Season 2, episode 16: welcome to the party //
Thursday, January 14, 2020
This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about coming together in a world that pulls us apart. From Oakland, California to Hamilton, Massachusetts, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.
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Laura: I’ve always loved a good party.
It’s been a long time since I went to a party, and even longer since I had a reason to throw one.
Today is our official launch date with Hurrdat Media, something that has been in the works for nearly eight months. It’s a change we’re really excited about; after working mostly alone for most of the past year, we’re growing. The team at Hurrdat gets what Shelter in Place is all about, and we’ll still be the ones creating these episodes. We hope this partnership will expand our community and bring sponsorships so we can continue in the future.
Still, it didn’t feel right to throw ourselves a party. It’s a difficult time for our nation. It’s been a hard year for many of us personally, too.
A family member recently asked me what my word was for 2021. I wasn’t sure how to answer. I couldn’t get past 2020. My word for that year was ambivalent. I can’t remember a time in my life when I felt so intensely the struggle between gratitude and despair. Some days I was full of hope and a sense of abundance; other days I moved through a fog of depression.
If you’ve been listening for a while, then you know that Shelter in Place began with the pandemic when my life was falling apart. Even on that first day I knew I had a decision to make: would I reach out or shut down?
I decided to take one small step and start a daily podcast that I thought would just last a few weeks. After decades of being paralyzed by perfectionism, I’d let good enough be good enough. I had no idea that I was about to embark on the adventure of my life.
Ten months and 116 episodes later, almost everything has changed. I thought I was doing creativity as catharsis in those early days of the pandemic, but it turns out I was rewriting life. What began as my little project has launched us across the country, changed my vocation as well as my husband’s, and sparked an apprenticeship program where we’re passing along what we’ve learned to seven remarkable young women. No one is more surprised than me that we are where we are now.
This is not to say we’ve arrived. We have a long way to go before anyone would accuse us of being a financial success. Our move across the country was prompted at least in part by the very real urgency of needing a lower cost of living. There are still many days that feel very hard. Most days, we are very, very tired.
But if this past year has taught me anything, it’s that the best medicine for despair is serving and celebrating others. That when I feel isolated and lonely, I don’t have to reach far to remember that I’m not alone. When our country’s political division feels hopeless, I remember all of the incredible conversations I’ve had with people on both sides of the aisle.
It’s why I invited you here today. Because by listening and sharing and having important conversations on this show, you’ve changed my life for the better. You’ve given me vision for what’s possible. So today, this party is not about us--but you.
For obvious reasons, we can’t all be together right now. We can’t congregate around a snack table, pile onto the dance floor, or clink glasses of champagne.
But that’s why we created this podcast in the first place--to build a virtual shelter where we can laugh, cry, commiserate, and dream; where we can better understand our differences and share the good things that are still happening; where we can create a space where we all feel at home.
We’ve opened our doors to you because you helped us build this house. Without you, I never would have had the courage to take this leap into the unknown. I certainly wouldn’t still be making episodes. We want each and every one of our listeners, supporters, guests, and friends to know just how grateful we are. So come inside, the party has just started.
Authenticity
Laura: Hey, how are you?
{Insert greetings from past episodes}
There’s someone I want you to meet! This is Sarah Edgell, our design director.
Sarah: It was March 17th and I got a call from Laura and she said, “I want to do a daily podcast about shelter in place.”
And I instantly thought, great idea. You need to make some art during this time. We all do.
And she said, “Would you help me make a logo?”
And I said, “Yeah, when do you need it?”
And she said, “Oh, in two hours.” Which actually worked for me.
Anyway, that's when I started being a small part of the Shelter in Place team. On the website, they've listed me as the cheerful dissenter.
And I think it's because I'm a designer married to an architect, and you just don't get to say anything design-wise around here without looking at it from all angles, upside down Well, what if we did it this way? You wanted green? What if it was invisible? Or what if it didn't exist? I even oppose opinions that I agree with.
I like to push back on arguments just to see where the weak points are, the strong points are. I'm not trying to underplay the difficulty for many, many people--but I think we will look back on this time and there will be museum shows. There will be library shelves. Because creatives keep making stuff even when things are falling apart around them. I think we need to look at--when possible--what are some of the wins during this time? I think Laura's Shelter in Place has been a huge time in her life of growing ideas. She is leaning into her superpower strengths. And making 100 podcasts in a row? Amazing.
Laura: Thank you, Sarah. You always say you’re a small part of the team, but we probably wouldn’t still be doing this without you. You’ve mentored me and pushed our team to be both intensely practical and audaciously imaginative. All of this started with you.
You may have noticed that this house is no ordinary one. Each of the rooms corresponds with one of the twelve touchstones of Shelter in Place, which you can find on our website. Many of the rooms are connected, but all of them open to this one. It’s the entry hall of this house. Oh good, here’s my husband Nate. He’s our creative director. Let me introduce you.
Nate: Great to see you. I'm Nate. Welcome to one of the biggest rooms in the shelter in place house, the authenticity room.
Laura: You’re invited to arrive here as you are. Whether you’re bursting with joy, or having a terrible day, we’re glad you’re here.
Nate: It appears that a lot of people in here are emotionally naked.
Growth
Laura: Um . . . Why don’t we head into this next room?
You might notice that some of the things you see are still in process, but you might recognize these people from past episodes. Elmer Yazzie and some of his students from the Navaho Nation are working on a mural on that far wall. Nina LaCour is having drinks with her students from the Slow Novel Lab. Sean Donnelly, Andrew Calof, and Amira Karoud are sharing the photos they’ve taken both inside and outside of homes to capture the emotional range of this pandemic. It looks like Jana Riess, Jennifer Sheedy, and Hilary Davis are having a great discussion about the Enneagram. This is a room where ideas continually change and flourish. It’s not about being right or figuring it out. It’s about learning.
Nate: Oh, hi. Again, outside our growth room here, we have my sister's handmade crackers, toasted local kelp Sesame seeds, and a bit of honey. They say, aquaculture is the future.
Laura: They’re actually really tasty. If you want something to drink, some of our apprentices are walking around with trays of sparkling water and inspiration.
See over there where Kara Corthron, Robyn Kraft, and Betsy Andrews are planting in those big half barrels? That dirt isn’t actual dirt; it’s the compost of thousands of revisions, and it’s incredibly rich. I’m sure the ideas they’re planting are going to grow into something great.
The music you’re hearing was composed in this room by Erica Huang and that film you see projected on the wall is one that Sanjna Selvarajan has been working on. So many incredible things come out of this room, but while they’re here, they get to grow.
Speaking of growth, Alexis and Matt Iaconis are over there pouring their Brick & Mortar and Delta Wines. Before the pandemic they relied on restaurant sales at places like the French Laundry and the Restaurant at Meadowood. Most of those restaurants have been closed this year, and during the California wildfires, Meadowood burned down.
But here’s the thing: new life can come from ashes. Alexis and Matt haven’t just reimagined their business; they’re making our world better. They built into their business a way to fight climate change with every sale of Delta Wines. They were the very first sponsor here at Shelter in Place.
Speaking of Shelter in Place, here’s someone I’d like you to meet.
Melissa: Hi, I'm Melissa Lent and I'm a journalist and Shelter in Place apprentice. This past year I learned growth is not linear; it's a series of setbacks, successes, and sometimes standstills. I thought after graduating college last spring, my growth would take off like a rocket. Right now, I feel like a caterpillar crawling inch by inch to a leaf. Caterpillars don't think about the future, but I wonder if they know it's time to crystallize--even if they don't know they will be a butterfly. At least I know I'm getting there.
Laura: Thanks, Melissa. We’re so excited you’re part of the team, and I can’t wait to see how you grow. And speaking of growth, you might have noticed that the drinks are in here and the food is in that next room, the one through that big arch. We go back and forth between these rooms a lot. This room is growth, and that one is courage. It’s hard to have one without the other.
Courage
Laura: Let’s grab a plate of courage and then I’ll introduce you to another friend.
Anya: Hey Laura, thank you so much for hosting this virtual party and bringing all of us together.
Laura: It’s so great to see you! Anya, meet our listeners. Listeners, this is Anya Marchenko.
Anya, I’m not at all surprised to find you here. Your courage has really inspired me this year.
Anya: When I saw all of the things that were happening with the pandemic and BLM and the California wildfires, I was frustrated by the lack of clear coherent lucid guidance on what organizations were actually effective and where I should donate and what I should do. One of the things that has been keeping me going during the pandemic is launching my new substack newsletter called Giving to Strangers. Giving to Strangers explores the people and the ideas who are making the world better. It's a newsletter about effective philanthropy, really trying to make philanthropy better and more accessible for the average person. I've covered the California wildfires and air pollution, I'm speaking to animal welfare activists who are trying to prevent the next pandemic. It's really an exciting, very lucid, rational, hopefully fun place to be.
Laura: Thank you for having the courage to do this work, Anya! Giving to Strangers is one of the few newsletters that I always read, and I’ve learned so much from you.
Anya is an economist and this year she also started a great new podcast called Workschism. And don’t worry; I’ll send you off with a list of all of these people and where you can find them so you don’t have to remember them all. You’re going to meet a lot of great people here!
Speaking of which, here comes Nate with a tray of compliment sandwiches. It looks like he’s been talking with James Jones.
Nate: Oh, hi. You checking out the courage room? Perfect timing. Looks like James Jones and the Defy vocals guys are about to sing something.
{D-Fi vocals, “Freedom” by Beyoncé}
Laura: I know this room can feel a little intimidating at first. It’s a little like standing in a room full of bright lights. You can feel the energy--but the warmth too. Kiran Khan is sharing fiction inspired by her father’s death with Karyn Kloumann, the editor of FIERCE. Dr. José Sanchez, his daughter Dr. Joyce Sanchez, and Dr. Céline Gounder are discussing how to offer better healthcare for our black and brown populations and prevent the next pandemic. Tino Dinh and Taté Walker are talking about what it’s been like to challenge what their childhood communities and friends expected them to be. Shea Gilbert and Vernon Keeve III are sharing their stories about what it’s been like to be teachers in a pandemic, and how hard it’s been to lose their fathers this year. There are some impressive people here, and they’ve all been through a lot--but they’re also incredibly gracious. I’ve loved my conversations with each of them.
Courage is one of those words that is often misunderstood. Nelson Mandela said that “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” We can’t expect ourselves to not feel fear. But we can choose how to respond to it. Courage is when we say “Hey, this scares me,” And then we keep moving forward. Here’s a friend who knows something about that.
Sarah: Hi, I'm Sarah. For me, the last year and a half have been this descent into the deepest places in my soul. What I have found is that it is a necessary journey, and it is illuminated by the light of those who hold torches along the way--torches of strength, hope, of reminders of what I forget, torches that tell me this place is not so scary. My hope for the new year is to keep what I have learned on this descent while moving up and out into something new.
Laura: Thank you, Sarah. It’s great to have you here. I think you’ll find a lot of those torches in this next room.
Creativity
{Hi, how are you? So nice to see you! Greetings.}
Nate: Hey, what's up. Welcome to the creativity room. We've got slime, Legos, tie dye . . .
Laura: There’s a lot going on in this room. There’s Christine Ferrouge sharing her wall-sized canvas with gallery owner and writer Debra Brehmer.
“Hey, Christine! Congrats on your painting at the Guggenheim this year!”
It looks like Roxane Beth Johnson, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, and Teresa K. Miller just met and are putting together an impromptu poetry reading.
There’s Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Nancy Agabian, and Meera Nair having a passionate discussion about why fiction can often teach us better than fact. Sometimes there are creative differences in this room, but the work is almost always better for it.
On the dance floor over there Chicava Honeychild is teaching Caitlin Grace McDonnell and Jessie Serfilippi some new moves.
It might surprised you that this room can get lonely sometimes. When you’re in this room alone, it can be easy to get discouraged. It’s why the next room over is Community. We need people in our life to encourage us when we lose perspective.
But on a day like today, when this room is bustling with people celebrating each other’s work, it’s a pretty great place to be. Speaking of which, let me introduce you to two friends I’ve made in audio because of Shelter in Place. It looks like they just met each other, and they’re both in Colorado.
Taylor: Hey shelter in place family. My name is Taylor Frazier and I'm the director of the Foreward podcast.
Elaine: Hi Laura. It's Elaine Grant coming to you from Podcast Allies.
Taylor: Laura and I met early on in the pandemic, and we started talking on the phone. She was a mentor to me early on when I didn't know what I was doing, and I really could use some guidance. I've just released my own podcast and it's called Foreward. When I was 15 years old, there was a shooting at my high school and Forward is an audio drama about what happened in my community.
COVID has been such a strange time, but I'm very lucky that I was one of the few that got to make something beautiful out of this strange time. I'm grateful for that. And I'm grateful for Laura and I'm grateful for Shelter in Place.
Laura: Thank you Taylor. And congratulations on launching Foreward this month. I had so much fun being the voice you hear at the beginning and end of the episodes.
Elaine: As you know, I'm one of your biggest fans. And I was musing about why I love Shelter in Place so much, and I think it's because
You just have this amazing way of drawing together the personal with the big issues and making it all flow together in a way that is just masterful and subtle and brilliant and comforting all at the same time.
In fact, I often turn to Shelter in Place when I need a little comfort from the craziness of 2020, and now 2021. We need you more than ever.
Laura: Thank you so much, Elaine. I’ve learned so much from both of you, and I’m so happy to celebrate the great work both of you are doing right now with Foreward and Podcast Allies. There were some really hard things about this past year, but meeting you has been one of the good parts that I’m carrying into 2021.
Elaine: It's been such a challenging year and such a positive year at the same time. The other morning I thought, what are my words for 2021? The words that came to me were generosity, connection, creativity, and beauty. And I'm very fortunate to be able to do all of those through the business that I started, Podcast Allies, with my friend and ally Lindsey O'Connor. Our production company had the good fortune of working with mission-driven clients, launching a podcast for the Environmental Defense Fund, and we're about to launch our first online course for people who want to be podcasters with an understanding of storytelling and journalism and integrity. And I'm so excited to be in the service of people who use creativity in the service of making a better world. so thanks again, Laura.
Laura: Thank you Elaine. I’m looking forward to sharing more of your work with our listeners in next week’s episode of Shelter in Place!
Nate: Hi there. The community room looks pretty crowded, but let's try to squeeze in. I see Christopher Williams over there holding a guitar.
Community
{Christopher Williams song: I cannot know you}
Laura: No one touchstone is more important than another. But we wouldn’t be here without this one: community.
In this isolating time, it’s so important to reach out to others. Samantha Lee and Claudia Smith are meeting for the first time tonight, but I’m not surprised that they’re getting along, or that Sam is already making Claudia a latte. The kitchen is in the middle of this room for good reason: people love to congregate here to share a meal or experiment with new recipes.
And this isn’t just about sticking with people who are just like us. It looks like Georgia Wright of the climate change podcast Inherited and Neil Pinkham and former Navy Seals officer Jimmy Graham are hard at work trying to come up with a vegan burger that actually tastes like meat. They have very different politics, but they share a vision of community that looks out for each other.
I thought when I started Shelter in Place that I was doing it for myself, to find some daily purpose through creativity. And it has given that to me. But it turns out that the best part of Shelter in Place is something I didn’t expect, but that has kept me going: relationships with all kinds of people that I’ve never been in the same room with, but who have become friends. It’s made this time feel less like quarantine and more like this party. There are so many great ideas here, so many interesting people who care about their neighbors, who refuse to give up on creating a better future. Here’s one of those people now.
Winnie: Hi there! My name is Winnie and I'm an apprentice at the Shelter in Place podcast. I'm also the host of the VOICE podcast about Canadian immigrant stories.
2020 has been a year of ups and downs, and one of the ups is being able to join the Shelter in Place team, and ultimately creating and finding a new community with the team here. One of the downs is the inability to give hugs to my friends and feel that human sense of touch that I didn't even realize I would miss so much. I’m very much looking forward to 2021 for a year of hope and future growth, especially with the Shelter in Place team.
Laura: Thanks, Winnie! We love having you on our team! Speaking of our team, here’s someone else I’d like you to meet.
Pat: Hey Laura, this is Pat from Hurrdat Media. I just wanted to say that we are so grateful that Shelter in Place is part of our network. The stories that you tell, the family friendly kind of show, (is) very uplifting and at the same time very calming. The situations that you talk about in your family and your life, what you're going through is, you know, what the entire country and world is going through, and we are very honored that you chose to come on our network. We just appreciate that and are grateful for that every single day. So thank you again. And just so happy that season two is on the Hurrdat Media Network.
Laura: Thanks, Pat. We really appreciate how supportive you’ve been in helping us continue this work!
We’ve tried to make a regular practice of encouraging others and showing our gratitude here at Shelter in Place. It’s something that we’ve learned first from our listeners and the friends who have supported us along the way. I’d like to introduce you to one of them now.
Katie: Hi, my name is Katie and I'm from Oakland, California.
Laura: Katie, you’ve been such a good friend to Shelter in Place. Thank you for all of the times you’ve sent me encouraging messages when I needed it most. There have been some really hard days is this pandemic.
Katie: I think for me the hardest part has been the collective sadness and loss in so many of my communities, particularly in the church work that I do. And seeing just the heaviness of this year and all that it's revealed, and even looking into a new year it is still challenging.
And yet it has also given us some time to be reflective, and there's so much that I'm grateful for, particularly just the amazing people in my life and in my community. And I've been really grateful for the Shelter in Place podcast, this consistent place where stories are being shared in real time. And I think we need to continue to share our stories with one another, from so many different perspectives all or the country and the world. And I have so appreciated Laura and Nate and their team continuing to make the space to do that.
Laura: Thank you, Katie! You’ve been such an important part of our community, and I’m so grateful for the good you and your family have brought to our life. It looks like Nate and Bart found each other and another friend in the next room. Let’s go join them!
Touch
Nate: Hi, how are you doing? This is the touch room: velvet beanbag chairs, fleece Snuggies, puppies, and everybody gets a free hug from Laura's voice. Come on in.
Riley: Hi, I'm Riley Reese. I'm a coach founder of a Bay area based startup.
Bart: Hi, Shelter in Place. It's Bart Garrett from Oakland, California. I am a huge fan of Laura and Nate Davis, and I've enjoyed a lot of episodes of Shelter in Place.
Laura: Thanks so much for being here, Riley and Bart! It’s so good to see you here in the touch room. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it, and I know you have, too.
Bart: I'm a Presbyterian minister, and I started a new job at a new congregation two weeks into shelter in place in California. So that meant I had two Sundays and then I went behind a screen. So in many respects,
I would say my faith has done more to intensify my longing to be human again.
Christian faith is premised on the incarnation, which is God becoming a human being, obviously celebrated at Christmas. And so much of my experience as a minister has involved hugs and tears and being human alongside of others and face-to-face with others. And that can't happen when you're preaching sermons to a camera lens.
Riley: My wife and I used to live in Amsterdam. The winters are long. And you'll go through weeks without seeing the sun at all. It's not as easy to see people. But when the sun does come out, everybody wakes up. You can just feel it walking through the streets seeing everybody out, and they're fully living lives. That's kind of what I'm looking forward to here at the end of COVID, you know, the sunny days where we can be close together.
Bart: I think my faith has intensified my longing and allowed me to dream and pray towards that day--hopefully very soon--when we're all face to face as human beings. Again Laura, Nate, thank you for the great work you're doing with this podcast, and I'm excited to celebrate in this shindig.
Laura: Thank you, Bart and Riely! We’re so glad to have you here. I want to introduce you to someone who helped me plan this party and who’s also been thinking a lot about touch.
Eve: Hi, my name is Eve Bishop, and I am an apprentice for Shelter in Place. One of my main love languages is physical touch. It's always been an extremely important aspect of my relationships and in my life. I'm always greeting people with a big hug, and so not being able to do that during this time has been sort of difficult and uncomfortable and strange and foreign for me. But what it has done is it's made my relationships with people who I can hug--you know, people I'm quarantining with, people I'm podding with--it's made me appreciate that so much more. I was living in a house in Oregon this fall with a bunch of my friends. And being able to hug them and snuggle with them and hold hands and chat . . . it was really special, especially in a time where we can't do that with most people. And it made me hold those people much closer.
Laura: As human beings we crave physical touch. If you live alone, touch may be entirely absent from your life. And at first we thought maybe it was strange that touch was one of our twelve rooms here at Shelter in Place.
But over time this room has become more important than ever. It’s pushed us to think about how we can touch others emotionally, spiritually, and creatively. It’s made us cherish the little physical touch we do still have and long for a time when we’ll be able to hold each other again.
Laughter
{Laughter from the next room, kids talking}
Laura: Ooh boy, it looks like our kids found the party. Do you mind joining me in this next room?
Nate: Welcome to the laughter room. We have these cookies that look like a cat riding a Roomba, and you can also suck on one of these helium balloons like this.
{Mattéa reading Cat in the Hat}
Laura: That was very nice, Mattéa, and I’m not at all surprised to find you in this room, but you kids are supposed to be in bed. I see you’ve made yourselves at home with some of our apprentices.
Sarai: Hi, my name is Sarai Waters.
Isobel: Hello there, I'm Isobel. I hope you're enjoying the party so far.
Laura: Sarai and Isobel, would you mind telling our friends about this room while Nate and I get these kids back to bed? {Laughter} You’ve probably guessed which room this is. {Laughter} You two were great with the kids, by the way.
Isobel: I've been getting my laughter where I can, and lately the most reliable source for me has been children's cartoons. They have a simple optimism that they bring along with the humor that I adore and find so refreshing.
Sarai: Laughter fits seamlessly into my life and it's the through-line of my very being. It is my bread and butter. It's something I do and share freely with my loved ones, as well as strangers. Any day I make someone laugh is a good day.
Isobel: I hope you enjoy the rest of the voices in this room.
{More kid voices}
Laura: Goodnight. Get some rest, kids!
Rest
Nate: Oh, Hey, the restroom is down the hall. But the room for rest is right here and you should try our meditation, mocktail, lime, sparkling water, lemon, grass, oil, aloe, Vera extract, squeezed, ever. So exactly. And yes. Glad you asked as we're mixing it. Laura spoke to it in her soothing podcast voice.
Laura: Always. I love this room. I don’t come here nearly enough, but every time I’m here I wonder why. I want to introduce you to a friend who’s taught me a lot about rest this year.
Laura F: Hi shelter in place listeners. My name is Laura Park Figueroa. I am a pediatric occupational therapist and a business coach for therapy entrepreneurs.
Laura: In addition to running two businesses, Laura has her own podcast, is in a PhD program, and--since COVID--now homeschools the youngest of her three children.
Laura F: And all of this adds up to a crazy busy life, right? Near the end of 2020, I just felt like I was hitting a wall of exhaustion. I started thinking about how can we live meaningful and full lives while also slowing down and simplifying?
Even to say that feels a little counterintuitive to who I am. I kind of thrive on work. I love the work I do. And yet we can burn out if we don't slow down. One thing that I've learned lately is the concept of hurry and hustle being incompatible with love, joy, and peace. So if I want to be a person who is loving and joyful and peaceful, I need to resist the urge to constantly be busy and hustling. One thing that has helped me with that is to constantly think these words: slow down. Slow down. One thing at a time is okay.
Laura: I need to hear these words myself often. It’s easy for me to work myself into the ground, but finding true rest and slowing down is hard. Here are a couple of others who’ve been learning about that this year. This is Catherine and Jeremy.
Jeremy: We're friends of Nate and Laura, and we are actually living in their house here in Oakland, California in this space where Shelter in Place was first started.
Catherine: We anticipated that this would be a place that was restful for us both physically and emotionally, and it has been--although as with many things this year, not necessarily in the ways that we expected or anticipated.
Jeremy: We spent the last several years living right behind Lake Merritt, and it's been a great place for community for us. But as the pandemic continued, a lot of folks were gathering and congregating, and that was challenging for us. We realized that we really needed space to breathe and to reflect, and in some cases also lament. And getting away from what was familiar actually allowed us to do that. Being able to have physical space that was quiet was exactly what we needed in this season.
Laura: Season 2 of Shelter in Place has been a similar journey for us. When we left our home in Oakland this fall, the move across the country to be near family felt crazy and chaotic. We got more adventure than we were looking for on our Pandemic Odyssey. We’ve spent some of that time grieving what’s lost; in the time we’ve been gone, some of our closest friends have moved away. Communities we were a part of before have fractured. We can return to California, but we can’t go back to the way things were before.
But like Catherine and Jeremy, we’ve found rest and comfort in having a life that is simpler and quieter. Getting away from the familiar has given us a chance to reflect. It’s helped us be kinder to ourselves on the days when the lament takes over. It’s helped us to come back to the many things we have to be grateful for right now.
Without a doubt, the greatest gift of this time is being close to extended family. We’ve gotten to be a part of the lives of Nate’s parents and two of his siblings on an almost daily basis. In that time, we’ve gotten to witness transformation--in the people around us, and in ourselves.
Safety
One of the people I’m most grateful for in this time is my husband’s younger brother Elliot. They’re thirteen years apart, so for most of their life they didn’t know each other all that well. That’s changing now.
Elliot is waiting for us in the next room. Before we go in, I want to warn you that the story he’s offered to tell in that room is a challenging one. It’s a story that has shaped our time here significantly, and I’m so grateful to Elliot for being willing to share it.
Elliot is waiting for us in the Safety room. Let’s grab a seat and listen.
Elliot: When I think back on 2020, while the rest of the world struggled through a brutal pandemic, I sat comfortably under my parents' roof, collecting unemployment, smoking joints, relaxing and having a few drinks at the end of the day . . . or maybe starting that routine a little earlier . . . like after I woke up. I've been sliding deeper and deeper into these self destructive habits for over 10 years.
In October, I got poison Ivy--bad. Then acid reflux, constipation and hemorrhoids. I was losing weight fast. I'd been a gymnast my whole life. Why was I getting out of breath from walking up a set of stairs? My parents aren't idiots. They'd see my declining health and been worried, even asked several times if I wanted to go to the doctor. But I'd always snapped back that I was fine. I would be okay
It was Sunday, the 13th of December. I was in the kitchen leaning against the counter with my head, almost resting on its surface. I was wearing my pajamas and one of my smoking jackets. My breath was coming in rapid ragged pants that seemed to be bringing no oxygen to my brain or muscles. My insides cramped up. I closed my eyes. We hurried out to the car. I asked my parents “why was it so bright?” Dad gripped the steering wheel tighter.
When we finally arrived at the emergency room, I stumbled towards the nearest wheelchair, almost missing and falling onto the floor. My body and mind felt separated, as if I was an observer along for the ride. That's probably why I thought it would be interesting to pull my phone out and post a quick video to my Instagram story. Looking back on it, I cringe. If I had known how close I was to slipping into a coma and dying, I might not have inflicted that sight on my friends and family. I owe my life to the amazing doctors and nurses who worked around the clock to care for me all in the middle of the pandemic that had the hospital filled to capacity.
What I was experiencing at that moment was known as DKA, diabetic ketoacidosis, a state where you have extremely high blood sugar levels because of your body's inability to produce insulin, which normally processes glucose to make energy. Instead your body burns fat. I was pumped full of fluids and given medications.
I'm ashamed to say that while I was in the hospital, I would sneak hits at my nicotine vape. I never got caught red handed, but I was getting blood tests done every few hours and the doctors must've been able to see the continually high levels of whatever poisons are in those horrible vapes. But I knew I had to stop. I’d tried so many times in the past to quit and had failed, but this was different. This had to be different.
On my fourth day in the hospital I was going to be released. I hid behind the curtain one last time, took one long final pull, then threw it in the trash. I had to force myself not to go back.
It's been four weeks since then, and despite having to deal with a lifelong condition, I've honestly never felt better. I quit smoking weed and tobacco, quit vaping, quit drinking. I now eat the healthiest food I can get my hands on. Exercise has become an essential element in my everyday life. All of these changes have made me feel like a completely different person. For the first time I feel like I've finally turned a corner.
What I'm afraid of is the future. Will the daemons creep back? Sharing this story is part of my defense against them--to drag them kicking and clawing into the light.
So, 2020 in a nutshell? I was unemployed, depressed, almost died, then diagnosed with diabetes. I think it will actually end up being one of the most important years of my life.
Pause/musical transition
Laura: Thank you for sharing your story, Elliot. Seeing you in this room has been one of the best parts of this year. Safety used to be something I took for granted, but I don’t anymore.
Nate: Hey. You really should hear Miko marks in a lament room. Looks like she's about to start.
Laura: I’m so glad we made it to this room in time to hear Miko Marks play her incredible song, Goodnight America. It gives voice to what so much of what so many of us have been feeling this year.
Lament
Miko: I am so happy that I made it to 2021. I'm in a place where things are happening very vividly as I'm more present than I ever have been. And so to be able to create and be present through music and share that to the world is priceless. So I'm grateful for that.
Emily: This year has been boring and crazy and unexpected and overwhelmingly pleasant. It hasn't all been good, but if I can think about the best parts about the pandemic it's that it's simplified things and really made a lot of moments for our family, very slow and very sweet.
After 11 years of living in the Bay area, we decided to move back home to Portland and then we also had another major life change and leaving our church. Which started during the black lives matter protests in June and ended in our eventual move, in December of 2020. I want to make sure, , I don't forget the hard work that my husband and I did and kind of understanding each other and what we really wanted from our faith and from our faith community.
It was kinda crazy to watch myself go through an experience of saying goodbye to something that I loved. And I never thought that I would leave.
Knowing that leaving was honoring it and loving it better than it would be to stay under false pretenses. it really brought out this deep loss in me and I cried a lot. And I don't think that would have happened if it weren't for the pandemic because the pandemic. amplified all of the isolation.
One good thing in my private practice as an MFT has been to. Have language for grief and know what tools are necessary to go on the journey. No one actually wants to go through it, but. It can really deepen us and help us grow.
Laura: Thank you for teaching us the language of grief. It’s not easy, but I’ve learned so much from this journey. This room of lament can be hard to sit in, but there’s a lot of good conversations happening here. Let’s make our way over to Muoki Musau and Mark Charles, who are talking with our good friend Anna. They’re meeting for the first time tonight, but it sounds like they’re having a pretty interesting conversation.
Anna: Hey, Laura. Thanks so much for the podcast party. As I've thought back about 2020, one of the things that was really hard for our family was to not be able to have people in our home. We are a family who loves to host people. And when the shutdown happened, it felt like a, gut punch. We've always really pressed into the idea of hospitality, which is so much deeper than entertainment, and is really inviting people into your life whether they are friends or total strangers. And so for us to not do that has been really sad, even for our kids. And I've done a fair amount of thinking about what does it look like, you know, to practice hospitality when you're not physically with people? What does it look like to host people without having them in my house?
Muoki: With the pandemic, the way that we're connecting is changing.
Anna: I think that there is an opportunity that we have to still invite people into our lives through intentional and thoughtful conversations.
Particularly with the events that happened last week in the Capitol building, I think we all saw how important our words are. And even in the fallout from that.
Mark: Without doing these things, we are never going to have a healthy community. We're not going to know how to come together as a nation.
Anna: There's still so much finger pointing and so much anger, and people trying to use social media as a platform to voice everything that they think--whether or not it's actually helpful for healing and helpful for relationships. It's so easy for us to fall into the idea that other people are going to benefit from hearing all of our frustrations and all of our deep thoughts on social media, when really, I think it can actually be really harmful because so much can be misconstrued and misunderstood.
Muoki: We talk a lot about sides. You've have left. You have right. But we need stories that help us to account for the way that things have been.
Mark: There's an Aboriginal leader. His name is George Erasmus. He's from the Denae people up in Canada. And he says that where common memory is lacking, where people do not share the same path, there can be no real community. If you want to build community, you have to start by creating common memory. I love that quote because I think it gets to the heart of our nation’s problem with race, which is we do not have a common memory.
Muoki: What vision or visions are going to motivate us to move forward in the future? What really is going to help us find new ways of connection is to have bigger and better stories.
Mark: How do we tell these stories? How do we create this common memory? Not first and foremost for the point of shaming people are victimizing people or condemning people, but for the sake of building this common memory, so that for the very first time we might have a healthier community.
Anna: We have an opportunity in the weeks and months ahead to be intentional and be thoughtful with our words, and invite people into our lives in a helpful and loving and constructive way. That's what I look forward to, and I hope to do more of, and do better at, in the year ahead.
Laura: The next two rooms are open plan. Often one leads to the other. It’s no accident that the walls are all windows. These rooms are faith and hope. They’re important themes here at Shelter in Place, but they can be hard to hold onto, especially when life is hard. I’d like to introduce you to a couple of people who have been thinking a lot about them, and who are coming at them from very different perspectives.
Faith
Katie: Hi, Laura. It's Katie Semro. 2020 was a challenging year for us. My daughter had a huge anxiety OCD spike in May, and we are still kind of working through that. And our income dwindled very, very far down, and we've very generously been supported by my parents.
It wasn't until just a couple of weeks ago that my husband was talking about okay, what good will come of this? And I really love that question. You know, what good has come of this? And what good will come of this? And for us, there has been so much good.
I started a podcast and it got on the radio, and I started really a career in audio in a way that I had wanted to, but had no idea how. And it all happened entirely due to the pandemic. We have had time with the kids, which has often been incredibly challenging, but it's also been fun. I feel like I know them a little bit better. I'm going for walks every morning at a place that's really beautiful.
It's really easy for me to think of all the negative things that might come out of this pandemic, but it's important to think about the good things that could come from it and will come from it. There will be good things. It's been a really helpful way for me to reframe the situation.
Hope is kind of the flip side of fear and despair. When I sort of climb up the hope mountain, I get the view from the top and I think, Oh yeah, it's going to be great! I inevitably either fall or slowly wind my way down the other side into the despair and fear valley. And I just keep going up and down. It's a very tiring climb to go up the mountain and down the valley and up the mountain and down the valley.
What I'm aiming for is a place beyond hope where you sort of see the world for what it is, and I visualize that as a path that's kind of in the middle, that maybe goes alongside a ridge or something, where you're not at the top of the mountain, but you're not in the valley. Maybe you have hope in mind, but just kind of doing the things that need doing.
It's not easy to stay in this place where you're not at hope and you're not in despair. It's hard to keep that. I think it's almost most faith, right?
Just to keep that faith. The more comfortable we can be with that, the easier it is, I think, to not fall into the hope and despair rollercoaster, but just do one thing at a time. So that's what I’m aiming for. I know it's not easy, but it's really good to talk about it and put it out there.
Laura: Thank you so much for being here, Katie, and for being such a good friend to Shelter in Place from the very beginning.
Katie’s podcast is called The Transmission Times. It’s a beautifully curated time capsule of this pandemic, with voices from all around the world.
Katie talked about a kind of faith that isn’t easy, but that keeps us steady. I want to introduce you to another friend in this room who has spent a lot of his life thinking about faith.
Andrew: My name is Andrew Ong and Laura and Nate do me the honor of listening to my preaching throughout the year at Christ church East Bay. We're a church seeking to lead the people into a deeper relationship with Christ for the good of the city, and a big hope of mine in 2021 is that all the pruning that happened in 2020 will give way to unexpected and surprisingly beautiful fruit. that people will move beyond being mere consumers of churchy content, and that we'd become imaginative creators as a family of faith to the fulfilling way of Jesus. So blessings, everyone.
Nate: Oh, Hey, let's sneak into the hope room. I think Keith Watts and some of his friends are going to play something.
Laura: One of the blessings of 2020 has been partnering with Edissa Nicolas-Huntsman, the founder and director of Karma Compass. I’m inspired by Edissa’s vision for the future and she’s helping me to dream big dreams in the coming year.
Hope
Edissa: My dream for 2021 as the founder and creative director of karma compass. I would like to raise at least $50,000 this year to give all our writers, contributors and residents. And support them in the work that they're doing for healing and wellness as is our mission and intention on a personal level.
I look forward to embarking on another graduate degree, in psychology and be able to help our young people all across this nation who have suffered tremendous loss and trauma from 2020 as a result of loss of social community and school.
My gift for 2021 is the gift of ideation, the gift of creation and imagination and dreaming. One of the best ways to manifest the dream is to. Say it out loud, and that can bring great fear and trepidation. It can also bring tremendous joy and connection and an opportunity for self reflection and contemplation and silence, which is where transformation happens.
Laura: I want to introduce you to one last apprentice, who’s been thinking a lot about dreaming.
Gabi: Hi, my name is Gabi and I'm an apprentice for shelter in place. Hope was a theme for me in 2020, but for this new year, I'm adding the theme of dreaming to my list. And no, I don't mean the type of dreaming that comes with sleeping.
I mean the type of dreaming that is the next step in manifesting hope. My capacity to dream was somewhat stifled. I got sick, like some of us, and I was also emotionally exhausted. Like all of us that left little space for dreaming. I'm looking forward to rebuilding my ability to dream 2020. Didn't take everything away from us.
And the hope we harnessed is the seedling for dreaming big. Join me and incorporating the experiences of jets, setting our goals, pushing the limits of creating and letting ourselves indulge in some well-deserved big dreaming.
Laura: Thank you, Gabi. We’re so excited to dream big with all of you this year--to help each other find the kind of hope that helps us do the next right thing and appreciate the good that is all around us.
I’ve been thinking more about a word for 2021, and I think I might have finally come up with one. I think my word is “motion.” I’ve made a lot of mistakes in 2020. I’ve shed a lot of tears. I’ve said goodbye to friendships and left my home. I’ve felt scared far more than I’ve felt secure. But in all of that uncertainty, there has been motion. I’ve been able to take the next step, to keep moving forward.
I’ve been ending each episode of season two with an invitation, and so before we say goodbye, I want to invite you to choose a word for yourself. Maybe it’s one of the words from the rooms we’ve been walking through. Maybe what you need is rest, or faith, or hope.
I’ve asked my friend Eric Gilbert to conclude this episode with some music that has been feeding my soul this week, keeping me in motion. I’ll let Eric take it from here.
Eric: I like many people have experienced a dearth of creativity during the pandemic . . . like my creative attempts felt dull. I just felt generally apathetic and less motivated. And I found that creating projects for myself and our church was really helpful in this regard, because inevitably there are deadlines and you have to be okay saying, “good enough is good enough.” I think this was true in particular for our songs of the week project we did back in the spring. It started out just what it sounds like: it's one song every week. We did this for 12 weeks, and this was supposed to give some voice to the collective sigh we were all feeling as it was evident that this pandemic was not going to go away anytime soon.
It turns out that producing a whole song in a week is not that easy. And the process of doing that for our congregation was very cathartic for me because I found my own sense of relief and release, and it kept hope alive for me. And I think that experience led me to be a little more bold in taking something on like this project, which originally I wanted to do live on Christmas Eve, and I realized the folly of gathering people into a space to rehearse given our current situation. So I just shelved it.
And sometime during the post-Christmas break, it occurred to me that my daughter and I could do this just fine from our house. So I decided to do it, and
it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be authentic.
I really thought this idea of asking God to shine his light on us to come visit us--that's an epiphany prayer. And it proved to be a great personal catharsis for me as I was finishing up the recording while people were storming our Capitol and while my father-in-law was dying of COVID. And we couldn't see him, of course, so it was . . . it was a tough week.
I think creativity in COVID for me has been less about pursuing that ideal song or arrangement; it's more about doing something small and not worrying so much about the result, and finding joy in the process and watching that process remind me of why I do what I do, and why I still believe what I believe, and why I hold steadfastly to the hope that I profess.
Thank you to all our friends for lending your voices to this very special episode. Finally, if you haven’t heard yet, we’re not just making a podcast here at Shelter in Place; we’re training and mentoring the next generation of women podcasters and business owners. Our incredible season 2 apprentices include Eve Bishop, who was an assistant producer for this episode, and so much behind the scenes work for this party from Sarai Waters, Winnie Shi, Melissa Lent, Gabi Mrozowski, and Isobel Obrecht.
Shelter in Place is listener-supported. In case it’s not obvious from this episode, we really couldn't do this without you. If you’d like to support the good things happening here, you can find information on how to donate to Shelter in Place on our website, shelterinplacepodcast.info, as well as all kinds of goodies and show notes for your enjoyment. If you’d like to help us but can’t donate, asking your friends and loved ones to subscribe to Shelter in Place helps Hurrdat find us sponsors and expands our community. Check out our new referral program where we send you gifts when you get your friends to subscribe. You can find that at refer.fm/shelter.
No party is complete without some dancing and singing. So our Shelter in Place team decided to do a little Zoom karaoke. Here’s how that went.