Despite all that, my most visceral memory from that year will always be sitting in a car on a cold, rainy, fall afternoon with the mother of one of the shooting victims. We formed a friendship during that season and had gone out to a local school to talk about resilience. When we got back in the car to leave, she checked her voicemail, had gotten a call from her son who was refusing to go to school. Again
As I’ve come to learn some of the important components in the Disability Rights movement, Marilyn’s life has replayed for me, one chapter at a time. It’s all there: employment, independent living, transportation, even and especially her right to be in a loving relationship. If she’d been coming up in this generation, what a different life my Aunt Marilyn might have had! With that in mind, I bring you today’s recommendations for some of the finest podcasting I listen to on the regular.
I’ve come to understand people are turning to me somewhat as a curator of “what to listen to.” In fact, one of my gym buddies (back in the day when going to the gym was a thing) turned to me and pointedly and said, “I think you should publish a regular Shannon Recommends listening list because I always have this instinct to call you when I want to find a new podcast.”
Somewhere in the middle of that discussion, I was hyperlinked back in time to this moment in my early twenties when I had yet another temp job, sitting in the lobby of an insurance company. I was subbing in for the receptionist who was on vacation. On the final day, I listened to the staff upstairs as they enjoyed their holiday party while I sat and looked out the window, watching ice pile up on my car…
There’s an invisible mountain of emotional weight that comes with someone’s itchy trigger finger on the mute button. That seemingly small impediment, the blocked red microphone icon, prevents spontaneous thought from bubbling up, spilling forth, being shared in the moment.