my eyes are bloodshot from crying during podcasts

Thank you for reading this! Getting those emails about new sign-ups was very heart-warming.

For a couple of years now, I have been listening to Dax Shepard and Monica Padman’s podcast while I do my daily physical therapy. Kristen Bell’s husband’s celebrity interviews are the exact amount of light-hearted engagement to help distract me from the intentional discomfort I endure to keep unintentional EDS-related injuries at a minimum. To my surprise, last Thursday found me laying on my yoga mat weeping, as the usually-swaggering Dax recounted his recent relapse. His broken and trembling description of his months taking prescription opioids and the snowballing self-deceit and isolation that followed was detailed, honest, and humbled.

It’s so rare to hear someone share the particulars of moments about which they feel embarrassed. Summaries and clichés serve to paper over not only the complexities of life but also the depth and power of the associated emotions. As such, the details he shared—how much Oxy he was taking, when he switched from prescriptions to buying his own on the black market, the lies he told—made it impossible to avoid just how dark and lonely addiction is and also made his ultimate request for help from his wife and best friend that much more potent and redemptive.

If you listen, I’d love to hear if the pain, grace, and forgiveness he describes are as striking to you as they were to me.

In the same way, a recent New York Times Magazine piece on homelessness in New York altered my understanding of families experiencing homelessness. You can access the article here as well as a podcast in which it’s read out loud here. (I did the latter.) The reporter, Samantha Shapiro, did a stunning job describing the shelter system and other factors that have led to elementary school classes in which more than 50% of students are experiencing homelessness. But what made the piece transformative was that she dug in deep into the details of a few families’ stories. I found myself crying, again, about 8-year-old’s math test. Once again, the power is in the details.

I’m trying to remember this in my advocacy and writing. As I mentioned, I had a book event last week, and it went well. (You can watch it here). Sharing the screen with Alice Wong for an hour was magical and around 1000 people watched and participated live. I heard from a number of them after and it wasn’t my points about systemic disability discrimination that resonated with viewers as much as it was my transparent description of my own experience with internalized ableism and parenting. Defaulting to statistical or conceptual talking points is easier and definitely less scary, but it’s not what opens minds and changes hearts.

So hold me accountable, if I start skating on the surface in my writing, sharing the lessons but not the gunk that got me there—remind me to be brave and work harder.

Sending rest, love, and safety to you. These days are hard and scary and enraging. As always, if you need help with voting, let me know. If you want to help make calls to voters in swing states, let me know. We only have a few more weeks to get our country into the hands of someone with reasonable plans, empathy, and respect for the rule of law.

Love,

Jessica

Last Days by Mary Oliver

Things are

changing; things are starting to

     spin, snap, fly off into

         the blue sleeve of the long

       afternoon. Oh and ooh

come whistling out of the perished mouth

  of the grass, as things

turn soft, boil back

   into substance and hue. As everything,

       forgetting its own enchantment, whispers:

       I too love oblivion why not it is full

           of second chances. Now,

hiss the bright curls of the leaves, Now!

booms the muscle of the wind.