🍁October 2024 Field Notes🍁
This month's collection of interesting reads, including a new Covid-19-flu combo home test, AirPods as hearing aids, poems by Ross Gay and Gwendolyn Brooks, and how to complete the stress cycle
Hello, dear friends,
Happy Autumn! We’ve got a rainbow of colors up here in New York — green trees intermixed with magenta, melon orange, dazzling yellows. And somehow the weather is still in the 60s and 70s.
Right behind pretty autumn is … winter, which means that Winter Camp is coming! Winter Camp sessions are annual virtual gatherings to help us through the cold, dark winter. Registration is open now for Winter Art Camp, a January creative community and a great kick-off for a more creative year.
(Registration for traditional Winter Camp — a virtual community mid-Feb. to the first day of spring with gentle nudges to connect, move, get outdoors, nourish our bodies, create, and seek light — is opening soon.)
Now onto our monthly Field Notes collection of interesting reads I’ve run across lately. I hope you find something healing, helpful, delightful, or interesting here for you.
To our journeys,
Brianne
p.s. The first 30 people to register for Winter Art Camp will get a bonus gift kit in the mail — yes, real mail! (U.S. addresses only; please write to me if you want to join and are outside the U.S.). Use the code WINTER60 for $60 off. Learn more about Winter Art Camp.
❤️ halcyon, and not only in retrospect
I loved this from
, describing how her new neighborhood and the explorations it makes possible in her wheelchair. She straps her 8-month-old into her lap (using something that sounds amazing called the lapbaby) and goes out and about together: “… on my chair, out in the world, in motion, he is still and calm. His thighs flatten and fold over my own. His tiny soft hand rests on my forearm. His head leans against my sternum. He murmurs to himself and to me “ah mamamama da da.” His teeny voice is a squeak and a secret.”Jessica continues on with a wise reflection on noticing the joys right when they are happening, even — especially — in hectic, busy, distracting times. She writes:
“I write a lot about how bad people are at knowing what makes a good life. It’s one of the primary frameworks through which I view disability. But it applies to every part of our too-short and unpredictable lives. We rarely know what will make our lives worthwhile. We are always a little bit wrong about what happiness even is.”
Read the full post.
🦻The Cutting-Edge Hearing Aids That You May Already Own
Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 will soon be able to test your hearing and serve as hearing aids for people with mild to moderate hearing loss — a potential boost to helping destigmitize hearing aids and make addressing hearing loss more accessible and common. There are some downsides with AirPods as hearing aids, including needing to have an iPhones running iOS 18 or later or an iPad with iPadOS 18, and the AirPods use only lasting as long as the 5-6 hours of battery. But even if you bought two pairs, it could be more affordable than some prescription hearing aids.
Read the full story. (NYT gift link).
💉Navigating RSV protection this fall
newsletter from Katelyn Jetelina and Edward Nirenberg details what we’ve learned from the first year that RSV vaccines (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) were available for the little ones and the older ones. “RSV protection is effective and much safer than getting the disease.”
“RSV disease is a big deal for kids under 5. The hospitalization rate alone is far higher than for flu or Covid-19.”
For infants, parents can opt to be vaccinated during pregnancy (“Abrysvo”) — “The vaccine was highly effective in clinical trials—82% effectiveness against hospitalization within 3 months and 69% within 6 months after birth.”
Or infants can get Beyfortus (nirsevimab), which is a preventive medication, not a vaccine.
“The first real-world evidence was published last week for those over 60 years of age. And it was great news! Real-world data shows that the vaccines are highly effective.”
Read the full post.
Note: I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. I’m passing along interesting things I’ve read — please consult your own doctor with questions.
✏️ Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year
Kelly McMasters explains her annual practice of writing a “living obituary” in a New York Times guest essay, a reflective exercise of looking back at her life.
“Most years, though, writing my obituary brings a kind of comfort. While obituaries are traditionally public documents, meant to measure posthumous impact, scratching them into my journal gave me a chance to measure a more intimate impression. This private accounting wasn’t predicated on newsworthiness or fact. When I flip through my old obituaries, I am flipping through past versions of myself. In many ways, they are as good as dead, unreachable former selves, and I find solace in being able to say hello.”
Read the full guest essay. (NYT gift link)
🍲Three favorite recipes from Smitten Kitchen
’s Smitten Kitchen is my go-to spot for easy and fantastic recipes — not to mention her down-to-earth prose and funny asides. Here are three delicious recipes on regular circulation right now:(Apparently I’m having a chickpea moment. They are such a yummy, fast, and inexpensive protein.)
🧪 FDA approves at-home rapid combination tests for Covid-19 and flu
Did you know this? I did not — the FDA just approved a 15-minute nasal swab over-the-counter test for three viruses at once! It’s called the Healgen Rapid Check COVID-19/Flu A&B Antigen Test.
Read the full
post here, with several other interesting healtlh tidbits.❤️🩹 To the Young Who Want to Die by Gwendolyn Brooks
Sorrow is Not My Name by Ross Gay
I’m taking a wonderful poetry workshop this month with Danusha Laméris and Maggie Smith, and each Sunday evening they share a couple of exquisite poems and writing prompts.
Two pieces I hadn’t read before, but won’t forget now, about the tug of death and the urging to resist: Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “To the Young Who Want to Die,” and the response by Ross Gay, the poem “Sorrow is Not My Name.”
I love the tenderness and earnestness of these poems, calling to someone they love to stay.
Gwendolyn writes, in part:
I assure you death will wait. Death has
a lot of time. Death can
attend to you tomorrow. Or next week. Death is
just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;
can meet you any moment.You need not die today.
Stay here—through pout or pain or peskyness.
Stay here. See what the news is going to be tomorrow.
If you are having thoughts about suicide, please reach out for help. We want you to stay. You can call or text 988 or visit the lifeline website 24/7.
Read Gwendolyn’s poem. Read Ross’s poem.
💊 My Favorite Things at the Pharmacy
shares “5 medicine cabinet essentials” just in time for flu season:nasal saline
Guaifenesin
steroid nasal sprays
antihistamines
ibuprofen
Dr. McBridge details why each one could be useful. For example: “Fun fact: new data shows that good old saline nasal spray can reduce the severity and duration of respiratory symptoms from colds and flus. This is great news because nasal saline is cheap and harmless.” Huh!
Read the full post.
Finally, from the Odyssey of the Body archives:
This is a stressful fall, and the Election Day is around the corner. Here’s what might be a helpful post on how to help your body reset to a calmer place when you feel the heaviness of threat and stress.
Lots of goodies here, Brianne. I’ve gotta pick up some of that nasal saline spray. Thanks for the reminder. And I enjoyed Jessica Slice’s post. Very cool that you’re doing a poetry class! And let me know a good time to promote your various winter camps in my newsletter.