In this political climate, I find it really easy to feel small and empty, like someone’s taken a melon baller to my insides and scooped them out, leaving nothing of the person I was. And that’s sadly become the norm.

So I, like you, I bet, turn to music, one favorite being “Good for Goodness” by Brittain Ashford: a gentle but resounding reminder to keep hope and lead with kindness. There’s something about Brittain’s voice and autoharp that is soothing and grounding. For me, it amounts to audible Prozac. And without the potential weight gain, so it might beat the real thing!

I didn’t know this before I heard it, but I needed these lyrics. I needed to hear lines like
“If you're feeling forgotten, like you’re among strangers
and you've lost the only way you know how.
If you're feeling restless, like this all seems endless
Those sleepless nights in front of our screens,
searching for something beyond our reach.”

It was validating to hear something so relatable come from someone who has clearly felt it, too. To hear a feeling you know articulated in a new way is healing and freeing. It can make you feel human.

But Brittain’s lyrics are also empowering, not in spite of their gentleness, but because of it. We must mobilize, we must act - but we do not have to harden or drain ourselves. We can’t. And I couldn't always grasp that.

This song’s message has touched me deeply; when I am faced with the melon baller, when I am emptied or threatened with emptiness, these words fill me. And if you're anything like me, I think that they’ll fill you, too,