I know what you’re thinking. Liddy, it’s January. It’s so hard, and it’s cold here. Are you really giving homework?
YES. I once infamously complained in 2nd grade math class that I wanted homework. While I do not stand by the behavior of 7-year-old Liddy, I do stand by these books, right here. Because reading each of them allowed my breath to come easier. My work to exist in a world where it matters. And my body to exist in a world where its wellbeing was my fundamental goal, and where that was good and right.
(And if you read not a single page? I don’t mind one bit. I’ll just leave this little list here.)
A fun new addition you’ll notice this week: I now have a bookshop affiliation! That means if you purchase one of these books from the links below, you will support: the author, local bookshops, and me! You will not support: Elon Musk. We love to see it.
A fun thing you won’t notice this week: quotes! I read a number of these on library copies, so I don’t have the books in front of me to see the underlines, bookmarks, and fun little notes I put in books that I own. All of them are available at my local library, and probably yours, too. If you want to read the books and don’t want to buy them used or from Bookshop, the library is THE MOVE, PEOPLE.
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
The Nagoski family has single-handedly reframed both sex (in Emily’s fantastic Come as You Are) and work (in Burnout) for me. How? By translating what might be neuroscience and psychology research that never reaches caregivers into literal, actionable steps to address burnout, compassion fatigue, and stress in general. The thing I love most is that the Nagoskis put these actionable steps in the context of a world that creates and maintains structures that make burnout almost inevitable for people with marginalizations, and that does not have to be that way. The authors say, here is what’s broken, and here is how you can live so that it doesn’t break you. As someone who has existed on the spectrum of burnout, I return again and again to the rest offered in these pages.
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others
I don’t often walk into a workday and think about trauma, but van Dernoot Lipsky reveals how doing so can make the work functional and sustainable. Caregivers might receive secondary trauma in the form of learning about the harm that happened to the person they’re supporting, whether that’s within family systems, institutions, or living out in the world with intersectional marginalized identities. Caregivers might also experience trauma while doing the work: here, I consider my own trauma responses to the pandemic, to the death of my friend whom I supported, and more. I even have applied these principles to my work as a supervisor, where I have held the experiences of trauma that the caregivers I support have experienced, on the job or off. This work speaks to the fact that when we do not steward that trauma mindfully and intentionally, it comes out in the care we give, in ways that can perpetuate this trauma even more. I am abundantly grateful for this reframe.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself
Oh, boundaries. They sound so good and easy, and instead, they are so good and hard. In care work, it can feel like setting boundaries means that you must not care, really, about the people you support. If you cared, wouldn’t you say yes to coming in every time someone calls out of work? Wouldn’t you be there every time something is hard? Wouldn’t you never take time away? Or…leave for good? Those questions sound silly, maybe, but they are literal questions that as a caregiver, I’ve considered daily. Glover Tawab has made it entirely possible for me not only to say “no” in a way that can be gentle, firm, and true, but to say “yes” in a way that feels in integrity with my innermost being. And, also, I don’t exercise boundaries perfectly or easily; it’s still really fucking hard, every day. This book does not judge that reality; in fact, it anticipates and makes room for that truth. Bless.
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending our Hearts and Bodies
Where were you when you first read My Grandmother’s Hands? Once you’ve read it, I bet you’ll remember. I was on a trip to Tucson with some dear college friends, learning from wise teachers about the violence and radical hope-making that takes place at the American empire’s borders. Crucially, Menakem does two things: invite us into embodied practices to respond to and address racism, and make these specific to our identities as white people, Black people, and/or people who work as police. I am only the former, and the way that Menakem’s work invites those of us in white bodies to notice and respond mindfully to discomfort is such a gift. It shaped for me that experience at the border, my experience studying racism in school, and my experiences as a sometimes-marginalized body caring for often-marginalized bodies. The point is that these practices become part of our daily life, and Menakem leads us so beautifully into that reality.
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice
My favorite part about this book is right there in the title: dreaming. Through both personal reflection and cultural criticism, Piepzna-Samarasinha helps us understand what a world could be like—what its actual, physical, material structures could entail—if we as a culture applied disability justice framework to our society. Crucially, the author here is disabled; I recall reading this in my bed in the L’Arche basement and thinking, have I ever read about the experience of caregiving from the perspective of someone receiving care? I hadn’t. But as someone who both gives and receives care, I am grateful for it.
How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community
When I think about this book, one of my primary takeaways is in the image of the nuclear family that Birdsong examines critically. How lonely, to think that raising a child might be something that only one or two people do, pretty much on their own? How impossible, and how unnecessary. As someone who gives paid care, and on a schedule, parenting often seems terrifying because of this loneliness: how could I be on, all the time, forever? But Birdsong reminds us that it simply can be different. We can raise our kids in community. We can care for our elders in community. We can live our lives in community. It takes work, and it is not easy, but it is better for us all, and for our world, when we do.
What books here are you curious about? What would you add to the list? And what other kinds of embodied work are you curious about?
I’m struck, rereading, about the gratitude I keep expressing to these authors. For saying, I see you. For saying, I’m with you. For saying, I understand. For saying, it doesn’t have to be this way.
I also want you, dear reader, to know how grateful I am to and for you. Thank you for reading, skimming, or simply subscribing. Thank you for caring in all the ways you care. Thank you for loving in all the ways you love, sweet friends.
With that love,
Liddy
Burnout and Care Work are two of my favorites. I don't do much care taking this days but the subject has been on my mind a lot, so I look forward to perusing a few others on this list!
So appreciate this list! You didn’t ask for poetry, but poetry is where my brain dwells, so I have a new recommendation as salve for the spirit. An anthology, “Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens and Hands that Tend Them” with lovely, important intros by editor Tess Taylor and also Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Even if one isn’t gardening, those who care for created things are always worth lingering over with attention and words. (Note: I have not yet come across a whole anthology dedicated to maintenance and care, but I am still on the hunt--or will one day do it myself!) Thanks for sharing your words and thoughts.