Writing Through The Worst of Times

when nothing feels like enough, including you

"Our histories never unfold in isolation. We cannot truly tell what we consider to be our own histories without knowing the other stories. And often we discover that those other stories are actually our own stories." — Angela Y. Davis

---

When I have difficulty making sense of the world, I read, watch, and listen to respected experts piece together a fuller picture to scaffold my understanding of what I am looking at, which usually leads to breaking my heart a little more. I watched a two-part documentary on Mussolini over the weekend, which is a good insight into my ancestors' history of trying to escape poverty and political instability. Most did before the shift toward authoritarian rule. The horrors of a fascist dictator overtaking their home country happened gradually. Socialist and communist movements were gaining power, which worried the upper and middle classes and even the monarchy, which played a key role in Mussolini's rise. Founding the Fascist Party in 1919, which was a fuck boy reaction to The Biennio Rosso (The "Two Red Years") 1919–1920—labour strikes and peasant uprisings were met with attacks. The violence, more often than not, encouraged by police and elites. (Sound familiar?) Fascist yes-men, called Blackshirts, used street violence to silence leftist groups. Making sense of this helps me recognize the similarities and differences between what we are trudging through now and how to meet this moment by looking back at what did and didn't work.

With the lack of stability, many southern Italians went overseas, like most immigrant stories go, to seek a better life. In the early years of immigration, sojourning or chain migration was common, just like today. The men would often migrate alone, get established in an area where other Italians lived, and have their families come over later. Some men never sent for their families and started a new life. Some worked seasonally and would return home. Italian communities called these men birds of passage because of their commonality of migratory birds. That became tougher once the Immigration Act was introduced in 1924.

“The Immigration Act of 1924 sadly marked non-Nordic immigrants as inferior and unwanted in the country that had previously granted them entry. Predictably, the infamous law saw more Italians, Jews and other targeted foreign nationals leave the U.S. in 1924 than those who entered.” - Ben Lariccia for La Gazzetta Italia.

My great-grandfather Salvatore (Sam), great-grandmother Elisabetta (Elizabeth), and three of their kids.

---

My mother's family from southern Italy immigrated to Canada via the United States. My great-great-grandfather, Ferdinando, immigrated sometime between 1906 and 1909 from Serra San Bruno, a remote mountain village known for its monastery founded in 1091 by St Bruno of Cologne. It was one of the first Carthusian monasteries in Italy. Mountains and forests abounded, creating lumber, charcoal production and woodworking jobs, which declined over time. My great-grandfather Salvatore was around 17 when he left Italy a few years later. I could find no record of Stella, his mother's passage to the US or Canada. The fancy cursive writing on the ship records illegible to me. I found a marriage record of my great-grandfather Salvatore and my great-grandmother Elisabetta Maria in Connecticut in 1915. I'm unsure how long they stayed before heading to Canada for the logging/forestry, railway work, and most likely land opportunities.

My family's lore is sparse. Poignantly reminding me of the grief and disconnection that come with leaving your country behind to survive and the pressures of assimilation. Some stories were lost from their journey and Calabria, a region that relied heavily on oral storytelling. Based on what I know, it's clear that our history has no lords, ladies, or secret treasures. Still, what fragments I'm told bring me great comfort in knowing where they came from, and the sacrifices made built the foundation for the next generations to thrive but sadly lost the language and some of the cultural rooting. My Acenstry.com deep dive took days, but I had one basic point to make—a long-winded way of sharing that in times of upheaval, political turmoil, and economic inequality, there is always one guy and all the yes men and women fucking shit up so badly for others that wreaks havoc on the majority of the population. Deceiving vulnerable people at every turn.

It's hard to know how to show up, as it happens while going to work every day, like everything is normal when it's not. A few weeks back, I read how the Trump administration is axing over 10,000 aid programs and how catastrophic the outcomes are. I have been educating myself on Middle Eastern conflicts and the oppression of Palestinians. I knew the apartheid was taking place thanks to the work of Angela Y Davis well before October 7, and now genocide is happening in front of our eyes—cue red herring. I need to go back to school for international relations or journalism to cope with the compounding catastrophes and our rapidly shifting culture. It's not letting up, and we have a supercomputer attached to our arms 24/7 to remind us of our fragility, making some of us go mad.

---

We are woven into the collective, yet I keep trying to tackle my sorrows as a personal failure to launch, separate from my surroundings.

---

It's easy to call out what is wrong with the world, but it's much harder to do something about it, and that's why I am quieter these days or more so than I was when I first realized I needed to pull my head out of my ass as a liberal white woman in 2015. Symbolic action can only take you so far. I'm figuring out my place in all the noise because there is no way for me to separate what is going on globally from what is going on in my personal life and that of a writer who has been through the wringer of death after death since 2019. I seem at a loss for words but refuse to become reactionary clickbait. To feed the media beast, while humans on the right and left are currently perfecting this, I vowed not to be that kind of writer. I'm looking at ways not to parrot culture war talking points. I'm trying not to take the easy bait in front of me. However, it would be more lucrative than my current financial affairs.

I recently deactivated and deleted most of my social media accounts except this one and a dormant BlueSky account to gain some clarity while not scrolling into oblivion and feeding my impulse to pick up my phone every 10 seconds and constantly raging to myself about those who put all their eggs in one basket, forfeit ethics and integrity for clicks, attention, and money, which radicalizes people even more. I'd also rather not feed others' fears and addictions.

The more irrelevant and quieter I become, the closer I feel to something real, but it's so uncomfortable that I sometimes want to crawl out of my skin. I have struggled to share writing because everything I have written or attempted to write recently doesn't land in the current climate to my satisfaction, and I'm ok with that. It's hard to put into words that each time I go to work on a piece of writing, I am overcome with its insignificance and my own.

Living in ongoing historical moments as a human and writer without diving beyond the depths of expertise, without wanting to throw in the towel altogether. Nothing feels like enough. When what's happening around the world outweighs what feels like my inconsequential ponderings on life and personal struggles. I am ill-equipped to meet this moment with the vigour or actionable ways I'd like to, or it could be my imposter syndrome creeping in. I write a lot about grief, which may be helpful for some and indulgent for others in these times.

When nothing feels like enough, including you, trace your roots and find out where you come from, where your people went, and why. Find out as much as you can while your people are still alive. We can find our way in the chaos. It may help to know that they are somehow messily leading us home. Look to history and see where we went wrong.

---

On writing in the worst of times, I could shame myself for my lack of drive and hunger to succeed as a writer at this time, or I could continue meeting this discomfort with curiosity. It's okay to be a bit lost or really lost. Being in your 40s offers some clarity but can unravel others. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm slowing down to get my bearings. I could hear my thoughts again by substantially decreasing the chatter on social media. Being cut off from an ecosystem I once was a big part of has been good for me. I am committed to not reacting to everything I despise. I want to find a way to speak on things without sounding like everyone else. I want to create from a place of depth. I will probably tell you more stories soon. I hope this newsletter brushed some cobwebs off.

---

Book Nook:

Sharing books that had an impact on me as of late

I read The Quiet Damage, QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook. My takeaway from this was, for the love of all that is good and holy, tend to your grief and trauma, and do not let the internet hijack your grief of the world you wish to see by falling for grifters online and in person. Turbulent times create grifter vacuums and good people get sucked up and never the same again.

---

Subscribe to Slow Practice

by angela e. morris

Slow Practice is a free newsletter, so sharing it with your people can help support my writing. I am not consistent enough to ask people to become paid subscribers, so a share, comment, or like goes a long way. Having humans pump my tires on social media because I'm not there anymore would be a damn joy. Not that I will be able to see it; please share in your stories with your friends or whoever you think you may get something from my newsletter.

If you're grieving the death of a loved one, you can read my book, Love Notes to Grievers, which is currently on sale at Amazon.com.

(I know, sorry—fucking amazon)

Alright, that’s it. Those are my hopefully non-cringy pitches

Ange