What a strange moment in time we are all sharing. At least, it sure feels strange to me. How about you?

This has been a hard week.

If you are someone who has read my column before, this will likely come as no surprise – and if you are new to it, well, it’s always good to know the biases of the person whose opinion you are reading.

Midcoast resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

I believe that all people, regardless of where they come from or how they got there, are deserving of respect and kindness; that making sure everyone is fed, housed, clothed and healthy is our collective obligation to one another as humans; and that how a society treats its most vulnerable members tells you pretty much everything you need to know about it.

I believe in books and art and music – and that education is a right. A right, and a treasure.

I think it is bonkers that we value money (an entirely human-created idea that only has value because we have all agreed to believe in it) over things we actually, genuinely need to survive, like clean water, air and healthy food.

And while I am in the neighborhood of that idea, I also think it’s strange we have decided that we “own” the land – land which predated us by many millennia and which will be here long after us – or that we can draw a line on a map and decide some folks are no longer allowed. Even if they were there first.

It seems downright strange to me that human beings across this vast, beautiful, breathtaking planet spend so much time and energy trying to control the lives of others, passing judgment or waging wars, all in the name of a given set of beliefs which (pretty universally) instructs us all to do the opposite.

I also think animals ought to have a guarantee of lives free from want or abuse, and I believe in dogs being allowed on furniture.

There. That’s me.

So, as I said, it’s been a hard week. I watched my country overwhelmingly elect a person and a platform which are in opposition to everything I just wrote down. To everything I believe. To everything I am.

I got a little despondent. I did. I made the (wise) choice to avoid social media, but the doom scroll in my brain was on overdrive and it was wearing me out. One thing that seemed clear: I had no desire to write. Hope seemed hypocritical. Positivity seemed pathetic.

Then I heard from a lot of you saying that this conversation – the one we are having here in this space – mattered. Including from a person on “the other team,” as she put it, because she remembered I had written about disagreeing respectfully and thought that was worth holding up as a goal.

That did it, I suppose. It got my heart back in the game.

Yes, I do think our community is worth working for, even (or especially) now. Yes, I will keep working for what I believe. I think that’s the key, maybe. The community part. Tear my eyes away from the impossibility of the gargantuan picture, and focus on what is around me. Because after all, what is the nation if not a lot of communities?

I would be lying if I said the doom scroll went away. It did not. I have studied too many firsthand accounts of history to not see the parallels with the conversations happening now. I have fears. Big ones.

However, I also know I will keep doing the work and remember that joy in itself can be an act of rebellion against the dark – and one over which I alone have control.

So I am going to keep working for the things in which I believe and to find the joy as I do it. That and eating ice cream. I hope you will join me.