dr. kristin shepherd

Thanks to everyone for the happy birthdays.
One of the things that stood out yesterday was an interview I listened to with Ian McEwan, the writer.
In defence of reading, he said we find ourselves in a world of the largely undefended border between democracy and authoritarianism (paraphrasing) because almost all the people who faught in WW2– our grandparents, our great uncles—are now dead. So we don’t know their cautionary stories as powerfully as we once did.
And the percentage of adults who read for pleasure has dropped something like 40% in the last ten years, so we’re not reading and being affected by those stories as much.
And now authoritarians move forward, step by completely predictable step, and we’re blindsided. We catch on too late.

I’m hoping for the best, and am wildly proud to be Canadian today (Thank you, Mark Carney!), but McEwan reminds me of the power of reading novels and non-fiction. I suppose watching great movies and plays too. To remember and be awake in the world.

His second point was funny and beautiful, and for me speaks to being okay with my own small steps in the world.
McEwan was reading and being interviewed at a literary event in Italy, when someone asked about the fact that he is less prolific as a writer than he was early on. (I’m a slow writer so I loved the sound of this.)
He acknowledged that he is slower now and happy about it.
An audience member asked him how many words per day he writes. He answered 500-1000.
And a glitch happened with the translation, which is now forever out there on the internet, for anyone who wants to know how slow Ian McEwan is, how small his daily contribution to the world of literature.

Go look, he said. It still says out there that I’m completely satisfied if I write 15 words per day.

The audience laughed and I cheered.

Authoritarians rage with a confidence that scares the shit out of me.
It’s so far beyond me that it’s easy to be terrified. But I am deeply inspired by the community action in Minnesota. Person by person, shaky phone by phone, volunteering to help feed other and walk each other home.

I’m okay today if I try to be awake in the world and if I do what I can to contribute my 15 words. Literal words or figurative—seconds of eye contact, moments of empathy where it’s genuine and sometimes challenging, bits of kindness that require almost nothing (but not nothing). Cheering the good guys. Living kinder, more inclusive values from hour to hour.

I don’t know anything, I get that. But all of this makes me feel lucky to be alive in this time, and hopeful about what the year might bring.

Thanks everybody for connecting to say happy birthday. Thanks for your 15 generous words. They matter. ♥️

A public Service Announcement:

Tis the season to gather with people we haven’t seen in a long time.

I come from a generation that judges a person’s—particularly a woman’s—worthiness, success, and overall value by her body, her face, and how much older she looks than when she was, you know, 22. How much she does not look her actual age.
Look at her! She doesn’t look 50! How fantastic!
(How bizarre is that? It’s like praising someone for not looking as though she lives in Toronto. When she lives in Toronto.)

In conversation this morning, my friend mentioned the man next to her at a gathering saying someone at their table had “let herself go.”

My friend felt he might not understand that some of us struggle with our bodies and faces and metabolically weird phases of life. Some of us don’t struggle at all but do become older, the way living organisms do.
Maybe he needed gentle reminding, she thought.

Here is my gentle reminder:
Fuck off. Merry Christmas and all that, but fuck off with all our judgements about how someone else looks, how they would look if they cared about themselves or were more disciplined or motivated, if they were less lazy, less unwilling to flog themselves into submission, less affected by their genes and biology.
Fuck off with thinking we have the right to comment from half way down the table or AT ALL.
And even if you don’t move your mean mouth, even if you’re thinking it, you are filling the air around you with criticism. That’s the energy you’re contributing to the gathering in this moment.

We have “let ourselves go” in the ways that matter if we’re commenting negatively on anyone else’s singularly beautiful body, finding its way through time and love and all the human challenges we meet.

Everyone at the table is a miracle. Even you, the one making the horrible comments—you’re a miracle. So I’m here to offer you a gift of love—shut the fuck up with this kind of criticism. It doesn’t belong at a holiday table or any other kind of table. We can all do better than this. The world needs us to do better than this right now.
♥️