News Notebook Friday 7.2.21

Dearest Friend, Summer of Soul... + Moves and Tweaks

Jul 02, 2021

Wishing you a happy and safe Independence Day weekend, with a holiday-theme version of newShrink!

This one’s for 5-year-old granddaughter Evie, who after our holiday is moving her mom and dad in a long-dreamed relo to Asheville. This is the kind of ritual displays we do that she explains with dramatic flourish as her “tableaux.”

Among the amazing cast of characters involved in our nation’s founding, I have long savored the early patriots, second U.S. President John and First Lady Abigail Adams. From a soul-of-the-nation standpoint it’s hard to match their biographical life-stories, relationship, prolific correspondence and interface with history (and with other historic figures such as Adams’ fellow patriot, then political foe, third President Thomas Jefferson.)

dearest friend

Today I’m revisiting this widely familiar quote in a March 31, 1776, letter to John from Abigail, writing from their home managing family and farm in Braintree, MA, a few months before the Declaration of Independence. John was in Paris for one of their five-years-plus transatlantic separations, as John and others negotiated funding and support for the unfolding Revolution. (In this unusual close-partnership of the 54-year Adams marriage, the achingly slow back-and-forth of their letters during these years was their sole day-to-day life together; even their arguments and misunderstandings were with months-long mail delays and ocean in between! The utterly mundane details in this one make the link to the full letter, as well as to collected volumes of them, worth a read.)

As with Abigail’s familiar, delicately quaint-sounding quote about “remembering the ladies” in crafting the Declaration and new government, I had long appreciated that by all accounts, in person as in letters, the couple’s favorite affectionate address for one another was “dearest friend.” One lovely biography of Abigail has that title.

But until I read the whole letter for the first time in decades, I had not recalled how fiercely Abigail makes the case for equality between men and women as a fundamental part of the equality at the heart of the Revolution. As a model for this dramatic shift in approach, she even holds up her and John’s own term of endearment and connection, Friend. (Somehow this strikes me with a lot more heft than that simper-sounding “remember the ladies.”)

And in any case, I guess we must assume those transatlantic mails were extra-slow that time, for none of it got into the Declaration (or a whole lot else later, either.)

Here’s the excerpt, and the full link:

I long to hear that you have declared an independancy [sic]—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors… Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could…but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

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summer of soul: a new film

Opening today, both streaming on Hulu and in theaters, this film, “Summer of Soul,” about the little-memorialized 1969 “Black Woodstock” music festival has grabbed what is perhaps my “OK, Boomer” attention. Here’s a Rolling Stone review.

discussion questions/threads + some coming options

1) If you see the film, I’d like to hear your review and responses to it. And
2) I’ve long been curious about how (and possible reasons why) “soul” has come to be so identified with the music, cuisine and other aspects of Black culture. I’d like your ideas about this (and if you’re a lifelong Southerner like me, please include whether you think there’s any regional aspect of this.)

As always, feel free to email me individually if you prefer.

So far, the writing and publishing with the Substack platform works fine — except for its Comment and Discussion-thread tools. Especially compared with other media platforms, this one’s very limited by not allowing either me or you to post an article, cartoon, photo, poem etc. as part of our comments or the thread being discussed. (It’s like talking about a picture without being able to see it.) That also prevents those of you who want to share or discuss your creations or materials directly with all of us. (For those of us accustomed to more visual media as well as written word, those Comment options and emojis also are hard to find or see.)

Eventually—when/if I have more available time and bandwidth to manage another page—I’ll most likely add and link with a dedicated Facebook page just for newShrink.

Meanwhile, especially when a newsletter post includes a call for discussion thread or questions, I will also share it on my personal Facebook page. There, you can post not only any of your comments and discussions but share any cartoons, supporting links and anything else for newShrink.
Some of you are already my Facebook friends, so you have access. Friend requests from any other newShrink readers who’d like to use this will be recognized and accepted. (You will need to have a Facebook account to use this option.)
Here’s the link to my individual Facebook page, and please alert me if you have any problems.

Again, do continue to email your thoughts and materials to me — also it’s fine to keep writing (when it requires “only words”) using the Substack comment options. (And btw, the Substack “heart” emoji is for “like,” as in Twitter, not “love,” as one among the many in Facebook.)

summer of soul: balancing labors-of-love

You may recall from earlier posts that I’m in process of transitioning my 93-year-old widowed mom, after 16 months of COVID-isolated hospitalizations and skilled nursing care, to a less-restrictive care situation very nearby. The logistical re-furnishings and move itself are underway but delayed until mid-July.

…the outside-in

As with many professions, psychologists wisely leave treating and serving family members to others. For Mom that “outside-in” standpoint is well-handled by the appropriate pros, diagnostics and care plans. We have and appreciate lots of valid information about falls and recovery from surgery and psychological/cognitive impacts of combined isolation and advanced age amid COVID pandemic conditions.

…the inside-out

What remains is more complex and longer readjustment. From the soul-psychology “inside-out”/“what it’s like to be her” level we are just beginning very hands-on, day-by-day “re-entry firsts” after what has been extreme sensory- and emotional-deprivation. It’s a re-sensitizing and de-sensitizing, all at once.

The timing of this rich but intense process and determining what her new-normal functioning will be are still unknown. But it’s a safe bet she’ll make that clear when she shoos me away because she’s too busy and tired of me!

Thus a very different labor-of-love joins fledgling newShrink as valued priorities over this next while of uncertain duration. (Some weeks it may mean more self-contained stories and bites than those with more complex themes, links and threads — think maybe more brunch or tapas than heavy dinner!)

The interest in news is one thing always, and still, shared with Mom. And for me newShrink is excellent, needed mental and emotional counterbalance to this alive but demanding process. (So thank you for being here.)

…and the archetypal

Another soul-focused piece that comes to mind, as some myth- and archetype-oriented psychologists and writers I know might say: Aside from “diagnoses,” my Mom and many others emerging from pandemic in long-term-care and other spartan situations are starved. Not for food but for the hefty nourishments of archetypal Aphrodite—that transformative energy of even small bits of sensate beauty, warmth, touch that is loving-vs-utilitarian.

In similar vital-Aphrodite spirit, today I mark and honor the birthday-memory, transformative beauty, love and fierce life force of Claire Elise Miley (2 July 2004—21 July 2019), a treasure lost to all of us way, way too soon. (She’s the blue of the heart in my standard Psyche/Eros signature-image.)

🦋💙

a news-item update

Here’s important outcome in one ongoing issue we’ve been looking at: UNC grants tenure to Nicole Hannah-Jones. We’ll return to more news focus and a feature or two next week.

And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.

🦋💙tish

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”