Have you ever made a phone call, full of righteous fire, ready to tell someone how their …incompetence, tardiness, error, etc., ruined your life (read – was an inconvenience) only to discover that actually, that person was doing their very best and really hard things had happened to them, making your inconvenience seem… ludicrous?
No, me neither.
Just kidding. To be completely clear, it doesn’t happen often to me, because generally I’m pretty good at asking “what might have happened that makes this behavior make sense?” but not always. And when I’m more stressed, it’s much more likely to happen.
Well, I did it today, picked up the phone and called someone to express my irritation, only to find that someone had had a serious medical problem that impacted their work. Which led to my inconvenience.
Now, to be fair to myself, I’ve had a lot of small irritations lately. Nothing life threatening or anything like that, but even small irritations have a cumulative load. And when that happens, any one of us might find ourselves expressing that irritation, perhaps unfairly.
What do I do when that happens? I try to own my own irritation, which hopefully provides some safety for the person on the other end – I’m not here to ruin their lives. Something like, “I have been having a tough week so it really surprised/upset me to learn…”
I express concern as honestly as I can – “oh no, I’m so sorry to hear that” which hopefully allows for some connection, in the “I see you and what you are going through” kind of way.
And finally I try to find a way to create a sense of agency…for me, for them, for whomever I can manage. In my life, usually these things happen with people who are providing a service to me (calling comcast for my mother-in-law, calling insurance companies about benefits) so there isn’t always a way for me to offer that person agency, but I can try. Sometimes I say, “I understand and just wondering if there is a better way for me to (fill in the blank – to get what I need)?”
Maybe I offer one of these:
Should I email?
Is there a better email address?
Is it better if I call?
Is there a better person to contact about issues like this?
I think this also increases a sense of safety for the other person, maybe it helps them understand I am not irritated at them personally and I am looking for solutions. AND it gives me a little bit of agency, because it might give me other options if it happens again.
What do y’all do if you discover there is a really good reason behind someone else’s “irritating” behavior?
This weekend I recorded a video of myself singing so that I could hopefully avoid the terror and tragedy of the choir audition. I seriously despise a “solo” choir audition.
Why, oh why do choir directors require solo auditions to join the choir? I totally understand that if I wanted to do a solo, I would need to audition…alone. That makes perfect sense to me. But believe you me, I will NEVER request a solo.
Once, many years ago, the choir I was in sent a small group around to do some caroling. About 12 of us walked from shop to shop in a neighborhood that had a lot of little antique stores and sang traditional winter songs. Some were wintery, like Jingle Bells, some were more religious like Hanukkah Blessings. One of the songs was a Christmas song, which I, personally, had sung thousands of times, since I was a child. My mother watched that movie every year, had multiple records with it that she played year round. Suffice it to say, I know the song. Our director invited me to sing a solo – a single line. Twelve words. I had been singing for many years by then and I was like, well, this is my chance. I know the song well, we’ll be in a small group, I’m going to go for it! And let me tell you that when time it was time for my line, my throat just closed up! Luckily there was a lovely person in the group with us who caught it and started singing the line, and I was able to join her. When we left that first shop, she and I had a quick conversation and I told her, tearfully, that I just could not do it. She said she was happy to help and she did, but EVERY time, y’all, EVERY time I had the same sensation. Even though she was there to get me started. Even though it was very low stakes. Most of the shops only had one person in them, the person behind the counter, and they were all very gracious when we came in and sang. But I just could not do it.
I get that exact feeling when I do an audition. In the last few years I have auditioned maybe 6 times. My prepared song is one that I have sung a capella many, many times (with a group) over the course of 20 years. I know it WELL. And yet, almost every time I forget the words mid-way through. It’s not a difficult piece and my voice is, you know, decent. But I get so stressed out every time!
And besides my own extreme response – why, why do directors care what I can do on my own, without music, in an empty room? In a choir, part of what’s needed is that you blend well with other people. That you can stay on your part even if those around you are singing something else. That you can learn the music, stay with the rhythm, come in at the right time. None of that can be tested by making me stand alone and sing you a song.
Also, sight reading! I understand that it’s a useful skill, I do. But in what choir is the director going to hand out a brand new piece of music and then lead the choir out onto the stage to perform it? None that I’ve ever been in. Maybe it makes their job easier if more people get it quickly, but I have never been asked to just read it and perform it in my life (also, I get it if you are a professional singer, but these are community choirs, y’all).
In one audition last year, someone played a riff and I sang it back. I can do that, and did. But then it turned out he wanted me to listen to 8 bars of music and sing the whole thing back on a la or doo something like that. Uh, no. My brain doesn’t work that way. And also, except for a capella singing, when will I need to do that? Give me 8 bars WITH WORDS and I would probably remember the notes. But why, oh why do I need to be able to do that to be allowed to join the choir? Will there be lots of concerts wherein there will be no time to practice and no words at all in the song? That seems extremely unlikely to me.
For all the many choir directors reading this (hahaha) please feel free to stand me with a couple of your singers (or I can bring along someone to sing with me!) and give me my part. I will happily sing out and stay on my part. Add me in with a few singers and notice how well I can blend and not overpower (unless I have the melody). Listen to how I can follow direction for pace and dynamics.
I sang in a fantastic, large choir wherein we regularly sang in mixed groups (one person from each part standing together vs all the sopranos on one end and the basses on the other end) and managed to know my part. I’m fantastic at memorizing my words. I am attentive to the director and have enough relative pitch to correct myself if necessary while singing. I am good at listening to other singers, too, and asking for help if I need it. All I want to do is sing in a group with music I find interesting and challenging. Wish me luck, y’all.
Here’s a song from Twin Cities Women’s Choir – one of my faves!
Y’all. Someone recently said that Caitlin and I are choir snobs, and in the moment I kind of laughed but also I had a moment where I was like, What? I’m no snob! Then I thought about it for another few seconds and I realized that, if I’m honest, it might be true. Or anyway, it might be true that I’m a choir director snob.
I spent a good 15 years with 3 directors that I really, really liked. Were they objectively better than other directors? I don’t know, because my opinion can only be subjective. But I can tell you this: I sang better with those 3 directors than with any of the other directors I’ve sung with.
I have been singing in a choir since I was about 11 years old. I started in church choirs (once someone called me a choir hopper – I didn’t really have a spiritual home at that time so used to attend churches that were singing music I liked – until they weren’t) and did that for MANY years.
At one church we sang Carmina Burana and the director taught us how to get to the right pitch – there are a lot of moving parts in that piece. He also did a great job of having us all pronounce the words the same way. The text is written in Latin, Middle High German and Old French, so I’m not saying that we sounded like native speakers of any of those languages, but I do know that we had a generally agreed upon way to say all the words. I learned a lot from him about phrasing and dynamics, too.
(Also ran: I’d be remiss if I left out the director of my mom’s choir, Miss Joanie. I didn’t live there so only joined when I was in town, but she had exacting standards delivered with such dry humor I often found myself laughing even if it was my section getting the reprimand.
“Now beloveds,” she would say, “are you making a joyful noise to the Lord? Because when I look at your faces I am just seeing foreheads. I need y’all to look at me and I want y’all to smile like you are praising Jesus with this song.”)
Eventually I discovered community choirs and I discovered that there were ways that singing fed my soul – even without the trappings of religion.
I was lucky enough to start with a director that poured her whole heart and soul into each song, each performance. Sometimes she danced around the room to give us a feel for the song, sometimes she scolded, sometimes she made us put down our music even though we didn’t think we were ready. Her warm-ups were directly related to the music we were about to sing – buzzy lip trills before songs that required that sound – soaring high notes to prep first sopranos – quick tongue twisters for fast lyrics. We had learning tracks and sectionals to figure out the tricky parts.
Beyond the way we sang – she helped us feel like a community. She told us stories we could relate to and encouraged us to help each other. Sometimes in a “ask your neighbor” kind of way, but also sometimes in a “listen to the altos at this part of the song” kind of way. I learned to not just learn my notes but learn how they fit in with the whole song. We once sang a version of Ave Maria that was extremely complicated – I’m not saying I was 100% correct every time – but I was closer that I imagined I could be because I learned to listen to the other parts.
My next community choir had a snarky director who also expected us to lean on each other. To learn when to come in even if he didn’t give us the cue. Not to say that he didn’t – he did when he could – but he wanted us to function not as individual singers dependent on him, but more as a group that supported each other.
Once he divided us up by section and asked us to go and listen to the learning track together.
“Just play it 3 times in a row and come back,” he said.
We did – and I have to say not everyone in my section thought it was a good use of our time – but when we came back, the whole choir sounded better.
He would sometimes have us listen to the different tracks as a group, too, and point out what basses were doing while sopranos were doing something else. Sometimes we listened and then sang it back in short segments. Rather than feeling deficient for needing those audio learning tracks, I started feeling like this was just one of many tools I could use to improve my singing.
Am I a choir snob? I don’t think so. I have enjoyed lots of group singing projects. But it very well might be true that I am a choir director snob. If y’all have favorite choir director habits, feel free to drop us a comment!
Since being diagnosed with breast cancer, I’ve had a hard time trusting my body. To be clear, it’s not as though before I was diagnosed I loved my body deeply. Like all relationships, my relationship with my body is complicated. There’s a whole mix of love, despair, admiration, frustration, caring and neglect.
I generally feel – or felt – that I understood my body, that I knew what it needed even if I didn’t always manage to give it what I needed. I trusted that if I gave it what it needed, it would give me what I needed.
I had a motorcycle accident years ago that the doctors said would leave me with a limp and constant pain. I walked out of the hospital after just 9 days, against doctor’s orders and “treated” myself with the things I believed my body needed. And guess what? No limp. No persistent pain (except that I started having migraines after that accident – but even those have diminished to just one or maybe 2 a month).
Even the migraines responded to my personal regimen of massages and CBD and regular hot tubbing!
Then I went in for my first mammogram (on my way to top surgery) and they discovered cancer.
Here I was, doing all the right things, working out in ways I enjoyed, eating food I liked, working at something that really mattered to me, giving back to the community and being in a flourishing, loving relationship. How could I have cancer? Even a little one?!
I know, I know. Anyone can get sick. There’s no way to protect ourselves completely from cancer or any host of body ailments. And yet I could not shake the feeling that my body had betrayed me. That I had taken care of it, and it had forsaken me.
I have been running for literal decades. When I was training for a marathon, I would feel a little nervous before the long run on the weekend, but otherwise I feel good and strong when I run. In fact it’s been a go-to method for improving my mood for a long time. But these days, every time I set out, I feel a little more than just nervous. These days I’m not sure I can trust my body to do even this simple thing, putting one foot in front of the other, over and over. While my body feels more like me than ever before (remember all this started with potential top surgery), it also feels less like my own, somehow. It feels like I don’t know my body. Like I’m not sure how it will respond, or what it will do.
I’m glad to be recovered from surgery and revisions (just so you know, I had a TERRIBLE experience with multiple surgeons at UCSF – I’ll tell you the story if you ask). I’m glad I had health insurance and a partner who loved me through all of that. And I’m glad to be cancer free. And at the same time, I’m worried every time I go to run or work out.
Relationships are complicated. Guess I will have to make peace with that.
I don’t have games on my phone. I used to do duolingo (before the app got taken over by AI – Atrocious Imaginings) and word games before I knew the level of treachery at the New York Times, but that’s it. Total transparency – I do have insta on my phone. I know it’s also awful in many ways, but I’m far from perfect. And so when I’m on my phone, most of the time is spent messaging folks (we love a voice message around here), watching a youtube (yes, yes, there are problems there too) on how to manage some crochet thing, or reading a book. Plus I call my mom once a week or so. That’s it. My phone spends most of its time in a phone stand.
Caitlin, on the other hand, is VERY attached to her phone. She doesn’t do games either, but she nearly always has it in her hand. She reads a lot on her phone, and she has many more people to text than I do, plus scrolling, and YouTube. Then about a month ago she started using WaterMinder. She really appreciated the gamified way the app got her drinking more water. Every time the reminder splashes, we all sing out WowTER in big voices.
I admit that I give her a hard time about how much she’s on her phone. And she gives me a hard time when I don’t pick up or notice that someone has texted us. (bonus track at the end for more on that) That said, we were pretty comfortable in our two camps, phone-on-stand vs phone-in-hand.
Then a friend of ours was wondering about a gratitude app that we could use and share our gratitudes without too much pressure. Caitlin is kind (and as I said, very attached to her phone) and she went on a search. What did she find? She found Finch.
If you are not aware of this app, the website says:
“Meet your new self-care best friend! Finch is a self-care pet app that helps you feel prepared and positive, one day at a time.
At Finch, our goal is simple: to make daily self-care something you actually want to do — not something that feels like a chore.
We know that building healthy habits can be hard. Life gets busy, priorities shift, and it’s easy to put yourself last. That’s why Finch was created: to be a gentle, encouraging companion that helps you take small steps every day toward a more supported, balanced version of yourself.”
What they don’t tell you here is that there are cheerful chimes and rainbow stones you collect when you complete a goal. And with those rainbow stones you can buy outfits and furniture to decorate your birb house. That’s not a typo, that’s what Finch calls it. You can get micro-pets and bonus points for completing goals in different areas like Connection, Calm, Gratitude (yes, that’s how she found it), Movement and Self-Kindness.
So then wherever I was in the house I would hear this brrring! sound as well as various cheeps and dings. Caitlin thought it might function as the gratitude minder she was looking for and so I downloaded it too.
And guess what? They have some decent psych-science behind what they are doing. And it does work for the Gratitude Goal in that it reminds us to share a gratitude (in the app you cannot message each other – beyond sending Good Vibes that the app writes for you). It turns out the brrrring! sound is really fun (and motivating)! Our friend did a lovely job of decorating and dressing up her birb – and they even had a white-cane for Caitlin and sports headphones for me.
And nowadays if you were able to listen in at our house you’d hear laughter, Maite talking, singing and…brrring! Finching. I still don’t keep my phone quite as handy as Caitlin does, but I do pick it up just to log my goals several times a day. If you decide to join, and you know either of us, let us know so our birbs can be friends!
Image is a screenshot from Finch with Caitlin and my birbs and micropets. The background is a forest scene, green grass, trees, that kind of thing. Caitlin’s birb is on the left with her baby bat. She is holding blue pom poms, is wearing a rainbow shirt and is smiling and dancing. Her thought bubble has what looks like a scared robot. Next is my birb’s pet seal who is quite a bit larger than the bat because I didn’t know I could keep it from growing up so it reached toddler, I think. Then my birb is sitting on the ground next to the seal. My birb is wearing a multicolored striped shirt, red glasses, sporty headphones and has sideswept brown hair. Its thought bubble has a sailboat.
Bonus track: The other day Caitlin left me very early to do things with her mom, and I was supposed to take Maite to the vet. I was so tired, I fell back to sleep after she left, not my usual behavior. When I woke up, I leapt out of bed to give Maite her pre-procedure meds. Then I dressed and took her right outside for her walk so we wouldn’t be late. Back inside, I took a quick shower and got dressed. As I was pocketing my keys and wallet, I unlocked my phone for the address of the vet. Imagine my surprise when I saw multiple missed calls and texts from Caitlin. The vet had called, apparently, while I was blissfully sleeping and then tried her phone. They had to cancel Maite’s procedure and wanted to reschedule. Caitlin then proceeded to call me, text me and call our neighbor to get him to come and knock on our door (he didn’t. or if he did, he did it while we were out walking). I promise you, I would have looked at my phone before I left, but Caitlin really needed that immediate response!
Total transparency: I love reading her posts, but I’d just as soon as she came home now. :)
When we were getting ready for Caitlin to leave, I was like, “I’m going to record a million videos!” To her credit she was not immediately irritated that I was blaming her for my lack of videos lately, instead she said something supportive like, “Oh, you like that!”
I am NOT blaming her for my lack of videos, but you know, since she’s on summer break, she’s…around! During the school year, I’m sitting in my office, doing my things, and if I have a break, I might doodle around and end up making a video. Or at least thinking about one. But when she’s on break, I’d rather come out and see what she’s up to. We like to eat lunch together, even though we eat very different meals. We like to walk the Maite together, or get in the hot tub. It’s not like I’m not working, or getting work done, but the very real space and energy that goes into writing/creating something isn’t happening. Even writing this and my other post – I think in part that is happening because she isn’t here. Which is a little sad but also worth knowing.
ANYway, y’all will not be surprised to learn that I did NOT, in fact, record a million videos. Or even one. A friend of mine predicted this, saying that when her family left 2 days before her on a trip, she also thought she would get a lot done. Instead, she spent her time sort of spacing out, wandering around the house (not the whole time, obviously). I was like, No, that won’t happen to me. Because I’m humble.
Then leaving choir rehearsal (which can I just say I was SOOOO tired after a migraine today and spending too much time in traffic, I still went because it’s so fun to sing with people again!) I really wanted to debrief with Caitlin. Only she wasn’t there. So I decided I’d send her a schedule-sent Signal when I got home. Then I pulled into the garage and checked to see if she had been online recently. I didn’t really expect it given the time difference and ALL THAT WORK she is doing, but I checked anyway. While I was checking, I momentarily forgot she was gone (I know, I know, that seems ludicrious, but I am telling the honest truth) and thought, I better get upstairs because she and Maite are waiting for me… then remembered that Caitlin is gone.
I don’t know about y’all, but I love reading these posts. Many of you probably know that in the very beginning of our friendship, Caitlin and I did a LOT of writing together. We met at a school we were both working at and as summer began, we decided to start our own writing group, just the two of us. We agreed we would write for 10 minutes every day, and send that writing via email to one another. I looked forward to reading her words every day. Sometimes we’d exchange emails beyond that, usually related to what one of us had written. After a while I asked, “Do you do texting?” which now seems hilarious to me, knowing how very much Caitlin texts, and also because it NOW feels like, doesn’t everyone text?
And of course she said, “Yes, absolutely,” and the texting began. We texted so many, many times a day. I used to use an app that allowed me to download my texts and seriously there were thousands of texts before we even began officially “dating” or whatever you want to call it. Speaking for myself, all those words were a real part of falling in love.
We moved in together when the shelter-in-place started in California (thinking it was going to be ‘just a few weeks’) and the texting mostly stopped. I mean, we did still sometimes text each other from the other room when we were each online, working. Sometimes texts were like, What is going on in there?! or Would you please get the dog out of my area?
Fast forward to today and living together means that most of our communication these days is spoken (unless I’m out of town). There are still SO MANY WORDS. We talk a lot! We both have things to say and of course, Maite has plenty she wants to say, too.
And we still write together, although nowadays at the end of a writing sprint, I usually read what I wrote aloud and Caitlin usually makes me wait till the piece she is working on is done. Which means I get to read a lot fewer words on a regular basis, so reading these along with y’all is a real treat for me. I love her turn of phrase and have laughed out loud for real with each of these posts. I love to read what’s going on in her mind in conversations. (I miss those FB posts about things her students said to her!) And I am glad to read about how it’s going out there as she does her thing in a completely unknown place. Bonus points to the person who added those Oreos to her ice cream.
Y’all. This world is…something else. I am still moved to tears on a regular basis about what we (the US as well as other countries) are doing in the name of…what? Capitalism? I don’t understand, honestly, how people can continue to act as if nothing is happening. I am doing all the things I know how to do in terms of boycotting and avoiding companies. I am speaking up whenever and where ever I can. And yet I still feel…hopeless. And ridiculous as I try to make videos and write stories for children.
This week I read One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, by Omar El Akkad. It’s a deeply personal look at the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the way we, as part of Western civilization are managing – whether we are complicit, witnessing or actively looking away. It was a tough read.
And yet, it’s not all dark. He writes about things people are doing, boycotting and walking away from jobs, students denouncing their universities and others refusing to participate with their dollars in other ways. He writes about the responses of those in power – their shock and dismissiveness. Here’s a quote:
“The idea that walking away is childish and unproductive is predicated on the inability to imagine anything but a walking away from, never a walking away toward—never that there might exist another destination. The walking away is not nihilism, it’s not cynicism, it’s not doing nothing—it’s a form of engagement more honest, more soul-affirming, than anything the system was ever prepared to offer.”
Even as I continue to participate in the ways I have been, I am going to shift my own language away from the things I’m resisting. From now on I want to focus on the things I’m turning towards, smaller businesses, local community and building stronger interpersonal networks. I’m turning towards the arts and whatever joy and understanding I can muster. What are the ideas you are turning towards in this maelstrom?
Image is of a lightning storm at night – it’s dark and cloudy and the lightning looks pink.
Ever had a child swear at you? No, not that kid, not the kid that you just told, “Close the chromebook,” or “Time for bed.” I’m talking about the child who swears at you and then afterwards you are left thinking, “What did I do?”
Swearing is an important part of communication, and I am a fan. I know not everyone is, but I find that it can convey a sense of community (in the right circumstance) and of course, adds emphasis to what we’re saying. There is a whole continuum of swearing, with people who swear so much that the emphasis part of that gets somewhat diluted, and people who never utter swear words, and I respect that choice.
Children swearing, though, is often seen as distinctly different. Some people believe that children should not be allowed to swear, and if we do pretend we cannot hear them swearing on the playground, that at the very least they are NOT to swear at adults.
I generally have a pretty relaxed attitude about it. I have long told children that if they are going to swear in front of me (in my office or in my own family), they can swear ABOUT things, but they may not swear AT people, or call them by swear names (no calling names is a regular rule in my office, so “swear names” is just a continuation of that rule). When kids are following those rules, I really don’t mind when they swear. Even if they are mad at me and using all kinds of swears.
Why doesn’t it bother me much? It doesn’t because I know if a child is throwing around those heavy words, they must feel pretty powerless. I understand that even adults who use those words in the context of a power differential, real or perceived, are doing so in order to exert some power of their own.
Full transparency – it does bother me more with teens and adults – but I still think that words used in an effort to hurt say much more about the person saying them than they say about me.
Image shows Maite laying on the deck from last summer. Her tongue is out and she looks relaxed. She is a great swearer.
I just want to start by saying that I am addicted to my phone as anyone else (TJ probably takes the most heat for this, so my apologies, honey) given the right circumstances. I know that it isn’t our fault, that phones and apps are designed to make us want them, to feel like we need them. They use dopamine against us, as well as the brain’s tendency to focus on the negative (some info on this from Tristan Harris).
I didn’t know much about this until my mom called me one day pretty upset over some puppies that had been found in bag in a field.
Me: Wait, which puppies? Who found them?
Mommy: I don’t know, I don’t think they were speaking in English.
Me: (suspicion creeping in – she once spent at least 10 tearful minutes telling me about a horse being treated miserably before I recognized the 1946 movie Black Beauty) Where did you see this?
Mommy: Tube! (which is how she refers to YouTube)
I looked up the video, discovered it was at least two years old, found the original poster and the follow up video that most of the puppies survived and made it into happy homes. After…
Me: How did you start watching that video, anyway?
Mommy: Well, I was looking at cute puppies, you know, like Blessing (her Pomeranian at the time). They are so funny and small! And then another video and another and then this one. Oh, so sad.
YouTube claimed at some point to make changes to the algorithm but who knows?
All of that to say, I know this isn’t about poor choices or some inborn “addictive tendency,” or even “this generation.” The whole thing is very much designed to keep us online.
Once I realized it, I have done what I can to resist it. I rarely open Tube except for specific videos. I don’t turn on notifications on my phone. I keep the ringer (all sounds, really) turned off on my phone. I have used various apps (I know, ironic, right?) over the years to keep track of my time online or to shut down automatically at 9 pm. I have the timer set on my phone these days to turn off social media after 20 minutes. It almost always surprises me when it pops up.
Meanwhile, I was recently out of town and stayed with a local family. Luckily, my housemate was terrific – we connected right from the first day. We spoke every day, sometimes for literal hours at a time. Then I got sick. My host family and housemate were rightly concerned about getting sick themselves and so I was more or less quarantined in my room.
I listened to audiobooks, but often I do that while doing other things, like chores or driving. I found myself unlocking my phone over and over again to do random searches (some prompted by the book but others just random things that popped into my head). I had to stop and reverse many times because I wasn’t really listening. I found myself reading an email from REI – like ALL the little blurbs. Did I mention I had very little internet? Yeah, that was what was saving me from social media. Without the near endless scroll of social media what I had was: incessant checking of email, reading emails I would usually just delete, crossword puzzles, other word puzzles and incessant checking of email.*
What was missing from my days that led to this drastic change in behavior? People. Like my awesome housemate (plus all my people at home). Humans are hard-wired for connection – we crave it more than food – and not having any was leading me to look for it in my phone. Sadly, mostly what I got from my phone were advertisements – both the obvious and the more subtle. It’s true I also had Signal messages and WhatsApps that helped so much, but I really did refresh my email feed every time I picked up my phone.
You might be asking, what’s your point, doc? My point is, if you notice people around you (because I’m sure you would never) who seem a little too interested in their phones, consider what points of human connection they have access too. For some folks, online connection is the bulk of their contact with other humans. If you aren’t sure, think about how you could help increase those points. TJ and I hosted our first block party about a month ago and we are planning a second one next month, in part to build just that, a bit of human connection. Showing up to events at your local library is another option – those events are harder to continue to host if no one shows up! Just by attending, you are helping maintain access points for others. Hosting a game night, or inviting people to a live music event – there are so many options. As humans, we need other humans. Let’s do what we can to create and maintain these human connections. What do you do to connect?
*I know I said this twice. It really was incessant
Image shows a red background with multiple rows of cell phones with white screens.
dots doc n roc 