“Such is the hope-- not for an end to this story, but for the unknowing and maybe the unknown, the embrace of the undone and the undoing. It’s too late to turn back, to wind time in reverse, to climb down out of the window, to retreat back through the Capitol halls, the tall grass, and the Trump years, back to the pony at the 7-Eleven and the Milky Way bar. Too late because it was already too late then. It always has been. We’ve go to go through it. The Whiteness, this stolen land. Into the smoky, copper-bright uncertain, reckoning with the haunted past, which is hard, learning to love the smoldering days ahead, which is harder.” Jeff Sharlet, The Undertow.

The past 9 days have felt like a year. A decade. A century. Complete chaos is the game we are playing, and there’s no end in sight. We simply must keep moving forward through the Unknown shadows of authoritarianism in America’s latest chapter.

Last week, on day 3, the weather warmed enough to leave the house and my soul was scraping the barrel of absolute despair. So, my faithful furbaby and I put on our winter coats and headed to the one place that serves as a balm for our broken hearts. The coffeeshop.

I adopted Francisco 9 months ago. On day one of our new adventure together, I brought him to my second home, a coffeeshop I have frequented since I moved here 4 years ago. The baristas helped me make the final decision the day before to go adopt his “blue dog” self. He was classified by the shelter as a blue dog, sad and slightly withdrawn. Translation: he just experienced some overwhelming trauma that landed him in a shelter in Texas at age 5, and relocated to Fort Collins at a community animal rescue.

Francisco was swimming through the Unknown when we found each other. So was I.

On our first day together at the coffeeshop, we sat outside in the sunshine. He rested on my lap and absorbed this wild new world with a stoic surrender. The only sound he made was a gentle growl when a large yellow lab sauntered by his table. He sat there on my lap, processing the world and everyone in it. In that moment, with his protective little growl, I thought that we could travel through our "Blue Dog" phase together, processing a cruel and unpredictable world as a little family unit. And maybe we'd push through our Unknown together, towards something so simple that we'd both emerge from our traumas as sentient beings ready for the next challenge. Together, and happy.

How had I managed to adopt a dog who enjoyed the beauty of community coffeeshops as much as myself? I’ve been dwelling in Third Places for decades, finding the buzz of community gathering spaces like a bustling coffeeshop as a balm for my soul. I watched this little being take in his surroundings, felt both his sadness and his acceptance, and we cuddled our way through the Unknown until he was no longer blue. And neither was I.

On my darker days, I go to the coffeeshop. On my brighter days, I go to the coffeeshop. On my uncertain days, I go to the coffeeshop. Most days...I go to the coffeeshop. And I managed to adopt a dog who also thrives in a coffeeshop. We sit inside now during the winter months, next to the fire and he lays across my lap in a state that embraces the alertness of people watching and the relaxation of being in a state of belonging.

And as we spend time together in this state of connection to our community, he spreads a little smile to everyone around him. If someone is sitting beside us, lost in conversation with a dear friend, he listens. If someone is working on their computer, he stops to say hello. People from across the coffeeshop stop by just to say hello to this little cherub. He knows the staff and they give him cuddles while I order my espresso.

My dog and my community are the reason I did not expatriate from my country on November 6th, 2024. I was overseas for work during the election, and the reality of millions of people voting from a place of misogyny and racism to elect a convicted felon was/is hard to comprehend. But, I stayed.

My heart is here, in this space with my dog on my lap. My humans are here, sprinkled throughout this community and region, doing the hard work of community building in collapse. Seeking desperately to implement the technical systems we build in our day jobs to save the systems we hold dear-- that we know are collapsing from our collective inaction or being decimated by an agenda of racism and hatred.

In my work, we embrace the chaos of the Unknown. The chaos is why we exist. Our attempts at technical mitigation of the chaos is what drives us, hoping we can transform the Unknowing into systems that shed light on what is Known and what can rise from the Unknown we perpetually navigate.

On day three of this new chapter of authoritarianism, we traveled to the coffeeshop. It was the only thing I could imagine that would sooth my broken heart. I was almost finished with The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet and wanted to absorb the impact of this book amongst my community who represents the opposite of those portrayed in the book, but are now at risk because the people in this book embraced a false idol who empowered them to celebrate the darkest aspects of our humanity. Fully armed and ready to spawn the next Civil War. A slow war resting at the heart of the Unknown.

I read the passage above as I approached the end of the book and had to pause. I knew an essay was brewing, but the cherub on my lap doesn’t allow me to type. So, I jotted down the following questions with pen and paper as I held the knowledge that not only was this passage scratching at that deep yearning to express rage through writing, but the entire existence of this coffeeshop is not a forgone conclusion. This space openly embraces diversity and proudly welcomes everyone regardless of race, gender, beliefs or religion. Such a place can easily become a battle ground for that slow war.

“Such is the hope-- not for an end to this story, but for the unknowing and maybe the unknown, the embrace of the undone and the undoing. It’s too late to turn back, to wind time in reverse...”

The Unknowing is everything right now. We are all suffering in this liminal space of the Unknown. Will the moms sitting next to me with their infants all be able to afford formula in 3 months? Will the transgender chef serving a harvest bowl to the table of elderly friends still be able to proudly embrace their identity when they leave the safe space of this cafe? Will the ingredients in that harvest bowl be accessible or affordable in six months, or will the root vegetables that nourish the patrons simply rot in a field because there’s no one to work the harvest? Or will the seniors ordering the bowls no longer have any disposable income because their social safety nets evaporate at the stroke of a strong-man’s pen in nine months?

• Will we, as individuals, communities and a country survive the Unknown?

• What aspects of our collective humanity will survive the Unknown and what aspects will we protect?

• What will we endure?

• What will we ignore?

• What will we normalize?

• What will we be forced to accept as “inevitable”?

• Will we still harbor empathy and compassion for the “other” who voted for this reality? Or will our hearts harden in an attempt to survive this Unknown?

• Will we still gather in open communities and accept our differences or will we isolate in an attempt, justified as it may be, at self preservation?

• Will we still possess the capacity to acknowledge and embrace the simple moments of beauty from a stoic dog people watching for hours in a bustling coffeeshop or will the exhaustion of the Unknown blind us to the remaining slivers of beauty in just being?

Will we become so riddled with fear and anxiety over the sheer evil and lack of control powering this Unknown that we will no longer seek the solace of our Third Spaces and turn to isolation for survival?  What of our essence-- our humanity-- will remain untarnished and accessible under this new chapter of Unknown powered by the darkest elements humanity has to offer?

I publish certain essays to blockchains for a reason. No one can remove these words once they are published to Arweave. If you’re a writing, expressing your rage online, and wish your words to live beyond your ability to publish them, please ping me. Decentralization matters now more than ever.

“Such is the hope-- not for an end to this story, but for the unknowing and maybe the unknown, the embrace of the undone and the undoing. It’s too late to turn back, to wind time in reverse, to climb down out of the window, to retreat back through the Capitol halls, the tall grass, and the Trump years, back to the pony at the 7-Eleven and the Milky Way bar. Too late because it was already too late then. It always has been. We’ve go to go through it. The Whiteness, this stolen land. Into the smoky, copper-bright uncertain, reckoning with the haunted past, which is hard, learning to love the smoldering days ahead, which is harder.” Jeff Sharlet, The Undertow.

The past 9 days have felt like a year. A decade. A century. Complete chaos is the game we are playing, and there’s no end in sight. We simply must keep moving forward through the Unknown shadows of authoritarianism in America’s latest chapter.

Last week, on day 3, the weather warmed enough to leave the house and my soul was scraping the barrel of absolute despair. So, my faithful furbaby and I put on our winter coats and headed to the one place that serves as a balm for our broken hearts. The coffeeshop.

I adopted Francisco 9 months ago. On day one of our new adventure together, I brought him to my second home, a coffeeshop I have frequented since I moved here 4 years ago. The baristas helped me make the final decision the day before to go adopt his “blue dog” self. He was classified by the shelter as a blue dog, sad and slightly withdrawn. Translation: he just experienced some overwhelming trauma that landed him in a shelter in Texas at age 5, and relocated to Fort Collins at a community animal rescue.

Francisco was swimming through the Unknown when we found each other. So was I.

On our first day together at the coffeeshop, we sat outside in the sunshine. He rested on my lap and absorbed this wild new world with a stoic surrender. The only sound he made was a gentle growl when a large yellow lab sauntered by his table. He sat there on my lap, processing the world and everyone in it. In that moment, with his protective little growl, I thought that we could travel through our "Blue Dog" phase together, processing a cruel and unpredictable world as a little family unit. And maybe we'd push through our Unknown together, towards something so simple that we'd both emerge from our traumas as sentient beings ready for the next challenge. Together, and happy.

How had I managed to adopt a dog who enjoyed the beauty of community coffeeshops as much as myself? I’ve been dwelling in Third Places for decades, finding the buzz of community gathering spaces like a bustling coffeeshop as a balm for my soul. I watched this little being take in his surroundings, felt both his sadness and his acceptance, and we cuddled our way through the Unknown until he was no longer blue. And neither was I.

On my darker days, I go to the coffeeshop. On my brighter days, I go to the coffeeshop. On my uncertain days, I go to the coffeeshop. Most days...I go to the coffeeshop. And I managed to adopt a dog who also thrives in a coffeeshop. We sit inside now during the winter months, next to the fire and he lays across my lap in a state that embraces the alertness of people watching and the relaxation of being in a state of belonging.

And as we spend time together in this state of connection to our community, he spreads a little smile to everyone around him. If someone is sitting beside us, lost in conversation with a dear friend, he listens. If someone is working on their computer, he stops to say hello. People from across the coffeeshop stop by just to say hello to this little cherub. He knows the staff and they give him cuddles while I order my espresso.

My dog and my community are the reason I did not expatriate from my country on November 6th, 2024. I was overseas for work during the election, and the reality of millions of people voting from a place of misogyny and racism to elect a convicted felon was/is hard to comprehend. But, I stayed.

My heart is here, in this space with my dog on my lap. My humans are here, sprinkled throughout this community and region, doing the hard work of community building in collapse. Seeking desperately to implement the technical systems we build in our day jobs to save the systems we hold dear-- that we know are collapsing from our collective inaction or being decimated by an agenda of racism and hatred.

In my work, we embrace the chaos of the Unknown. The chaos is why we exist. Our attempts at technical mitigation of the chaos is what drives us, hoping we can transform the Unknowing into systems that shed light on what is Known and what can rise from the Unknown we perpetually navigate.

On day three of this new chapter of authoritarianism, we traveled to the coffeeshop. It was the only thing I could imagine that would sooth my broken heart. I was almost finished with The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet and wanted to absorb the impact of this book amongst my community who represents the opposite of those portrayed in the book, but are now at risk because the people in this book embraced a false idol who empowered them to celebrate the darkest aspects of our humanity. Fully armed and ready to spawn the next Civil War. A slow war resting at the heart of the Unknown.

I read the passage above as I approached the end of the book and had to pause. I knew an essay was brewing, but the cherub on my lap doesn’t allow me to type. So, I jotted down the following questions with pen and paper as I held the knowledge that not only was this passage scratching at that deep yearning to express rage through writing, but the entire existence of this coffeeshop is not a forgone conclusion. This space openly embraces diversity and proudly welcomes everyone regardless of race, gender, beliefs or religion. Such a place can easily become a battle ground for that slow war.

“Such is the hope-- not for an end to this story, but for the unknowing and maybe the unknown, the embrace of the undone and the undoing. It’s too late to turn back, to wind time in reverse...”

The Unknowing is everything right now. We are all suffering in this liminal space of the Unknown. Will the moms sitting next to me with their infants all be able to afford formula in 3 months? Will the transgender chef serving a harvest bowl to the table of elderly friends still be able to proudly embrace their identity when they leave the safe space of this cafe? Will the ingredients in that harvest bowl be accessible or affordable in six months, or will the root vegetables that nourish the patrons simply rot in a field because there’s no one to work the harvest? Or will the seniors ordering the bowls no longer have any disposable income because their social safety nets evaporate at the stroke of a strong-man’s pen in nine months?

• Will we, as individuals, communities and a country survive the Unknown?

• What aspects of our collective humanity will survive the Unknown and what aspects will we protect?

• What will we endure?

• What will we ignore?

• What will we normalize?

• What will we be forced to accept as “inevitable”?

• Will we still harbor empathy and compassion for the “other” who voted for this reality? Or will our hearts harden in an attempt to survive this Unknown?

• Will we still gather in open communities and accept our differences or will we isolate in an attempt, justified as it may be, at self preservation?

• Will we still possess the capacity to acknowledge and embrace the simple moments of beauty from a stoic dog people watching for hours in a bustling coffeeshop or will the exhaustion of the Unknown blind us to the remaining slivers of beauty in just being?

Will we become so riddled with fear and anxiety over the sheer evil and lack of control powering this Unknown that we will no longer seek the solace of our Third Spaces and turn to isolation for survival?  What of our essence-- our humanity-- will remain untarnished and accessible under this new chapter of Unknown powered by the darkest elements humanity has to offer?

I publish certain essays to blockchains for a reason. No one can remove these words once they are published to Arweave. If you’re a writing, expressing your rage online, and wish your words to live beyond your ability to publish them, please ping me. Decentralization matters now more than ever.