In these dark Trumpian days, shoots of collective action are sprouting

A cartoon in the New Yorker decades ago showed two prisoners chained to the wall at the wrists and ankles, well off the ground, in a jail cell, in a cave. One man turns to the other and says, “Okay, here’s my plan….”

I thought of this after reading the news with my coffee. Outside a thick, fuzzy, gray sky loomed. The ridge was almost obscured. Panic seemed to sit on my chest and admire its polished fingernails. All of my older friends express this anxious hopelessness off and on. We feel older these last few months as the chaos and cruelty escalate. We are more tired and forgetful, noticing an increase in food stains on our shirts, strange streaks on our good pants.

We blame Elon Musk.

The brooding weather mirrored my present state, which is, let’s say, concerned, with the usual random pockets of happiness, and hope in the goodness of people and that silly old Constitution. I still experience life as a great gift, in a mixed grill sort of way. Once when Carrie Fisher was in a long period of sobriety, an interviewer asked her if she was happy now, and she replied, “Happy is one of the things I am most days.”

Where is our North Star, pointing home? We have never lived in a country where men behave like this. While we wait to see whether Musk and President Trump defy the coming court orders, while we wait for the mass protest marches and general strikes to begin, my friends and I are taking care of each other and our families. We give to the ACLU and Oxfam. We check in with each other: The system works because we are not all freaked out on the same day. Someone always feels hopeful about the future. It is me, quite often. I know in my Sunday-school teacher’s heart that goodness surrounds us, that grace bats last and that things are not going to end up well for these guys. Yay, karma.

Millions of people are being damaged. Direct action is needed, is happening, is beginning to grow. We watch and hope.

We savor all that still works, the beauty all around us, small moments. Of course, in my cranky case, some are vengeful: Watching the little Musk boy scold Trump in the Oval Office gave me a new lease on life. I laughed for days at the look on Trump’s face, like someone trying to be polite on a bad first date. As Musk raved on to the press, you could see Trump wanting to be supportive of this strange little billionaire. You could see him thinking, “Why did I agree to this; and who do I fire?”

Some moments are practical: crisp clean sheets on the bed as often as possible, lying in between them like a delicious sandwich filling.

Some are cultural. Edward Norton as Pete Seeger in “A Complete Unknown.” Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter singing a duet of “Homeward Bound,” the old genius and the new green sprout that has broken through the concrete.

One recent morning in the gloom I called a friend who can sometimes offer hope, but he refused to talk about the latest news: The day before, Trump had accidentally fired the nuclear weapons staff — oh, well. This was the final straw for my friend. “You big baby,” I said. “Pick pick pick.” I asked what his plans for the day were. He said, languidly, “I think I’ll just sit back and try to enjoy the fascist paradise.” I burst out laughing, somewhat hysterically, perhaps like Blanche DuBois on crack cocaine.

Picturing him reclining by the pool on a chaise longue with a frosted lime rickey and a long cigarette holder lifted my spirits all morning.

My friends and I are looking around for hope, answers and maybe a prophet or two. We peek around like worried children. The author Barry Lopez wrote: “We’re all searching for the boats we forget to build.”

My great friend, the writer Mark Yaconelli, visited a working community in one of the most destitute areas of Glasgow, called Gal Gael, of lost young people, recovering addicts, homeless folks and war veterans, building a sailboat in the old ways. They chipped and carved and planed with ancient tools, and no nails. They wedged slabs of wood together, slotted them perfectly. They were happy. They had purpose and each other. Their boat-building was about cultural pride, and a reconnection with lost roots.

Mark asked the director, “What will you do with this boat?” After a minute, the man replied, “We’ll go sailing.”

Maybe we need to build a bunch of little boats. We can start or join projects to feed and protect those most in danger now, meals and community organizing, getting to know each other. My friends and I recall going to Vietnam protests in the ’60s where 12 people showed up, but ultimately we stopped the war. Will large and small demonstrations make a difference? They’re good for the soul. We have to continue to act on our understanding of what is right. We need to perform acts of compassion that are missing in the current nasty public sphere.

When anyone sees people like us respond in a human and compassionate way, it’s a check against the feral thing we all carry inside.

When I got sober in 1986, a man said to me that at the end of his drinking, he was deteriorating faster than he could lower his standards, and this was me exactly. I honestly and deeply think that this is happening now in the Capitol. We are hitting bottom, where there’s nothing left to do but to give in to what you can’t control. It’s time for trust and surrender. The clenched muscles let go since there’s nothing left to clutch. The letting go gives a taste of peace, long overdue, and that’s when the shift occurs, maybe not at first in the scary situation, but internally.

Usually a story that begins with gloomy weather and a heavy heart ends with the sun coming out, but something better happened the day of the fuzzy gray morning. A fine curtain of raindrops began falling, and it made me so happy. We are all parched for moisture, inside and out. Puddles and the first paperwhites, well worth the chill.

Anne Lamott, an author of fiction and nonfiction, lives in Marin County. Her latest book is “Somehow: Thoughts on Love.” X: @annelamott