🥁 this is the drum you beat
One of my Instagram stories documenting my crossing guard shifts.
Hey y'all,
Even with spell check these newsletters are messy, but spell check isn't working this morning so GET READY, PEOPLE!
Here are some things I've been thinking about:
1. A podcast I listened to 6+ times this week: Upstream, How We Show Up with Mia Birdsong
My friend shared this with me:
I'm honored she thought this.
Mia Birdsong talks about "how to cultivate a sense of collective vitality that embodies the liberated future we want right now."
One of my favorite parts is when the host and Mia Birdsong talk about a new metric for freedom and well-being: being able to start cooking dinner knowing that if you need a lemon or some white wine, you can text your neighbors and they'll happily give you what you need.
I've had this most of my adult life. It makes me feel whole and rich, and I want that for everyone.
It brings to mind this Vonnegut quote: “What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.”
2. What I'm contemplating: Seattle Walk Report
I've been documenting my crossing guard shifts on my Instagram stories (check out the highlight at the top of my profile). It's been really fun for me, and seemingly a lot of other people, too. I'm getting a lot of positive feedback.
I want to keep documenting, but in a way that lingers longer than an Instagram story.
I remembered Seattle Walk Report, which I think I came across in my Tumblr days. Susanna Ryan makes these delightful comics documenting their findings and observations on long walks around Seattle, including counts of crows on signs (11), a "Word on the Street" section with things they overhear, and sidewalk finds (e.g., a sesame bagel in a puddle, or a VHS tape of the 1995 Mary Kate and Ashley Olson masterpiece, It Takes Two).
More inspiration: a fellow crossing guard turned me on to the TikTok account of Marla (username: hotcrossbunz), a crossing guard at nearby Edmund's Elementary School making daily outfit videos.
What do you think? Any ideas for how to document?
3. What I'm listening to: New Partner by Palace Music and this review of New Partner by John Green
My friend Dan has a very good radio show. After the show airs on Tuesday mornings Dan adds all the songs he played to this Spotify playlist. This playlist is often the only thing I listen to throughout the week.
The first song on the playlist this week was New Partner by Palace Music. I found myself listening to it over and over and repeating the title–"New Partner"–in my head over and over as if trying to summon something. And then it came: John Green's voice.
I googled "John Green New Partner" and sure enough, John Green reviewed New Partner on his podcast, The Anthropocene Reviewed in 2019. It's amazing the way the brain holds onto some things and not others.
John Green's "review" is a beautful personal essay about the way certain songs (even the ones you don't totally understand) follow you throughout your life and attach themselves to moments and eras.
Another one of my Instagram stories documenting my crossing guard shifts.
Thanks for reading!
Christine Tyler Hill is the human behind Tender Warrior Co.