Erin Williams is an author and doctoral student. She has been: a teacher, a cancer researcher, and a prep cook at a taco shack that was shuttered by the NYC Department of health. She’s for sure one of the smartest people I know.
Check out her Substack:
Just a few short hours before this chat with my friend Erin I walked 4 miles around my neighborhood - with earbuds in.
Shut off from the noises and the neighbors.
And yet when she spoke of knowing and being known in her community, watching Jeopardy with the lady downstairs, knowing about the other folks who co-work in her local coffee shop, the farmer’s market stall guy who held black a pint of black raspberries for her - I felt a longing.
So today I did a small thing:
I said hi to everyone I encountered.
Gonna keep working on this one. A small thing at a time.
Thanks, Erin.
Erin’s message to me about this book:
The salt eaters. Published in 1980. Written by toni cade Bambara. Opens with this really deep question…
“are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”
Minnie ransom is asking. Town healer. Velma Henry suicide attempt. She had a nervous breakdown due to fracturing or her political community and marital failure, pressure at computer programmer job. Book that frequently shifts perspectives, jumps around in time, but always back to Velma. POV keeps changing. All about this community trying to survive and change oppressive structures. Really hard and magnificent book.
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