Creator's Reflection

Creator's Reflection

Here, creator of the project, Delaney Zuver, reflects on her journey making this resource. She sits down with her good friend Ella to have a conversation about her experience with the project and the overarching themes she noticed in all of the stories.

Delaney Zuver

Ella Lang

Unpublished

2021/3/13

Mp3

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Eng

Sound

Still Image

REFLECTION

Laney [00:00:14] My name is Laney Zuver, and you're listening to my reflection on my Project 2020 summer stories. Hopefully by now you've had the opportunity to listen to at least a few of the stories generously shared by participants from all over the country. If not, definitely stop here and click the Browse stories tab in the menubar.

Laney [00:00:36] I decided to do this reflection by mirroring the process I shared with my participants. So basically I sat down with my longtime friend and current roommate, Ella.

Laney [00:00:48] We sat down and chatted about my project. I mean, she's been here since the beginning and she knew a few things that were going into my independent study, but she didn't know the full story. So I sat down and walked her through my process in creating my independent study and the website that you're on right now.

Laney [00:01:09] I like you've seen me work on this project for a while now.

ella [00:01:13] Yes.

Laney [00:01:14] From being trapped in the closet and like it all my clothes after I record an interview or a part of my audio or like, I don't know, the whole writing process, like, you kind of seen it.

Laney [00:01:27] But this is the first time that we're sitting down and I'm like, telling you what it's about. Cut to like midsummer 2020, and I'm in my family home and I'm freaking out because the independent study I had planned, it wasn't going to work with covid. So my whole thing was derailed. And I felt like I was really just floating. And I had a conversation with my mentor. I would say, yeah, yeah. And she basically told me to really concentrate on what about that project meant the most to me. You know, I'd like at the end of the day, I walked away and it was like, OK, I care about talking directly to people and hearing their stories and sharing those with the world. So we thought about other ways that we could do that. And like I had just had a conversation with my dad about ... he's such a like news junkie guy. And so all summer he was just like in front of the TV screen, just like watching the news, watching everything that was happening. And he's also social studies/history teacher, retired. And so history really matters to him. And so I remember him turning to me and being like, Laney, you have to be keeping a journal right now because this is such a tumultuous time. There's so much going on. Like you're really going to want to remember so much of what this summer was. And that really stuck with me because I compared my story to the stories of, like people I was working with. I worked at a hospital over the summer, so, you know, their stories were very different, depending on their jobs from my story and for my friends all across the country. And I don't know, it got me thinking in this meeting with my mentor just about like how important this time is. And so I kind of came to the conclusion that I wanted to do something about this time. and, obviously, that's it's a lot to talk about, so I definitely came into it being really nervous and excited, but like really nervous because I had no idea what it was going to look like. And I had decided that I wanted to make it a creative project by making a resource, which is something from the original IS project that I had wanted to do. But now it was kind of different. So it was something like throughout the whole process, I can say now, like I was constantly needing to be reminded by my adviser, it's OK to be creative, you know, lean into the creativity, embrace this like these tensions that are coming up. It doesn't have to be cut and dry. Like here's my research. Here's my analysis. Here is like data, you know what I'm saying? And that was really hard the whole time because I had never done something like that before.

Laney [00:04:19] But I came out on the other side and I was like, I'm so glad that it pushed itself into the creative because I think it ended up being so much more fulfilling for me.

Laney [00:04:27] I can talk more about the creative side of that, too.

Laney [00:04:31] So I guess then, like after I got to school and after I had been freaking out about, you know, what this was going to be and like what shape it was going to take, I started to interview participants and that process was amazing because people just came out of the woodwork like people were throwing themselves at me.

ella [00:04:51] Of course,.

Laney [00:04:53] Yeah, I don't I don't know if that has something to do with, like, the environment we're in at the college or just the people I have in my life just being so generous. But like so many people were willing to sit down and chat with me and so many people were willing to connect me with someone they knew that they knew who had had like a really interesting summer. And it was just so amazing to see. And and I'm just so grateful. And I'm also really grateful because for a lot of people, like this was the first time they you know, we're talking about their summer and like reflecting on a really, really hard time. Like there were some interviews... The way I set them up, I didn't I didn't necessarily have questions. I only had one question just to tell me about the summer. And that allowed people to go into maybe those darker parts, not go into them. You know, the point of the project wasn't to be like, gotcha, these juicy facts. It was like, what do you remember? What is like defining about this time that you want to share? But still, even so, so many of them just like shared really scary times, really personal times that, you know, I'm so thankful that they felt comfortable enough to do that and be vulnerable and work that out with me, because, again, it was also so recent, which is something else that I was interested in. I was like I wanted to be kind of close to the end of the summer because I think it's really interesting to have this kind of raw look at like, whoa, what just happened not 20 years down the line where I'm like, oh, I learned so much about myself. You know, from that time, it's like, no, I'm still figuring out what I'm learning about myself. Here's just what happened, you know? And that's hard to process for the first time with someone you don't know. But everybody was so wonderful about it and it was so easy to talk to all my participants. And it was just really, really wonderful.

ella [00:06:50] I love that you created a space to have that, like, give and take. it's like part of your process to create an environment where people get to process a really difficult time with you. And then also you're creating a resource for people to go back and maybe people who didn't get to talk to you will get to kind of relate their similar experiences to the people who you did in interview.

Laney [00:07:16] Yeah. And that's so much of what the project is about. And like so much of why I think it's I mean, it's essentially an oral history project. Right. But a little different. But really, it's about a lot of things. It's about that moment of connection. And hearing someone outside of yourself talk about an experience you had like that can do so much for folks. It's about those moments of connection and it's also about the moments of difference and understanding that, you know, my summer was different from Cecelia, Summer was different from Dr. Fahimi. Summer working in a hospital was, you know what I'm saying, like and being like, oh, all of this was going on at the same time as my experience. And maybe now when all of these events happened, I have a better understanding of how to extend myself and put myself in other people's shoes, because I've heard, you know, I've practiced that already by listening to these recordings and things. But, yeah, I, I really wanted to make it a space where it was. All up to them, what they wanted to talk about, what they wanted to process, what they wanted to say was important to them and what they came away with. So, yeah, it was, yeah, really important to me. And like that also kind of went into there was like so much tension between the academic and the accessible. Yeah. Sometimes there it's a dichotomy. Sometimes there, you know, it can be an academic research that is accessible, but sometimes it's, you know, one or the other. And so that was a big part of it, too, because, you know, I also understand that this is a time that people will study. And so, like having those stories as well to add context meant a lot to me for when people are trying to make sense of this time way down the line. But that's why I kind of chose the platform that I did. It's one that is going to make sure ...because I want it to be like a living resource. And so by doing it through the library and like having a lot of metadata, it just ensures that a lot of stuff doesn't get lost and just fade into the background or the files get corrupted. So that was really important to me, too. And I want it to continue for a long time and I want people to be able to find it.

Laney [00:09:42] And it's not perfect.

Laney [00:09:45] But I hope that regular folk who, like you said, are just trying to.

Laney [00:09:51] You gain some perspective or listen to their friend or whatever, like or just strangers.

Laney [00:09:59] I hope that it's a space where it's accessible to them and easy to figure out.

ella [00:10:03] So is it something that you're going to continue adding to or like changing over time?

Laney [00:10:08] Yeah, I mean, definitely. I would like to.

Laney [00:10:13] I think it would be really interesting to keep having people submit their stories. Yeah, you know, once this kind of takes like I turn it in and start telling more people about it and it's more accessible to the general population, I just maybe people will be inspired to like, give their story as well, which is something that I don't want to shut down and that I'll be able to add to for a long time.

ella [00:10:39] Yeah, well, I kind of wanted to hear more of your thoughts on bridging the academic with the public information. I know that's something that I've been thinking a lot about of academia and making it accessible while also exploring the thoughts. Yeah. To Yeah. So yeah. Just like. Yeah. Can you speak more about that. Sure.

Laney [00:11:10] So I mean this portion that we're talking about right now is a big part of it like this. What we're doing by recording this is a big part of it, because I have a whole IS that I wrote that I want to make it accessible to people, but.

Laney [00:11:23] That was a tension that I had pretty much throughout the entire project because I was so fearful of leaning into the creative side. I wanted to cling so desperately to like the academic side because it was what I knew and it was what I knew this process to be. And so throughout the entire thing, it was like my adviser being like, it's OK if you don't have an analysis section, it's OK if you whatever. Right. Because what's important is what folks are going to be able to hear and engage with. And if my goal is to make change, I don't want that to just be at an academic level. So by making it something that ... having transcripts available to people as well as like an audio format, which for a long time. You know, has been used. For storytelling in general, right, like from the beginning of time or whatever, that was really important to me and I and I just find that audio. I just find it to be like. Especially audio and people's own voices can be so much more impactful. I really had to make a decision when I was putting this website together. OK, do I want this to just be like raw data that is so boring to listen to and people are going to, like, get so bored and walk away with nothing? Because I'm keeping all this raw data for other academics to study? Or do I want it to be something that, you know, maybe I have a little bit more of a hand in editing and making, engaging and really kind of breaching that line of like the raw data portion of it in order to make change and make it accessible for regular people to listen to. And at the end of the day, like just my personal values, I, I tended towards, you know, my grandma, my neighbor...

ella [00:13:20] To make something interesting to listen to. Yeah.

Laney [00:13:24] Yeah. And wanting to accentuate the parts that my participants, of course, it's so much politic about, like select .. like in my editing process it was really hard because I was editing everything and it was all about being selective on what I thought was important to keep in this interview. And not really the recordings are pretty much all there. I didn't take any content out. It was a lot of times and glitches and things like that that happened. So I kind of flirted that line where I tried to make it engaging. I added music, I added some voiceover parts, made it easy to listen to so that folks wouldn't, you know, get bored or turned away or feel like. Oh, I don't know what to make of this. I wish you would explain something, you know, and then. Yeah, and also like leaving a good amount there so people get a full picture. And I'm also not taking too much control in what is being said by these participants. But then there are a lot of there's a lot of weight in the "ums" and the "uhs" and the pauses where my pausing where am I. So that was like a big part of this. But overall, I leaned towards, listenability and accessibility in that sense. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

ella [00:14:46] Yeah. I was also wondering, just in terms of speaking to all of these people from different parts of the country, like were there stories or themes that were inspiring to you that caught your attention?

Laney [00:15:05] So that actually moves me to the next part that I wanted to talk about because I didn't know what was going to happen in the interviews. I had to pick something to focus on that I was going to look for. And that was narrative structure and the influence of media and just basically how we tell stories from memory. So that was what I was focusing on. I had a really hard time just focusing on that because so many of my participants had so many things to say. Right. Like so many events that were so impactful, so many like experiences that really said a lot about. Where the country is at like what the generation experienced that would be more appropriate for maybe like a an analysis, a historical analysis as opposed to me where I'm doing like a narrative analysis. So that was really a hard part because I just had a million notes. And then at the end of that process, when I sat down to write this reflection, I was like, oh, but this this this project's about narrative. Like out of everything I need to be, like, sticking to that. So as far as that went, there are a few themes that definitely popped up. So and I'll talk about them all. But there was like organization. So how people tended to organize their memories and organize their time over the span. Yeah, over the span of the summer, there was media influence. Over how they saw the summer and then there were like cultural narratives that influenced basically how they understood this summer. So starting with the organizational structure, like I said, just like so much stuff. So I basically gave folks a time frame that they had to walk me through, which was May 15th to August 31st and nobody had a linear story, so much of what I read was for the reading I had done before, there were all of these theories about, you know, here's the order that people generally tell a story in and you know what I'm saying? And of course, since that was published, as so many folks have come out and said, like, well, stories aren't always linear. Yeah. So, you know, that was something that I kind of expected. But really, just like was the one thing across the board, everybody was backtracking. Everyone was, oh, did I tell you about this a while back in May, you know, so which makes sense, right? Like it's a long period of time. And I didn't ask for specifics. And so there were a couple of ways people dealt with that. So the first one was people use their phones and their photo libraries.

ella [00:17:55] Oh, yeah, cool.

Laney [00:17:58] But people use like they're their phones and their photo libraries to. Go back and remember what happened, which led to really specific and detailed stories, which was really cool because, you know, it's all right there. You can remember what it looks like or oh, I didn't forget this detail because I have a photo of it. Right. So that was really wonderful. A lot of times it fell really well into the time constraints, too, because they could go to exactly May 15th. What photos do I have on that date to exactly August 31st? The other thing is that I'll say like nobody could completely fit their stories inside of a time frame as well, because so much of the lockdown began in March. And so, so much of it was like, OK, well, here's the context to where I was this summer. So, you know, here's the back story to why I was here on May 15th, which was really hard and just proves that it's hard to, like, move through time like that. But the folks with the photos did a really good job. However, it caused a lot more backtracking, I thought, because folks would see a picture later and be like, oh, this was, you know, my garden. I forgot to tell you, I planted a garden in May. And so, like, let me go and tell you about my process with the garden. But they're looking at the picture from when they harvested in August. So if they hadn't taken a picture of it, like as they were doing it in the beginning of the process, they would forget to talk about it. Does that make sense?

ella [00:19:30] Yeah.

Laney [00:19:30] Yeah. So, you know, it was really helpful. Got a lot of detailed stories, but not necessarily super linear. Yeah. Or like not the most linear. Another way people organize was like geographically, so a lot of people moved around over the summer and so that meant that they were kind of working from place to place. So they would be like, I started in Seattle, like Ian's story that you can find on the website. I started in Seattle. I needed to get to Duluth. I took a road trip and I went here, here, here, here, here. I ended in Duluth. And so that was like a way that they organized their time based on what place they were in, which made for a more linear story, but not as much detail because they were maybe like not having as many reminders and more focused on the ways they got from place to place and what they were doing there, as opposed to like, oh, how did you feel? Like tell me more what it felt like to be there, you know, things like that. The other ways that people structured their time, there was people that said, I'm going to separate the summer into the personal, the professional and the political, which is a great idea. But so many of those things overlap. And so it kind of defeated the purpose to do like a thematic organization. And some people really didn't structure their time at all. And those were really short stories because people were just like maybe naming two or three things that happened over the summer. Not a lot of detail because they hadn't thought about it. But that meant that the question portion was really rich and where, like a lot of the details and things like that, like were. Yeah. So that was like organizational structure, how people tended to remember their time.

Laney [00:21:20] The other the other themes were media. So I, I mean, this was like a really relatable part for me because I don't know anybody.

Laney [00:21:30] I mean, I'm sure there were people, but it was really hard to stay away from the screen over like quarantine and not having much to do. And it was like a really good way for a lot of people to connect.

Ella [00:21:40] Wait, can I pause you?

laney [00:21:41] Yeah,.

ella [00:21:42] Right. When you're saying media, are you talking about like just like news and things and like anything on the on your phone?

Laney [00:21:50] Yeah, I really that was something I thought a lot about too, because for a while I thought news. But we are also so influenced by like what are we comfort watching. Like what is comforting to us or like social media, like how did we do that. So when I said media, I really just said media and I let people take it in whatever direction I got. A lot of people took it in the news direction, which was fine. But I got a lot of people talking about like social media and their experiences with that, too. People talked a lot across the board about doomscrolling and being so entranced by the bad news and not being able to look away and not being able to take a break and just being obsessed, even though you're so upset, just feeling like you need to find out more about a situation. Right. Which there was a lot to do that with the summer. And people had more time, well, some people who maybe were working from home for the first time, had more access to a screen, do that more often. They spent a lot of people to take breaks, feel like they needed to take breaks from their phone breaks, from their TV breaks, from whatever, and so that meant sometimes, like some people, Cecilia, whose interviews on the website was like, yeah, I couldn't look at the news. And so I just had my dad like, tell me what was going on and what I needed to know, which is like really interesting to think about the framing that instead of getting it from a direct source, like having that source to your dad, to you, how that message changes, how it affects the way you understand what's going on and what news gets to you, what news doesn't. But it was also a way to preserve mental health. It was a way for her to, like, not spend all that time, you know, doomscrolling and feeling bad. So a lot of people talked about trying to take those breaks.

Laney [00:23:46] But something I was thinking about a lot when people were talking about that was how much backlash I saw for folks talking about, you know, oh, I'm taking a break from social media at a time that so much was going on.

Laney [00:23:59] And I thought about folks who, especially regarding the Black Lives Matter uprisings that were happening all across the country pretty much all summer long. How the frustration that a lot of organizers had at people choosing now to take a break from social media and what that meant as far as. You know, your situation in society and like your positioning as far as like privileges you have and things like that, so that was something that was in the back of my mind. And there was also in the back of my mind, the genuine need for people to not dwell on doom. And so, I mean, I think that was on my mind for myself too this summer. So it was good to hear that kind of reflected in other folks, because a lot of people talked about organizing on social media as well as far as like Black Lives Matter movement things and things like that. So and feeling frustrated that folks were looking away at a time that felt so crucial. Yeah, so that was really interesting and obviously like what we were tuned in for as far as like media went, news media specifically changed what we brought up. And, you know, our stories like like if I know about the wildfires that were happening in in California over the summer, maybe I'm more inclined to bring it up, even though I don't live on the West Coast as opposed to a lot of folks who, you know, weren't watching news like that and did it bring it up, if that makes sense?

Laney [00:25:36] Yeah, it just changes what your focus is on. Another reason people avoided social media because people were getting jealous of other people's covid-19 summer 2020 narratives so that that, like exposure to social media completely changes how you view your own story and your own experience afterwards, too. So there were folks that were like, you know, I didn't really do a lot. I didn't like I could have taken advantage of this, this, this and this, certainly because they saw other folks doing that. And a lot of times it's like there's three narratives there. There's your narrative. There's the narrative you're seeing from this person on social media, and then there's the actual narrative of like what this person experienced. And so that exchange of that middle narrative that might be slightly exaggerated, slightly constructed, can really shift how you view your own memory of that time. Right. That was a really productive time for me. It wasn't a productive time for me. I did a good job of taking care of my mental health. I didn't do a good job of taking care of my mental health. So that was a really important part of people's stories that was affected by what they were taking in. Yeah, I mean, other than that other kinds of media, it was a lot of escapist media. So people talked about going back to the things they really loved as a kid and playing old video games or reading old books that they used to love and rereading them for that sense of comfort, like during a really uncertain time and a really emotionally stressful time, that was a way that media really comforted people. A part of their story was the ways that they took care of themselves.

Laney [00:27:16] And that nostalgic media definitely played a part in that.

Laney [00:27:20] So my last kind of theme that I picked up on were these like cultural narratives. And this is kind of a big topic because there are a lot of stories that we tell in our culture that really influence how we saw this time. So something that I definitely picked up on was a lot of people brought up 9/11, which is really interesting.

ella [00:27:43] Was it like generationally you noticed.

Laney [00:27:45] Yeah, older folks as in like over thirty. Yeah.

Laney [00:27:51] And something I remember feeling and wrote and then I wrote about it like a lot of times when they were talking about this, they would say there was so much division over the summer, people didn't get along.

Laney [00:28:03] It's so different from when 9/11 happened and we came together as a country. I don't understand why that's not happening here, which when I heard that.

Laney [00:28:18] Really, to me, said a lot about, again, people's specific positioning in society, their privileges, obviously, I mean, everything does, but like 9/11 wasn't a great time for a lot of people. A lot of people really felt ostracized by that time.

Laney [00:28:36] There were lots of hate crimes against people who practice Islam and were Muslim.

Laney [00:28:46] That still exists today. And so it just seemed like a really blatant way of saying, like, I had a good experience and I came together with my folks in my community. And that was really good for all of us. And it just kind of was like this cultural narrative, too, that is portrayed so often in media of like that's the overriding message of what that time was, which is not true. So I really thought that was really interesting that people kind of latched on to that and wanted to use that time to make sense of this time, because in their mind, it wasn't as nuanced as the reality of the situation was. Does that make sense?

ella [00:29:28] Yeah, and just to situations that are very, very different in so many respects.

laney [00:29:38] Right. Yeah. So that was like maybe the first cultural narrative I found. And it plays into the next one, which is just like a general like us versus them master story, which is something that Philip Hammack talks about as like just general story archetypes that so many of the things we tell each other, whether fictional or not, that we kind of frame it that way, if that makes sense, because it's a structure that we're familiar with. So I know for a lot of folks that I talked to, it was really hard for them to understand why other people wouldn't want to wear masks. And the and the conversation was very much "well me and my community did a really good job of doing this. And I looked out on the country and I couldn't believe what I was seeing from other people, like who are you? Who are we like? Is this who we are as a country duh duh duh." Right? So that was kind of like a general archetype that a lot of people's opinions on that kind of thing fell into, which is a cultural story. Like it's it's, you know, us versus them. That's like the black and white situation, right? Yeah, exactly. And then that also kind of fed into conspiracy theories, which are another form of narrative that influenced how people experience the time. So I didn't talk to anybody or nobody in their stories necessarily brought up that they believed any identified conspiracy theory that folks know about right now. But a lot of people interacted with family members or loved ones who did believe those stories. And so there you kind of have like two different narratives, right? People who believe conspiracy theories. A lot of times these conspiracy theories fall into sociopolitical, which have to do with like power imbalances in the world and in society or psychological theories that play out like human fears and human anxieties that are different from power imbalances. But a lot of what I read was folks talking about how the reason that we believe conspiracy theories. Right. A lot of people do anyways is because. Of comfort, obviously, and in a lot of psychologists think it's like an evolutionary way of like trying to identify patterns. So if your world view tends to lean one way, you're going to just go farther down this like pattern of recognizing events in the world, if that makes sense and frame it a certain way. So basically, that narrative obviously influences how you see your summer. But then, like even the folks who are still, I believe in the facts, I'm not falling for a conspiracy theory like that's a narrative of your own, even though it's truth. Right? Even though it's proven scientifically, even though it's what everybody says, like it is a it is like the counternarrative or to a conspiracy theory. And so I think it was just really important the way that people identified themselves a way they were like, my story is different. It's all based on facts. I believed in science the whole time and I couldn't believe this person believed this conspiracy theory. And like people taking comfort in this narrative, people taking comfort in this other kind of narrative, if that makes sense.

Laney [00:33:09] Yeah. So I think that was really important to touch on.

Laney [00:33:15] So then, I mean, that was like the last of my kind of findings or the patterns I noticed as far as how people structure their narrative, made sense of their narrative, made sense at the time through narrative. So then I just like I'm putting it all on this website, all these stories that people have entrusted me with, I'm doing that editing that we talked about earlier and making those decisions. And then it goes up and it hasn't gone up yet, but it's almost there. There was a lot of like back and forth about editing, too, in that I really wanted people to have control over what they were saying. What I would do is I would send them the edited copies of their interviews and they would clear it and they were allowed to make specific edits to the recording because like I said, I didn't take out any content. They were also allowed to make things anonymous if they wanted to, which you see on the website. But that caused a lot of interesting back and forth as well, because there were some people that signed on originally that weren't anonymous and then listened to their story. And they were like, this is a lot actually. I want to be anonymous, which meant a whole other layer of like editing and things, which is fine, because like I said at the beginning, I never wanted this process to be like a gotcha moment. I wasn't looking for any sort of deep trauma or anything like I really just wanted it to be about what people wanted..

ella [00:34:43] To tell you..

Laney [00:34:43] yeah. So that was a really interesting part to see.

Laney [00:34:48] And some people were anonymous and listen to their stories and said, I don't want to be anonymous anymore. I want everybody to know that this was me. And like I did this and I made it through this. And that was really inspiring to me. That was really cool to see.

Laney [00:35:02] But I mean, I guess, like, if I had to do it over again. Obviously, I wish I could have talked to more, more, more, more people. There were so many parts of the summer that were overlooked. Of course, you're never going to get every single person. But I just I wish I had the time to keep going. But that's why I want this to be a living, breathing thing, because then it can be added to for a really long time. I mean, I'll just say, like, I guess I just wanted folks to, you know, come away having a better understanding of the time, better understanding of people, other people in other parts of the country and what they were feeling and going through and coming away changed from that and also just gaining perspective and looking outside of themselves.

Laney [00:35:47] In order to hopefully make change in the future and be inspired to make change to.

Laney [00:35:53] What do you ... what do you think?

ella [00:35:54] Well, you answered my but it's so fun to hear about it and I think, yeah, you know, I I knew that you were talking to people about the summer. And I saw you sit in the closet and I heard you, you know, talking to your adviser about, you know, writing up the more academic portion and reading theories about narrative and all of that stuff.

ella [00:36:23] Yeah, I didn't know how it is all coming together.

ella [00:36:26] And it's really interesting to hear about the themes that came out and also how the process of interviewing people and asking them about their stories was part of like the learning or like part of....

ella [00:36:47] I feel like a more important part of this project that I think and other independent studies that I've heard of in the past were like, you are learning through that, and you've also created like a space for people to share their stories, which I really like.

ella [00:37:05] But I'm excited to listen to them. Like, I'm really curious now. I want to go and listen to what people said.

ella [00:37:13] And I feel like it's going to lead to reflections of my own, like about my summer, which I really like, because, like, everybody experience some version of the summer.

laney [00:37:26] Yeah, right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

ella [00:37:28] this is something that everybody can listen to and say, oh, I didn't focus that much on that.

ella [00:37:35] When people ask me how my July was or I did focus on that.

ella [00:37:41] And why didn't this person, like, mention, you know, the uprisings across the country, you know, things like that.

ella [00:37:49] So I think that's really interesting.

laney [00:37:53] But thank you, Ella. Do you have anything else..?

ella [00:37:57] I think thats it!

ella [00:37:57] I am really happy you shared with me. I appreciate you.

laney [00:38:02] And thank you for your support over this whole process, too.

ella [00:38:06] Oh, I am glad that I could witness it from the close and afar.

laney [00:38:16] From a bed away...

[00:38:17] Thank you so much for listening. Definitely click around the website. Keep listening to stories and reach out if you have any questions. And special thanks to Ella Lang for letting me talk her ear off about this thing I care about so much. Thank you.