Cultivating community lies at the heart of our mission at The Nashville Food Project, but at this time of social distancing, we’re learning how community means much more than physical proximity.
We’re seeing inspiration for community everywhere — from living room concerts and “cloud clubbing” (for the ravers among us) to movie discussion groups and online home cooking forums. In David Byrne’s magazine “Reason to be Cheerful,” Nick Green, creator of the Social Distancing Festival, says this:.
“As long as we are sharing a space in which we can be present, provoke, inspire, promote kindness and compassion, and share ideas, then we are all together in one space, even if it’s in different places at different times.”
Along those lines, we recently found encouragement from On Being’s Care Package for Uncertain Times, a collection of interviews and poetry on topics ranging from grief to hope. It inspired us to make our own version for our friends and for each other. We collected our inspirations, recommendations, motivations—all salve for the loneliness and fears this virus and social distancing can produce. These recommendations aren’t necessarily heavy or directly related to the pandemic or our work. Rather it's a collection intended to nourish and accompany our community as we all stay home together.
We’ll be sharing our care package in small digestible bites—five staffer reflections at a time. Please find Part 1 below with Part 2 coming soon!
Meg Schmalandt, Sous Coordinator - California Kitchen
Book: Tattoos on the Heart by Fr. Greg Boyle. It’s kind of related to our work but also very related to being a human, trauma, healing, and spirituality.
Podcast: Dolly Parton's America. I'm. Obsessed. With. Her
Movie: JoJo Rabbit. It'll make you laugh and make you cry. A lot about what it means to grow up and joy as a state of being.
Article: TIME magazine’s 100 Women of the Year
TV: Honestly, Cheer on Netflix was so good.
Ways I'm Coping with COVID-19: Dance parties with my roommates, funny movies, going on walks, working out, and cooking soups + stews. Dreaming about the spring. Planning my wedding flowers :)
Sally Rausch, Growing Together Market Manager
Podcast: This American Life's episode called The Show of Delights made me chuckle out loud so many times, exactly what I've needed the past few weeks-to be reminded that we can find delight in the simplest things and also that someone else sharing their delight can in and of itself be delightful!
Book: Part of that podcast episode highlights poet Ross Gay and his recent book of "essayettes" about finding delight. It's called The Book of Delights: Essays. I've been trying to read one or two before bed instead of scrolling. He is so real and talks about real issues—racism, being black in America, grief—not escapist but about finding delight in our lives as they are. I'm finding it nourishing in the most grounded way.
Bianca Morton, Chef Director
Music: 90’s R&B. It takes me back to a simpler time—high school years when the biggest problem was schoolwork, graduation and fitting in. On Tuesday I let loose some steam and danced to Whitney Houston's Greatest Hits. I danced, sang and cooked. And just for a moment didn't have a care in the world. Just joy!
Tallahassee May, Growing Together Education Manager
Books: I am currently re-reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. Both seem so fitting and are perfect escape-reads in the age of quarantine.
Audio Book: Anne Patchett's The Dutch House. First, you are supporting a local author and small business heroine. And second, you’re supporting a coronavirus survivor, Tom Hanks, who reads it on audio and does an amazing job.
Podcast: Poetry Unbound, an offshoot of On Being with short poetry readings by Padraig O' Tuama.
Music: Nothing beats Beyonce's Homecoming, Live at Coachella! Amazing live music, festival vibe (for when you need to remember what it was like to share intimate space with thousands of people) complete with the best HBCU Marching Band! And when you are feeling quiet and introspective (and alone), Keith Jarrett's solo piano concert masterpiece The Kohl Concert.
Movie: The new movie adaption of Emma was recently released and since its time in theaters was cut short, it is now available for streaming! It’s a fun, gorgeous adaptation. The director, Autumn DeWilde, and I were hippy kids together on The Farm commune in L.A. in the early 70s, and I have loved watching her career blossom and evolve over the years.
Teri Sloan, Development Director
Podcast: I'm a big fan of the Armchair Expert Podcast with actor Dax Shepard and his friend Monica Padman. They do at least two episodes each week having long, deep-dive conversations with different folks from the entertainment industry as well as "experts" like writers, scientists, psychologists, etc. No matter who is being interviewed it always turns out some interesting conversations that make you laugh and make you think about something a little differently.
Article: Not that there's anyone in our city who hasn't read it yet, but Margaret Renkl's "What it Means to be #NashvilleStrong" article moved me to tears recently.
TV: I've been eagerly anticipating the release of Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu. It's Reese Witherspoon's and Kerry Washington's television adaptation of Celeste Ng's popular book of the same name. The first three episodes dropped last week, and I'm already hooked. I've also been taking the time at home to start binging some of the TV shows everyone else has been talking about over the years that I never watched: Schitt's Creek, The Wire, etc.
Other ways of coping through COVID-19: I've been cooking, and I've got a batch of homemade limoncello steeping in the cabinet. My next big idea is teaching myself the longtime TNFP pastime of knitting. Anyone got any good YouTube videos to check out?