right sequence: first floors, then cabinets, then appliances, then countertops, then finishes and trim. And then you’re left with a kitchen full of empty cabinets and the prospect of finding space for the collection of objects that make a kitchen.
On April 21, we were finally cleared to start using the sink, but the job is still ongoing. We’re at an impasse on our backsplash tile selection, and our dishwasher was delivered broken, a defect discovered too late for it to be exchanged. As with most things, change is a work in progress.
While the things you hope will be great will rarely be perfect, sometimes the highs and lows seem to come out in the wash.
After a shocking loss of trillions of dollars in market losses after Donald Trump’s shocking April 8 “Liberation Day” global tariff reveal, the stock markets seem to have stabilized
Stocks Erase Losses From April Tariff Chaos
Wall Street has recovered from April’s sharp sell-off, buoyed by hope for trade talks. But the economic fallout from President Trump’s policies still has investors on edge. (gift link)
As if such reinforcement was needed, this realization only underscores that the stock market is mostly a wealth scoreboard, not an indicator of the economic reality of most Americans,
This month was a bonanza of Ezra Klein episodes I found helpful for managing the mental load of this moment.
Jonathan Haidt: ‘Our Kids Are the Least Flourishing Generation We Know Of’
Paul Krugman on the ‘Biggest Trade Shock in History’
Thomas Friedman on Why Trump Could Lose His Trade War With China
Historian Steven Hahn on The Very American Roots of Trumpism
Ross Douthat on Trump, Mysticism and Psychedelics
Saikat Chakrabarti and Zephyr Teachout on Abundance and the Left
The Emergency Is Here
This month, I published a midnight musing about the “fun apocalypse” over at CoAuthored.
Apocalypse, But Make It Fun
During my time in Florida, I wrote about transience and the meaning of home.
Where is home?
This weekend, I found myself sorting through a collection of paper I’d amassed some decades earlier. Birthday cards from my grandmother, college graduation cards, pay stubs from my ranch job in Colorado, alongside college math tests, early personal narrative essays, a map of California, and a large collection of honorary medals. What had these objects m…
After the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, I wrote a Maundy Thursday post about foot washing, community organizing, and solidarity.
It was cool to publish this piece on April 17, and then see the public narrative about the prospects of a General Strike spike in the days after.
And last weekend, I delivered a second morning prayer homily, which allowed me to offer a “part two” of my Lenten homily:
Persevering Through Doubt
Today’s post is the second of two Homilies I’ve delivered this year as a lay preacher at St. John’s, the Episcopal Church in New Milford, CT (read the first, here). It responds to today’s Lectionary, selected readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament, and the Gospel. Today’s readings, referenced in the homily, can be found
For those who missed it, here’s Part I:
Would you walk 500 miles to find yourself in the wilderness?
I am a lay preacher in my Episcopal Church in New Milford, CT, in which capacity I have the opportunity to deliver a Homily at a morning prayer service once or twice a year. The Homily responds to that day’s Lectionary, selected readings from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament, and the Gospel. Today’s readings, which are referenced in bold…
In other news…
I finished my first book of the year (!!! close readers will remember) and started reading two others—keep me in your prayers for a book review… sometime soon?
I had a small growth removed from my head, a minor procedure that set me back nearly $200 (why is basic medical care so expensive?) and started therapy, which seems to be an important support for a life that feels a little too full—with gratitude for employer-subsidized health insurance.
I saw the German production of Three Penny Opera at BAM, which was gripping and disturbing in all the ways one hopes a Brecht musical will be.
(Cross your toes for a review of this year’s theater, coming soon…)
During our visit to Florida, Andy and I had 36 child-free tear-free hours—that is, two consecutive nights our child spent away from us without tears, a first for our almost-three-year-old.
On Wednesday, the Trump Administration marked its 100th day, acing the test on how many things it's possible to break when you put your mind to it.
I find myself swinging emotionally between two poles: on the one hand, a strange mix of alarm and resignation, some version of the “This is fine” dog in the burning room. On the other hand, I’m periodically seized with determination that the only antidote to executive overreach is community solidarity and yes, maybe eventually, general strike.
I’m musing about how to put my money where my mouth is on building community with neighbors, and hope to share more of that here soon.
Life is just a nonstop cycle of where imagination and ambition meet the friction of available time and space. I’m in the market for a Time Turner, if anyone knows a gal?
I’m yearning to hear from people. What’s on your mind? What are you dreaming about? Worried about? Crazy about?
shared a post inviting her community to share small hills they’d die on, and 3,300 people replied. (AmAzInG). Seriously tho—I’d love to hear the smallest/coolest thing you can’t stop thinking about right now.