Happy Anniversary // 3.17.22
Transcript

I have a friend who begins every year with a word to claim that year. I love this idea, and the word I want to claim for this year is JOY. It’s so easy to lose sight of joy on the hard days, especially with daily reminders that our world is so very broken. Which is why I was more surprised than anyone to understand that especially on the hard days, joy was there in a place I never would have thought to look for it: in another word I’ve come to embrace: play.

For me, that joy in play on the hard days has taken a very specific shape: through the zumba, yoga, and meditation classes I’ve been taking with Making Waves Studios. If you heard our recent episodes Dancing Saved My Life and Finding the Fuego, then you’ve already me the founders, two incredible women who have learned how to find joy in dance during some of hte hardest moments of their lives—and who are sharing that gift with the rest of us one wonderful class at a time. You can sign up for their online and in-person classes at Makingwavesstudios.com. I’d love to see you there!

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Laura: This is Shelter in Place, a podcast about reimagining life through creativity and community. Coming to you from Oakland California, I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

There’s a story that I tell often, of how on March 16, 2020, I came up with an idea that would change everything: I’d start a daily podcast called Shelter in Place. The very next day, on our first day of pandemic lockdown, I recorded and published my first episode, and Shelter in Place was born.

Today marks our 2-year anniversary as a show. To date we’ve created ??? narrative episodes, which have included interviews with ?? people, and have spanned from artists to doctors to educators to musicians to most recently, the Pulitzer-prize winning author Anthony Doerr, who was my very first creative writing teacher 22 years ago.

On this 2-year anniversary, we want to welcome all of you who are new. We love knowing that so many new listeners have found the show, and we hope that you’ll enjoy exploring our episodes, which from the beginning have been aimed at reimagining life through creativity and community. If you’re wondering where to start, you can find our episode starter pack on our website, shelterinplacepodcast.org at the top of our episodes page.

We also want to celebrate all of you who have been with us from the very beginning. You make up the Shelter in Place neighborhood that has made it possible for us to continue for two years, despite these years being some of the most challenging ones financially and personally for our family. You’ve kept the lights on in the months when our world felt especially dark, and your encouragements, support, and continued presence have made us feel less alone more times than we can count. At the end of the episode today, we’re going to take a moment to celebrate each and every one of you.

Whether you’re brand new to the show or you’ve been here all along, we’re glad you’re here. In celebration of two years as a show, we’re doing a Shelter in Place retrospective. Today, we’re taking you all the way back to that first episode, which was just six minutes long, and then we’re bringing you through some of our favorite moments from that first season, that led us to where we are today. We’ve also brought in some elements of sound design and audio editing that wasn’t there the first time around. And as always, we’ve included an outtake at the end of the episode—our little easter egg to thank you for listening through the credits.

We hope you enjoy this look back in time, and that you’ll come away from today’s episode feeling a little more hopeful and a little less alone.

So let’s get to it, starting with our very first season 1 episode, Lockdown:

{Lockdown}

Like so many of you, I was home with my kids yesterday when I got the news that for the next three weeks, the Bay Area would be on 24-hour lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

I’m not one to freak out—not right away, anyway—and so my immediate response was to sigh heavily, and then continue explaining to my kindergartener the difference between even and odd numbers. That was early afternoon. I was still hanging in there.

Since my husband and I are both freelancers, the biggest shift for us so far has been that we have to somehow try to work while also having our three children home with us, full-time. Since he needed to go into the office today—for the last time, as it turned out— it was just me and the kids.

Our internet has been out since Saturday—not because of the coronavirus, just an unhappy coincidence—but the schedule I’d worked on so laboriously all weekend actually seemed to be working. I had successfully gotten an 8, 6, and 3-year-old to buy into my nature and art walk, where we had walked the neighborhood, written notes, and drawn pictures of flowers and rocks (or, for the younger one, smiley faces, which she calls “felices”). The older two, who are in a season of almost constant fighting, were generally kind to each other and even helped each other out a few times. For the first time ever, they unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, and were even cheerful about it. The little one, who likes to fool around during naptime, actually slept.

But by evening, things were degenerating. I’d confiscated the magnatiles when my son threw a temper tantrum and a butter knife at me—an accident, he swore. The kids were whiny and irritable. My call to AT&T about the Internet made me nearly homicidal: I had to wait through ten minutes of advertisements that forced me to opt in or out of car insurance, some sort of sweepstakes, and other unrelated services I can’t recall, just to get to a real person—and then after all of that they disconnected me anyway. By the time my husband walked in the door a little after five and said something to me about dinner that was just the tiniest bit impatient, I cried, “I’m about to flip my lid! I need you to walk back out the door, count to ten, and think about the kind of day I’ve had before you come back in.” Which, to his credit, he actually did, and then encouraged me to go for a bike ride.

It was almost six o’clock when I headed out, and the sky overhead was sunny day blue, but dark clouds were pressing in on the horizon. I thought I’d be out there alone, but I saw more people than ever—bikers, walkers, kids on scooters and in strollers. I guess we were all desperate for those last few hours of freedom.

As I rode, I thought about what it means to shelter in place. “Shelter in place.” A phrase at once both benign and ominous. I thought about the months we spent indoors during the wildfire seasons these past few years, how a home can feel like a shelter or a cage. I thought about the thousands of homeless people in our city, who have no place to take shelter. I thought about what it means to be “in place.” How here in the Bay Area, being outside and moving is a core value that almost everyone I know shares. And moving doesn’t just mean exercise, but the freedom to spend your time in the way that you choose to spend it. But for most of us, all of that has changed overnight.

By the time I got back from my bike ride, the dark clouds bisected the sky—but they hadn’t taken over completely. I don’t know about you, but I need to find a way to keep seeing that blue sky even on the darkest days. I need to find a way to shelter that feels safe, not fearful. A way to get through these long days with my kids without feeling alone. I need a way to keep in touch both with the writing that feeds my soul, and connect to the people I can’t be with right now.

Whatever happens down the road, I think we’re all going to look back on this and see this time as significant. As a writer, I need to find a way to mark that history for myself. My friend Jen said to me last night that she thinks podcasts today are what letters used to be. They give us a way to share our deepest selves, but they also capture the moment in history that we’re living in. Think of this podcast as my daily letter to you, about life, writing, and the things I want to share with you in person, but can’t. I’ll do my best to put out an episode every day. I’ll share in real time how I’m experiencing this unprecedented moment in our shared history. I’d love for you to join me on this journey, and to let me know how this experience has been for you. You can reach out to me on my website, laurajoycedavis.com.

Until tomorrow, this is Shelter in Place. I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

–

That episode, Lockdown, was aired on March 17, 2020. One month later, in our episode “One Month In,” you can hear reality begin to sink in. This was officially no longer a 3-week project to pass the time until life went back to normal. In a time when so many industries—including construction—had stuttered to a stop, Nate’s work as a copywriter for a company that built custom homes had slowed to a trickle that would soon come to a stop. And yet even one month in, you can see the seeds of all that would grow out of that time. Here’s that episode, One Month In.

{One Month Later}

Episode 26: One Month Later

Laura: Yesterday marked one month of sheltering in place. Last night as my husband Nate and I sat around folding laundry after the kids were in bed, we talked about how our life has changed—and also how it’s confirmed what we already knew.

There are the obvious ones, like homeschooling our kids—which, even though Nate’s mom did a bang up job of homeschooling him, we never wanted to do ourselves. That’s going pretty much exactly like we thought it would.

There’s having to completely rethink our finances and our future plans, which we’re feeling weirdly detached from in ways we can’t yet explain.

There’s not having as much time to parent together because we’re taking opposite shifts with the kids so we can work.

And there’s also relief at not having activities to attend, distances to drive, places to arrive on time.

A couple of weeks ago, my old grad school teacher Victor LaValle posted something on Twitter that I’ve been thinking about ever since. Victor is a wildly accomplished writer, and he’s on my shortlist of teachers who’ve shaped me significantly. If you’re looking for something to read right now, I highly recommend his books, which are weird and wonderful and totally right for the times we’re living in. A couple of years ago Nate and I listened to The Changeling on Audible, and it’s still one of our favorites.

Victor lives in New York, where COVID-19 has arrived in this country most intensely—over 7900 deaths as of this morning. I contacted him last night to ask his permission to share his words with you, and to see how he and his family were doing. The words of his I wanted to quote, are these:

"The quarantine seems a lot like fame. It doesn’t change who you are, it amplifies who you always were."

Though I’m not famous, Victor’s words immediately struck me as true. A couple of weeks ago after an episode took me longer than usual, Nate commented to me that this project is a great outlet for my workaholism. The comment annoyed me, but I couldn't deny the truth of it.

I’ve mentioned before that this project is one I never would have taken on before. I was never one of those people who had a surplus of ideas. And even if I’d wanted to do something daily, it wasn’t possible. In my pre-COVID-19 life, I had three days a week to write. In those three days I was chipping away at a novel, short stories, an essay, another podcast that included interviews all over the country, and doing freelance work. I know, that’s ridiculous. I knew it then, too. I would try focusing on a single project for a while, but every time I got a little momentum, the demands of parenting would crowd in. One of the kids would be home sick. I’d need to bring cupcakes to school for a birthday celebration. There were parent-teacher conferences. Not surprisingly, I rarely finished anything.

And then a month ago I got the crazy idea for this podcast. To be fair, it’s a project that probably wouldn’t be possible if Nate’s work hadn’t been paired back so severely. Like most people right now, we’re still figuring that out, calculating how long we can survive. If I’d known that this was going to go on longer than three weeks, I doubt I would have taken it on. But I’m glad I did.

Because after eight years of longing to not just create but complete, now I get to do it every day. Some days are better than others, of course, but the work continues to sustain me in ways I didn’t anticipate. I think after decades of feeling like my work was going nowhere, like no one really knew me because many of my family and friends had never read my work, it feels so good to finally be putting something out there. I have no regrets about having my kids. For all of my frustrations with them, I adore them. But COVID-19 has shown me what I knew deep down all along: parenting alone does not feed my soul.

I’ve asked Nate more than once if he wants me to pull the plug on this project. I don’t want to give into the pull of workaholism, and at the end of the day, my family comes first. But every time he says no without hesitation. He said he’s never seen me so happy. It’s sparked some really interesting conversations between us. He doesn’t want to do this forever. I don’t either. But he says for now, for this season, it’s been a really good thing.

But I’m not ready to let myself off the hook. Because there’s another layer to Victor’s observation that pierces me, one that’s harder to talk about.

I've heard so many of my friends say that while this time has been hard, it’s been wonderful for their family, that they've had all of these sweet moments. We’ve had some too, but mostly, it’s been a struggle. I'm worried that maybe the problem isn’t them, but me.

Every day when I come inside around lunchtime to take my shift with the kids, it feels like the worst parts of me surface. All I want to do is go back out and work some more. I feel terrible even admitting that.

I go into every afternoon with plans of the things I’ll teach my kids, of the fun dance parties and neighborhood bike rides and singing songs we’ll do together. I’ve spent so many hours this past month pouring through advice from moms who homeschooled before COVID-19. Reading the endless updates and resources and videos that all three of my kids’ teachers are sending. I’ve tried schedules, lists, the daily plan on the blackboard that now sits in our kitchen-turned-school.

But most days, that all goes out the door within minutes. Instead of teaching them I’m officiating fights, or trying to convince our 3-year-old to actually be quiet during quiet time, or persuading my older kids of the need to regularly use the bathroom.

I'm also battling my own reluctance, my inability to just let my to do list go and be fully present with my kids. There’s always dinner to think about, or that growing stack of unopened mail, or some school project we were supposed to be doing but that I never quite got around to, or that email I should answer while the kids are playing in the next room.

Before COVID-19 I felt stuck in a constant panic of not being able to keep up with my life--work included. Now I’m just letting more things go. Before I could kid myself that maybe I just needed better systems for organization. But now, when almost everything in my life has been cleared off the table, I’m faced with a more complicated truth.

If quarantine amplifies who I always was, as Victor said, then what’s been amplified in my own life is not just my struggle to feel in control, but to be content in the chaos.

I want the straightforward simplicity of a project that challenges me, but doesn’t whine, complain, or defy me. I want to be able to pretend that life is only about creating. And don’t get me wrong. I think life is about creating—I think it’s an essential part of our humanity that we find our own unique way of releasing a bit of ourselves to the world. But life is also messy and loud and complicated. Often it’s infuriating. It’s a lot more like what goes on inside my house than what goes on inside my writing shed.

I’ve spent a lot of the past eight years trying to conform myself to the vision of motherhood that I thought I was supposed to be. I’ve tried to be Craft Mom, Teacher Mom, the Fun Mom who loves playing with them. By and large, those efforts were an exercise in futility. In my worst moments, they led me to despair.

It’s taken me years of mom guilt to realize that there isn’t just one way of being a mother. When I look at the mothers I admire most, the common thread is that all of them have found a way to create something that gives them joy and purpose in the midst of the chaos. And I do think that’s what writing has been for me.

Sometimes I'm not sure I know how to be authentically me and still parent my kids well. How to be content knowing that whether in writing or in life, I’m never going to be that ideal vision of myself.

But maybe that’s exactly where I need to be. To live in the constant reality that I don’t have this figured out. It’s a reality that forces me to get more organized, but that also pushes me to give myself and others more grace. Maybe that’s the best thing to come out of this time, the best goal: to be a little less tight-fisted with order and ambition, and a little more open-handed with grace.

–

The episode originally aired on April 15, 2020. To close out today’s season 1 retrospective, I want to share with you our 100th episode, the last episode we released for season 1. It’s called Performance Review. Here it is now.

{Performance Review}

Shelter in Place Podcast Performance Review

Employee Name: Laura Joyce Davis

Title of position: Host, producer, writer, editor, production manager, sound engineer, operations director, finance manager, business development, fact-checker, donor relations, sponsorship coordinator, and office manager.

Reviewed by Shelter in Place HR

Period covered by review March 17 to July 17, 2020

Section ONE: Job Knowledge

Rating: Good.

While it is generally not advisable to begin a project mere hours after the idea for said project is conceived, the proposal was approved because it was seemingly low-risk due to its pro bono nature, and there was {quote unquote} “historical value” of chronicling this quarantine. It was not evident to management the extent to which the employee lacked the skills to edit audio, but some improvement has been noted in this area.

Laura’s comments:

I’ve been writing stories all my life, but let’s be real. When I started this podcast on March 17, I had no idea what I was getting into.

When I came back from that fateful bike ride on March 16, struck by what felt like divine inspiration and a creative energy I hadn’t felt for a very long time, the kids had only been home from school for one day. Nate still had a job. Even though I made my pitch to Nate in a bike helmet and those dorky diaper butt biking shorts, he agreed. We didn’t really believe that this pandemic would change anything.

“I’ll just write a single draft and record the first take,” I reasoned. “It’ll be rough. Just whatever comes out. Kind of like journaling. I’ll just do it for me.”

That first week I tried to stick to that plan. I tried to be done by noon so Nate could work in the afternoon while I took my shift with the kids. But I kept pushing that time later and later. When Nate lost his job, my half days turned into full days. Even a few days in, the project felt bigger than me.

I didn’t know anything about editing audio, so sometimes I stumbled over my words. Especially in those early episodes, you can hear in my voice when I was tapped out, sleep-deprived, and writing from the dregs of a life spent wrangling obstinate children. It took me two weeks to realize that my theme music was drowning out my voiceover, and another week to learn how to fix it. I thought, well, that was that. At least there’s tomorrow.

And as someone who spends months or even years writing and endlessly revising novels and short stories, it was good for me to loosen up. To realize that no one else cared as much as I did if my work wasn’t perfect. I tried to remind myself of that when I noticed some phrase or word I was unconsciously returning to, or when my attempts at tenderness turned saccharine. In another life I would have edited out all of those imperfections. In this one, I just kept moving.

I watched YouTube videos and learned how to edit my audio. I did interviews, using my years of fiction writing to create a narrative arc in each conversation, to make people sound both exactly like themselves--and also like the most thoughtful, articulate version of themselves. I started playing around with layering voices, like in episodes 88: Temper Tantrum and 96:Fierce. Recently I added Easter Eggs for people who listen through the credits. I’m planning on going back to past episodes and adding more.

The more I learned, the more ambitious I became. My days kept getting longer. I didn’t want to work such long hours, but also, after being the primary caregiver for eight years, writing every day was a new kind of relief. After years of squeezing my fiction into the margins and rarely achieving the sense of progress I craved, I was working every day, honing new skills, with clear milestones along the way.

Section two: Judgment: Did the employee make decisions in the best interest of the company while performing their duties?

Rating: Needs Improvement

Project approval was contingent on a three-week scope of work. The employee consistently failed to seek approval through the proper chain of command, and showed questionable judgment in continuing beyond the initial conditions of employment without approval from management. Inaccurate estimates for project implementation were a chronic issue, and must be addressed for the project to continue.

Laura’s comments:

When this started, I didn’t even know that “daily podcast” usually means Monday through Friday. I even considered doing Sundays. I didn’t stop to consider that all of the podcasts I love have teams of people and budgets big enough to pay them.

Was it really necessary to release episodes on Memorial Day and the 4th of July? Couldn’t I have at least given myself the holidays off? Why did I feel so bound to the parameters I’d set even after the quarantine extended? Who did I think was keeping score?

There’s been so little in our world that we could count on during this time. The thing that kept me going week after week after week after week was hearing from you all of you. I’d made an early promise to show up and create something six days a week. And I was hearing from enough of you to know that that promise meant something. It wasn’t much, but I wanted you to know that I wouldn’t bail just because life was getting hard.

Many years ago I came across James Clear’s blog post about The Four Burners Theory. The burners, as he defines them, are Family, Friends, Health, and Work. He quotes David Sedaris saying “in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.”

I didn’t just turn down one burner. I turned off three. After years of trying to keep all of the burners at a low flame, working a lot made me feel successful--for a while.

James says we have three possible options when it comes to the four burners: we can outsource one or more of our burners, embrace our constraints, or accept that this is a season of life where we won’t be as productive or as balanced.

I mostly outsourced childcare to Nate, who has been gracious, but has also sometimes growl-screamed like a monster and threatened to quit. Grace often complains that I’m “just a boring work mom” and left a particularly heart-wrenching note on my birthday that said, “Mommy, please stop working.” When one of the kids wets the bed in the middle of the night, they go to Nate now, not me. There have been some tense moments at Shelter in Place headquarters when I was working into the night, abandoning Nate to the 5-8 p.m. bedtime battle, when our children shapeshift into goblins. I’ve worked twelve to fourteen hour days six days a week like it was normal. I’ve forgotten how to have a good night’s sleep. I’ve let exercise fall by the wayside and drank so much coffee.

James writes,

“The Four Burners Theory reveals a truth everyone must deal with: nobody likes being told they can't have it all, but everyone has constraints on their time and energy. Every choice has a cost. Essentially, we are forced to choose. Would you rather live a life that is unbalanced, but high-performing in a certain area? Or would you rather live a life that is balanced, but never maximizes your potential in a given quadrant?”

Clearly, this has been a season of accepting a certain amount of imbalance for all of us. But no one should continue at this pace.

There’s a phrase that’s been thrown around a lot during this pandemic: productivity porn. It’s showing off how much we can get done now that we’re at home all the time. I’ve been aware that this podcast could be perceived that way--it’s been anything but.

Because pretty early on, it became clear to me that this wasn’t just a podcast. It was a chance to rethink life. Doing something every day forced me to take a very long, hard look in the mirror and decide if I was going to do something about what I saw.

I knew I had the capacity for workaholism, but this was the first time I’d gotten a chance to work at something I really loved. I saw how my ambition could be an idol or gift. I saw up close up the ways I’d let down my friends and family, how selfish I can be. I realized that there’s a war inside me every day, between the desire to live comfortably and the desire to live well.

And I tried in episode after episode to be real about these things, to use every interaction as a chance to extend kindness and generosity, to do better than I had before at saying thank you.

So yes, things will be different in season 2--assuming we get there. We’re planning on three or four episodes a week instead of six. We’re taking a break between seasons so we can get the work out there and make it sustainable.

If I had known that we’d get to 100 episodes, I never would have taken this on. Which is not to say I regret it. Because I’ve learned so much. It’s connected me to all of you. It’s made me realize that though we’re all coming from very different places, we have a lot to offer each other--even when we can’t be physically together. I feel hopeful about the future because of you.

Section three: Leadership & Initiative

Rating: Above Average

Given the constraints of this project, the employee’s proactivity is commendable. It has been noted that the employee’s core competency of “feelings” has been leveraged to facilitate a wide range of episodes and variety of content.

Laura’s Comments:

These are strange times, when the boundaries between personal and professional have blurred like a child’s watercolor.

Days after Shelter in Place began, Nate lost his job and we had to pull the plug on our plans to move to Mexico. The original plan was to be on our way there now. Sometimes it feels like this time of quarantine has just been one wave of loss after another. It’s been a season of forced minimalism, living with less and less while more and more is taken away.

There’s always a sense of missing out when you’ve moved far away from your family, but that distance has never felt greater than it does now. Our extended families have lived so much life without us during this quarantine. I shared one especially painful instance of this in episode 68: Difference. I’m slowly coming to terms with the knowledge that we may not see them for at least another year.

But there’s a persistent hope that has been there in the background in episode after episode. Even as I see our country and our world become more polarized and divided, I’m experiencing something quite different in my day to day living because of this podcast. I’m having conversations with people that are raw and deep, and I’m listening a lot more than I’m talking.

I keep thinking about something Muoki Musau said to me in episode 67: Circling Back. We don’t have to agree with each other. But if we’re willing to consider the possibility that the people we disagree with might be saying something true--it’ll change us.

I’ve found that statement working on me as I talk to people who are leading the charge on becoming antiracist. It’s softened me when I hear strong words that I’m not sure I agree with. It’s made me willing to listen when people talk about belief or unbelief, about justice or forgiveness. Just allowing for the possibility that what they’re saying might be true has made me more open-hearted. I’ve tried to be honest about what that process has been like.

I don’t think I would have made it to 100 episodes if I were putting on a show. If you’ve listened from the beginning, then you actually know me quite well. If you’re still here, then it means you’ve decided to stick around anyway. And that means more than you know.

Section four: Planning and Organization

Rating: Satisfactory.

Recommendations were made for focusing on non-controversial topics, but were not followed. However, synergy between audio diary, research, interviews, so-called “creative writing,” and the twelve recurring themes has been observed. Episode content was at times unexpected, but did reflect current events.

Laura’s comments:

A lot has happened in our world as I’ve written these episodes, and I’m pretty useless at compartmentalization since I’m an Enneagram 4 (you’ll know what that means if you listened to episodes 74 through 86). So on the days when the world felt particularly broken, you got my brokenness, too.

From the very beginning, Nate’s Aunt Sarah, who created our logo and other graphics, asked us a very pointed question: what was this show really about?

In the beginning it was simple: it was about not going crazy, about making it through another day.

But over time we realized that what we needed was different depending on the day. There were days when we needed levity and hope. Days when we missed human touch or community. Some days we needed to laugh, or cry, or just simply stop and rest.

Twelve themes emerged, and Nate created a way to explore episodes by theme on our website.

I’ve shed many tears over the course of these 100 episodes--but I’ve laughed a lot, too. Each review, email, or text from listeners has reminded me that I’m not alone. Through all of it, I’ve tried to come to you not as an authority, but as a fellow traveler.

It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s been good.

Section five: Budgeting and Fiscal Responsibility

Rating: Needs Improvement

The employee’s extensive research in monetizing project deliverables has been observed. Reduced discretionary expenditures have been a favorable aspect of project execution. However, to expedite a win-win, implementation of additional revenue streams is strongly recommended.

Laura’s comments:

Funding this work--which is to say, funding our life--is the greatest challenge that Shelter in Place has to overcome. In a very sobering conversation last week, Nate’s business-savvy cousin Katherine told us that entrepreneurs should expect to work 12-18 months without pay. But since we don’t have that long, we need to get creative.

In case you’re wondering, we’ve heard from industry veterans that it is possible to make a living off a podcast. Whether we’re talking about NPR or the two guys rehashing Scooby Doo reruns--yes, there’s a show for that--podcasts survive through donor support, sponsorship, selling merch, or ad revenue--or some combination of all of these. In the coming weeks while we’re not making daily episodes, we’ll be devoting more time to these efforts. If we’re going to make this a business, we need to run it like one. We now have a way for listeners to become both monthly and one-time supporters on our website, shelterinplacepodcast.info.

This past month we've had conversations with interested agencies about sponsorship and representation. We’ll pitch to more places during the break. We’re excited about the possibility of getting Shelter in Place to other parts of the globe, and are looking into translation. It’s been wonderful to have the continued support of Brick & Mortar, Delta Wines, and Imagine Mindfulness, and we highly recommend their wine and meditation, because let’s face it, you probably need both of them right now.

And finally I have to say that this work wouldn’t have been possible without Nate, who put his advertising background to use and took on this internship. Tamarra Kemsley has advised and guided us, launched and managed our social media presence, and insisted on working for far less than she deserved. Sarah Edgell has donated her time, challenged us to articulate our vision, and believed in us from the very beginning.

Whether you’ve been here since episode one, or you’re just stopping by for the first time, we want you to know that you’re welcome here. Have a seat and grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. We’ll skip the small talk and listen while you tell your story. We’d love to hear from you. You can stay in touch by signing up for our newsletter at shelterinplacepodcast.info. We’ll share important updates on season two, and how we’re seeking sanity in the meantime.

We know that there are many worthy causes out there right now. To all of you who have supported us, it's an honor to have you in this Shelter in Place community. We look forward to building something beautiful together. I want to thank each of you:

Elliot Davis,

Jennifer Sheedy,

Patti Wessner,

Elena Lovo,

Kirstin Hernandez,

Tracy Maciel,

Sarah Nidy,

Tala Aziz,

Senhit Dirar,

Annie Gullick,

Meta Kendrick,

Rebeca Kihslinger

Rebecca Bodenhemier

Jen Houser,

Lyle & Tina Joyce,

Chelsea & Chris Boniak,

Anne & Tyler Elliston,

Ben & Bethany Corrie,

Jake & Jennifer Armerding,

Alexis & Matt Iaconis,

Alice & Damon Snyder,

Nina LaCour & Krysten Stroble,

Lin Chin and Peter Santina

Phyllis Ahrndt

Nick & Erin Be,

Jenna and Stu Rentz,

Roxane Beth Johnson,

Jen & Brain McKillips,

Paul Baker,

Robin & Jack Davis,

Tony Doerr,

Kaitlin Solimine,

Mary Reed & Dan Livsey,

Jodi Buyyounouski,

Gabriele Edgell,

Anthony & Michelle DeVito,

Lucy French,

Meera Nair,

Sande Rud,

Jesselle & Nick Miura,

Karyn Kloumann, and

Dave & Kathy Emmans . . . these 100 episodes are dedicated to you.

Before I go, I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to our work here at Shelter in Place in the last two years.

Jack and Robin Davis

Lyle and Tina Joyce

Saundra Lormand

Judy Vasos

Nik Schaffer

We hope you’ve enjoyed this blast into the past as we celebrate two years of Shelter in Place. We’ll be continuing this celebration all month long, and at the same time celebrating women’s history month as well.

As part of that celebration, we want to share with you a movement we’ve been asked to be a part of called #ClaimPodParity. The woman behind the movement is Elsie Escobar, a force of nature in podcasting who has done so much to raise up the voices of women podcasters, especially through She Podcasts, the organization that she co-founded with Jess Kupferman. You might remember that I was a speaker at the She Podcasts Live conference last October, where I got to meet so many inspiring women in the industry, including Elsie and Jess.

#ClaimPodParity is a movement to celebrate the women in this industry, who have made a difference both in the podcasts they are creating and the ways that they are helping other women to thrive in podcasting as well. We’re a part of the movement in both of those ways—through Shelter in Place, a woman-led and women-hosted podcast, and through the Kasama Collective, our non-profit training program for women and non-binary creatives. If you want to join in the movement, just search for #ClaimPodParity on any social media platform and share and retreat what you see there—or better yet, add your own post about the women you love in podcasting, that you think others will love too. We’ll be contributing to this effort all throughout the month of March in an effort to help other women podcasters grow their own shows and to help listeners find them.

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If you’d like to support this work, you can do that for as little as $5 a month at shelterinplacepodcast.org. What you heard in this episode was an edited version of a much longer conversation between Tony and me. As a monthly supporter, you’ll get access to the unedited conversation.

We know that you hear it from everyone, but it really does help us so much if you subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Goodpods, Podchaser, or any podcast app that has ratings and reviews.

As always, if you listen to the very end of the episode, you’ll hear Shelter in Place outtakes, our little easter egg to thank you for sticking around. But first,

End Credits:

The Shelter in Place music was created by Chase Horsman at Reaktor Productions. Additional music and sound effects for this episode come from Storyblocks. Melissa Lent is our project manager, Sarah Edgell is our design director, Nate Davis is our creative director, and as always, I’m your host and executive producer.

Until next time, this is Shelter in Place. I’m Laura Joyce Davis.

And now if you’re still listening, here’s a little outtake.

OUTTAKE: