These are stressful times.

Our beloved country is in the throes of a desperate struggle. On one side stands a president who arrogates power to himself as no president ever has; who exercises that power with a recklessness, a vindictiveness, and a gleeful civic sadism that threatens so much of what we hold dear about this nation; and who seems, at this moment, triumphant. On the other side—a stunned and scattered opposition, unable so far to slow the Trumpist march towards the personalized, autocratic rule that is taking shape in the United States of America.

Many people turn away from these events and what they signify. They don’t want the hassle—and maybe the risk—of engaging in political activity. They don’t accept the claim that a dire, anti-democratic takeover is happening in America. Their own lives remain for the most part unaffected by the turmoil they see and hear in their news sources. Things still seem pretty OK to them. In a sense, these citizens on the sidelines of our national struggle are the most important people in the world right now. What they do in the coming months and years will determine the fate of our nation.

Then there are the hardcore Trumpists, who revel in the crushing of their hated liberal enemies and the wholesale erasure of their cherished achievements. They love the fist: the hammer of federal power that is the leading form of expression in this second Trump administration—as so many immigrants, universities, law firms, corporations, museums, aid workers, scientists, trans people, dissidents, and others already understand. Some in the MAGA movement, in their secret hearts, would love if Trump could realize the dream of O’Brien, the grand inquisitor in Orwell’s 1984: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face—for ever.”

Last week, a Swiss documentary film crew came to interview me about all this. Their project aims to show how freedoms are being circumscribed—by force and by acquiescence—in Trump’s America. I guess they think my own story over the last few months is relevant, and they were intrigued by how Substack and other social-media platforms are rising to become a new, freer, more truthful form of journalism. At one point, Anne-Frédérique Widmann, the director, asked me, “How far are you willing to go?” I didn’t understand at first. Then I realized. She was asking about the possibility that I’d be punished (again) for describing what is actually, factually happening in our country. For identifying the thing that is in front of us, and naming it. The suggestion was that my home is no refuge. A “knock at the door” was mentioned. It all seemed very far-fetched to me. And I certainly don’t think my work (at least at this early point in my new career) is having much of an impact, or is noticed, beyond the welcoming circle of you good people who are here reading this newsletter. But the realm of what is possible in our country expands by the day, and not for the better.

So in these stressful times, I am thinking of all those Americans who are standing up and challenging the abuses of power that flow forth from Trump and his lackeys, and how hard that work is. Many people are frightened. Depressed. Exhausted. That’s what civic stress does; I’ve seen it in so many countries, from Central America to the Balkans to the Middle East. The struggle wears you down. And that is precisely what the regime wants.

And so to our poem, which I hope is a balm. I count myself blessed to have lived my whole life in places that have proper seasons. Chicago and its suburbs; Appleton, Wisconsin for college; the west of Ireland; Washington DC; New York, New York; London (though the old quip is true: “I love the English summer; it’s my favorite day of the year”); Frederick, Maryland. The turning of the seasons is a grace, a gift, a nourishment.

Summer is over, though she lingers. Always does. Let the grace of her going refresh you, ground you in the work ahead.

Emily Dickinson wrote this. It took me a long time to “get” her poetry. But here, as so often, Dickinson manages in a few words to touch something very real, here on earth, and, perhaps, beyond. She reminds us of the transience of our days, and what a gift they are.

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As imperceptibly as Grief

The Summer lapsed away —

Too imperceptible, at last

To seem like Perfidy —

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A Quietness distilled

As Twilight long begun

Or Nature spending with herself

Sequestered Afternoon —

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The Dusk drew earlier in —

The Morning foreign shone —

A courteous, yet harrowing Grace

As Guest that would be gone —

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And thus without a Wing

Or service of a Keel

Our Summer made her light escape

Into the Beautiful.