How To Begin, Gently: Day 24- What You Hold

pot of pasta on stove

Some days you ask how to begin. Others, you wonder how to hold.

How to hold your own life together while trying to show up for the most basic fundamentals. Sleep. Three square meals. A text sent not for logistics, but for connection. A small personal pleasure—a chapter in a book, an episode of your favorite show watched with intention, not distraction.

You are holding your family. Kin-keeping. Being available and present for your daughter. Modeling power for her not as bravado, but as steadiness. You are holding your work—general manager, operator, strategist, problem-solver, muse—while wearing a brave face in the long aftermath of disaster. The decision to stay. To rebuild. To keep operating in uncertainty. Picking up pieces that don’t always fit back together cleanly.

And alongside all of that, like many, you are holding the emotional weight of the country.

You wake up to the news of another death tied to protest and enforcement, and it lands with a familiar, hollow shock. Disorienting. Unsettling. Another reminder that there is no solid ground, that long-held assumptions about safety and justice can thin and fray. The unease sits beside you as you move through your day. To begin gently does not mean you have the luxury of looking away.

In Lahaina, dust is everywhere. The dust of what was lost, and the dust of what is being built again. Nearly three years in, laying down new roots still feels surreal some days—fragile, provisional. And there is still so much insecurity: emotional, financial, communal. Staying requires will. The work behind that choice is unglamorous and compromised, but deeply intentional. You are holding grief and hope at the same time, learning to move between them without losing your footing.

Now there is more attention. More light. Your daughter’s eyes, reading every choice as a lesson. Your staff’s eyes, looking for reassurance and orientation through a wilderness that still feels unfamiliar. A community not asking you to mirror their strength back to them, but quietly watching to see what steadiness looks like when it’s practiced day after day. And beyond that, a nation asking—implicitly—that you hold fast to the values that bind all of this together.

In the midst of it, there is recognition, and with it a responsibility to remain grounded under scrutiny. To bear the weight of being seen. But this much is clear: when people are watching, steadiness matters more than brilliance.

So you hold something warm.

Something sensory. Something that brings you back into your body. A morning cup of coffee or tea. A bowl of lentils eaten slowly at midday. Tortellini in brodo. Grits. Soup left on the stove so it’s there when you need it. Or maybe a single glass of wine shared with your husband at the end of the day, eyes heavy, choosing to stay present for one episode of that favorite show instead of drifting off to sleep.

These are not indulgences. They are anchors.

You meet these small moments of sustenance with care and intention, not to solve for circumstances that cannot be fixed today, but to steady yourself enough to keep moving within them.

This is the shift: not performance, not resolution, but acceptance of what is versus what you wish things were. This is what I am holding today. Naming it doesn’t make it disappear—but it does make it lighter to carry.

In this light, holding becomes a radical form of self-care. A willingness to stay present inside imperfect circumstances. A decision to work with reality instead of bracing against it. We don’t always know what to do in the face of challenge, but anchoring ourselves firmly in what is—rather than what we wish things would be—returns us to our power.

It gives us permission to begin gently, even when the world is not gentle.