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One hopeful book recommendation

Notes from parenting in the third trimester and a hopeful book rec for dark times

Alisha Ramos

Feb 3

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Hi readers, wow. I certainly did not mean to leave you hanging without an email from me for over a week. I think this is the longest I’ve gone without sending anything in the nine years I’ve been writing newsletters, which should give you a hint about how life has been lately…

On that note, today, I wanted to catch you up quickly on what I’ve been up to, plus share some housekeeping announcements re: my upcoming maternity leave (which is coming up so fast, what!).

First, some housekeeping notes

I plan to take maternity leave from March 6th through June 5th. Here’s what to expect, according to the current plan:

Paid subscribers will continue to receive (at least) one newsletter weekly in your inbox. Some of these letters will be repurposed from Downtime’s “best of” archives. I’ll be resurfacing pieces that still feel relevant—especially essays and book posts that new readers may have missed. During my leave, you can also expect to hear from some guest contributors, and I’ll [hopefully!] be able to pop in once a month with my own updates.
Paid subscriptions will be kept turned on. But of course, I understand if you prefer to hit pause for these 3 months.¹ If you choose to stay subscribed (I hope you do!), please know that I appreciate your support so, so much. As a self-employed writer, I don’t receive any sort of paid leave benefit, so my maternity leave is entirely covered by my savings. Either way, thanks for bearing with me.
If you’re looking for a small way to support during this window, forwarding/sharing a favorite Downtime post with a friend goes a long way! You can also receive free months of subscriptions by referring a friend to the newsletter:
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A general, fun note: I’ve been tweaking the Downtime branding, so you might notice some changes around here! In tandem, I’ve been thinking deeply about where I’d like to take the newsletter this year and beyond: focusing more on books and reading recommendations, and curating fewer, better, tried-and-true products and rituals rather than dropping endless shopping roundups or wishlists (though those are fun too, just in moderation). I loved having January to reflect on my editorial direction, and I’m feeling very excited about these shifts, which you’ll see in your inbox over the next few weeks.

And now a book rec + life lately

Recommending one hopeful read

Bess Kalb wrote the perfect piece recently that captures our strange moment in time, especially for parents of young kids who, of course, have no clue what is happening in the U.S. and are, for now, mercifully insulated from it. The show must go on. Lunches must be made. The parenting continues while two-year-olds and two-month-olds are being detained by ICE and separated from their parents. All while life continues inside our warm, safe homes. The cognitive dissonance is brain-melting.

I can’t ignore the gut-level despair that hits when I read the news, and it hit me especially hard last week. How are we supposed to raise children in times like these? And, also in the back of my brain, and just as insistently: what am I doing bringing another baby into this world?

The pull toward despair is strong and tempting. But despair, I know, is a dead end. So I cracked open Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit for the second time in the past year and found what I was looking for: words of encouragement.

Solnit’s book of essays was first published in 2005 in response to the Iraq War and reissued in 2015 to address another period of political fear and fracture. Reading it now, in 2025, it feels evergreen, which is the point of the whole book: the rise (and fall, and rise again) of authoritarianism, and the reminder that meaningful change has almost always come from people on the ground who pair hope with action.

I recommend picking up a copy if you can. Here are just a few quotes and takeaways that give grounding perspective:

Uncertainty is an opportunity for influence:

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others.”

We must pair hope with action:

“Hope is only a beginning; it’s not a substitute for action, only a basis for it. ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,’ said James Baldwin.”

The people have the power:

“Those who doubt that these moments matter should note how terrified the authorities and elites are when they erupt. That fear signifies their recognition that popular power is real enough to overturn regimes and rewrite the social contract.”²

The important message I took away from this book was that in the midst of fear and uncertainty, there’s so much space for hope, as long as it’s paired with action. The impact of said action might not be seen for years or even decades, but it’s not nothing. Contributing to the collective discourse and imagination counts³. It’s not enough to be politically aware or informed; hence the well-worn advice to take breaks from doomscrolling the news and find ways (any way, minuscule or large) to do something:

“Political awareness without activism means looking at the devastation, your face turned toward the center of things. Activism itself can generate hope because it already constitutes an alternative and turns away from the corruption at the center to face the wild possibilities and the heroes at the edges or at your side.”

I feel buoyed by Solnit’s words: that we’re able to hold hands with others who share our values and beliefs and look toward the wild possibilities.

On that note, thanks to paid subscribers, I was able to donate $800 to the Immigrant Defense Network of Minneapolis this month. Thanks to everyone who subscribed and/or made a direct donation!

* * *

Notes from the third trimester

Some personal notes and updates

I shared in our subscriber chat that D.C. was essentially snowed in for a few days last week (and parts of the city still are, somehow). We had a few inches of snow, which then became compacted into frozen, impenetrable mountains thanks to a subsequent sheet of sleet. Translation: parents everywhere were screwed. Daycares were closed, and schools in our county only reopened today (I KNOW). If you were in the same boat, solidarity!...