Taking stock of OUR Examined Family

the top posts of the year, eye-opening data on how much we collectively gave etc.

Well, it’s been another amazing year of sharing sometimes tender and messy, often comical, and always heartfelt thoughts here, and getting to interact with this amazing community about what they bring up for you. It’s a joy beyond measure—comments, hearts, open rates, or paid subscriptions could never fully describe the way in which it makes me feel accompanied, and according to many of you, does the same for you. Talk about mutual aid!

I deeply believe in pausing and taking stock of what you’ve done, where you’ve put your energy, how it might have impacted others. It seems wise to apply that same discipline to our shared space here at Examined Family. So here’s what we have been up to in 2024, the way we’ve invested our precious time, talent, relational energy, and more…

We gathered this year.

I want to remind you that there is a post where you can introduce yourself to the rest of the community (we are nearly 20,000 strong!) here. I’m going to pin this to the top and pay more consistent attention to it in the new year. Head on over there and read a bit about who is here and you will be blown away. We live all over the country and the world (Canada, Uganda, Portugal…). We are designers, writers, nurses, doctors, coders, philosophers, teachers, artists, executive directors of nonprofits, community organizers, philanthropists, lawyers, thoughtful neighbors and friends, and caregivers for a wide variety of loved ones (many of whom are disabled or sick, sending you massive love and solidarity!). We are young and old and everything in between. Add your response!

We read this year.

These were the most opened, commented on, and shared posts this year:

Stay Tender, Stay Together: “Today I will move my body next to beautiful, brilliant women friends (so wildly not mediocre) in the sunshine and I will hug my mom, who deserves a better story, and I will double down on my conviction that it is our softness and our ability to see beyond ourselves, beyond our time, that makes us safe. I will double down on my conviction to make the future I desire irresistible. I will continue to make visible the inevitable deterioration of our bodies and our minds, our hearts and our ability to care for one another the only lasting things.”

Forgetting and Becoming: “Maybe people with dementia are unknowable, but not all that much more unknowable than every other person we love who is, as Morris Friedell puts it, is “temporarily able-brained.” The fact that my dad can’t remember that milk goes in the fridge has real consequences. Spoiled milk. A burned out caregiver. Another role relinquished. The fact that he can’t remember my brother’s trademark energy as a boy is a gut punch in certain ways, but in others, it’s a release. He senses my brother’s energy now—no big stories or past layers to cloud his experience. He doesn’t expect anything, in particular, because there are so few particulars left. There are waves of gratitude, guesses at what’s next, a floating, tentative navigation of a world constantly remaking itself, like the edge of the earth next to the unpredictable ocean.”

Prayer for the New Year: “May we be at peace. By which, I mean both may we not murder other people’s children, and also may we apologize to our own when we lob empty threats their way because we still haven’t learned how to take the deep breaths we are constantly asking them to take. May we understand that violence is not something only certain people enact—it is in all of us, in different forms—loud and obvious, quiet and manipulative, born of seeds of our own fear and insecurity. May we push back against all weaponizing and institutionalizing of these seeds in the world.”

Make sense of these being the most “popular” as you will. To me it says something about our need for accompaniment, more than anything else. I strive to be honest about what I’m experiencing and the meaning I’m making in my own life, and as I look around at our shared lives, and then reflect it back to you. You tell me if it’s relevant, helpful, delightful. Repeat forever.

And as always, if you want to peruse the books that the Examined Family community treasures, go to our Bookshop store. There are so many good gift ideas on these digital shelves!

We learned this year.

Through our 5 questions tradition, we heard from these people:

• dementia caretaker and filmmaker Freddie Segura Glavey

• “theory of everything” novelist Helen Phillips

• Yehji Hwang, a high school senior living in Maryland advocating for more recognition of issues specific to AANHPI youth

• somatic practitioner, podcaster, and author, Prentis Hemphill

• romance novelist entrepreneurs Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo

• homelessness advocate Kevin Adler

• epigeneticist and educator Dr. Rana Dajani

• writer and observant friend Lissa Soep,

• resilience myth buster Soraya Chemaly

• my pod co-host and love liberator Carvell Wallace

• curator and care evangelist Elissa Strauss

• “white people” whisperer and anti-racist organizer Garrett Bucks

• tough broad Caroline Paul

• author and community visionary Rhaina Cohen

• journalist on moral economics, Nick Romeo

• parenting and power expert, Jen Lumanlan

Revisit these interviews or read them for the first time to be reminded of all the incredible people out in the world organizing, advocating, writing, and befriending one another in beautiful ways despite all the shit.

Dr. Rana Dajani

Prentis Hemphill

Helen Phillips

We gave this year.

Thank you so much to those of you who are paid subscribers. In this time of personal and political insecurity, I can tell you it means ever more to me to know that you are here, that you are nourished enough by this space and these words to put your money towards them.

I have to tell you something a little bit embarrassing. I don’t spend much time in the backend of Substack. Strategizing for subscribers is not my gift or inclination. I write, I publish, I converse with you all in comments–those are my joys…not tracking open rates, subscription conversation etc. Anyway, I had no idea there was a section where so many of you have left me little notes about why you are paying for a subscription! It was like waking up in Christmas morning having no idea it was Christmas morning! Thank you for all your sweet words of mirroring and affirmation.

A sampling! What generosity!

We, the circle of paid subscribers, have donated a total of $3,000 to the following organizations this year: Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, GiveDirectly, Direct Action Everywhere, Southern Crossroads, Caring Across, this GoFundMe for mutual aid in Congo, the Haitian Women’s Collective, Doctors Without Borders for Gaza relief, We Love Reading, The Embodiment Institute , Friendship Bridge, and Girls Leadership.

How cool is that? Feel free to pile on in your year-end giving if any of these really light you up and you have the means.

Now, we look forward.

In the year ahead, I would love to continue to nurture this community in these ways (if it ain’t broke…) but also I’m open to experiments. Would you like an AMA (Ask Me Anything) once a month where you ask me questions and I answer them? Would you like a live zoom gathering where we all see one another’s little Brady Brunch faces and laugh with a slight time delay? Would you like more book clubs? (We did that in 2023, but not in 2024.) Some people seem into Substack Notes? Anyone have thoughts about how I could use them better to nurture and connect this community? I’m open to any and all feedback.

Who else should be part of this already enough just as it is, and growing, community? Consider giving a gift subscription and welcoming them into our fold.

I’ll be sending out my now treasured tradition of a list of end-of-year reflections next Wednesday (12/18) and then I’m going to take a couple of weeks off. I’ll be back in touch on 1/8. Til then my dears…