I just had an amazing experience--one that leads me to imagine what can happen from these essays. I was talking to a friend of mine who just had a triumph. The grant that she wrote several years ago, to have a Grandparents Garden in her condo community, was finally accepted! She was daydreaming aloud about how fill the Garden- and I remembered one of the essays, about Benches and Snacks. A simple idea, to provide benches and snacks everywhere so people can TALK. (I fear I am oversimplifying it, please forgive me.) But I pictured a Bences and Snacks bench in my friend's about-to-happen Grandparents Garden and I felt the electricity --and POWER--of connection.
Your essay was wonderful, too -- Fighting the Behemoth. Reclaiming Our Souls https://suespeaks.org/fighting-the-behemoth-reclaiming-our-souls -- with your close-to-home unraveling of corporatization that led to the whole world's unraveling from the what serves the oligarchy that dominates us.
Sorry-I did not add--my friend, whose idea the Grandparents' Garden was--LOVED the idea. She too is a forward thinking, idealistic, wanting-the-world-to-improve person. Now I have to contact the author of that essay!!!
Here's the delightful Benches and Snacks essay that was a contest winner: https://suespeaks.org/benches-and-snacks. Big yes to you. As that last quote says, "...every essay is a seed that could serendipitously land in the lap of someone who will take it." While I'm contemplating what to do with the essays, the best thig would be for spontaneous developments to render my thinking unnecessary!!!! Ruthy, this comment is thrilling to me. I'll get Leela, the author, to chime in here.
Just spoke to my friend again. She says a Grandparents Garden is a peaceful place where younger and older generations can connect and communicate. She is talking to the people who will give her a grant, this week! Question: What does the bench look like?
https://www.urbanistsociety.com/resources/ here's the page with the bench plans, which are a PDF. What it looks like is a combination of what materials you buy or salvage, how you choose to modify it, and how you decorate it. :)
What is this treasure trove about making benches, in relation to Leela's essay? Did she take the idea from these things and cleverly extend it to the spread in the essay? Or were these links found after -- maybe an idea whose time had come? Or what? I wonder if, from all the essays we could take up the bench idea and brainstorm about getting them into the kind of massive play Leela wrote about.
Hi Leela. So I just went to the site you shared (incredibily interesting!) and I had to join to get in. Says they'll get back to me in 48 hours. In the meantime--let's imagine what this would look like (spreading your idea.) Say my friend who's doing this garden says she wants a bench. I'm a writer, I would write an article about the connection between the Grandparents Garden and the Benches and Snacks idea. (And the goal would be to have OTHER people want such a bench ... ) . Is that how you imagine it? I should go back and read your essay again, I think.
How do things get seen and acted on? In a lot of the essays, things that spread didn't have a plan -- somebody started something and it caught on. Of all of them, I think benches everywhere is the most doable idea, and maybe this is the little nugget to start that. The essay is so charming that for maximum effect, as benches are being advocated, that essay should be linked to: https://suespeaks.org/benches-and-snacks/.
I imagine that your friend would use the plans to build a bench or just riff on the idea and install any kind of bench she chooses. You could write an article and I could, about this place doing this thing. We could also tag the Chattanooga Urbanist Society so they'd know what we're up to. Then we could tell everyone about it and maybe place more benches in front of more houses.
My move toward making it reality was to spend several hours on my own stoop today, plotting benches and a table for in front of my house.
This seems like moves in the right direction. Just do what's in your lap. It's a story that media could pick up on, how you became a prize winner in an essay contest inspired by the Chattanooga benches, where that enrolls them in hooking up with you and us to get more to happen. For starters we should get everyone reading your essay. Maybe this will be my Tuesday Substack. Let's see if Ruthy would write a draft of something for me to use and we can work on it.
I like the bedtime essay idea. It doesn't have the splash of the ice bucket challenge so it may need a more exciting call to action to make a draw. Bedtime porn for a new world? haha...
A Grandparents Garden, as my friend conceived it, will be (is) a place where connection and conversation between the older generation and the younger generation is encouraged, facilitated and honored. Any manifestation of that notion!
Hey Leela. I am sorry not to have kept up my part of this conversation. Never quite been in one like it before, right?, so I'm not sure where the boundaries are. As in, how much do I push MY idea of how YOUR idea should be spread, you know? (I have grown children, wonderful women, who nonetheless resist any and all advice from me :) !) I love putting ideas out in the world. My favorite job of all time was, at 55, becoming editor of a community newspaper.
So my vision of a next step is to talk my friend, who has the grant, and see if she wants to solidify something with the bench idea--which she loved--and if that happens, it would be very easy to write that article. It would be a local article but the kind of piece with universal appeal.
My own Save the World idea is a much more solitary adventure. I'm writing a book, which I envision will open people's eyes the same way Uncle Tom's Cabin opened people's eyes, by showing the system's effect on real people.
I just had an amazing experience--one that leads me to imagine what can happen from these essays. I was talking to a friend of mine who just had a triumph. The grant that she wrote several years ago, to have a Grandparents Garden in her condo community, was finally accepted! She was daydreaming aloud about how fill the Garden- and I remembered one of the essays, about Benches and Snacks. A simple idea, to provide benches and snacks everywhere so people can TALK. (I fear I am oversimplifying it, please forgive me.) But I pictured a Bences and Snacks bench in my friend's about-to-happen Grandparents Garden and I felt the electricity --and POWER--of connection.
Your essay was wonderful, too -- Fighting the Behemoth. Reclaiming Our Souls https://suespeaks.org/fighting-the-behemoth-reclaiming-our-souls -- with your close-to-home unraveling of corporatization that led to the whole world's unraveling from the what serves the oligarchy that dominates us.
Sorry-I did not add--my friend, whose idea the Grandparents' Garden was--LOVED the idea. She too is a forward thinking, idealistic, wanting-the-world-to-improve person. Now I have to contact the author of that essay!!!
Here's the delightful Benches and Snacks essay that was a contest winner: https://suespeaks.org/benches-and-snacks. Big yes to you. As that last quote says, "...every essay is a seed that could serendipitously land in the lap of someone who will take it." While I'm contemplating what to do with the essays, the best thig would be for spontaneous developments to render my thinking unnecessary!!!! Ruthy, this comment is thrilling to me. I'll get Leela, the author, to chime in here.
Oh, I love connecting.... THANK YOU AGAIN, Suzanne, for giving us this space.
Oh that would be thrilling! What is a grandparents garden? How does that happen? Wouldn't that be fun?
Just spoke to my friend again. She says a Grandparents Garden is a peaceful place where younger and older generations can connect and communicate. She is talking to the people who will give her a grant, this week! Question: What does the bench look like?
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLr4aW42/ here's a Tiktok with the benches at the end
https://www.urbanistsociety.com/
https://www.urbanistsociety.com/resources/ here's the page with the bench plans, which are a PDF. What it looks like is a combination of what materials you buy or salvage, how you choose to modify it, and how you decorate it. :)
What is this treasure trove about making benches, in relation to Leela's essay? Did she take the idea from these things and cleverly extend it to the spread in the essay? Or were these links found after -- maybe an idea whose time had come? Or what? I wonder if, from all the essays we could take up the bench idea and brainstorm about getting them into the kind of massive play Leela wrote about.
I went from the Tiktok to the urbanist society website to the bench plans and then wove it into the essay when I remembered it while writing. :)
Ideas are from our guardian angel’s gentle bushings…!🌼🌸🌷🙏🏞️❤️🔥
Hi Leela. So I just went to the site you shared (incredibily interesting!) and I had to join to get in. Says they'll get back to me in 48 hours. In the meantime--let's imagine what this would look like (spreading your idea.) Say my friend who's doing this garden says she wants a bench. I'm a writer, I would write an article about the connection between the Grandparents Garden and the Benches and Snacks idea. (And the goal would be to have OTHER people want such a bench ... ) . Is that how you imagine it? I should go back and read your essay again, I think.
How do things get seen and acted on? In a lot of the essays, things that spread didn't have a plan -- somebody started something and it caught on. Of all of them, I think benches everywhere is the most doable idea, and maybe this is the little nugget to start that. The essay is so charming that for maximum effect, as benches are being advocated, that essay should be linked to: https://suespeaks.org/benches-and-snacks/.
I imagine that your friend would use the plans to build a bench or just riff on the idea and install any kind of bench she chooses. You could write an article and I could, about this place doing this thing. We could also tag the Chattanooga Urbanist Society so they'd know what we're up to. Then we could tell everyone about it and maybe place more benches in front of more houses.
My move toward making it reality was to spend several hours on my own stoop today, plotting benches and a table for in front of my house.
This seems like moves in the right direction. Just do what's in your lap. It's a story that media could pick up on, how you became a prize winner in an essay contest inspired by the Chattanooga benches, where that enrolls them in hooking up with you and us to get more to happen. For starters we should get everyone reading your essay. Maybe this will be my Tuesday Substack. Let's see if Ruthy would write a draft of something for me to use and we can work on it.
What a wonderful idea! Telling a bedtime story that tells us how we got to the 2050 we desire. Thanks, Suzanne.
Great hot tub picture.... brings back many memories of the late 70's and 80's!
Maybe you are in the picture??
I like the bedtime essay idea. It doesn't have the splash of the ice bucket challenge so it may need a more exciting call to action to make a draw. Bedtime porn for a new world? haha...
I was an actress, and I'd be very seductive!
I just watched it. VERY cool. I liked the finished product, too.
A Grandparents Garden, as my friend conceived it, will be (is) a place where connection and conversation between the older generation and the younger generation is encouraged, facilitated and honored. Any manifestation of that notion!
Hey Leela. I am sorry not to have kept up my part of this conversation. Never quite been in one like it before, right?, so I'm not sure where the boundaries are. As in, how much do I push MY idea of how YOUR idea should be spread, you know? (I have grown children, wonderful women, who nonetheless resist any and all advice from me :) !) I love putting ideas out in the world. My favorite job of all time was, at 55, becoming editor of a community newspaper.
So my vision of a next step is to talk my friend, who has the grant, and see if she wants to solidify something with the bench idea--which she loved--and if that happens, it would be very easy to write that article. It would be a local article but the kind of piece with universal appeal.
My own Save the World idea is a much more solitary adventure. I'm writing a book, which I envision will open people's eyes the same way Uncle Tom's Cabin opened people's eyes, by showing the system's effect on real people.