Katy Frank and Susan Frank

00:00 We are now recording.

00:03 Hi, my name is Susan. I'm 52 years old. Today's date is December 10th? 2020. I live in Arizona. I'm speaking with Katie who I've never met before.

00:18 Hi, I'm Katie and I live in Washington DC and I am 41 years old and I am here in my home be making with Susan who I have also never met before.

00:40 I read the blurb or do I talk first some of the quest life story in a nutshell?

00:55 Well, I was born in West Virginia to Jewish parents and I'd lived in the Ohio River Valley which was kind of an industrial Ally chemical plants in subject of a recent major movie because of that but I didn't stay I left it 18 didn't get very far. I moved to Ohio across the river.

01:22 I went to college 3 colleges and graduate from any of them before I decide I didn't really know what I wanted to do get and I travel to Colorado and 1992 and found myself running and artist cooperative for about five years. Something I intended to do but it had a big impact on my life on my way to Arizona almost 20 years ago and I see I went to Bisbee which is down near the border and ran a bead store there for a little while before I decided I was ready to go back to school and finally finished that degree. So what about age 14, I finished my degree in business management, but it was an experiential program to college in Arizona that allows you to create your own curriculum. So I got to travel for it and visit a lot of intentional communities and volunteer for

02:22 Different festivals that had to do with things like sustainability education so that kind of tells you a little bit about things that I was interested in that my degree revolved around and then I pretty some conferences for a few years for an organization that promotes intentional communities and Cooperative culture and and then I put my husband to school and I worked at a Humane Society for several years. It's local doing various various jobs. And then I kind of have a lifetime of some health problems. I was born with that works in words to the point where I not retired, but I taken time off work to heal the last several years and thought to pretty pretty healthy play so

03:11 There's things that I want to do with my life that are kind of on hold the planning of because of what's going on with the world. And that's another thing I can talk about forever and ever but I think that's that's a pretty good summary.

03:25 Other than that I have I have two partners there both male my husband I've been with for 13 years and then my other partner I've been with for 5 and we all consider each other kind of a family. Can you go

03:46 There's so much I want to say and ask him but I guess I'll do my 5-minute life story first. Can you still hear me? Okay. Okay. So I was I was born in Illinois, but I moved when I was a toddler to Southern California and basically grew up in San Diego.

04:13 I attended Catholic School my entire childhood including High School where I went to an all-girls Catholic High School, then it gets better. Then when I graduated high school my mom my father died when I was 15, and so when I go visit the week, I finished high school. My mother took my younger brothers and moved back home to Idaho, which is her home state. My maternal family has lived in Idaho since the mid 1800 when white Europeans went there to take over an occupied Native American land.

04:56 And then so I went to college. I stayed in California went to two different colleges, and I also studied in Italy and I need to leave me alone cuz I'm talking to people. I love you. I'll talk to you later. And

05:16 Going abroad to Italy was a very formative experience for me. I developed a huge appetite for travel and I also reconnected with my father's family. Who is Italian-American.

05:32 When I returned from Italy to Southern California, I knew that I wanted to leave Southern California and explore the world. I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, but I graduated from college and that was probably the most depressing year of my life cuz I was sort of a dressed and unhappy but you know what direction I wanted to take and then started a very intentional way of living where I like just developed a lot of self-awareness about like what I wanted even even if I couldn't Define that for myself and I ended up first going to Portland and getting a teaching certificate and then spending the next couple years of my life abroad teaching English to adults in the Czech Republic in Mexico.

06:23 And and while I was doing that I was also freelancing as a journalist, which was mostly what I studied in college was like English and journalism and threw some freelance journalism. I learned about the concept of basically integration of people into society. So famously I met a check still make her who had done a documentary about gypsies joining the Czech military in all these things that they needed to learn in order to be successful in a different kind of society and culture and I was like, I want to help people do that. I don't know how but I want to help people do that somehow and so I started researching Refugee resettlement and decided to come back to the United States because someone offered me a job.

07:23 Doing public Outreach for a refugee resettlement organization in Dallas, Texas.

07:28 So I came back to the United States to go to Dallas which was a city. I had never visited before and I always say that that was actually the biggest culture shock of my entire life by the first second day on the job like a child left into my arms, and I was just in love with the work and I haven't looked back so

07:54 I basically pursued a career in a refugee resettlement and in Refugee programs and that brought me to Washington DC where I got a master's degree in peace and conflict resolution and then was recruited to actually be a refugee officer for the US government and so about 10 years ago. I started that part of my career and traveled around the world interviewing thousands of refugees on every continent except Antarctica. And then I'm still I'm still working for the the part of our immigration agency that deals with the refugee and Asylum programs even today.

08:43 I'm now doing more like business design to improve our business models for our employees as well as for our applicants. So that's sort of where I am. Now on my career. I've also consciously tried to avoid being an immigration officer in this Administration for my own reasons, but that's still sort of what I'm doing and along the way I met my husband we work together at a nonprofit when I was in graduate school and then he followed me on my graduate fellowships Mexico City where he got robbed his second day in Mexico and still stayed with me, but we got married.

09:31 About eight years ago and we have two children who are seven and 424 year old was the one who interrupted us earlier. So that's that's I guess me my family still in in rural Idaho in my husband's from Mississippi, but we live in DC and we've we've talked a lot about like relocating elsewhere, but

09:58 So far, we we the the pros of staying in DC have outweighed pull factors to go closer to family.

10:08 Nothing styles

10:13 I don't think we're going to have enough time to really go over time.

10:18 You're you're you're fine. You're fine. I do not want to read those bio. You don't have and you can do it quickly. So you have more time to talk about other stuff. But yes, please please read each other's bios out loud.

10:30 Okay, this is Katie from Washington District of Columbia. I am a woman the daughter of white American Born Farmers on one side and Italian immigrants on the other I grew up in the suburbs and let your private school but I lived in both rural areas in huge City since then and my children now go to public school. I went to college at age 17 and always gotten your perfect grades butter in a minimum wage until I was in my late twenties. I am married and have small children, but our family does not adhere to traditional gender roles. I love dialogue. Okay, idealistic realist atheist polyamorous pansexual Earth, loving tree hugger who would love to eradicate greed and thanks localized Cooperative culture models are the Wise Way Forward event organizer entrepreneur artist music lover always learning.

11:25 Lifelong health issues shape my life, but I've done a lot to heal in The Last 5 Years now feeling better than I've ever felt interested in talking in a safe space. So can work fully understand folks with different views than I as well as be heard myself.

11:40 All right now ask each other questions cuz I know you want to I know I'm not sure where to start for some totally jealous of all the travel that you've done.

11:54 Do you want to start I could ask you questions all day. So I'm happy to start. I'm interested in what you mean by certain terms. Like what what does atheist mean to you? What is pansexual mean to you some of the terms in your bio and I can I can repeat them if you don't remember but I do and I didn't until you read it. I couldn't remember what I've written and how

12:23 Real I was so to me a lot of those terms mean.

12:35 I'm not even sure where to start with that.

12:38 It's kind of out connected. So by pansexual I mean I tend to be attracted to people.

12:49 In so many ways as I understand the term pansexual and I feel very much essentialist about nature and music and art in.

13:04 Those things connect me to people but it's never really been about I've never really known myself to consistently say well I am attracted to this kind of person with these specific genitals and I find it to be a very fluid experience.

13:26 Atheism and I wasn't even sure to use that word because I think of myself more than non theist. I don't like my parents were Jewish. But but that was a very social thing and my father is midlife crisis and decided he was he was a Baptist for a while and then he just kind of became a spirit trying to find himself as a spiritual person. And so the way most people I think

13:53 Believe in and Define the word God. I don't think that I

14:00 Believe it the same way. It doesn't necessarily mean I think there's not more. I just don't know that I could know it enough to give it a name, but I think there's a great mystery.

14:11 That I'm trying to learn to trust in the world without necessarily having a specific and never really having a rigid like idea about that ever. Talk to me. So

14:27 Yeah.

14:29 Okay.

14:32 I wanted to ask you about so my mom taught at a Catholic School her whole life. That is a Jewish woman to the guidance counselor. And do you feel like how how did that affect you in your view of the world?

14:50 And now their kids in public school. This is sort of a two-part question cuz it brings a whole thing up. But before we ever taught I was like, I don't know what to ask this person and all these are the questions but my husband a teacher and I'm curious of two if your kids are in school and if they're learning from home right now and how you feel about all that have cuz you said they go to public school. When you you didn't initially curious about that. First part of your question was about like going to Catholic school and how that affected me. I think what I wrote The Bayou is trying to show that

15:34 I've come too far from where I started in many ways, but the experience of Catholic School.

15:44 While I will always be grateful for the people who are kind to me in that community and you know, so many people came to my father's funeral and like supported us in many ways. In other ways. I really feel like I it didn't help me grow up in the positive Ways by being exposed to a diversity of people and my kids, you know, I was in ways I didn't even realize until I was like almost 40 years old and my children are going to school and I'm like, oh my God, you know, like the majority of my children's teachers have been people of color men and women

16:32 You know, I didn't have one person of color who was a teacher for me my entire upbringing and that does affect the way you see the world like, you know, I live in DC like black women have taught my child how to swim black women have taught my child how to read and write me know let Tina women or teaching my children how to speak Spanish, you know that they've been taught by men which was like almost unheard of for me until at least getting to high school. So I really value the that my children can see that so many different kinds of people can be their teachers.

17:15 And it's not just sort of the same kinds of people or just like do you know that they see the diversity of people who can teach them things and who they can respect and admire. So that's been really important to me. And then your second question was just about the experience of remote school, I think during

18:15 Are the schools? I'm sorry to interrupt are the what are the schools meeting in person at all? And you chosen the option to stay home to keep them home or is there no in-person Mark has opened its doors and Creative Learning hubs for like the the most underserved families. That's the term they use for people who you know, I'm not privy to their situations, but I imagined as people who like might be homeless or not have a safe home to go to or you know, their parents are essential workers. Hopefully it is dire need and so essentially those kids since November have been able to go to school and have someone who's there to like help facilitate the remote learning cuz they also opted not to have the teachers return because they want the teachers to be able to facilitate remote learning for the other like the majority of the children.

19:15 So that's the situation now, it sounds like there will be more options for people to go back to like in February, but my husband my like we we don't really have any big like we don't have a need to go back to physical school and I'm happy with them prioritizing the people who like really need it for whatever reason.

19:40 That's kind of the opposite way that they approach they taken here with the kids.

19:46 That teachers

19:50 So they're not really following the health department or the state protocols and let me know pretty rural area, but they haven't shut the schools down and they only recently restarted the remote learning option for just a few kids, but they've been back in school for months and

20:11 My husband has severe asthma and so initially he was running the remote learning program cuz none of the other teachers use the technology teacher and and then they they just cut it off and so he went on leave started using up his leave to stay home cuz they weren't wearing masks in school or social distancing and he he sees everybody k28. He sees every grade so he wasn't even just sticking to one grades worth of kids. It's a small school but still so 410, so he stayed home and then we could go they call them in the morning and said you have kids now.

20:50 There's people to teachers out with a virus ones in the hospital parents with a virus kids sick and nobody's testing so we don't really know what the numbers are but none of them are being reported to the school still open. So we don't know what's happening after the holiday break at all. But most of the people here want their kids in school and we are just scratching our head and it's nice to hear somebody.

21:16 Happy the kids are home doing well, and that there's a system for them and in the way you approach this and just making them for the the way your school district has approached it and making room for kids that need it. The most is.

21:29 Nice to hear

21:31 Cuz it's Nick. I don't feel like the pro cheers very intelligent.

21:37 Yeah.

21:39 What what what has brought you to the area where you live now and like do you feel a connection to it or are there other reasons that you're there?

21:54 It's a great question will when I decided to go back to school I had just met my husband.

22:01 And he lived up here he works for a computer and computer stuff for years and just hit a wall with it and decided to take a sabbatical and decide what to do with his life which ended up going back to school to become a teacher but you bought a little cabin. This is a really small town couple hours north of Phoenix where most people come to escape the heat in the summer. So it's a lot of Summer Fountain not a lot of full-time residents, but we've been here for a while and when I was going back to school and I was going to travel a lot he suggested I based out of here setting up to pay rent anywhere and and I didn't cuz I was all in love and like sure it's beautiful in the wood. We're surrounded by national forest. And I feel very connected to the Natural World here and this is the longest I've stayed somewhere as an adult. I mean, I stayed in certain towns, but I moved around a lot and I love my home and I put a lot into it, you know, just trying to make it kind of

23:02 My sacred safe space

23:06 But I don't just connected to the people here and I tried.

23:10 It's nothing against Mormons, but this isn't warm instead of town and it's very conservative and I am clearly not.

23:24 And I have to censor myself a lot because of my husband's position know we hide that. I have another partner not to my direct neighbors cuz we just not willing to be that, you know hidden but yeah, it's uncomfortable and I and people aren't taking the virus seriously and

23:44 I feel the divide in our country more than ever and that bothers me. It's part of what brought me here. So I really wanted I really like you I expected to feel like when I read your blood have been like all she sounds cool and now you sound really cool. So I might not sure where the differences are differences, but they are but I just don't feel safe anymore to talk to people about the things that I don't understand that I want to I don't know how to have those conversations with even my neighbor sometimes.

24:21 Yeah, I can relate to that a lot. I want to give you the chance to ask a question, but we'll just kind of related to what you said about.

24:32 Are you travel kind of LED you to studying getting your Masters and uses peace and conflict management, which is your forever. And I interview you got of other cultures.

24:51 It's something that we think we all need and I I've never actually made it off this continent and I've always wanted to like this was going to be the year of travel cuz I feel you know, healthy enough to do with everything but it's hard because seeing that sing different cultures and I grew up in West Virginia and I went to I didn't go to my mom's catholic school, but it wasn't very diverse either and and I think that that hinders people are good vet makes them afraid of of different that you've had a very different perspective that has is a part of what you say you gone through and where you been, you know growing up and everyone really liked makes people change right? Like someone could be really well traveled in like

25:44 They don't take they don't take anything from it or they take different things than what I took but I feel like I don't know why this is but I feel like even even before I travel as a refugee officer and I really got the chance to go to some crazy tourist places in the world. Even before that. Like even my first job in Dallas, you know, I had been to Mexico when I get to Europe but like I was like, how is it that I can be in a room with like hundreds of Sudanese people.

26:18 And I don't it doesn't bother me. Like I don't feel threatened. Like I feel safe. I feel like I can make a connection with someone in this room. I don't know in my best friend and I have talked about that like she did the Peace Corps. We were talking about that. They like why why is why is it okay for us? Like I don't feel you know unsafe living in Mexico City, even though there's like Street crime everywhere, but it I don't it doesn't make me like just trust Mexican people because I know that nothing there's no like identifier that makes someone good or bad like they're just people in like you keep can't go by someone's like labels or bio and like make any kind of judgment about them. You have to like get a feel for the who that person is and

27:13 You know did it are they do they have like it a sort of selfish I mentality or is it morning clusive we mentality are they, you know, things like that about the person which is so much more important than like any any label in any survey. So I don't know why that is I don't understand it. Yeah. I know I had that same conversation with people and why some of us can yeah exactly why she bowled so much fear. I think they are that are different as opposed to curiosity. Yes exactly. I'm so curious about Lake people and it's something else.

27:57 That make you know, I'm I'm very judgemental about certain things but it's it's being judgmental about like not being kind or being like something something that you can't like put in a bio or a survey something else and I don't understand. I don't understand what that is or why why I have it now. I mean I fail at it every day, but why is it easier for me in and harder for other people? I wish I could uncracked that nut and give it to more people in our world.

28:31 Do you find it that people in other countries are less fearful of difference than they are here. Is it by culture? I mean not to just say not to I don't know but I don't think so. I mean everywhere you go in the world. There's going to be people who are curious and people who are afraid it's not really a cultural era a tot sings so much. I think sometimes the self-righteousness is hot.

29:02 Yeah, certain Community is our belief systems like in gender this feeling of like

29:08 Self-righteousness of like what I'm doing is right and what you're doing is wrong, which I find to be the sort of violence almost.

29:23 But yeah, I don't I don't I don't see that at all. I think it is very particular to the person but I don't like how do I give that to my kids? How do how do other people get that late? I feel like that could be something really important for all of us and that like you I don't understand how to talk to my family my extended family in Idaho or like my husband's family in Mississippi are our nuclear families are very much.

29:56 On the same page in a lot of ways, but our extended family like they don't even want to talk about important things and I don't know how to like

30:07 Make any sort of progress of intimacy when they they won't even talk about anything intimate.

30:15 Do you feel like people in your community? Like do you feel like they maintain a distance from you like actively or?

30:26 I think yeah, I when I get to know people it's almost like you can.

30:34 And I really restrain myself but I feel I'm I push some buttons. I don't mean to I'm too honest or something or I want to talk about things. You know, I don't want to talk about the wedding and I understand like trying to find some common ground to start with with people. But then I like to go deeper. I find fake people interesting and I want understand how they taken of people don't seem to want to be understood but it's even more than that. It's something you if you touched on it, so kind of a mental flexibility, you know, what is it about you that, you know, LOL house you just think a certain way and grow and become more more wear and then then that you think you're you know, you're not in this really good at it everyday.

31:27 Is just shows you're wearing ass. It's like that that whole at adage the more I know the more I know I don't know.

31:35 But sometimes I wonder if people hold so tightly to the things they believe in and they're afraid to let their friend to change their mind like there's something so painful about that admitting that maybe it's not I think they see is I can't admit I'm wrong as opposed to I'm just evolving my ideas, you know, like people grab onto ID and they just stop there as opposed to

31:59 Where's the curiosity like let's expand that world you expanded and sometimes I think it's just it's a lot of comfort. You know me. So little control over the world that if they hold onto something with a little faith in tightness some set of beliefs systems that it gives them a little bit of sense of control. Maybe you live in this world, you know, you're you're older than me save the benefit of life experience. But like you live in this you said it's a very tiny real area.

32:31 You've lived in different places, but like how how have you like learn so much and become so wise and continue to evolve.

32:41 Well, I think partly cuz I left West Virginia. I think I was lucky enough in a young age. But when I moved to Colorado and move to Boulder, which is a pretty Progressive place and I was in my early twenties and what led me there were friends that I met while following the Grateful Dead so not to give a band credit but there's a sense of adventure community in connection that I found following a band in my early Twenties that that got me out of the Midwest and exploring more spiritual matters exploring more just about no difference. And so I went to Boulder in a kind of blew my mind for a while and just met all different kinds of people from all walks of life.

33:37 So that helped I have to say and then and in that time I discovered.

33:44 Kind of alternative more alternative cultures in this country, which you never listen.

33:51 Battle ternative necessarily in retrospect, but to me it wasn't the time so

33:57 When I went to the artist Co-op, I discovered intentional communities and started visiting some of those and seeing people who are trying to live in a different way than the norm in this country and what I had grown up thinking all this is what you do, you know.

34:12 Go to college and you get married in your kids and then I stopped going out.

34:19 It just going to open up a world and I've always been really curious and never bored and I have more trouble just trying to decide what I want to do cuz I want to do too much.

34:28 Yeah, and what I mean, you don't have to answer if you don't want to but what what is what was what was the health problem? And how did you overcome that?

34:38 What I was born in a little premature and it is my digestive lining was not fully formed and I had a hiatal hernia, which is like a hole between your esophagus in your stomach. So your stomach doesn't really stay down or keep food down properly. So I cut my sister described me as The Exorcist baby who not to go into detail, but I was constantly not yes to that last and most of my life my life. My parents didn't really know what to do. They were told I had food allergies and it wasn't only diagnosed till I was a young adult started pursuing it myself. And so I've had I've also have problems with my body creating the nine masses of all kinds of people would say that's connected to the polluted area. I grew up. I don't know. I mean, who knows?

35:33 And I haven't had a lot of success with Western medicine helping me on surgical things. So for the natural path now really I'm really restricted diet with the hopes of someday at not being so much once I had to read teach my body had to digest but that digestion affect so many parts of us that it just ended up in a leading to another problem. So but I'm honestly feel better than I have ever felt in my life.

36:03 So that in itself is excited. I feel like I'm in a place where now I'm ready to kind of start living after not realizing how awful I felt for my whole life.

36:14 It's your turn.

36:17 Yeah, I want to ask you about in a given your profession and experience feel about the refugee crisis than the road right now as well as are you also involved in people who come in this country for Refugee status or for Asylum very settling the United States because I'm I now work on the the government side sewart the job. The job is the job of USCIS essentially of your government agencies to decide who gets to come.

37:00 And then once people are approved to come there are.

37:06 State Department contractors who are contracted to offer them resettlement services for a pretty short. Of time, but I'm so tired and have ever since I became a refugee officer back in 2008 or 9 but in a couple of years ago will last year my division was actually shut down by this Administration. And so I just applied for other jobs and I found this really cool job doing human centered design for the agency. So it's just now it's basically my job to like use the science to try to design better like ways of doing our work to make employees lives better essentially no to offer better services to applicants. I'm so start of more like a business design job.

38:06 But I consciously perceive that not only because it sounded really fun and creative but also because you know, I have colleagues who were like physically ill because they feel like they're not really protecting people because of the policies of this Administration and I wanted and also at least I could try to make employees last better until until like an administrator. There's an Administration that are that is making more balanced decisions, you know.

38:42 You you can balance like human life with National Security. It's not a zero-sum game. So, you know looking forward to another. Of time where someone is better able to strike that balance.

39:00 Do you have hopes for the new Administration? Like I don't know if it's because like our because so much psychologically has been depleted. Especially if you if you live in DC and you like working government just watch and like small-mindedness first hands, you know, I just I don't know if like I didn't have enough emotional reserves to feel hope but I definitely have felt like really fly guy physically sighed with relief when I've heard like who's going to be in charge of Homeland Security or like that, you know, I started crying when I found out by then one, you know, like just feeling release that like,

39:54 And then seeing you know that someone was appointed to be in charge of climate change like that. That would be a priority and then someone like John Kerry would actually be put in that position like, you know that mean something even if I know I hope they'll be able to accomplish things as well. But like just the symbolic gesture is putting those kinds of people in important positions and I also you know personally I just had forgotten that there were like real adults who like tarragon people and we're really competent to or like willing to work for our government because for the past

40:36 Dislike revolving-door of like acting people who either get fired or leave after like 5 minutes and you're and none of them are confirmed by the Senate and you read their resume. I don't understand how this person got this job.

40:51 And then just be like you're like, oh my God, there's like actual like people with like big resumes who are like nice who want to work for our government? Like it just makes me feel like I forgot about that.

41:08 That makes me feel good and I'm not not in DCI from afar it we've been scratching our heads and my husband is a political. Junkie when I met him. He's like he told me he'd Rewritten the Constitution to make more sense and I just fell in love with him.

41:31 Constitutional law and I've just like, I just need to re-read this document like a hundred times and it's amazing. He always has how much is subject to interpretation. It's just so big, you know, but yeah, I know from afar it's been crazy and that makes me feel you know, better hearing that from you being a little closer to things than I am. But one of the questions I'm in the prep packet for this was about you know, how we feel about the future of our country and when finding one one thing you there's nothing but Trump signs are all over the place here so that you can talk to you about it going in. You know, we just were so keeping to ourselves and trying to not be too anxious and they're still people in Argentina live Arizona GOP. Just tweeted something about who's willing to Die For This

42:31 Causes of returning the election night like it was like we are leaving the country and I was like, I don't we're not even prepared to do that. There's a pandemic. I know that's what my husband said the same thing. He said to each of the Trump getting re-elected. We're all bets are off we're moving for at least the Lux thing looks like jumping ship.

43:08 Yeah, and then so a lot of my friends are out celebrating and I was celebrating but I was also like that I'm nervous about just the extent of what Goddess just to the place that that that someone with with Trump's values as was elected and that and I I think mine is a good man, but he's part of that system and so I'm still nervous about where we're at and how to buy the we are and what it's going to take to to change that and I'm nervous about when we come out of if we come out of this crisis so often at their best and their worst in Crisis 4, then when the crisis goes away,

43:50 A lot of the good things that have come out of it cuz there are some in terms of people's

43:55 Community involvement ER resourcefulness and some of the more sharing with going on.

44:01 Then I'm I want to see that continue and increase and I don't want to go back to a status quote. I think we have a lot of work to do and I'm spike said so hopeful that real change going to happen with climate change. That's one of my biggest concerns.

44:19 I know I have children, but in response to that question.

44:26 I don't I mean, I don't know the future future. I assume that the world is chaos and that it's there for our responsibility to like try to like make it less hellish, but I've but I'm also uncomfortable with that. I'm uncomfortable. I'm comfortable with the uncertainty which is why I don't need to go to church. Like I don't I don't need that certainty. I can feel that sense of transcendence in mystery and I'm okay with it. I don't need like a I don't need to be told what the answer is for the future of our country. I mean, I don't know.

45:17 I know that I was I could have believed that it wasn't a landslide. Like I got a text from a friend who just like anti-racism education and she was like I'm so angry that after 4 years of hate. It's even close. I didn't understand the Republican who switch sides when Trump became the Republican party in like she she she lives in Idaho which is like one of the reddest states in the country and she said one word after 2016. She was like shallow.

45:59 She's like what I see is like a lot of shallow thinking, you know, you could put selfishness in that bucket, but it's like why are you even talking about getting $50 back in your taxes when like they're separating families at the border? Like why are we even individual lives and what's going on right here in front of them with that with the World At Large? I don't know. That's where I feel like education is.

46:31 Missing the boat a little bit. I like what I mean it I sense that something important to you as these like this idea like intentional Cooperative community and I read an article in the New York Times recently that was talking about the the biggest Trends. They see is the like I the I vs. We mentality and how that shaped politics and I really last on to that cuz I was like, yes like that. I feel like that gets to the root of so much like you see you see red States like passing Medicaid expansion passing Lake Universal preschool passing, you know, like like obvious like Democratic initiatives, but still but still voting for Trump and so I right and there's no you know, like the Republicans are my team. So I just follow my team or like

47:29 Yeah, I'm so shallow that I don't even really think about who I'm voting for. I don't know what it is. But if if we can somehow just like ignore those like hard party lines and focus on like yeah and you take all the labels away from them and it's like do you want me to have health care?

47:51 Do you make my kids go to preschool?

47:54 It's almost like they it's easy by going. Well, I just vote with the party and it's made people not have to actually research with you voting for. This is why my husband went back to education. He's like, I don't know what else to do. Then go back to a point where you teach people critical.

48:10 And also I think we all we get so much without having to notice how things got to us like the connection between you know, how we bought where food comes from. So our connection to each other is less clear than it used to be too many people you can get by without having to interact with people now with technology and stuff and it it creates a feeling of separateness for people like they don't even know how to communicate with each other anymore. But I fully agree when you sit down and you just talk to someone one-on-one about issues and you get away from those labels are values always tend to be aligned except for the most extreme kind of, you know, people who are in a very hateful place when you really talk about things to people tend to look like if you took away every single, you know, an indicator that seized in like like if you just said like do you think someone who grew up in this country should be able to stay

49:10 You know, like don't don't talk about the dreamers don't talk about whether they came here legally or illegally just like talk about it like underlying problem and then build it from there. Maybe we would get farther. I don't know but I also don't know what people mean when they say certain terms and I would love to just travel the country and be like what what is socialism?

49:40 What is exactly what is freedom right and without that without knowing without really having the same definitions of things like that and getting your source of information about such part words like socialism people are not.

49:56 Even though she took that word away and you actually right when you talk about the programs.

50:01 People getting even

50:05 Great, but yeah, I don't know but I I can only as an optimistic nihilists I can only

50:16 I can plan for the worst. But hope for the best. I think that's the same as my idea was to realize there's your language. They were saying the same thing as well. I think that the key is dialog it stalking if you can figure out how to do it.

50:37 Right

50:39 But I'm still dying to know why they paired us up. I wonder if it was I want to

50:48 Country and I had trouble I don't know what it's or like when you're in the city and I'm in a real place monogamous relationship, but I don't think we should all be bisexual or polyamorous. I was just like I wonder why they did Paris. I was like very interesting.

51:22 Do we hit our mark?