This story just clicked something into place for me, which is how radically individualistic the Rapture is, or at least how it seems to be understood - it's about saving oneself, the opposite of being part of a community pulling itself through a difficult experience.
My mother lost both her parents in Germany to WWII. She sat on her mother's bed as a 4 year old girl and watched her die of a disease that would have been treatable if only the German government hadn't turned all medicine and resources to the war and soldiers like her father who was killed in action on the Russian front. My father at the age of six was digging strategic bombing victims out of the rubble of apartment buildings in his Hungarian neighborhood. They fled Europe together after the war to the United States to escape mayhem and the threat of future mayhem. As I was growing up, I saw that they were paranoid hoarders and preppers because hoarders and preppers were the people that did the best in Europe during WWII. Now in their 80s they are also staunch MAGAs, fearing everything and everyone. My father owns weapons he can't lift, load or aim anymore.
How arrogant of us Americans to assume that we would be forever protected from the consequences of feeding and nurturing the most sinister of human emotions and prejudices. You can't fully hoard or prep your way out of self-inflicted economic and political catastrophe. We're kidding ourselves if we think we can.
Since the election, every day I send little love notes via FB message or text to 13 different people-- my mom, my brother, my kids, and my closest friends both near and far. It helps combat despair. It helps me feel connected and embedded in community. And if I ever don't do it, I know folks will reach out and check on me.
It's not canned goods or an extra toothbrush (though I always keep one of those in my bag), but it does feel like preparation, in addition to making now more survivable. And it only takes me 10-15 minutes every day.
such a good response to our current insanity. another friend is sending a little gift once a month to a friend whose name she pulls out of a hat - just to give someone a tiny lift of spirits. seems like a plan.
This is it. I've gone through two separate water boil weeks in Austin and have made the WEIRDEST meals when most of the city was without power for 8 days during Uri (pecan soup with coconut milk is not bad! Have I made it again? NOPE.), and when ice storms knocked out power for some people for over 2 weeks: our next door neighbors were probably the last to have their power restored. We rigged a couple extension cords so they could at least charge phones. Now everyone knows who has a water main key and it gets passed around as needed. We do need to get all that info off the Buy Nothing group though...
One of the reasons I'm committing to making a meal weekly to share with our free fridge down the street is to start exercising those mutual aid muscles more so that when whatever is coming arrives, we'll be a little more ready.
I’ve said this to you before, you are my favorite current essayist. I am 73, very mainstream, left leaning centrist Independent for over 20 years. I lived through the events of your childhood as an adult, plus the disasters of my 50s-60s childhood. While not downplaying the reality, when you are 30 years older you will realize that the world has always been ending.
Since I come from a people who survive some of the worst atrocities and generational trauma in the history of this planet,I have personally asked myself “what am I willing to survive”. Sex trafficking: Nope! I’d definitely would unalive. Being very poor, I could do that. Natural Environmental disasters: Okay. Living after a nuclear war: Absolutely not.
Surviving hardship requires a community and most Americans barely know the person who lives next door. We’re not ready for what this regime is about to do. I’m staying close to my friends and exercising and eating the best I can. I am being uber generous with my time and resources to the people in my life. This is not the time to be stingy. This is not the time to have a medical emergency.
Lastly, I know it’s shallow but it also helps watching people who voted for this suffer first and most.
Sometimes 2020 with the Covid lockdown and the derecho that left us without power for a full 14 days feels like a fever dream. Did that really happen? How did we survive it?! But every time I hear of a possible storm I charge all our devices and find all the flashlights.
Yes, 100%. I'm blessed to live in such a community. We were talking the other week to a friend who grew up in East Germany. They survived and even thrived through community.
In 2006, we were one of the few neighborhoods that got hit by the tornado in Iowa City. Before we even woke up the next morning, Amish and Mennonites from the Kalona area were already in our backyard cleaning up. Friends from surrounding streets that didn't get hit, came over with food and chainsaws. We didn't have electricity and part of our roof was off, so we couldn't stay in our apartment. I had so many people inviting us over for Easter dinner, and asking us to stay at their places until our roof got fixed. I ended up staying with a friend of mine who was also a single mom. Our kids thought it was the greatest thing to have a slumber party with their friend for a couple of weeks. Even later in the Summer, both Dave Moore and Dave Zollo came and played at our block party for free to help keep our spirits up. I honestly have no idea what I would have done without this amazing community.
Love this topic! I live on an island in Puget Sound. We lose power frequently (two multi-day outages so far this year from windstorms) and are in a major earthquake zone. For years, I’ve made sure we have ample supplies of basic foods (and propane for camp stove cooking), and I assume most of my neighbors do the same. I’m also lucky to have Scott James as part of our community: he leads a non profit focused on preparedness, and wrote Prepared Nighnorhoods, which is very much in keeping with your post: https://preparedneighborhoods.com/
Thank you so much for this. The April 5 demonstrations were a powerful positive dose of being part of community for me.
I remember, during a week long power outage a few years ago, we invited friends over for dinner by candlelight/lantern. And during Covid lockdowns when we kept our community alive and spirits nourished via zoom.
You weren't the only one whose childhood was filled with "the world could end any day, so be prepared!" The Catholic nuns at my grade school hammered that into our heads daily. As a child, I was so afraid my dad would go to hell because he wasn't baptized! What a lovely childhood! Grrrr.
I do struggle with finding and maintaining community, and unfortunately rely quite a bit on staying connected with family and friends through social media. I am a very introspective person, and the friends I attract are the same. My two best friends are (and were) both people who live far away, and who aren't big on talking on the phone a lot. I talk to my sister and brother the most, but they aren't in my town. I am making inroads at my job, and there are some nice people here, so working in person is helping.
My experience with preppers is I used to be part of a Facebook group that was mostly about DIY solutions and growing vegetables. It took a nasty turn when group members were prepping because "THEY" were coming - and it was very race coded. After a couple of nasty interactions I quit the group.
I would say that the fear of it was much worse than the actual threat and that with hindsight it was fairly tame compared to what has come since.
Thank you, Lyz, I didn’t realize how much I needed to read this.
This story just clicked something into place for me, which is how radically individualistic the Rapture is, or at least how it seems to be understood - it's about saving oneself, the opposite of being part of a community pulling itself through a difficult experience.
yep.
My mother lost both her parents in Germany to WWII. She sat on her mother's bed as a 4 year old girl and watched her die of a disease that would have been treatable if only the German government hadn't turned all medicine and resources to the war and soldiers like her father who was killed in action on the Russian front. My father at the age of six was digging strategic bombing victims out of the rubble of apartment buildings in his Hungarian neighborhood. They fled Europe together after the war to the United States to escape mayhem and the threat of future mayhem. As I was growing up, I saw that they were paranoid hoarders and preppers because hoarders and preppers were the people that did the best in Europe during WWII. Now in their 80s they are also staunch MAGAs, fearing everything and everyone. My father owns weapons he can't lift, load or aim anymore.
How arrogant of us Americans to assume that we would be forever protected from the consequences of feeding and nurturing the most sinister of human emotions and prejudices. You can't fully hoard or prep your way out of self-inflicted economic and political catastrophe. We're kidding ourselves if we think we can.
Thank you for sharing that - intense!
Since the election, every day I send little love notes via FB message or text to 13 different people-- my mom, my brother, my kids, and my closest friends both near and far. It helps combat despair. It helps me feel connected and embedded in community. And if I ever don't do it, I know folks will reach out and check on me.
It's not canned goods or an extra toothbrush (though I always keep one of those in my bag), but it does feel like preparation, in addition to making now more survivable. And it only takes me 10-15 minutes every day.
such a good response to our current insanity. another friend is sending a little gift once a month to a friend whose name she pulls out of a hat - just to give someone a tiny lift of spirits. seems like a plan.
This is it. I've gone through two separate water boil weeks in Austin and have made the WEIRDEST meals when most of the city was without power for 8 days during Uri (pecan soup with coconut milk is not bad! Have I made it again? NOPE.), and when ice storms knocked out power for some people for over 2 weeks: our next door neighbors were probably the last to have their power restored. We rigged a couple extension cords so they could at least charge phones. Now everyone knows who has a water main key and it gets passed around as needed. We do need to get all that info off the Buy Nothing group though...
One of the reasons I'm committing to making a meal weekly to share with our free fridge down the street is to start exercising those mutual aid muscles more so that when whatever is coming arrives, we'll be a little more ready.
I love this. Thank you for doing it.
Thank you Lyz for a post which I’m afraid is already too necessary. We have to take care of each other because no one else will.
This time one zillion. Well said.
Don't forget your slingshots:
https://www.thestranger.com/climate-issue-2025/2025/04/04/79998085/an-illustrated-guide-to-prepping
I’ve said this to you before, you are my favorite current essayist. I am 73, very mainstream, left leaning centrist Independent for over 20 years. I lived through the events of your childhood as an adult, plus the disasters of my 50s-60s childhood. While not downplaying the reality, when you are 30 years older you will realize that the world has always been ending.
Since I come from a people who survive some of the worst atrocities and generational trauma in the history of this planet,I have personally asked myself “what am I willing to survive”. Sex trafficking: Nope! I’d definitely would unalive. Being very poor, I could do that. Natural Environmental disasters: Okay. Living after a nuclear war: Absolutely not.
Surviving hardship requires a community and most Americans barely know the person who lives next door. We’re not ready for what this regime is about to do. I’m staying close to my friends and exercising and eating the best I can. I am being uber generous with my time and resources to the people in my life. This is not the time to be stingy. This is not the time to have a medical emergency.
Lastly, I know it’s shallow but it also helps watching people who voted for this suffer first and most.
Sometimes 2020 with the Covid lockdown and the derecho that left us without power for a full 14 days feels like a fever dream. Did that really happen? How did we survive it?! But every time I hear of a possible storm I charge all our devices and find all the flashlights.
Yes, 100%. I'm blessed to live in such a community. We were talking the other week to a friend who grew up in East Germany. They survived and even thrived through community.
In 2006, we were one of the few neighborhoods that got hit by the tornado in Iowa City. Before we even woke up the next morning, Amish and Mennonites from the Kalona area were already in our backyard cleaning up. Friends from surrounding streets that didn't get hit, came over with food and chainsaws. We didn't have electricity and part of our roof was off, so we couldn't stay in our apartment. I had so many people inviting us over for Easter dinner, and asking us to stay at their places until our roof got fixed. I ended up staying with a friend of mine who was also a single mom. Our kids thought it was the greatest thing to have a slumber party with their friend for a couple of weeks. Even later in the Summer, both Dave Moore and Dave Zollo came and played at our block party for free to help keep our spirits up. I honestly have no idea what I would have done without this amazing community.
Love this topic! I live on an island in Puget Sound. We lose power frequently (two multi-day outages so far this year from windstorms) and are in a major earthquake zone. For years, I’ve made sure we have ample supplies of basic foods (and propane for camp stove cooking), and I assume most of my neighbors do the same. I’m also lucky to have Scott James as part of our community: he leads a non profit focused on preparedness, and wrote Prepared Nighnorhoods, which is very much in keeping with your post: https://preparedneighborhoods.com/
Thank you so much for this. The April 5 demonstrations were a powerful positive dose of being part of community for me.
I remember, during a week long power outage a few years ago, we invited friends over for dinner by candlelight/lantern. And during Covid lockdowns when we kept our community alive and spirits nourished via zoom.
You weren't the only one whose childhood was filled with "the world could end any day, so be prepared!" The Catholic nuns at my grade school hammered that into our heads daily. As a child, I was so afraid my dad would go to hell because he wasn't baptized! What a lovely childhood! Grrrr.
I do struggle with finding and maintaining community, and unfortunately rely quite a bit on staying connected with family and friends through social media. I am a very introspective person, and the friends I attract are the same. My two best friends are (and were) both people who live far away, and who aren't big on talking on the phone a lot. I talk to my sister and brother the most, but they aren't in my town. I am making inroads at my job, and there are some nice people here, so working in person is helping.
My experience with preppers is I used to be part of a Facebook group that was mostly about DIY solutions and growing vegetables. It took a nasty turn when group members were prepping because "THEY" were coming - and it was very race coded. After a couple of nasty interactions I quit the group.