12/27/2024

My Dear Friend & POTUS, JRB,

            Have you read Toni Morrison’s Beloved? Perhaps someday I will have the time to provide the details of my latest magical moment regarding the book, but suffice it to say I’m checking it out of the library today. What are you reading these days?

            When I go to the library I will print out & send these letters because your website is still not functioning correctly. Is eliminating “contact the WH” part of the transition plan???

            I hope love abounds among the Bidens who are with you in St Croix. Have you found enough peace of mind, so your ventral nerve dominates the dorsal neve in your Vagus system enhancing your capacity for curiosity, connection, & change? Don’t you love that scientific explanation for what’s happening in your body as you relax? I got it from Maria Popova (MP) who got it from Deb Dana’s book about Polyvagal Therapy.

            Have you encountered MP’s work? I just found her blog, the Marginalian. I look forward to learning with & from her. She’s my kind of writer, synthesizing her reading with her experience to ponder life’s lessons, quoting folks like Thich Nhat Hanh, James Baldwin & bell hooks. She embraces her sense of being out of step with the world.

            SoW, I endured my family’s rant about the USPS on our Christmas Zoom. They couldn’t understand why their P.O.s had to send letters to sorting centers only to have them come back to the same zip code. I kept my mouth shut, because I didn’t have a loving way to inform them about automation. I still need to work on my “caring candor.”

            Did you see the WP piece explaining that 2.8 million federal student loan borrowers aged 62 & older have a total of $121.5 billion in debt? How is the 63-year-old who owes $230,000 from putting her kids through college ever going to pay that off? Please try one more time to navigate the tangled web of laws to find some relief for these folks. Let’s also do more to promote financial literacy to prevent people from borrowing so much $$. Doing so might pressure universities to tighten their budgets.

            Today’s Irrawaddy has a disturbing piece, “A Year in Myanmar Junta’s Theatre of Absurdity as Military Collapse Loomed.” “Theatre of the absurd” could be in our future come Jan 20. I hope I am prepared.

            BYBS,