Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT August 9th 2021

12 Comments August 9, 2021 columbianm

Thank you to everyone who joined for this session!

For this session we watched the music and lyric video for “This Is Me” from the film The Greatest Showman, posted below.

Our prompt for this session was: “This is me…”

More details on this session will be posted, so check back!

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Please join us for our next session Wednesday August 11th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

12 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT August 9th 2021”

Patricia D.

This is Me

What is this?
What is me?
Can me be a this?

All this me focus
bothers me.
Bothers who?!

Who is focusing
on me
and why?

Too much me focus
leads to
unhappiness.

Thus, this is
not me or
who matters.

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August 9, 2021 at 7:05 pm Reply
- al3793
  
  Patricia, When you read this I thought the closing sentence was a question although I did not hear a questioning tone in your voice. It is so different now that I read it as a statement. The speaker poses many questions and several reflections but no answers and leaves the listener with challenges he must answer for himself. Very nice! Andre
  
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  August 9, 2021 at 7:38 pm Reply
  - Patricia D.
    
    Andre, thank you for your comment. While I understand how marginalized people need to be accepted, our culture’s emphasis on the individual is part of the problem.
    
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    August 10, 2021 at 8:28 am
  - al3793
    
    Patricia, I think fulfilment in life is more readily achieved through other-centeredness and self donation. For many on the margins of society, those considered expendable, the first step is being seen and accepted. There must be a balance somewhere in the mix, but we seem to have difficulty finding it. Andre
    
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    August 10, 2021 at 1:48 pm
al3793

This is me…
I came from a place of privilege,
a place of nothing extra but, everything we needed,
a child of twentieth century Italian immigrants in a
a time when the American Dream was woven so I could succeed.
Diligent hard work would pay off and,
I remember, it was hard to fail.
The host of “paesan” from Calabria wouldn’t let you fail or get in trouble.
Our lives, our successes were a collective community effort, a labor of love.
This was “Little Sal,” son of “Il Professore”,
teacher by weekday, barber by weekend, and
father and husband all day, every day.
Collectively this community, this family would celebrate
the me I have become, that they helped gestate.

Andre

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August 9, 2021 at 7:34 pm Reply
- Patricia D.
  
  Andre, Indeed, community makes the individual via love. The American dream is one of hope and grit. Is it passé?
  Patricia
  
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  August 10, 2021 at 8:33 am Reply
  - al3793
    
    Patricia, the cost of living has overtaken the potential of the American Dream of the 20th century immigrants. It was the dream to ascend to the middle class. Today, America’s middle class in very small, and much disability and addiction exists there. I also think structural disparity plays a role in what’s happened to the American Dream. Perhaps the dream is different today. I am not very versed is this piece of our social history. These are just ideas. Andre
    
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    August 10, 2021 at 5:00 pm
michele348

This is me~~~

I am impatient
I am vocal.
I get loud when angry.
I interrupt.

I cry at sad movies
and seeing all the animals behind cage doors at the SPCA.
I care about the plight of others, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised,
those who have no voice.
I care about the environment and how it is being trashed by our lack of concern.
I care about the homeless during the cold nights of winter.

This is me.
Take me with all my positives and negatives,
for they make me..me.
And I stand firm in my shoes.

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August 9, 2021 at 7:35 pm Reply
- al3793
  
  Michele, the closing of this narrative resonates strongly coming off the speaker’s testament of self: “Take me with all my positives and negatives,
  for they make me..me.” It is an honest, humble realization of what makes us,us. Andre
  
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  August 10, 2021 at 1:55 pm Reply
Emily Raffensberger

“I used to” isn’t a phrase I use anymore. Life isn’t past tense. Living on my own terms owns me. My power comes from speaking honestly and with great vulnerability. This is me: bold, vibrant, effervescent, unbound. I am water, wild and free.

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August 10, 2021 at 8:43 am Reply
- al3793
  
  Emily, “Life isn’t past tense” seems so obvious yet it demands pondering. Wild, free water is a vivid image from my Rocky Mountain trip. It was everywhere!
  Andre
  
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  August 10, 2021 at 1:59 pm Reply
Patricia D.

Andre, with regard to the shrinking American middle class I believe we have somehow been able to maintain it in Canada in part thanks to our universal health care system. Our tolerance for differences seems to be reflected in the idea of a mosaic rather than a melting pot. Of course, we have our issues with the First Nations and immigrants (e.g. Haitians), but our society is relative safe (gun laws).
Back to This is me: during the Olympic summer games, the first trans person to win the GOLD in women’s soccer was on the Canadian team. We are proud of her and the team that fought for years to make soccer more than an exclusive men’s sport.
Patricia.

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August 11, 2021 at 9:30 am Reply