I’m sure it’s at least that percentage that feels the same in our small mountain town in the southern Appalachian mountains.

Could it be that the world is beautiful and worth exploring, and the ability and means to travel has never been as accessible?

Weird take. When was the last time you came across a dog that had been bitten by a snake? This is just a heartwarming story, and your takeaway is that most people suck? Most people don’t find themselves in this situation

I don’t know about carbon sinks, but compound-leaved trees tend to grow faster and produce dense wood.

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That’s gross. Paper straws are the way 🤌

Woah woah woah, will someone please think of the cocaine users?

Maybe but might be a stretch. Defenestration refers to the act of throwing someone/something out of a window. We have to consider the pressure “throwing” instead of sucking you out, which might be acceptable since the pressure inside the plane is greater and ends up pushing you out of the window in it’s escape. From the perspective that you’re sucked out of the window, it doesn’t seem like the definition would apply.

My wife and I are both self employed for many years. We work hard but it’s really just enough to live where we love. Some savings, no retirement, but we are so so wealthy in friendship. We have a wide, varied friend group that’s very close. Our group spans the political spectrum, the class spectrum, and I credit it to our ability to meet each other individually without judgement and with vulnerability. We’re very blessed, very wealthy even though our family struggles financially sometimes.

I went to the food bank this year. We couldn’t figure out how we were paying for food that month along with our bills. It was so hard to initiate because I felt like others deserved it more, that others were in harder situations and that we’d somehow figure it out. But we didn’t know how we were going to eat. I was in tears when they brought out our boxes. I asked if this was all for us. It broke my heart while also rebuilding it. We’ve donated our time, our food, our money to help support this charity for years. To see what we were given just to us, it was so generous. It made the biggest difference. Three boxes full of fresh produce, frozen meats, canned goods, bread.

I came home and started bringing in boxes. My wife saw the first box and asked if everything was okay. She saw the next box and started crying. I brought in the next box and we hugged and cried and cried and cried. It was hard for me to initiate, but what brought us to tears was the sense of relief, the feeling that our community was looking out for us, the feeling that we were going to be alright. The folks at the food bank treated me with dignity through and through.

The following week, we had dinner with some friends at their house. We sat at the table in this stunning house eating dinner and soon realized that a town council member sat to my left, the head of the charity that runs the food bank was to my wife’s right, her husband is a state senator who sat across from us. And we all broke bread together. When the food bank came up in conversation, we wanted to tell them, but we were scared. Talking with my wife afterwards, we were most scared about outing each other and making the other feel uncomfortable. We wanted to tell them our experience and what it meant to us. That’s how close to home that charity hits in our community. Our story highlights that you never know what someone is going through and that everyone deserves compassion and dignity.

Please support your local food banks and community support programs. I volunteer at them, donate to them, refer them, and use their services. Reach out when you need help, please, and support where you can. Dignity, no shame, we’re all people, humans, making our way in life on our own individual paths, and we need each other. For community, by community. Together.