August 19, 2023

Something I thought about:

• On what would have been my grandfather’s 100th birthday, there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a street that was named after him. It’s where the family home used to be, where my dad and his siblings grew up, where I spent weeks at a time of childhood vacations. I was thinking about places and place names and how much his town changed from when he arrived there — in part because of his efforts to build educational systems.

Something I did:

• Reconnected with old friends
• Went to book group — what a delight after so long
• Continued course prep
• A lot of fall setup (doctor’s appointments, school visits, extracurriculars, etc.)

Something I read:

• There seem to be several pieces revisiting the idea of “trauma” now — how it has become such a big part of US language and culture and what it means. I had some mixed feelings about this NYMag profile, and I’m still trying to sort how I feel about Jill Filipovic’s essay  — but this part clicked:

If we want to replace our culture of trauma with a culture of resilience, we’ll have to relearn how to support one another—something we’ve lost as our society has moved toward viewing “wellness” as an individual pursuit, a state of mind accessed via self-work.

Mostly it’s the US notion that you have to be independent and deal with everything on your own, which is an extremely stressful way of existing and not how humans (or any living beings) function.