Dear Lizzy,

I feel like the world is falling apart. On the surface and even beneath the surface, my life is great. I just had coffee with friends and noticed the leaves are changing color. But I see the news and I feel defeated. I see people getting arrested because of how they look. My relatives outside of Portland keep texting me asking if I am OK since my city is burning. My city is not burning. But I feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the national narrative and also scared that even though my city isn’t actually burning, my country is collapsing around me.

Safe in Portland

Dear Safe in Portland,

I started writing this column in 2021 , if you can even believe it, and in the years since then, this question, in some form or another, has kept coming up. The question, essential

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