Day 29: We are all historians now.
If you’re not old enough to remember Sept. 11, 2001, you may not be old enough to remember that for days, months, years, afterwards, people would tell each other their stories. With friends and strangers and family, we would talk about where we were that day and who we were with, how we first learned the news, how the community around us responded: Long lines at blood drives. Walls of “Missing” posters. Duct tape and tarp purchases. Xenophobia or empathy or supreme acts of grace.
I wonder how we’ll tell each other stories about this time after it is over—and it will be over someday—and how we’ll tell people who weren’t here what it was like.
This project, and your submissions to it, are part of the beginning of that process.
Where were you? Who were you with? How did the community around you respond? These are the histories we are writing now.
As always, you can submit by hitting reply or emailing hi@lauraolin.com. I’m getting a lot of submissions (thank you), so I’ll be sharing selections in waves.
From Kevin E.:
My friend's family is considering leaving NYC to stay with inlaws in North Carolina.
He told his 6 year old daughter, "Organize your barbies so they're packed up and ready to go." This was her following directions:
From Marco S.:
My friends have a hanging plant in their San Francisco balcony. A mama bird made its nest in there, and you can view it here while you shelter in place: https://www.twitch.tv/b1rdgang.
“Birdgang.” <3
T. shared an answer to Annie S.’s Which-celebrity-would-you-want-to-be-your-food-truck-partner question:
My answer to almost every celebrity question is going to be Emma Thompson, and it definitely is for this one. She seems to be competent and calm. She’d say something funny to relieve the pressure and be completely charming to customers. And then at the end of the day, we could have tea or a drink and she would tell stories using colorful language and dramatic gestures.
And she followed up with:
I have a weird silver lining to this huge, dark cloud. I am home all day even in normal circumstances; now many of my friends, even the ones who are trying to work, are home and more available for (and maybe desperate for?) midday texts/FaceTimes/whatever. I used to worry about disrupting people’s schedules, but now most of my friends don’t have anything like a schedule. I’m enjoying being more in touch with them, even though it’s virtual and even with the cloud always looming.
From Caroline F.:
I want to share a "writing retreat" that a friend shared with me. For me, adding a new writing practice is less in the vein of *increasing productivity* and more about finding ways to honor the weight of what we're enduring, and watching our friends and communities endure.
Finally, Jennifer W. shared a video of Tilda Swinton’s dogs frolicking on the beach to Handel.
Frolick on, dogs.
When we reconvene on Monday, we’ll be down to Day 26. (!)
Stay healthy out there!!