A Christmas Gift for You from Danielle Moodie

at this point in the year. If you are feeling exhausted, if you are feeling deflated, if you are feeling weary, know that you are not alone. It has been a very arduous year. It has been an arduous couple of years in America. You know, I have been doing a

lot of reflection over the last couple of weeks. You know, I'm a person that believes in spiritual awakenings and renewals and the universe and that there are no coincidences, and you know, I realize that a lot of us, whether you are a person that believes in, you know, the spiritual verse, or you are a person that subscribes to a form of religion that we do so we reach out or look for connections because sometimes we feel just so very disconnected from what is happening in front of us.

And I realize lately that my weariness is coming from a place of discontent and confusion about what forward looks like for twenty twenty two. Usually at the end of most years, right outside of you know, the last two usually at the end of the year, you kind of take stock on what some of your highlights were, what some of your low lights were, and you know, you give gratitude, you create vision boards for what's next, and

you give gratitude for what has transpired. What I realize that I'm struggling with as we countdown the days to twenty twenty two on this Christmas Eve, what I'm struggling with is what to expect next. And this is where I think faith, regardless of what you subscribe to, comes in. I think that faith comes in because friends, we have no idea what to expect, and it's the uncertainty, the instability of the times that we are living in that

I feel has us so weary and deflated and just tired. Frankly, right. It's because it's hard to create a vision board and to plan for the year ahead, right, or to think about what you want to manifest in terms of your goals when you have no idea what to expect from one day to the next. You know, it was only a couple of weeks ago, three in fact, that omicron was discovered by scientists in South Africa, and in that span of time, that span of time, which is so short,

the world has turned upside down. Thing that we thought that we were passed, or at least had hoped, had hoped that we were passed. We had seen in New York Broadway reopened, We saw restaurants reopen and filled to the brim with excited customers, you know, ready to return

and leave the confines of their homes. We were able to get through a summer, right that was filled with warm sunshine and hopefully beach trips and outdoor gatherings and backyard gatherings and rooftops, and so we felt that, you know, as a as a nation, as a people, that we

were adapting well to our new normal. I think that all of us had slowly begun to recognize that we were never going to go back to before, Right, we were never going to be back to that PC place, pre COVID, before COVID, that the those days twenty nineteen and all that came before, we're just going to be memories.

There wasn't going to be a time when you would be in supermarkets or walking on the street and not see people with mass of course, unless you lived in Tennessee or Texas or out east on Long Island where my parents are, where it seemed that, as many Republicans had said, real America was done with COVID, whatever that meant, because a virus doesn't know what political affiliation you have,

let alone your geography. Nonetheless, we'd all kind of moved into this space where we believed that for those of us that had been following the rules and had done the right things and followed the CDC guidelines, that we had adapted and we lived to see a fight another day, which sadly, over eight hundred thousand Americans would not. And

then omicron. On the side of good news, we are seeing signs in South Africa where scientists discovered the variant that it seems as if they have peeped we can't really use South Africa though as our guide, because they had very low vaccination rates but very high COVID rates, so meaning that a lot of these people who had contracted the omicron variant had already had delta or alpha.

So while we're trying to understand this virus and use different cities and countries as models for what we can anticipate, nothing is one hundred percent. We live in a country where only sixty percent of the population is vaccinated. Millions have contracted COVID, but millions have not. Some are boosted,

some are not. Right. It's an entirely different climate, it's an entirely different geography, and so we unfortunately will have to see, as doctor Jonathan Metzel told us, over the next four to six weeks, what COVID looks like in the United States. What we know right now is that we are seeing record breaking numbers that we haven't seen since twenty twenty two the UK, I means, excuse me, since twenty twenty the UK is reporting for the first

time one hundred thousand new cases in a day. Again, those numbers have not been seen since the beginning of this global health pandemic in twenty twenty. So far we can say that the symptoms seem to be the same, while hospitals are still at reaching their breaking point in many different regions that those that were vaccinated and were boosted, they may fall sick. But again, what was the goal of the vaccine that you don't die? Right? We all

forget that. We think that the goal of the vaccine was to go back to to go back to twenty nineteen. We thought that the goal of the vaccine was to turn the clock back. It's never going to do that, folks.

And there's a reason why we have these vaccines because they've been working on them for years, because there were people in labs around the world that we're anticipating some type of global outbreak and so had been positioning themselves and using technology to be able to give to the world the gift that we received back in June of

twenty twenty one. Right, But what we didn't anticipate while we were all, you know, praying, manifesting, meditating, and hoping to see brighter days, what we didn't anticipate was that the damage that the Trump administration had already done to whip up, you know, Trump Americans into believing that this was all a hoax into believing that public health was nothing but you know, and something to encumber their idea of liberty and freedom, that taking care of thy neighbor

was no longer a tenant of any Bible that they ever picked up, and that it was just, you know, lord of the flies in this country. We thought, and we're sadly mistaken, that once a new administration had come in, that they would be able to wipe clean with claros all of the grift and the damage and the soils that the Trump administration had created over the last four years. But alas what we are seeing is that that is

far from the truth. But as James Baldwin once clearly stated and said, is that you can't change things that

you refuse to face. My problem with COVID nineteen is not just around the exhaustion, the collective exhaustion that we are feeling, right, and also the thing that we're not talking about is what collective trauma looks like living with this sense of anxiety and fear, and how depression is kind of going back and forth like a seesaw in our lives, and what that does right, how it impacts the way that we show up in our families and our friends and our communities at our job. It's real.

I am very vocal about the fact that I go through in any given day sometimes waves of emotions where I am grounded in deep gratitude but then almost feel paralyzed with fear about what's to come. Get so paralyzed, in fact, I sink myself into my couch, I wrap myself in a blanket, and I numb myself with any stupid Netflix series or Amazon Prime or whatever the fuck is streaming, just as a way to suspend thought for just a little bit, because I realized that my mind,

my body, my nerves need a break. But what pains me is that Democrats on a daily basis missed the opportunity to tell the truth. That is what Representative Jamal Bowman said yesterday. It shouldn't be this hard to tell the truth, to say we're here because we have an entire Republican Party that has turned themselves into a death cult. That we are here because they continue to go on a news station that lies to the American people about how dangerous this virus is and lies to them about

the ways that they can protect themselves. Why they themselves follow protocols and vaccines and get boosters and wear masks. You know, I worry, and I think that that's what's making this transition into a new year so hard, is that I don't know what to expect. Act none of us do, you know, Normally as a new year would

come around, we never know what to expect. Right. We love to say things like it's a clean slate, Right, we had three hundred and sixty five days in front of us to write a different story, and in many ways that is still completely true. But I think that we also need to afford ourselves with a level of nimbleness and the word that I've used, the word that I guess if I had to say, what was my word of twenty twenty one, it would be grace. It would be to give ourselves a level of grace and

those around us for having gotten this goddamn far. To be proud, frankly of the journey that we've been on, because it's been a roller coaster and on some days it felt like we were headed towards the light, and in other days it felt like the light that was

in front of us was an oncoming train. I think what we all need to adapt to is the reality that as the seasons get colder, right as years go on, that we're going to have to self quarantine, that there will always be pop ups of new variants, but God willing that the boosters and the vaccines continue to work, and that if we recognize that the holiday seasons moving forward may be marred continually with anxiety and stress and not just about what to get your significant other or

you know, whether or not you can stretch a dollar farther farther enough to get your kids the gifts that they want, or you know, things under your tree or what have you. That it's going to look different, and maybe we need to figure out the ways in which to adapt to that. You know, part of the reason why I found myself struggling this week is because a lot of things that I had anticipated and been looking forward to with regard to the holiday we're going to

be drastically different. As millions of people got that same shocking news, you know, I was watching and as people were welcoming their kids back home after being terrified, you know that they've been at college all year, just hoping to God that they didn't come back with COVID or get COVID and then they come home, you test them and they find out, oh shit, they do have COVID. So now our holiday plans are scrapped. We thought we were traveling, now we're not. Now we're all quarantining for

the next ten to fourteen days. That's where the nimbleness comes in. You know what would they used to say that, you know, you make plans and God laughs, Right, I think in order to save ourselves some deep heartache, that we need to just be nimble, right, and that when we do have the opportunity to share time, break bread, commune with our family, with our friends, that we need

to enjoy them to the fullest. Right, that we really need to squeeze every bit of joy and life and love and experience out of those moments so that they help to sustain us in our lowest times. You know.

I it was funny just recently, I'd gone to San Francisco, which mighty of you know, form for work for Um for Lesbians wu TECH, an organization that I'm an advisor on, and I'd seen one of the other and a couple of the other advisors that I haven't seen in three years, Right, And she remarked and said, my god, we didn't realize how good we had it, how good we had it, you know, at doing these summits with thousands of queer women from around the country, around the world that would

descend on San Francisco, and you know, it just felt like these rock star moments for days on end during summit, and she goes, you know, if I knew that our last Advisor meeting in twenty nineteen and was going to literally be our last Advisor meeting in person, maybe I

wouldn't have rushed out. Maybe I wouldn't have rushed to the airport to go catch a flight, and I would have stayed longer, and I would have talked to that person in the corner that I didn't get to because I was looking at my watch and I needed to go.

I think that there was something really profound in what she offered, which is that the fact that we are still alive when so many of our family, our friends, our community members, our church friends, our colleagues are not provides us with an opportunity to have a do over, to really enjoy those moments that we get to share. You know, back in twenty twenty, when we were all sequestered away. We kept saying that when we got out, right, when we got out, that we would dance harder, we

would hug harder, we would love harder. Well, I think that there are going to be a lot of jack in the box moments right where you pop out things feel great, it's spring, it's summer, and then you go back in. But on those moments when we do get to pop out and everything does feel like it is aligned, let's marinate in that. Let's soak that up. Let's journal about it, let's talk about it, let's sing about it right because what we recognize over these last few years

is that it's fleeting. Time is fleeting, and joy is something that we have to consistently work at, and that when we find ourselves in our low and dark moments, we can honor that. We can see that. But let's not get stuck in it. Let's allow our memories to provide us with the images the warmth of better times, so that they booy us forward. I don't know, friends,

what next year will bring. I have no idea, and I think that that not knowing requires us then to do what my mother has said for so many years, be in the present. The past doesn't matter, in the future doesn't exist. We can anticipate, right, we can follow

the cycles, We can understand these things. But with a mid term election coming up, with a white supremacist nationalist party gaining momentum and steam by the minute, with a Democratic party that seems to once again have lost its way, its passion, and its sense of urgency, I only wish some days that I could shake a magic eight ball and tell you where we will be in November of twenty twenty two. I don't know, and neither do you.

So what I realize, as I've been wiping my tears all week, is that then it doesn't make any sense to worry about what I don't know is coming. What does make sense, though, is to control what we can control. And what does that look like. It looks like really

getting a hold of our health, right. And you know, I have been on a weight loss journey, on a weight gain journey during the last couple of weeks, and I can say that as it pertains to my health and wellness, and what I hope to manifest in twenty twenty two is just more consistency. I know that when I the end of the year is always a working at a breakneck pace, and I let a lot of things slide so that I can get to the end.

I always have an end date in mind, and I get there and then it's like, woof, you get to take you know, these almost you know, ten days to fourteen days off, which is very necessary and I feel very grateful and blessed and privileged to be able to do so. But it's always a mad dash there. So a lot of my normal routines fall by the wayside because I'm trying to cram in, you know, so much

into a very little amount of time. So as I'm stepping on the scale every day, I'm noticing the numbers going up, and normally I would have a major freak out and I would start to really, you know, with my negative self talk and with all of these things like oh my god, I can't believe you can't get controlled, this, that and the other thing. And you know, late last week I had decided that, oh, I can step on

the scale and I'll see the number. But you know what's different this time than all of the other times, is I'm confident and how I get myself healthy. I'm confident in the ways that I need to focus, and that when I am focused and I am on put myself on my own schedule, that things fall away and they realign. And so over these next couple of weeks, I'm not going to beat myself up because guess what, the self talk I had done for years didn't change

shit anyway. It actually just made things worse. So instead of the negative self talk, don eat this, don't do that, calling myself all types of names as I head into this merry season, so I'm going to give myself a

break and some grace. Then I will circle back in a couple of days when there is no work and all I'm focusing on is being with my family and rest and relaxation, and then my body will start to let go of the cortisol levels and I will look to my walking and my exercise as a way to give my body back what I depleted from it towards the end of the year. And that to me is progress. It's a switch in thinking. It's an honoring of myself and where I am and what I have the capacity

to do, and it's giving myself a fucking break. And I think too often we don't do that we don't give ourselves a break. As a year comes to an end, we beat ourselves up. We say, put the pedal to the metal. There's only a couple of days left of twenty twenty one. Make the best of it. And it's like, for the love of God, you know the fact that we are here, bravo. You get all of the applause from me. If nobody else salutes you, I'm saluting you.

So let us give ourselves a break. Let's look at ourselves in the mirror and say thank you, dear body, dear mind, dear heart for carrying me through this tumultuous y, or thank you right for the wholeness that stands before me. Thank you for getting me to this place. And in turn, I will honor you by caring for you and loving for you more. When the calendar year turns over. That's

not a resolution. It's just a recognition, right, It's just a recognition of what we've all been through and being proud of having gotten to the end and have the ability to be able to start anew. And it isn't just the new year, you know. I said this year because somebody had told me that they look at their birthdays as their own personal new year, and I said, I love that. I love that so much. But to

be honest, I look at every day. I want to look at every day as a personal new year, because yesterday is done, the future has not been written, and today's an opportunity to do something a little different. If I was hard on myself on Monday, then I want to give myself a little more grace on Tuesday. That I gave myself a little bit of grace on Tuesday, I want to really love up on myself on Wednesday.

And that's okay. You are deserving regardless of the mansions and the cinemas and these politicians that want to portray the American people as lazy, as liars, as cheats. That's not who we are. But we have allowed capitalism, right and the grind, the forced grind, to believe that we are undeserving of rest, that we are undeserving of the space to provide ourselves if in fact, we do breakdown, that we spend so much time beating ourselves up that we don't even need anyone on the outside to do so,

because we're too busy pulverizing ourselves. So if there's nothing else that we can do with the last handful of days of this year. Let's center grace. Let's allow our shoulders to come down from our ears. Let's need out the not that has been forming and living in our stomachs. Let's return to deep breaths and pushing out the stale air of this year. Let's make a pact to just use every day as an opportunity to give gratitude, to ground ourselves in joy, and to just try and be

just a little bit better. That doesn't mean to do more, Jess, means to be a little bit better than we were the day before. Maybe read an extra page of your book, Maybe spend another minute in meditation or prayer. Maybe spend a little extra time watering and weeding out your plants. Maybe dance around your home. Just connect with the fact that we are alive and almost a million Americans are not. And I don't want us to get stuck in survivor's guilt about that, or feeling like the pressure is on

and we should be doing the most. The fact that we have in all as a nation had a collective nervous breakdown, I think is doing the most. Just think about this. I'll read you the top of the piece that I wrote for Zora Magazine, a vertical on medium, and I just want you to take it in for a second. Take in what you've lived through. This is entitled twenty twenty one, the Year of Trauma. Once again, here we go. Over eight hundred thousand Americans are dead

from a global health pandemic. Twenty five percent of the American population still refuses to be vaccinated. A violent attempt to overthrow the government left five people dead, a once in a century fire season, a once in a century tornado outbreak, mass shootings on the rise, over four hundred voter suppression laws on the books, book burning is back. Republican members of Congress openly threatening violence against their Democratic colleagues is now the norm. This is America at the

end of twenty twenty one. We are a nation amid a very real existential crisis. Following the carnage that was collectively experienced in twenty twenty, from the health pandemic to a racial reckoning. Many of us wanted to believe that the following the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we could take a deep breath and turn our attention

back to the mendanity of life. We were assured that we wouldn't have to frantically check Twitter to make sure Trump hadn't tweeted us into a war or lawaunch nukes via nastygram. We had faith that with the resounding rebuke of his presidency through our votes, the message would be clear. American authoritarianism is not welcomed or wanted here. Sadly that has not been the case. Twenty twenty one pack the

same unrelenting punch as twenty twenty did. We now have not one but two hyperactive in new COVID nineteen variants. Parents have taken to threatening school board members over mask mandates to keep children safe in school. Shootings are back in the headlines. Suicide attempts among America's teens are up

a staggering fifty percent. In Roe v. Wade, the forty eight year old law that protected a person's right to an abortion is now hanging in the balance until the Supreme Court makes their decision in June of twenty twenty two. America is in a full blown meltdown. All any of us can think about as we close out this grueling year is what is coming next? Usually, the end of the year offers a time for us to reflect, recharge,

and reconnect with our loved ones. Except as we reflect on the whirldwind that was twenty twenty one, it's hard to think about anything other than fear of things getting worse. Twenty twenty two is an election year, and while every election year, commentators and politicals alike lament on just how important this election is, the significance of the upcoming midterms

can't be understated. While we wanted to believe that the attack on our democracy ended after the one hundred and eighty seven minute physical assault on our Capitol building, the reality is that was just at one The slow moving coup, as Bill Maher referred to it is still moving, but

it's not that slow. Republicans have showed their hand with their fond embrace of the murderer Kyle written House, who received a not guilty verdict for killing two people in cold blood during the Kenosha, Wisconsin Black Lives Matter protests in twenty twenty They have clearly shown they want their country back and are willing to take it back by any means necessary. What message did the written House jury and Judge Bruce Schroeder provide to enrage white Americans, simple

we got your back. To say that the times feel bleak would be the understatement of the year. We are a nation that is exhausted and on the brink and wondering what will finally break democracies back democracy, as we are learning the hard way is only as strong as the citizens who remain vigilant over it. When Steve Bannon talked about the flood zone, he was keenly aware that creating mass chaos breeds apathy. Why because with so much coming at the nation, eventually folks will throw up their

hands and give up. The times are more arduous right now. They are depressing and all consuming. And yet this isn't the worst of times. While toiling fields who spoils they were not privy to, and caring for white children while theirs were sold into chattel slavery, enslaved Africans kept believing. They believed in a liberation that they they may never experience. Their unrelenting belief in freedom is what got us to this place. Giving up now would be a slap in

the face to the torture they endured. As famed civil rights activist composer and founder of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee's Freedom Singers, Doctor Bernice Reagan wrote an Ella's song this, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes folks. That's the message that I want to leave you with on this Christmas Eve. We have to

keep believing. And while I joke and sometimes I'm very serious about losing hope, the reality is is that I would not continue turning on my microphone day in and day out if I did not believe in the possibility

of something better. The reality is is that, as you know, curse filled and as a rage filled, as the episodes of wok AF have been over the course of twenty twenty one, we show up each and every day, myself, my producer Andrew, who make sure that this sounds good and looks good and is up all of the time for you, in time, each and every day. We show up every day because we believe in this country. We believe in us the people. It's why I end each show with power to the people and to all the

people power. It's because I believe leave in us, and I believe that the work that we are doing each and every day, whether it is registering to people to vote, whether it is volunteering, whether it's donating, whether it's having conversations with our very difficult family members or friends or colleagues to try and change hearts and minds and expand perceptions of what is right, what is just? Where the believers where the fighters? We are so angry because we care,

We are so frustrated because we know better. So do not give up. Do not stop fighting. Take your time to rest, take your time to recharge, Take your time to hug yourselves and those around you. Look for the good in each and every day, even even when it seems like there isn't anything good to look at. They win when we choose to give up. They win when we decide to wallow in our despair. I'm not saying

not to feel sad. I'm saying, just don't let the sadness control you, because we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. I wish each and every single one of you a happy, RESTful, reach charged, beautiful holiday. If you celebrate, and if you don't, I hope that you just take the time off to sleep, to eat, to fill yourself with good things. All of next week, we have brand new shows and never before seen footage. So do not think that this is goodbye. There are

more good things to come. Cannot wait to be back live with all of you in twenty twenty two. I wish you well. Please be safe as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fun