37 Comments

Just subscribed. I tried homeschooling earlier this year and it took down my mental health, so I put them back in school. They're doing okay, but I ache and ache for more earth time. For them. For me. For us all. I am trusting in the timing of the Universe.

We lived for 7 months in Costa Rica in 2021-2022, and gosh I know we are making our way back there, or somewhere like it. Holding the vision with you, and I'm in admiration of you.

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I miss Costa Rica so much. I don't know how much it's changed since I lived there in 2001, but then, it was a model democracy. Collectivist, democratic socialism, with socialist and capitalist elements. So many wonderful things bout Costa, I could go on and on! I hear you about the mental health. We just started and I'm not sure how it's going to work. But I feel I have no choice because she was dying inside and out from school, and I was feeling it, too. So this is more work, but also better. And yet, still, lots of screams, ugh. And also, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BECOMING A PAID SUBSCRIBER!

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You’re so welcome! !Thanks for writing! My only advice is: your mental health has to come first. Schooling or educating second… and you taking care of you IS education to her. Nuf said. ;)

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I'm going to stickynote that on my brain. Thank you, Elizabeth! Health is the most important education!

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Also I really believe in you! You made the best choice!! here to chat any time.

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My middle daughter wore a different neurodivergent label, but there is much in your essay that I can relate to. Sometimes being a "productive adult" means you bring light, joy, and love to others. My daughter went everywhere with us connecting with people wherever she was. When she died members of her former school, church and several other community groups she belonged to attended her Celebration of Life service. There were several hundred folks there. It was a testament to her ability forge connection and community. For me it was a sign of her value in our twisted belief of productivity.

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First, I'm so, so sorry to hear about the death of your daughter. I can't imagine anything harder, more life-shattering. And yet you keep going. And yes, absolutely, your daughter brought so much value. (I hate how even the word "value" in this culture relates to $.) Forging connection and community IS the most important thing.

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I keep going in large part because I started writing again, which led me to Substack. I write about parenting a child with a disability. I write about what I've learned being a school nurse when raising my 3 daughters. I read others writings here on substack. And yes, it was devastating when she died. I write about death, grief and moving forward.

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Write on, sister. <3 More power to you. <3

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I do love my VA healthcare. If it were up to me, everyone would have universal healthcare.

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I love that you love your VA healthcare! yes!

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As someone who’s been recently diagnosed with a chronic illness that has “downgraded” my “productivity” (aka ability to make capital) and, hence, struggling not just to make my savings stretch but moreover to not feel I’ve lost my value, I so appreciate this take (and what you shared talking to Spicy Soul Mama). The treatment of symptom over root is another all-too-familiar theme in my life.

I also related to trying to figure out where I fit in, where my roots lay as I grew up and to going here and there to find out.

All is this is to say what you’re saying and sharing resonates. Thank you, Summer!

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Thank you for telling me, Holly. I knew I couldn't be the only person feeling this way! I'm really sorry to hear about your chronic illness, too. And yeah, the whole western medicine thing. I think we need to explore that next, focusing on what we see (the scientific method is another example) over what we don't, which is often even more critical.

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Bravo for homeschooling your “neurodivergent” daughter. My advice as a former homeschooling mom (and resource teacher to homeschooling families for 20 years: Resort to “schoolwork” only when your daughter can’t think of anything else she wants to do (anything creative, I mean, not watch TV or scroll on a phone or whatever). My daughter didn’t fit into the mainstream paradigm either so we ditched school, mostly, and she grew up a productive adult who lives in the world on her own terms very creatively indeed

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That is WONDERFUL to hear. Because sometimes I worry.... I love this advice. I toggle between "well we should do this and this and all the things my inner voice/culture/society says we should" and "wait, we're doing things our own way and that's okay." This is extremely validating. Thank you.

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Yes, all of this. And a sideways thought--the disconnect from nature is also a disconnect from inner awareness and one's own aliveness (call it whatever you want--God, spirit, source, the fact that we are all people on a once lush planet with all sorts of beings etc etc) which is a core teaching of a lot of spiritual traditions. And weirdly, many of the 60s hippies somehow must not have retained that teaching because "throws up hands to the general surroundings" emoji.

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Lol exactly! Hippies turned boomer millionaires... I love what you say about connecting to our inner nature, our awareness and aliveness.

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I learned things I didn't know this morning. Thank you, Summer!

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Thank you for reading, Cindy! I learned stuff while researching this, too. It shows why so many didn't understand how the election went the way it did. The educated, privileged who knew the stock market was gang busters were like "we've never been better!" and others, who don't follow that stuff, were like eggs cost $10! Because gangbusters economy = expensive groceries. What you see vs. what you don't, etc. Abstract vs. concrete.

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I wish I could have taken myself out of school and homeschooled myself! I guess I did the adult equivalent around age 40, when I quit my last corporate job and became self- employed.

Thanks for writing this!

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Awesome, John! Congratulations!

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YES to all of this. The only thing I’d add: Capitalism NEVER had the plot.

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I think I’m going to rename it that

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Precisely

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Something you might enjoy listening to is the 2023 CBC Massey Lectures. Astra Taylor talks about "The Age of Insecurity". I don't think it's easily made into a comic, but it's an extraordinary body of work.

https://www.cbc.ca/radiointeractives/ideas/2023-cbc-massey-lectures-astra-taylor

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Ooh, thank you for sharing this!

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I love where this essay goes--indigenous analysis to white people going feral! I just read Robin Wall Kimmerer's new essay, The Serviceberry, which also goes to these themes and suggests doable strategies. I am planning to assign it to my college students. Along with her chapter from Braiding Sweetgrass on the Honorable Harvest...and on capitalism, the Windigo. The hungry hungry monster is a good representation of capitalism. Maybe for your kiddo? The later chapter where she heals the Windigo makes me cry. Sending good wishes to you as you go about your good work...also, I love the poetry of Martin Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" for describing how extractive capitalism objectifies land and then humans.

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Oh these are so good! Love LOVE Robin Wall Kimmerer, such a wellspring of wisdom. Love BRAIDING SWEET GRASS. Thank you for directing me to her new essay! And the chapter Honorable Harvest, I will ask my mom to lend me her book so I can read that, too! The Windigo sounds great as well! I will probably cry, too (I cry at everything). And thanks for the Heidegger rec as well! All so good!!!!!!

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do you have actual wolves and can i pat them?

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Lol, I used to have a hybrid dog-wolf and yes you could totally pet him. He was very skittish, in fact. When I used to walk him near the glacier, where there's a den of wolves, sometimes he would start howling and run away for an hour. I assumed he was playing with his wolves brethren.

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When the Corporations declared "Everyone Is Expendable," during the pandemic, that's when I chose to work *with* my Long Covid instead of against it. I consider it my "Get out of jail" card. Now if I could only find a bit more of the consistency that I seem to have misplaced...

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How did you work with it? And I'm so sorry you have that. I have "long fatigue," which is not nearly as bad and many. Also, I wrote this satire for McSweeney's when they made us teachers return to the classroom without vaccines: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/as-a-superhero-teacher-i-cant-wait-to-sacrifice-my-unvaccinated-life-for-your-child

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Pacing is key. I know when my energy levels are good and when my brain is clearest. When the brain starts to get hazy, then I switch to a more physical task - and there's always some task that needs tending to. Lots of breaks in the interim. A few hours after sunset, I put everything in neutral and coast until bedtime. Ideally. The cats sometimes have other ideas.

I have bookends to my day: tea and Morning Pages to start (a good brain dump onto paper works well for the mind) to start; clearing the day's dross from my energy field, followed by some meditation in the still dark, to wind down and reregulate my nervous system, to end. This is my basic structure 90% of the time. There are mornings when my brain is too slushy to form words (rarer since I started menopause, but still there). There are evenings where I just do the bare minimum of clearing and descend into sleep. There are times when I will get caught up in the tides of life and my structure dissolves, but I know I can always weave it back together again.

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I love how you weave words so fluidly! like water!

"Clear the day's dross" - love that

Also, did perimenopause give you brain fog? I think I'm there. Just a brain full of cotton much of the time. Crazy hormones. Crazy how we're only now starting to talk about it!

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Honestly, I'm not sure how much of the brain fog (brain concrete in some cases!) was/is due to Long Covid and how much to perimenopause. I do know they're annoying co-conspirators more often than not.

We're sharing our stories because we're done sitting on them, and it's time again to guide one another through the mysterious mists.

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Very well said; our goal as humans is to restablish connections to Nature and with our true selves. This is necessary to do to regain our health. One major obstacle is our current economic system, which does the opposite, leading to poor health.

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Exactly. And now they're profiting off that, too, because that's how the system sets it up.

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