One of the first things I came across the morning of July 4th was this post on my Instagram feed from @themelanatedbirth:
While you’re out popping fireworks, lighting sparklers, and barbecuing with your friends today, I ask that you pause and reflect on the fact that the over 300,000 slaves that were brought to this country did NOT gain freedom on this day in 1776.
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Think of the natives who were killed and displaced to colonize this country, so you can tell folks to “go back to where they came from”.
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Likewise, consider all of the men, women, and children who are spending today in the horrible conditions that are the “detention” 🙄 camps….those people who have come to this country, not to steal, kill, and rape, but to provide better lives for their families.
Consider them as you scarf down those hot dogs and drink your beers because ‘Merica.
I was already having some real mixed feelings about this holiday.
The image shows the paperback version of Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn, but I actually ended up listening to the audiobook. The Chaplain recommended this book to me a little while ago. He didn’t say much about it. I just remember him telling me, “you should read it.” Since he doesn’t recommend many books to me and our reading interests don’t intersect much, I took him seriously.
If you follow me on Insta, you know that I participated in something called #memademay this year. This is an optional motivational tool and fun adventure for sewists who make their own clothes to wear what they’ve made and feature it on social media.
I don’t think most of my friends sew, so while I hope they didn’t get sick of seeing my face in May, there was also the bigger thing of maybe no one caring that I make my own clothes. And the sticky issue of who, exactly, our social media accounts are for.
Us?
Our friends?
Attention for us, from our friends?
*cringe*
Where do you shop for clothes? How often do you shop? Is it medicinal, or is because you have an identifiable need? Do you shop ethically?
I’m a medicinal shopper. I’ve historically been pretty good at making it seem at least part of the time like it’s an identifiable need, but usually, it’s just because I’m stressed out and looking for a way to control my environment.
As a lady in my Late Thirties, I’ve become a bit of a snob with my shopping. I don’t remember how I discovered Anthropologie, but their quirky, European-inspired, artsy offerings appealed to me immediately. I had realized the cheaply made, fleeting styles of third party sellers on Amazon were often disappointing.
I started with Anthropologie’s hand towels. On sale, they are often around $10-14. Which is pretty expensive for a kitchen towel, but these aren’t your average kitchen towel.
We fall asleep reading the classics at our house. Why this matters may make more sense if you keep reading.
I’m in a little tussle with my school district right now.
The way it stands, I provided the same end-of-year information in 2018 to my school district as I did the year before, and this time, they said it wasn’t enough.
