Week 14

Written By Krista Harrison

View from the houseboats

Another sine-wave week over here. Many good moments, hiking with Theo, enjoying the sun, watching our Geriatrics fellows graduate via a surprisingly successful Zoom graduation (Congrats again!). Despite Theo’s enjoyment of the new house setup, another round of a night of little sleep on Tuesday led to some household disequilibrium. We’re trying a new bedtime routine and better blackout curtains; the first two nights led to more sleep for at least me and Theo.

(Re)Learnings and observations

I saw a nice reminder on Instagram: “Shifting expectations to meet the moment instead of expecting yourself to be able to show up at the same level 100% of the time is an act of self-compassion” @listaolivertherapy. I had luck with this on one of the days where the household was less functional by asking much less of myself for “productivity” and prioritizing exercise and takeout dinner instead.

I am both excited by and intimidated by the idea of re-inventing our pandemic life in July. All of a sudden wondering if I will work in my Laurel Heights office (maybe not with the COVID uptick) or move my desk downstairs and take up more space, or at least buy a new desk chair.

Amid concerning upticks in COVID cases, two new useful data visualizations:

A colleague was thoughtful enough to re-iterate her offer to help code data (she needs middle author pubs). I often have a narrative in my head that I have to do XYZ before I can do [whatever someone is asking about]. This time I was able to step back, think of solutions, and realize the benefits of the offer. I spent 40 minutes updating and simplifying the codebook for her to apply to word document versions of transcripts – when I input them into Atlas later I will be double-coding. Her offer also means that project is moving forward while I’m keeping my head in another dataset. Wins all around – thank goodness I had enough resilience and creativity to take her up on the offer when it came in!

Actions to support Black and BIPOC people

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, which will hopefully someday be a federal holiday. Here’s a podcast about the history and meaning. I’m going to try to attend this presentation at 9 am PT by Pulitzer Prize winners Nikole Hannah-Jones (creator of the 1619 Project and associated podcast), Jeffrey C. Stewart, and W. Caleb McDaniel or this presentation at noon PT by Nikole Hannah-Jones and others about the historical roots of the pandemic’s racial disparities.

I’ve seen repeated calls for buying 2 books by Black authors between June 14-20th to Blackout bestseller lists with Black voices

Read this week’s #BLM guest post on The Professor is In

I joined my first county meeting (Marin County Housing Authority Meeting) and made a public comment supporting updating and renovating of affordable housing in Marin City (one of the few parts of Marin with a high percentage of Black and other POC) in accordance with resident wishes and advocating for the expansion of affordable housing across Marin – it took 4.5 hours to get to speak! Also fascinating.

For those of you who are clinicians or otherwise interested: I learned there’s a directory to find Black dermatologists https://www.blackdermdirectory.com/

Places to donate: “three of the countless grassroots efforts run by Black folks and set up specifically to help protect the people on the frontlines of the fight for justice.”

Gratitude & appreciation

  • The DACA Supreme Court decision!

  • The Supreme Count Decision validating LGBTQAI civil rights!

  • The pandemic is causing people to re-think things in a way that may ultimate increase access and participation. In the town meeting, a lot of people joined by phone or zoom, including one woman who clearly organized a room of older adults to make comments (hopefully in a safe way). I’ve also been grateful to join Division events by Zoom and have equitable access regardless of location. 

  • I figured out a coding scheme that only takes an hour to code a transcript if I don’t get distracted.

  • I started an “accomplishments” sticky note on my computer so that when I feel like I’m treading water I can see what I did do.

  • I journaled 3 times. I forgot to mention this last week but a colleague suggested a goal of writing 2 sentences – one about good things and one about hard things that day, to acknowledge both sides of the pandemic experience. This has been a helpful and achievable frame – when I remember to open the journal I generally log 3 examples of each type. My next goal is to find a sustainable part of my day for journaling.

  • We started improving the blackout curtains in Theo’s room to help him go to sleep. We also came up with a system to bribe Theo to stay “in his room” (e.g. on the other side of his curtain) and put himself to sleep. It worked surprisingly well night 1 and less well but still decent for night 2. We’re also implementing a star reward system for Theo (like positive reward dog training).  

  • Nothing makes you more aware of your own physical gestures while talking to see a 3yo imitating you. It’s hilarious.

Things I’m looking forward to

  • Saturday exercise class

  • A nap

  • New TJs flowers

  • Buying and planting seeds (my spouse has been to the hardware store twice and not yet achieved this request)

Things we made

As in past weeks, I invite you to report in on your wellbeing, share 1-2 small goals you are hoping to work on next week (especially related to our collaborations, if we have one), and report in on your progress from last week's goals

Thinking of you and hoping you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.

Krista

Krista Harrison
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Week 15
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Week 13