Just here to share my two fictional touchstones: Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables and Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. Both feminist icons in their own way and time. Both have a fondness for their home, the beauty of the natural environment, and a drive to make the community they live in a kinder and more beautiful place. Their friends and workplace proximity associates are their family.
I found this episode so interesting (as usual) and definitely linked some things for me (also as usual!). The very specific piece I’m thinking about though was the way the administration is invoking antisemitism as the reason for so much of this mess. As a Jewish woman, raising three Jewish teenagers, it was weirdly a relief to hear someone else say that Jewish people are being used as scapegoats and this has nothing to do with protecting us. This is exactly what I’ve been thinking and I hadn’t heard anyone else voice it. I don’t feel any safer with students being disappeared. My kids aren’t any safer. Because it has nothing to do with us. They’re trying to make it sound good for people who aren’t paying attention. Stop using us as an excuse for these horrible things.
Coming in days late, had to pause after the anecdote about the Black female student who couldn't be a CS major at Harvard.
For context: I graduated as a CS major from Iowa State in 1988. Women in CS were "not as rare as hen's teeth" according to my advisor there at the time. They have become more rare. For other context: I spent something like 30-35 years working in about a dozen different Silicon Valley companies (never as a programmer, but that's another story). Job interviews at the companies I worked for tend to happen in teams, so I have interviewed many, many people for programming jobs or other jobs and I'm going to tell you something: Every Black person I ever interviewed was hired. (I almost never had final say. I was just given a vote.) We wanted the diversity so badly. It was an unstated goal. I never heard anybody speak this way. We just all knew in our souls we needed people of all backgrounds. Also, I can count them on my fingers. As a white woman in the field, I only very rarely felt like a minority. In the few cases where I did, I'd stop my brain from thinking that by saying to myself, "Count the Black people in this crowd. Now shut up."
So PLEASE GOD tell me this student found another way. Maybe not at Harvard, but you know, MIT is right there, right? I mean it REALLY doesn't matter that a woman this smart went to Harvard. She's gonna be fine. She also doesn't have to major in CS. She just has to know how to program. Maybe Zuck won't hire her, but others will. Or maybe she took night classes somewhere else so she could catch up? Shit.
Paused my delayed listening to yell AMEN during the discussion of how cutting funding to research institutions often touches hospitals, and that you can’t just switch it all back on. I work and a large university with a medical center, and not even one of the really big ones. Our entire nursing staff was recently told to expect smaller than normal annual raises this year, and the physicians are all either taking a pay cut, or agreeing to work more clinical time for the same pay. This is all due to the financial instability of cuts to funding as many physicians do part clinical time and part research time, and the anticipated Medicaid cuts. 61% of patients at our children’s hospital have Medicaid as either primary or secondary insurance.
Just started the episode, but wanted to comment as a 9 year employee of a public university. I live in a fairly rural area and have a self employed farmer partner. I have to live in the area we farm and also need benefits. I graduated with my undergraduate + MS degrees and kept working at the same university. I’ve transferred between different units on campus, but absolutely stay for the benefits and flexibility my job provides. I only have to go to campus (2 hours round trip) once a week. No other workplace near me offers the same kinds of benefits. I’m a bit stuck in terms of finding another place that would offer the same things that my current workplace offers. It’s been a weird and a bit terrifying time to work for a public university (and I was here for the 2016 administration too).
So loved this episode! And it ties in perfectly to a question I’ve been meaning to ask this community: what life skills or important information do you think are important to impart on college students? Or do you have any advice about how best to teach them/help them become independent adults?
For context, I’m a college professor, teaching my first real course this fall. It’s brand new and titled Elements of Theatre. It’s going to be an introductory course for majors, so students who are preparing to pursue theatre as a career. I want it to be full of information and experiences where they can explore parts of the industry that may be new to them. But I also want them to learn how to transition into college and adulthood (or at least learn how to find the resources they need). This came about partially because I’ve just learned from two recent grads and a current student that they don’t know how to find a primary care physician. One hasn’t had a physical since she was 5. One is about to lose her health benefits from her job and doesn’t know what to do. So, all that to ask, what do you wish you had known when starting college? Or what do you think is important for these students to know?
Do you have any tips for teaching college in general? I’ll take any and all suggestions! Thank you!
First, students do not know nearly as much about using technology as we think. Don't assume they know anything about technology, including things like changing font sizes.
They also know very little about how to do research and probably did not have access to many of the resources college professors expect them to use in college because those resources are too expensive for high schools. If the course involves any research at all, connect with the librarian who is the theater subject specialist at your college library. College librarians usually know a lot more than even seasoned professors about what sources are useful. They may even offer to come in and teach part of a class on how to use library resources on theater.
Don't take their failure to do assignments personally, especially for first-year students. Most of them came from highly regimented high schools, and they don't know how to manage their time or even know when they need extra assistance. Knowledge on how to pace yourself, manage workload on your own, do assignments without intermittent deadlines or prompting can help. I have noticed that in the past couple of years, many professors are asking for more check-ins on major assignments to help with this
If your students are traditional age, in general, the males will be less mature than the females. Try not to get too frustrated with them!
And if you have information on navigating health insurance, let me know! I am still having hassles with it after decades.
Beth, thank you for introducing me to the Drama Triangle! This applies so perfectly to a current work situation I’ve been frustrated by and it will really help me think through it and talk to others about how we can navigate out of the drama (or at least try! I need to keep remembering I can only control myself! 😊)
There is a young man in our circle who got a full ride to Cornell (he is a gifted musician). He did not have financial or emotional support from parents. Once he got there, he realized that there would be several international trips as part of his program that he would have to pay for. He is a natural leader and quickly became the “team manager” for most things. Well, I guess it’s tradition that the manager pays for a big, fancy meal for the TEAM on some of those trips. He doesn’t have a parent’s credit card to do so - and he has to make some hard decisions. The school did not help or offer additional support.
Another young man who was unhoused for most of high school, got a FULL ride to Harvard. Exciting, right? Except he had no idea of the weather and clothing needed to survive there (hello, $$$), luggage, all the things. He’s resilient and said “I’ve survived this far, I’ll be fine”. Brilliant, resilient kids who keep on surviving. But, d%#!….you just want them to be able to soften into enjoying that moment, you know?
What a beautiful episode - filled with so many relevant reflections and perspectives that I needed to hear. I’ll be thinking about it for weeks. Thank you. So much great PP content this week - incredible work, team!
Anne Shirley's friendship ideals were super formative to me growing up. These days I'd have to think on it a bit more, because although I love and revere many characters, no one particular springs immediately to mind. But it's a fascinating thing to consider!
PS. If no one has identified the reference yet, I'm wondering if Calpurnia might have been from To Kill a Mockingbird? Faulkner might've had a Calpurnia character, too, but there is definitely a main character named Calpurnia in TKAM.
Anne was the first character I thought of while listening to this episode. I have loved Anne since I was a teenager, but I recently read through the entire series, finishing the last book this month! As I was listening to this episode I thought about what I can learn from Anne as she ages and comes into her adulthood.
Have you read The Blythes are Quoted? I found it and read it a couple of years ago, but still need to do a bit of digging to figure out where it came from exactly. I'm an LMM completist, novels to short stories to journals, so some of it was repeated from earlier work, but it was an interesting thing to discover after many years of thinking I'd seen most or all of her work.
And yes, I still love Anne as an adult, and I think she continues to embody a kind of high-minded and thoughtful approach to friendship, but I relate a little less to some of the domesticity and her relegation of her literary ideals to hobby status. But there's always Emily for aspirations! :)
I haven't read The Blythes are Quoted... yet! I have seen it on some lists so I will get to it too. It was really interesting to see how LMM continues Anne's spirit into adulthood.
I have only read the Anne books so far, but Emily is on my list. I honestly didn't realize (before last year) just how much LMM had written. Do you have a favorite LMM book? Or a few favorites??
Ha! Dangerous question in that I could go on and on. But the Anne books are all pretty special, Green Gables & Avonlea probably being my faves if I had to choose.
I love a setting, and New Moon Farm is beautiful, and Emily is a bit more complicated and eerie than Anne. The first book is my favorite of the series.
For the non series books, I'm partial to The Blue Castle and Jane of Lantern Hill. Both old fashioned and sentimental but like, plucky!
And Vanessa, thank you for the language to explain how I feel about the world at the end. Yes, I want to know if what people are doing will help us share water with each other when resources are scarce. I think that's what I need to ask people I disagree with from here on out: How will this plan or position help us share resources when we inevitably face scarcity?
Beth, your reflections on being told not to take a job that you took because your mentor was aware of how hard it would be to leave were so beautifully insightful. We need to be having this conversation more. We need to talk about why it is so hard to leave toxic spaces or spaces that are not good for us because 1) we're human and 2) we have developed systems that make it nearly impossible to make those adjustments because we are going to lose too much.
I am over 10 years older than Beth, and I listened to that segment with some sympathy. You don't want work that you hate, but money and benefits are not nothing. I still kick myself for not exploring a career in state government (I live in a state capital) because the state work schedule isn't as flexible as other jobs. But now, as retirement nears and health care costs are skyrocketing, I regret not having the benefits that come from working for the state for many years.
I hear you, but my guess is you ultimately made the right decision. Out of my friends who have already retired, but husband and I are the only ones who never worked in defense. And so our friends have some pretty stellar health insurance that they got to keep. We have very bad health insurance. My friends who were government employees have pensions, which is unfathomable to me. So I envy them that, but I don't envy their careers. I don't have the mettle to work 30 years in a job I hate so that I can have a great pension plan at 65.
Yes! I felt like Beth was in my head articulating how I have felt about my job so much over the last few years. I've been at my job long enough that I make an okay salary, but I also live alone and have to be able to pay my bills. There have been many times over the last few years that I have wanted to get out, but I am terrified that I will not be able to make it with a salary cut. (And in reality, I definitely wouldn't make it with some jobs.)
As someone who also lives alone and has stayed in jobs way longer than what was good for me mentally and physically because I alone was responsible for every bill, I see you Callie Ann. I, too, saw jobs I wanted but knew I could not live with the salary cut.
I recently switched jobs in March and it’s very very bittersweet as the ability to just make it on a severely lower salary is only because of the relatively small (but significant to me) money left for my brother and I after our parents died last year.
I’m so much happier in my work and so grateful that my parents’ years of hard work and saving has made this opportunity possible for me; and yet of course I’d rather they were here healthy and thriving.
And when I got today’s paycheck it’s still a gut punch at how much less I’m making and how very wisely I need to proceed to sustain living at this income level.
I loved this conversation, and along with some of the other comments here, think it was so important that you touched on how funding cuts to an institution like Harvard affect such a vast majority of people, not just Harvard students and faculty.
I also love how many amazing people I have been (virtually and para socially) introduced to by PP, and Vanessa is one of them. I heard about HP and the Sacred Text here, and have been working my way back through the books and listening to that podcast as I go as a form of self care. Vanessa is such an amazing person!
This was such a lovely episode it was kind of hard to listen to. I love Vanessa and Harry Potter and the Sacred Text changed my life and both Vanessa and Beth are guides for me on how to build a meaningful life as I grow up. (I just turned 29 yesterday!) I wanted to cherish this episode and hold onto the wisdom.
I love the idea of characters as patron saints, and I do this so much that it does feel like a guilty pleasure. I am autistic and I've identified that Stories are probably my longest lasting special interest. I love stories. I love talking about them. I love getting lost in them. And they are ultimately how I make sense of my life and my whole world. And that's a big part of why I love Harry Potter and the Sacred Text so much. And it can still feel self-indulgent to take stories as seriously and sacredly as Vanessa and the Common Ground ethic does, because I love it so so much.
Throughout my adolescence, I really wanted to be like Lily Evans Potter from Harry Potter. She has such a small part in the books but I loved it. As a girl who grew up Catholic, I loved Mary the mother of Jesus, and I saw Lily Potter as like a modern version of Mary. I deeply admired her courage and her kindness, and I still seek to emulate it. It can be hard because *everyone* in my life tells me that I am not like Lily... they say I am like Luna usually. And that can be painful. But I still hold onto the values that Lily taught me, to have courage to do the right thing and to fiercely stand up for both the people you love and the people who hurt you, to have kindness for those on the outside, and I am just immensely grateful for the way that's shaped me.
I think it is so interesting to hear which characters people connect with within themselves compared to the characters the outside world would expect. I love how much you have learned from Lily, even though most people would expect Luna. Luna is great too, but I love when people connect to unexpected characters.
As I spent much of last year recovering from discrimination based on my disabilities, especially autism, Helaena from House of the Dragon became a companion for me. Helaena is an identifiably neurodivergent character in the show. I think House of the Dragon is about how women navigate patriarchy and I've thought a lot about how the ways that women under patriarchy in the show are real, and how Helaena faces unique barriers as an autistic woman, even as she is technically the queen of Westeros. I've appreciated the show as a meditation on this intersectionality and I've drawn strength from how Helaena exists within these systems. She knows a lot about what is happening and she tries to exist with kindness and acceptance in the midst of them. I wasn't quite able to do that for much of last year, but I really appreciate Helaena as an example and a guide.
Oh wow, I loved this conversation. Vanessa is such a gift - I hope you all do more trips with Common Ground in the future (I just wasn't able to make it work this fall)!
Just here to share my two fictional touchstones: Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables and Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation. Both feminist icons in their own way and time. Both have a fondness for their home, the beauty of the natural environment, and a drive to make the community they live in a kinder and more beautiful place. Their friends and workplace proximity associates are their family.
I found this episode so interesting (as usual) and definitely linked some things for me (also as usual!). The very specific piece I’m thinking about though was the way the administration is invoking antisemitism as the reason for so much of this mess. As a Jewish woman, raising three Jewish teenagers, it was weirdly a relief to hear someone else say that Jewish people are being used as scapegoats and this has nothing to do with protecting us. This is exactly what I’ve been thinking and I hadn’t heard anyone else voice it. I don’t feel any safer with students being disappeared. My kids aren’t any safer. Because it has nothing to do with us. They’re trying to make it sound good for people who aren’t paying attention. Stop using us as an excuse for these horrible things.
Coming in days late, had to pause after the anecdote about the Black female student who couldn't be a CS major at Harvard.
For context: I graduated as a CS major from Iowa State in 1988. Women in CS were "not as rare as hen's teeth" according to my advisor there at the time. They have become more rare. For other context: I spent something like 30-35 years working in about a dozen different Silicon Valley companies (never as a programmer, but that's another story). Job interviews at the companies I worked for tend to happen in teams, so I have interviewed many, many people for programming jobs or other jobs and I'm going to tell you something: Every Black person I ever interviewed was hired. (I almost never had final say. I was just given a vote.) We wanted the diversity so badly. It was an unstated goal. I never heard anybody speak this way. We just all knew in our souls we needed people of all backgrounds. Also, I can count them on my fingers. As a white woman in the field, I only very rarely felt like a minority. In the few cases where I did, I'd stop my brain from thinking that by saying to myself, "Count the Black people in this crowd. Now shut up."
So PLEASE GOD tell me this student found another way. Maybe not at Harvard, but you know, MIT is right there, right? I mean it REALLY doesn't matter that a woman this smart went to Harvard. She's gonna be fine. She also doesn't have to major in CS. She just has to know how to program. Maybe Zuck won't hire her, but others will. Or maybe she took night classes somewhere else so she could catch up? Shit.
Paused my delayed listening to yell AMEN during the discussion of how cutting funding to research institutions often touches hospitals, and that you can’t just switch it all back on. I work and a large university with a medical center, and not even one of the really big ones. Our entire nursing staff was recently told to expect smaller than normal annual raises this year, and the physicians are all either taking a pay cut, or agreeing to work more clinical time for the same pay. This is all due to the financial instability of cuts to funding as many physicians do part clinical time and part research time, and the anticipated Medicaid cuts. 61% of patients at our children’s hospital have Medicaid as either primary or secondary insurance.
Just started the episode, but wanted to comment as a 9 year employee of a public university. I live in a fairly rural area and have a self employed farmer partner. I have to live in the area we farm and also need benefits. I graduated with my undergraduate + MS degrees and kept working at the same university. I’ve transferred between different units on campus, but absolutely stay for the benefits and flexibility my job provides. I only have to go to campus (2 hours round trip) once a week. No other workplace near me offers the same kinds of benefits. I’m a bit stuck in terms of finding another place that would offer the same things that my current workplace offers. It’s been a weird and a bit terrifying time to work for a public university (and I was here for the 2016 administration too).
So loved this episode! And it ties in perfectly to a question I’ve been meaning to ask this community: what life skills or important information do you think are important to impart on college students? Or do you have any advice about how best to teach them/help them become independent adults?
For context, I’m a college professor, teaching my first real course this fall. It’s brand new and titled Elements of Theatre. It’s going to be an introductory course for majors, so students who are preparing to pursue theatre as a career. I want it to be full of information and experiences where they can explore parts of the industry that may be new to them. But I also want them to learn how to transition into college and adulthood (or at least learn how to find the resources they need). This came about partially because I’ve just learned from two recent grads and a current student that they don’t know how to find a primary care physician. One hasn’t had a physical since she was 5. One is about to lose her health benefits from her job and doesn’t know what to do. So, all that to ask, what do you wish you had known when starting college? Or what do you think is important for these students to know?
Do you have any tips for teaching college in general? I’ll take any and all suggestions! Thank you!
First, students do not know nearly as much about using technology as we think. Don't assume they know anything about technology, including things like changing font sizes.
They also know very little about how to do research and probably did not have access to many of the resources college professors expect them to use in college because those resources are too expensive for high schools. If the course involves any research at all, connect with the librarian who is the theater subject specialist at your college library. College librarians usually know a lot more than even seasoned professors about what sources are useful. They may even offer to come in and teach part of a class on how to use library resources on theater.
Don't take their failure to do assignments personally, especially for first-year students. Most of them came from highly regimented high schools, and they don't know how to manage their time or even know when they need extra assistance. Knowledge on how to pace yourself, manage workload on your own, do assignments without intermittent deadlines or prompting can help. I have noticed that in the past couple of years, many professors are asking for more check-ins on major assignments to help with this
If your students are traditional age, in general, the males will be less mature than the females. Try not to get too frustrated with them!
And if you have information on navigating health insurance, let me know! I am still having hassles with it after decades.
Beth, thank you for introducing me to the Drama Triangle! This applies so perfectly to a current work situation I’ve been frustrated by and it will really help me think through it and talk to others about how we can navigate out of the drama (or at least try! I need to keep remembering I can only control myself! 😊)
LOVED this episode.
There is a young man in our circle who got a full ride to Cornell (he is a gifted musician). He did not have financial or emotional support from parents. Once he got there, he realized that there would be several international trips as part of his program that he would have to pay for. He is a natural leader and quickly became the “team manager” for most things. Well, I guess it’s tradition that the manager pays for a big, fancy meal for the TEAM on some of those trips. He doesn’t have a parent’s credit card to do so - and he has to make some hard decisions. The school did not help or offer additional support.
Another young man who was unhoused for most of high school, got a FULL ride to Harvard. Exciting, right? Except he had no idea of the weather and clothing needed to survive there (hello, $$$), luggage, all the things. He’s resilient and said “I’ve survived this far, I’ll be fine”. Brilliant, resilient kids who keep on surviving. But, d%#!….you just want them to be able to soften into enjoying that moment, you know?
What a beautiful episode - filled with so many relevant reflections and perspectives that I needed to hear. I’ll be thinking about it for weeks. Thank you. So much great PP content this week - incredible work, team!
Anne Shirley's friendship ideals were super formative to me growing up. These days I'd have to think on it a bit more, because although I love and revere many characters, no one particular springs immediately to mind. But it's a fascinating thing to consider!
PS. If no one has identified the reference yet, I'm wondering if Calpurnia might have been from To Kill a Mockingbird? Faulkner might've had a Calpurnia character, too, but there is definitely a main character named Calpurnia in TKAM.
Anne was the first character I thought of while listening to this episode. I have loved Anne since I was a teenager, but I recently read through the entire series, finishing the last book this month! As I was listening to this episode I thought about what I can learn from Anne as she ages and comes into her adulthood.
Have you read The Blythes are Quoted? I found it and read it a couple of years ago, but still need to do a bit of digging to figure out where it came from exactly. I'm an LMM completist, novels to short stories to journals, so some of it was repeated from earlier work, but it was an interesting thing to discover after many years of thinking I'd seen most or all of her work.
And yes, I still love Anne as an adult, and I think she continues to embody a kind of high-minded and thoughtful approach to friendship, but I relate a little less to some of the domesticity and her relegation of her literary ideals to hobby status. But there's always Emily for aspirations! :)
(Nerd level 10!)
I haven't read The Blythes are Quoted... yet! I have seen it on some lists so I will get to it too. It was really interesting to see how LMM continues Anne's spirit into adulthood.
I have only read the Anne books so far, but Emily is on my list. I honestly didn't realize (before last year) just how much LMM had written. Do you have a favorite LMM book? Or a few favorites??
Ha! Dangerous question in that I could go on and on. But the Anne books are all pretty special, Green Gables & Avonlea probably being my faves if I had to choose.
I love a setting, and New Moon Farm is beautiful, and Emily is a bit more complicated and eerie than Anne. The first book is my favorite of the series.
For the non series books, I'm partial to The Blue Castle and Jane of Lantern Hill. Both old fashioned and sentimental but like, plucky!
I knew it would be dangerous that's why I added "or a few"! I'm a librarian. I know the dangers of being asked "what's your favorite book".
Great conversation. Vanessa has such a unique perspective on all things Harvard, so it was really great to hear from her.
And Vanessa, thank you for the language to explain how I feel about the world at the end. Yes, I want to know if what people are doing will help us share water with each other when resources are scarce. I think that's what I need to ask people I disagree with from here on out: How will this plan or position help us share resources when we inevitably face scarcity?
Beth, your reflections on being told not to take a job that you took because your mentor was aware of how hard it would be to leave were so beautifully insightful. We need to be having this conversation more. We need to talk about why it is so hard to leave toxic spaces or spaces that are not good for us because 1) we're human and 2) we have developed systems that make it nearly impossible to make those adjustments because we are going to lose too much.
I am over 10 years older than Beth, and I listened to that segment with some sympathy. You don't want work that you hate, but money and benefits are not nothing. I still kick myself for not exploring a career in state government (I live in a state capital) because the state work schedule isn't as flexible as other jobs. But now, as retirement nears and health care costs are skyrocketing, I regret not having the benefits that come from working for the state for many years.
I hear you, but my guess is you ultimately made the right decision. Out of my friends who have already retired, but husband and I are the only ones who never worked in defense. And so our friends have some pretty stellar health insurance that they got to keep. We have very bad health insurance. My friends who were government employees have pensions, which is unfathomable to me. So I envy them that, but I don't envy their careers. I don't have the mettle to work 30 years in a job I hate so that I can have a great pension plan at 65.
Yes! I felt like Beth was in my head articulating how I have felt about my job so much over the last few years. I've been at my job long enough that I make an okay salary, but I also live alone and have to be able to pay my bills. There have been many times over the last few years that I have wanted to get out, but I am terrified that I will not be able to make it with a salary cut. (And in reality, I definitely wouldn't make it with some jobs.)
As someone who also lives alone and has stayed in jobs way longer than what was good for me mentally and physically because I alone was responsible for every bill, I see you Callie Ann. I, too, saw jobs I wanted but knew I could not live with the salary cut.
I recently switched jobs in March and it’s very very bittersweet as the ability to just make it on a severely lower salary is only because of the relatively small (but significant to me) money left for my brother and I after our parents died last year.
I’m so much happier in my work and so grateful that my parents’ years of hard work and saving has made this opportunity possible for me; and yet of course I’d rather they were here healthy and thriving.
And when I got today’s paycheck it’s still a gut punch at how much less I’m making and how very wisely I need to proceed to sustain living at this income level.
I loved this conversation, and along with some of the other comments here, think it was so important that you touched on how funding cuts to an institution like Harvard affect such a vast majority of people, not just Harvard students and faculty.
I also love how many amazing people I have been (virtually and para socially) introduced to by PP, and Vanessa is one of them. I heard about HP and the Sacred Text here, and have been working my way back through the books and listening to that podcast as I go as a form of self care. Vanessa is such an amazing person!
This was such a lovely episode it was kind of hard to listen to. I love Vanessa and Harry Potter and the Sacred Text changed my life and both Vanessa and Beth are guides for me on how to build a meaningful life as I grow up. (I just turned 29 yesterday!) I wanted to cherish this episode and hold onto the wisdom.
I love the idea of characters as patron saints, and I do this so much that it does feel like a guilty pleasure. I am autistic and I've identified that Stories are probably my longest lasting special interest. I love stories. I love talking about them. I love getting lost in them. And they are ultimately how I make sense of my life and my whole world. And that's a big part of why I love Harry Potter and the Sacred Text so much. And it can still feel self-indulgent to take stories as seriously and sacredly as Vanessa and the Common Ground ethic does, because I love it so so much.
Throughout my adolescence, I really wanted to be like Lily Evans Potter from Harry Potter. She has such a small part in the books but I loved it. As a girl who grew up Catholic, I loved Mary the mother of Jesus, and I saw Lily Potter as like a modern version of Mary. I deeply admired her courage and her kindness, and I still seek to emulate it. It can be hard because *everyone* in my life tells me that I am not like Lily... they say I am like Luna usually. And that can be painful. But I still hold onto the values that Lily taught me, to have courage to do the right thing and to fiercely stand up for both the people you love and the people who hurt you, to have kindness for those on the outside, and I am just immensely grateful for the way that's shaped me.
Thank you for sharing your beautiful reflection on Lily's meaning for you. I hope you continue to find help and encouragement in Story.
I think it is so interesting to hear which characters people connect with within themselves compared to the characters the outside world would expect. I love how much you have learned from Lily, even though most people would expect Luna. Luna is great too, but I love when people connect to unexpected characters.
As I spent much of last year recovering from discrimination based on my disabilities, especially autism, Helaena from House of the Dragon became a companion for me. Helaena is an identifiably neurodivergent character in the show. I think House of the Dragon is about how women navigate patriarchy and I've thought a lot about how the ways that women under patriarchy in the show are real, and how Helaena faces unique barriers as an autistic woman, even as she is technically the queen of Westeros. I've appreciated the show as a meditation on this intersectionality and I've drawn strength from how Helaena exists within these systems. She knows a lot about what is happening and she tries to exist with kindness and acceptance in the midst of them. I wasn't quite able to do that for much of last year, but I really appreciate Helaena as an example and a guide.
Oh wow, I loved this conversation. Vanessa is such a gift - I hope you all do more trips with Common Ground in the future (I just wasn't able to make it work this fall)!