Yes!! This especially…about the business of becoming…it’s back in full effect🤦♀️
“The vocabulary changed. The branding improved. The price point became punishing. But the basic American belief that personal transformation might somehow save us has been hanging around for a very long time.”
So much of this landed in my body. The fireworks. The Challenger. All of it absorbed so young, before we had any way to process what we were taking in.
“This low-grade national panic humming softly in the background while people unload the dishwasher.”
That is exactly it. The way it just became the atmosphere we lived inside. Thank you for writing this . 💗
Yes! I remember those moments in the early 80s and it’s wild to see it all coming to light through our nervous systems and body responses now in our older age as situations seem and feel so familiar, so similar
The Marriage Encounter scene stopped me. Two children in the doorway watching their parents come back transformed in ways nobody asked for. You’ve named something about retreat culture that rarely gets named honestly. What happens to the people who weren’t in the room. Thank you for this.
I found this really interesting, I grew up in the UK, the cultural differences here are for me larger than I expected. This part really rang true 'We became very good at observation. Suspicion too. We learned how to sense instability before anybody admitted instability was there. We developed an instinct for irony and side-eye and reading the subtext in the room.' Children today are much more part of the conversation in a way that was not the case back then. I think there are pros and cons with both.
Yes!! This especially…about the business of becoming…it’s back in full effect🤦♀️
“The vocabulary changed. The branding improved. The price point became punishing. But the basic American belief that personal transformation might somehow save us has been hanging around for a very long time.”
So much of this landed in my body. The fireworks. The Challenger. All of it absorbed so young, before we had any way to process what we were taking in.
“This low-grade national panic humming softly in the background while people unload the dishwasher.”
That is exactly it. The way it just became the atmosphere we lived inside. Thank you for writing this . 💗
Thank you so much!
Yes! I remember those moments in the early 80s and it’s wild to see it all coming to light through our nervous systems and body responses now in our older age as situations seem and feel so familiar, so similar
Thank you!
There never was "good old days". Another myth/lie bites the dust.
The Marriage Encounter scene stopped me. Two children in the doorway watching their parents come back transformed in ways nobody asked for. You’ve named something about retreat culture that rarely gets named honestly. What happens to the people who weren’t in the room. Thank you for this.
I found this really interesting, I grew up in the UK, the cultural differences here are for me larger than I expected. This part really rang true 'We became very good at observation. Suspicion too. We learned how to sense instability before anybody admitted instability was there. We developed an instinct for irony and side-eye and reading the subtext in the room.' Children today are much more part of the conversation in a way that was not the case back then. I think there are pros and cons with both.
Old photos are magical...