To Lightsaber or not to Lightsaber?

Ask yourself, what am I doing in the next four years? To stay sane, I am building culture, breathing. Hoping American democracy survives. Maybe I need that lightsaber after all.

I grew up with a clear reference point between needs and wants.

Everything I owned, until I was eighteen, could be rolled into my sleeping bag and carried on my back. In my upcoming memoir, I tell you about the drills we performed in the middle of the night. Hear a whistle, and we’d roll up our stuff and set out into the woods for end-of-day drills. We came back hungry three days later.

At twenty, I drove across the country in a small, beat-up car I had bought for $1,500. Everything I owned fit in that car: a tent, a sleeping bag, shorts, a swimsuit, a pair of leggings, a sweatshirt, a box of books, a backpack, and one special guidebook about what to do in emergencies.

It said not to run away from bears. It said I could get water from cactus in the desert.

When I graduated, I had a different piece of crap car to drive to California, a cat, and a goldfish. Everything I owned still fit in the car. The cat managed to eat the goldfish on the way the Los Angeles.

When I got divorced, I drove away and traveled light, fitting everything my two kids and I owned in my Nissan NX. When I travel now, I like to carry a backpack with a laptop for work and an iPad for reviewing manuscripts that have come into Red Hen, which makes it easier to read quickly. I have one change of clothes, and a T-shirt to wear in my hotel. If I stay with friends, I try to run to the bathroom when they aren’t looking so they don’t catch a glimpse of me in my pajamas. My friend, Gina, gave me adorable PJs with chickens on them. At her house, I don’t have to run.

But when I travel, I am forever seeing things I want. Online, too.

Just today, I spotted something that I need to give to many of the people in my life. It’s being sold on Kickstarter: a Star Wars replica Obi-Wan lightsaber. I know a lot of people who would appreciate a lightsaber for fighting off evil or working on the lines, “May the force be with you” or “Those are not the droids you’re looking for.” In concept, it sounds epic. But do we need a lightsaber? Is this one of those things that will give most people about thirty seconds of pleasure?

That’s often the problem with exciting new toys. Fancy, fashionable, and fast. Anything of the moment will not be of the next moment.

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In 1994, I moved with everything I owned in one car. Now, it would take me some time to move. When I relocated again in 1998, four years later, it took a truck to move the books. If I moved now, I would abandon all of my furniture. I can’t think of a stick of it that’s worth the gas it would take to move it, but moving the books and art would take a minute. Not that the art is worth anything to a collector, but it’s my dream space in the world. It’s the art that makes my house feel magical, so I can think, create, and envision.

But I don’t need it. When I travel on writing retreats, I bring a few books, and I manage fine.

We don’t need most of the stuff that we have. As I learned in my recent travels, Cubans stand in line for the groceries that we walk into Vons and buy without thinking. They stand in long lines for eggs, milk, and onions.

If you can only be happy if you have certain clothes and shoes, get to go to a certain concert, or get a raise, then you might be unhappy. If you can only be happy if your kids/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/boss is nice to you, you’re waiting for an external force to hand you happiness.

My goal in 2025 is to get up early, write in my journal, and do my exercise before the day starts. Every day, I remind myself to live my life with joy because I am blessed. My trip to Cuba was a good reminder that I can be without this, that, and the other thing, and still find joy. No Wi-Fi. I live. Bowl of rice a day. I live. No fruit. I live.

I don’t need a lightsaber. (But if I end up fighting any Storm Troopers or Sith Lords, I’m going to wish I had one.)

May we all learn to breathe. I am decluttering my space. Every week, I get rid of ten things. By the end of the year, I will have a zen abode. I want to have my mind, space, and life clear, clean, and ready to invite in the imagination.

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We need clear minds in the years ahead. Right now, it feels overwhelming. It’s easy to feel like we are witnessing the end of American democracy. The top one percent are working to make sure they won’t pay taxes. The last tax cut saved them trillions. The new budget in front of Congress cuts one trillion from Medicare and SNAP (food for the poorest Americans) and gives a 4 trillion dollar tax break to billionaires and their corporations. Cutting funding to the poor, giving money to the rich.

Greenland/Canada/the Gulf of Mexico is noise. Distraction. The money is always the point. If you want to care about anything, where Congress spends the budget is what America cares about.

Ask yourself, what am I doing in the next four years? To stay sane, I am building culture, breathing. Hoping American democracy survives. Maybe I need that lightsaber after all.

In the meantime, here’s to finding happiness. To mediation and living with intention. And to breathing. It gets harder every day, but I want to believe that our democracy can survive through the intentional lives we build. I will continue to work in the arts. I will work in the space of magic.