6/12/2022

JRB,

 Yesterday I wrote to my friend, TK, instead of to you, to thank her for being my minister last week. I marvel at our relationship because we are different in so many ways. She’s 25 & I’m 61. She has lots of melanin & I have very little. She sings, raps, & spits. I write. Nonetheless, we are soul mates. The higher power brings us together from time to time & I always feel blessed when that happens.

I have a few friends who fit into my soul mate crew. I don’t expect any one person to appreciate & nurture every part of me. TK & I talked about this. She calls herself, polyamorous, & wants to live on a compound in Ghana with a small community of folks who collectively form a family, as some pre-colonial groups used to do. Isn’t this intriguing?

Thanks for visiting NM yesterday & meeting Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Isn’t she a lovely person? Did you know she’s a newlywed? She got married in DC in May at the VP Residence. I didn’t find out how she knows KDH, beyond that they are both ground-breaking politicians.

 Thanks for promising to pay 100% of the cost of debris removal. I think we should do everything we can since those devastating fires were caused by the US Forest Service.

I worry about all the trauma out there in the world right now. Recent research shows that trauma affects epigenesis which can be passed on to children. In other words, when folks are famished (Dutch Hunger Winter 1944) or face horrific atrocities (holocaust), the ways that their genes express themselves are affected. Fetuses in utero during these traumas are particularly vulnerable to the effects but other children are, also.

It’s troubling to think about how the children being born in the Mae Tao Clinic on the Thai-Burma border are affected by the traumas that their Karen mothers have experienced. Speaking of this, I am grateful that Counselor Derek Chollet was busy at the Shangri-La Dialogue drawing attention to the situation in Burma. Please talk to him.

BYBS,