“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” – Mary Oliver

How do we experience another’s care? How do we feel that we really belong? One thing that seems clear is it doesn’t happen when we’re busy pretending everything is fine. This has been one of the strange gifts accompanying the pandemic. Less room for pretending. Even from a distance, many of us have found ways to share our true stories with one another, including our despair, but also our joys, gifts, and quirks. As we return to “normal,” what would happen if we took this opportunity to make this version of caring and belonging our norm. What new stories could we tell together?