Wolf Alice – How Can I Make It Ok?
I was listening to the newest Wolf Alice album on my way to work and got stuck on this song. This video wasn’t what I was expecting but I think it expands on the song’s message from a deeply personal one to something universal.
While I was driving I was thinking about my kids and how the past two years have been so difficult for everyone, but of course my focus is on trying to make their lives better. How can I make it ok? Honestly the world sucks so bad and what is there for them to look forward to in a country teetering on the brink of fascism. Climate change, racism, crippling debt, homophobia; how do I sell them the world? I’m also keenly aware of how their lives right now, in the present, are so far removed from what any of us imagined their high school and college years would be like. It’s a pointless exercise to consider what could have been had things not been upended by a pandemic but I think most parents do have hopes for what their kids will do as they grow up and it’s hard to watch the things you envisioned for them disintegrate. I just want them to be happy. Nothing else is as important as that to me. It’s why I drove 300 miles on Monday to take my daughter to her show.
In looking for a video* I watched a number of live performances and thought about how great their show was that I went to a couple of years ago. They’re touring now and it seemed like there were still tickets for the Boston show next week. I had them in my cart but then remembered a potential conflict I need to check into, plus I am still catching up on sleep from the trip up to Boston earlier this week (which already feels longer than just three days ago!). This is going to be one of those ones I leave up to the fates. If there are still tickets next week, who knows, I may decide it’s worth it.
Noisy Cats 
Catching up on your first few posts for 11/2021 and listening to Brickell’s Picture Perfect Morning, vacillating between existential dread, simple joy, self-pity, and gratitude. What’s the German word for that? Hope you’re well. Japanese Breakfast and Wild Nothing and we’re only on day 4. Cheers
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Keeping my head above water, most days! Thanks for reading, as always.
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You got the tears flowing on this one Ellen. If you haven’t read the poem Good Bones by Maggie Smith, well, don’t. These children are hope, joy, and happiness to us but we can’t give any of that to them. We can only give them love. So painful. We want them to be happy but there’s this huge gap between making it “okay” and having them be “happy”. Mostly “okay” is enough.
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Wolf Alice got the tears flowing for me so I’m just passing it along. It hurts to see them hurting. I think that’s something people don’t tell you about having kids. In theory you get it, but until it happens, you just don’t really know.
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