If you open your phone for more than two minutes, you will discover the world is apparently collapsing in 24 different time zones.

Middle East tensions.

Venezuela and Cuba unraveling.

Alliances wobbling.

Groceries staging a quiet coup.

Gas prices ascending.

American morale is in the gutter due to this new war which is in no uncertain terms a deflection from the midterm elections and Everything Epstein.

It’s exhausting. And unless I have secretly been appointed Secretary of Global Stability,  there is very little I can personally fix before dinner.

So here’s my new geopolitical strategy:

I bake scones.

I take a walk.

I jump on the Peloton.

I write.

I swim for a ridiculous amount of time.

I get a foot massage.

Yes. A foot massage because while I cannot stabilize oil markets, I can stabilize my arches.

There is something deeply subversive about tending to small, orderly things while the macro world flails. Shaving my legs. Doing taxes. Dusting. Vacuuming. Folding laundry like it’s a competitive sport. These are not acts of denial. They are acts of containment.

I check the news once. Maybe twice. Not seventeen times like it is an Olympic event. The world will still be complicated after lunch.

Then I pivot to what I can control. I move my body, swim with mermaids, cook something that requires stirring and kneading, dress for hand to hand combat and head to The Boys in Delray Beach.

Hope, I have decided, is not blind optimism. It is maintenance. Emotional maintenance. Community maintenance. Soleful maintenance.

Humanity has always been dramatic. Wars, recessions, political theater. Still we attempt to live a normal life.

The world may be smoldering, but my feet are pain free and I am definitely trending vertical.

And tonight, I may just stir up some trouble…do I have any other choice in order to remain sane?!😎