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Heather's avatar

In 2021, I moved from SF to a rural community in Washington where the average household income is $35,786. It immediately made me redefine my definition of wealth. I have never felt richer than the first big winter snow storm knocked out power, and I opened my door to a box of dry kindling on my doorstep. A neighbor knew more than I did how much I would need that kindling--it helped me make fires for days. It broke open the part of me that was desperately needing community, but found it hard to find in the socially-materially-wealthy of SF. I am now more freely giving my time to others, and have felt a growing confidence in my resiliency, like you said, "that is adaptable and driven by an understanding of invisible forces that shape the outcome."

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Elliott J Bush's avatar

Your last two posts have been so insightful. I was so impressed by your essay on self-care and your critique of the assumption that one could rely on self-love to sustain you that I sent it to my Episcopal priest son because it so reflected the message of the gospels. This essay gave me a lot to think about. I pondered the various kinds of contexts and communities of my eight decades and saw them in a different way. It is such a pleasure to discover in your Substack the kind of public intellectual that I had thought no longer existed.

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