Burning Your Zozobra
While one half of our nation rejoices this week and the other half wonders what went wrong, here comes Thanksgiving, Christmas and 
Hanukah, when we’re all thrown together at friends’ parties and family reunions. Finding common ground where we can stand together may be difficult as we tiptoe around each other’s feelings after the election.
Four years ago, it also felt like our national unity had frayed, both physically (the pandemic) and culturally (we vs. them). Back then, I wrote a guest post for Jungle Red Writers about a new word I’d learned from an article in The Conversation. This week, our local newspaper reprinted the original essay.
The word is zozobra.
In Spanish, it means “anguish, anxiety, or gloom,” which many of us suffered from in those fear-ridden times.
I’ve recently heard that in Santa Fe, New Mexico there’s an annual Summer Festival in which they burn an ugly zozobra in effigy as an attempt to chase the gloom away.
And yet, barring a truly effective alternative to lighten our national funk, what better time is there than Thanksgiving to remind us of what’s truly meaningful in life? For me, that includes friends and family (regardless of political differences), the health that still sustains us, and a sense of purpose that keeps us engaged in the world.
Yes, bad things happen every day, and sometimes they happen to us.
But what if we try to minimize the complaining and instead, focus on the positive things we can do to make life better for ourselves and others.
It helps to practice gratitude for the small things that bring us joy.
I am grateful for family and friends, and for being accepted into a writing community where colleagues honor and respect one another, where we share our ups and downs in the wacky world of publishing. To my Stiletto sisters, and to Sisters in Crime and beyond, I would be bereft without your continued friendship and support.
And to our readers! Thank you for reading!
We’re all in this together, come what may. Tomorrow is World Kindness Day. Maybe we could start with that.
Or, if you’re not quite ready to let go of your anxiety, you could plan your very own Zozobra Festival and exorcise the beast.
What are you grateful for today?
Please tell us in the comment section below.
Gay Yellen is the author of the award-winning Samantha Newman Mysteries, including The Body Business, The Body Next Door, and The Body in the News!
Now available from your favorite bookseller. Readers and book clubs, please contact me at GayYellen.com.
What a lovely reminder, and of course, Santa Fe would have something to chase away gloom. I have so much to be grateful for, there isn’t enough space in this blog. Family, friends, I’ve survived part two of a bathroom remodel! I am engaged physically and mentally in this crazy world, and I get to read wonderful blogs like this. Thanks, Gay.
I’m also a survivor of a major bathroom remodel, Donnell. It’s definitely a reason to celebrate!
Gay, when I first read the title of your post, I thought Zozobra was a new brand of lingerie! And then, LOL, you mentioned the Zozobra burning. Seems to me, there was a lot of bra burning back in the day. Maybe we all need to hug around a huge bonfire to come together at a time like this and realize we have more in common than what pulls us apart. It would be a start to healing. And we could burn a few bras or zozobras or zozobras wearing bras.
Lois, your take on the title gives me the giggles. Never dawned on me how easy it would be to take it that way. Thanks for that! I like your idea of burning a few bras. Doubly cathartic!
Great topic well-expressed. And I learned a new concept–zozobra burning! I’m grateful for the very same things you mentioned, and I learned long ago that complaining serves no positive purpose and can undermine the complainer’s own world-view. Sending out gratitude and appreciation to everyone in the reader and writer community, and especially to you.
Thanks, Saralyn. Love you back!
I could stand to burn a few things in effigy. Thanks Gay!
Join the club, Bethany. Just keep an extinguisher handy!