A Full Day

Dear Friends,

All the news is roiling, and I won’t add any hot takes for now. I prefer my takes cooled.

So I just want to share how my day was. It was a great one thanks to my family and friends. I want to celebrate it, and also show how such days are possible but require a lot from my support team. I hope that such activities will be more accessible to spellers in the not too distant future. I am thinking that this is possible but will take work. I am also aware that I have the privilege of my sister being able to take me on ocean adventures, and that is a luxury. I am not saying that all spellers need to have access to ocean sports. I mean I wish that more spellers could access activities that they want to explore, not just classroom or clinic activities.

So first a family friend picked me up from home. My mom packed what I needed for the day. The friend brought me to La Jolla, where Tara met us. We watched the sea lions playing in the cove and then Tara and I donned our wetsuits and snorkeled a bit. It has gotten suddenly much colder! We swam with sea lions and lots of fish. It was pretty nice!

Then we had to make a long trek up to North San Diego County, with an accident on the highway ahead of us slowing us down as we ate delicious banh mi that we picked up on the way. We were a bit late to the afternoon activity, a study group for older spellers that Tara and another S2C practitioner are coordinating. It is so fantastic to have this opportunity to learn intellectually stimulating material with some of my best friends. This is our response to the lack of formal programs for advanced learning and socializing in person for us spellers here. I am proud of Tara for doing so much to help create a part-time option.

This group is awesome. I love being able to hang out and learn and discuss ideas with my friends! They are brilliant.

This is just the start of our study group. I am excited to see how it will evolve. This is such a gap for our population. I am hoping more programs emerge as the demand is on the rise. Tara is not quite ready to take this on, but she is doing a great job facilitating our informal study group. This is a big help as we wait for more comprehensive options to emerge.

Then we came home and our mom fed us banana bread and I chilled on the couch.

This is an ideal day. Except for the traffic.

Your Friend,

Danny