sundaymoming

[sundaymoming]

Genuinely, one of the most important things my parents did for me growing up, which shaped me as a child and an adult, and which kept me and my friends safe in bad situations, was a single rule.

The rule was honestly pretty simple; if, at any point, I felt unsafe in a situation, I was allowed to call my parents and they would come get me. No questions asked. No punishments. No lectures. They would come get me or help me in the situation, and that would be it.

This rule came from my mother, who had a similar rule with her own parents. She recalled invoking it when she was a party with a friend. Both of them were drinking underage, and her friend had driven them there. My mother didn't feel safe letting her friend drive back, so she called her father and he came to get her and her friend. No questions asked. No lecture on why drinking was bad. Both of them got home safe, and he left water and Advil for her in the morning.

That single rule shaped my relationship with my parents into one that was fundamentally based on care and trust. My parents, above all else, wanted me to be safe. And I knew that. Enforcement of rules, obedience, even legality came second to my safety. More then that, it came second to me feeling safe. Even if my life wasn't actually in danger, if I felt unsafe, I was always allowed to call them for help.

That rule gave me the confidence to confront situations that I knew could be risky. It helped me stand my ground against other adults who valued rules over a child feeling safe. It gave me a solid foundation to build off of, where no matter what happened, I knew I had my parents in my corner.

Moreover, that rule taught me that no matter what, I could trust my parents. Even if I was feeling anxious or guilty in a situation, even if I made mistakes or made bad calls, even when I royally messed up, I could still always go to them to ask for help. I never had to put myself in danger because I was worried they would be upset with me.

It meant that I went to them with problems and scary situations a lot sooner. I made mistakes growing up, but those mistakes were corrected a lot more quickly because I felt comfortable admitting to them. Even now as an adult, I'm comfortable telling other people when I've messed up and working on repairing the damage.

That one rule was formative for me, and while I don't plan on having children of my own, it still shapes how I interact with people, particularly people younger than me. I never try to punish someone whose come to me for help. It's not productive, and it teaches them that asking me for help is a bad idea. Working towards solutions and making sure people are safe is much more important to me.

My parents did a lot of things right by me, but I think of all of them, this is the one that stuck with me the most. That became one of my core ideals. And I'm still grateful to them for that.

[sundaymoming]

Megan Arkenberg

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Ramadan Dua, Day 1

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Even though they convinced me that I'm not lovable, I'm loving and accepting myself exactly as I am.

- hochsundtiefs

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Do you understand? When I am done telling you these stories, when you’re done listening to these stories, I am no longer I, and you are no longer you. In this afternoon we briefly merged into one. After this, you will always carry a bit of me, and I will always carry a bit of you, even if we both forget this conversation.

—Hao Jingfang, ‘Invisible Planets,’ in Invisible Planets: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, tr. & ed. Ken Liu

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you are my son, my moon, and all my stars, e.e. cummings // the song of achilles, madeline miller // owl and pussycat, some years later, margaret atwood // the starry night, vincent van gogh // seven, taylor swift // @ashberrrry via tumblr // two men contemplating the moon, caspar david friedrich // red, white and royal blue, casey mcquiston // anyway, richard siken // end of the day, one direction

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The bad hospital experience that led Aminta Kouyate to become a doctor.

Going to the hospital isn’t fun, it’s when people are typically at their most vulnerable.

And for many people of color, traumatic encounters with the health care system are a reason to avoid going to the doctor. But for UC medical student Aminta Kouyate, it sealed her decision to become a physician.

Aminta was an undergrad at UC Berkeley, tackling general chemistry and physics, when she woke up at 5 a.m. with debilitating abdominal pain. Doctors first suspected appendicitis — but when the imaging showed her appendix was fine, “the tone in the room changed immediately,” Kouyate said. She was left for five hours by an open exit door in a hallway in just a thin patient gown.

“I was told I could leave at any time because they were not going to give me what I was looking for,” she said. “They thought I was there to seek pain medication, that I did not actually have a medical emergency.”

Finally, a Black nurse noticed her sitting in the hall and made sure the doctors addressed her problem and gave her the care she needed. But the experience left its mark.

“Nobody should ever have to have to feel this way,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘If I have anything to do with it, nobody’s ever going to treat another patient like this again.’”

[sundaymoming]

@the2headedcalf / On Love, Alain de Botton /  @tilthat / Céline Sciamma / Twitter: Nightshiftmp3 / Twitter: Thepartypope / Portrait of a Lady on Fire / The Clean House, Sarah Ruhl / The History of the Band-Aid / weird-facts.org / 

[sundaymoming]

richard siken a primer for the small weird loves // holly warburton making amends // holly warburton bobby // holly warburton the red jacket

[sundaymoming]

So in the past few years I’ve seen so many videos / posts that are like:

“Actually wolves don’t have hierarchies!  They live in family groups where the ‘alphas’ are mom and dad and the other wolves are their CHILDREN and offer their respect willingly! :D”

and I just have to say

how dare you try to make normative nuclear families out of wolves

Yes, a lot of the old “nature red in tooth and claw” stuff about wolves is nonsense. (Like anything from Jack London.) And anything ‘alpha’ you see sleazy men trying to relate to dating (yikes!) is especially nonsense.

But wolves are complex social creatures and they create complex social structures. Just as you can’t say “THIS is the way human society is structured. Just THIS single way and no other”, so too there is no single form for a wolf pack.  

Some packs are a mom wolf and a dad wolf and their wolf children.  Others are two small ragged packs that combine to form a large pack.  Others are packs where a lone wolf joins and eventually becomes a leader. Others are packs where a grown child-wolf has pushed their parent out of the leadership role.

Speaking of the latter, let’s look at the tale of Wolf 40 and Wolf 42.

Wolf 40, Wolf 41, and Wolf 42 were wild Yellowstone wolves, daughters of the alphas. Their father was illegally killed by hunters and shortly after ambitious Wolf 40 ousted her mother, driving her out of the pack.  Wolf 21 became the new alpha male, and 40′s mate.

Wolves have personalities, and Wolf 40′s personality was “volatile”.  Imagine Scar from The Lion King combined with the boss from Office Space, and you have Wolf 40.  She habitually bullied the other female wolves, attacking them until they expressed abject submission.  And the wolves that got the worst of it were her sisters, Wolves 41 and 42.

Wolf 41 got tired of the bullying and left.  Wolf 42 remained, perhaps because she was close to Wolf 21, the alpha male.  Despite that, Wolf 21 did not interfere when his mate harassed Wolf 42.

Unlike 40, Wolf 42 got along well with the other female wolves, spending time grooming them and relaxing with them. Wolf 40 could have followed her sister’s example and built up positive social bonds. But she didn’t.

One day, Wolf 40 went out on an important task.  She was going to kill another litter of her sister’s pups–having done the same in two previous years.  This isn’t uncommon wolf behavior (but is not universal, as we will see.)  Typically only the alphas breed.

However, Wolf 40 never returned from her important task because Wolf 42–who previously had submitted to her alpha and sister, who had allowed the killing of two previous litters of pups–had had enough.  She fought back.

And the other female wolves jumped to aid her.

Collectively, they killed Wolf 40. Because “alpha” isn’t a magic cloak of protection, it doesn’t even mean “strongest wolf”, it’s just a job title.

The next day Wolf 42 carried her pups, one by one, to her sister’s den.  She set her children among the pups of her dead sister and raised both litters together. And when another wolf in the pack had pups, Wolf 42 carried them to the den to be communally raised as well.  She was the alpha female now and she made the rules, and the first rule was “we don’t hurt pups here.”

As for Wolf 21, he became the mate of Wolf 42.  Maybe he understood that Wolf 40 had been riding for a fall. 

As alpha female, Wolf 42 continued to be supportive and kind towards the other pack members.  Wolves who had been nervous wrecks under Wolf 40 began to relax and come into their own; one of the former omega wolves gained self-confidence and became one of the best hunters.

“Alpha”, for wolves, just means leader.  They might be good leaders, whom you respect, or they might be bad leaders, who fill you with dread.  They might be your parents, or they might not.  Even if they are your mother or father, wolves don’t contextualize those relationships the same way humans do.

But one thing wolves have in common with humans is that they have individual personalities and experiences, and their actions derive from those.  There is no “typical wolf pack.” And I think that’s beautiful.

If you want to learn more about wild wolf dynamics, I recommend reading the annual Yellowstone Wolf Project Reports.  Which are FASCINATING.  There are also some good wildlife specials out there.

Wolves are my favorite animal. <3  It pains me to see them misunderstood as crazed bloodthirsty brutes, but it also pains me to see them woobified.  They deserve better than that.

[sundaymoming]

So there's people out there thinking they dont deserve to be paid? Sigh

WTF!? They should be paid the minute they arrive at the airport in their uniform. 

[sundaymoming]

under no circumstances, kiera. k

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What an irony.

That's pretty much it, yeah

[sundaymoming]

- Lyudmilla Ignatenko, the wife of deceased firefighter Vasily Ignatenko, Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexeivich (transl. Keith Gessen)

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“The truest loves of our lives are not always romantic. The winter makes us honest. It helps us remember.”

“February is the loneliest month of the year.”

“I am tired of trying to escape loneliness. Let it find me. Let it follow me into bed or on my walk. In Finnish, February is called the month of the pearl for how the snow melts then freezes again on tree branches. The forests coated in the heart of winter. In Old English, February was called Solmanath. Mud month. Today too is the start of a lunar new year, the spring festival and the year of the water tiger.

The thaw is proof. Here is enough warmth to become something new.”

— Sanna Wani, from “booklight 04: The Heart of Winter”

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more on my substack <3