Harriotte Cook-Hurie-Ranvig Oral History, 2021/11/28

Self-Description:
“I am 75 years-old and very comfortable with my age and my body. Not that the body is perfect, but I’m comfortable with it. I started losing my sight when I was 6 years old in the spring of my first grade year, in public school in Valdosta, Georgia. It was from a fall where I bumped the back of my head. I was already wearing glasses for being near-sighted, and the peculiar thing was I had a terrible headache and they checked me for concussion. But, as it turns out I had a full detachment from the right eye, which I as a child was not particularly aware of therefore it went untreated for quite some weeks. I lost the sight fully then with the right eye. Managed pretty well the left eye, except I had some cataracts and apparently a gradually detaching retina as well. I guess I saw colors and shapes until I was 11 or maybe 12. Difficult to remember, but I treasured light perception. And locating myself by paying attention to where windows were in any new space I was in. Apparently I could see enough to navigate a school 700 kids when I first went to Atlanta for 1 or 2 years to learn braille at what was then called the beginnings of mainstreaming… learning some skills for being blind, which at that time, I didn’t identify with at all. I laughingly say, “I was hard-of-seeing”. Mostly I didn’t get isolated except for some playground activities like softball, but on the other hand we also had ethnic dancing. And of course I sang at every opportunity. I also had private piano lessons, but had a horrible teacher, so that went by the way until high school. I tried to learn guitar, but my little fingers hurt too much. So, ostensibly I was homeschooled for five years as the youngest of the [four] children [in my family].

“I was homeschooled by my mother, in a sense by my father who read to me quite advanced things, like Dickens. And I also learned to touch type thanks to my mother’s color coded poster that I could manage to learn the home keys, probably the most major skill I got in my childhood. Let’s just say by the age of even 11 or 12 I’m sure I was more than legally blind, and I would consider myself blind by age 14 or 15, and I had light perception until I was 40. I didn’t actually perceive myself as “disabled” even as a blind person, because I thought being disabled meant –as a blind person–everything was all dark. And as I’ve already related, things were not all dark for me. So I never assumed, and this is certainly because I’m white and I grew up, my father was from poverty. My mother was from some inherited wealth, not really, very poor as a child. [from age 8 to 14 years old she lived in boarding houses with her mom who seem to become more and more delusional over time until her mom was committed to a state mental institution.]

“[Mom’s great aunts became her guardians.] when she started high school. [Thanks to her great aunts,] she had sufficient money to go to college. I was so lucky that my father was very successful, and one of his key goals was that his children, he could pay for excellent education, [for private high schools], at least through their Bachelors degree. And, that in itself in the 1950s and 1960s is pretty astounding. So after these two years I went off to a tiny boarding school where I was the first, maybe the only, blind student, and I think what strengthened me to be in the world as a person who was blind “disabled” was a certain confidence and joy that my mother certainly imbued in me, my father too to a degree, but my mother primarily. It was just second nature to me to teach my teachers and fellow students how to walk with me, how to work out assignments with me, etc. etc., because even though I learned braille, you couldn’t get any current literature that you just wanted to read in braille…. I was the first blind student in over 110 years when I went to Antioch College, and I went there because they promised a year in Europe and work experience in co-op jobs. And even though I got into Radcliffe, I turned them down like a 17-year-old naive girl might just do. I really never thought there was anything I could not do, and mama just had a belief that if you worked hard enough at a dream somehow you might be able to realize it. I was a folky too, I played guitar…
“I feel as though I’ve had 7 lifetimes in a lifetime. I’ve been married and divorced three times. Two of those times very amicably, and I’m close friends with both (of them. [My third husband was a dear friend young Indian who as a friend and lover of my husband who struggled deeply with depression. With out this friend, I have grave doubts we could have completed the 18 month legal and actual journey in India.] My first husband [introduced me to classical Hindustani music in north India, which made it possible for me to become a performer and teacher; the love of it has nourished me to the completion of my dissertation in 2009 and beyond] has been an important feature of my life, certainly up to the completion of my dissertation in ethnomusicology in 2009. I had two children with my second husband. The first was our biological son in ’85, and then we wanted a second child. But when he was an infant I had a herniated lumbar disk, and was kind of put out of work and everything else for four months. I decided I really wanted to save my body’s energy and adopt an Indian daughter. We managed to do that. We went back To India on my senior music research in (1989-91). I should say one last bit about that [earlier part of my life; just prior to the senior research grant period, I worked for five years] at the Massachusetts Office on Disability, then so ridiculously named the State Office of Handicapped Affairs. I mention that here because in the last 8 years I’ve returned to disability advocacy, I’ve taken it on as a real personal and volunteer activity, in a strong cross-disability fashion. So for example National ADAPT and Massachusetts ADAPT, especially National, was very much focused on individuals who were and are wheelchair users and often in need of certain amounts, or many hours, of personal care attendants [as well as affordable and accessible housing.] I think I might be one of two blind people in a national organization that I’m aware of. I’ve taken on civil rights non-violent actions [recently in the effort to keep the affordable care Act,] until the pandemic. [I enjoy playing traditional tunes on the recorder.] That’s how I met my true love Frank 18 years ago. He himself is 29-years my junior, but somehow age hasn’t gotten in our way. Leading a course in the prisons until the pandemic for three years on leadership and transformational thinking. It’s music at home. Enjoyment of cooking and in the kitchen. And yogurt and sourdough bread. I have had a [part time secretary] consistently since 1979, although during the pandemic I lost one for the whole year. Now I have a great one. Oh and I have been a volunteer doula [for friends, 15 times from 1989-2006].”
NB: Square brackets indicate Harriotte’s additions, some of which are not present in the interview but are a part of her story

Some of the things we talked about included:
Childhood experiences of public health, hygiene, during polio
[forty years of Cooperative living before and during the pandemic; roommates moving out during a pandemic; respect and safety in cohabitation]
Comparisons between COVID in the USA, Canada, Hungary, and India
Comparisons between health care expenses in the USA, Germany, and India
Having vaccine hesitant people in social circle and family; the harms of labels; the impact of lived experience and trust in the medical system
Outdoor socializing; boundaries with unvaccinated friends
Vaccination and the social good
Personal experiences with medical/dental procedures; security in medical insurance; Medicare, Medicaid and MassHealth; for profit healthcare forcing grave inequity
Personal experiences with social vulnerability, isolation, and independence
Being blind and friendships with sighted people; disability allyship; voicing needs [for accommodation and accommodations continuously]
Going into clinics/hospitals for medical procedures during the pandemic; Zoom medical appointments
Slow progression of loss of sight starting in childhood, coming out as disabled, cane use
Medical and scientific knowledge and empowerment COVID-19; deciding to get vaccinated; podcasts
Comparatively fast access to vaccination to others
Easier access to church services and meetings after they went online
Writing a memoir about adopting daughter
Anti-racist workshops, the murder of George Floyd, segregation, overt and coverts
Partnership during the pandemic: books: “Begin again: James Baldwin’s America, by Eddy Glaude, “Beloved, by Tony Morison, Podcasts: “1619” Podcast: Scene on Radio: 14 part series, “Seeing White” “just mercy, true Mercy” film and book by Brian Stevenson etc
Fear and loneliness in the pandemic; fear of political conservatism
Playing music, meditating, poetry, going for walks
Using a BiPAP and massaging joints with arnica oil
Post-medical-procedure masking discomfort
Public transit usage, accessible transit, getting around while blind
Emotional impact of vaccination
Son traveling back to the USA, [to support his Dad to empty destroyed objects from Dad’s home so that Dad could welcome his friends, family, and tenants … Partner and I insuring immediate first Moderna after two Sputnik vaccine injections in Hungry.]
to get vaccinated due to inequitable global distribution
Fear of confrontation and freeze responses
Working in prison activism and with ADAPT
Infection with COVID as an inevitability
Sexual violence
Large pre-pandemic Thanksgiving dinners compared with to a small Thanksgiving gathering in 2021
Sensory experiences of the pandemic: connecting to people by sounds and touch
Negative cultural associations with masks: hiding one’s face for breaking and entry
Health apps
Delta and the emergence of another variant
Women in science
Remembering this moment as one where people came to support each other in ways they never would have imagined
Dedication to living
Reflecting on what one loves and cherishes

Cultural references: Alexander (Technique (lessons, *the joy of learning poised relaxed movement in my body* , Amy Coney, Barrett, Arlington Street Church (Boston) , MA, USA), Eddie Glaude, Gone with the Wind, Edith Hamilton’s Book of Mythology, Gabor Maté’s The Wisdom of Trauma, Henrietta Lacks, Institute for Survival and Beyond, James Baldwin, Joanna Macey’s book “World as Lover” (1991), Katelin Kariko, Maya Angelou, NPR, Paul Farmer, Rachel Cargle’s Do The Work Course 30-Day Challenge, RadioLab, Robert Mcfarland’s The Old Ways (2012), Section8, This Week in Virology, YouTube, Young Adult Novels, Zoom

November 28, 2021

Kit Heintzman

Harriotte Cook-Hurie-Ranvig

Kit Heintzman

audio

English Health & Wellness

English Community & Community Organizations

English Government Federal

audio

6Jan2021

ableism

abortion

activism

activist

afib

anthropologist

blind

Boston

Canada

cancer

church

cooperative living

Deaf

Delta

democracy

disabled

disability

fear

forprofit healthcare

George Floyd

Georgia

Hungary

Ivermectin

Massachusetts

medical racism

meditation

mother

music

musician

narcolepsy

Nova Scotia

partnership

podcast

public transit

racism

reading

Quaker

sexual assault

singing

Somerville

TedTalks

Thanksgiving

touch

trauma

Trump

vaccine

variants

virology

disability advocacy

blind

disabled

Donald Trump

anti vaxxer

family

vaccine

music

politics

Over 60

Disability

01/22/2022

02/27/2022

08/23/2022

01/15/2023

06/19/2023

11/28/2021

Kit Heintzman

Harriotte Cook-Hurie-Ranvig

02144

Somerville

Massachusettes

United States

audio

english

02:33:45

Some of the things we talked about included:
Childhood experiences of public health, hygiene, during polio
[forty years of Cooperative living before and during the pandemic; roommates moving out during a pandemic; respect and safety in cohabitation]
Comparisons between COVID in the USA, Canada, Hungary, and India
Comparisons between health care expenses in the USA, Germany, and India
Having vaccine hesitant people in social circle and family; the harms of labels; the impact of lived experience and trust in the medical system
Outdoor socializing; boundaries with unvaccinated friends
Vaccination and the social good
Personal experiences with medical/dental procedures; security in medical insurance; Medicare, Medicaid and MassHealth; for profit healthcare forcing grave inequity
Personal experiences with social vulnerability, isolation, and independence
Being blind and friendships with sighted people; disability allyship; voicing needs [for accommodation and accommodations continuously]
Going into clinics/hospitals for medical procedures during the pandemic; Zoom medical appointments
Slow progression of loss of sight starting in childhood, coming out as disabled, cane use
Medical and scientific knowledge and empowerment COVID-19; deciding to get vaccinated; podcasts
Comparatively fast access to vaccination to others
Easier access to church services and meetings after they went online
Writing a memoir about adopting daughter
Anti-racist workshops, the murder of George Floyd, segregation, overt and coverts
Partnership during the pandemic: books: “Begin again: James Baldwin’s America, by Eddy Glaude, “Beloved, by Tony Morison, Podcasts: “1619” Podcast: Scene on Radio: 14 part series, “Seeing White” “just mercy, true Mercy” film and book by Brian Stevenson etc
Fear and loneliness in the pandemic; fear of political conservatism
Playing music, meditating, poetry, going for walks
Using a BiPAP and massaging joints with arnica oil
Post-medical-procedure masking discomfort
Public transit usage, accessible transit, getting around while blind
Emotional impact of vaccination
Son traveling back to the USA, [to support his Dad to empty destroyed objects from Dad’s home so that Dad could welcome his friends, family, and tenants … Partner and I insuring immediate first Moderna after two Sputnik vaccine injections in Hungry.]
to get vaccinated due to inequitable global distribution
Fear of confrontation and freeze responses
Working in prison activism and with ADAPT
Infection with COVID as an inevitability
Sexual violence
Large pre-pandemic Thanksgiving dinners compared with to a small Thanksgiving gathering in 2021
Sensory experiences of the pandemic: connecting to people by sounds and touch
Negative cultural associations with masks: hiding one’s face for breaking and entry
Health apps
Delta and the emergence of another variant
Women in science
Remembering this moment as one where people came to support each other in ways they never would have imagined
Dedication to living
Reflecting on what one loves and cherishes

Kit Heintzman 00:01
Hello.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 00:02
Hello Kit.

Kit Heintzman 00:05
Would you please start by telling me your name, the date, the time and your location?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 00:10
Absolutely.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 00:12
I'm teasingly wanting to give you my entire name. Harriotte spelled with an I O TT E and a double R. And then I guess I'll give you Cook my maiden name, Hurie. My first married name, Hu, r i. E. Oh, and that was Cook without an E. And Ranvig, R A N, V, I, G. And the date is November 20

Kit Heintzman 00:42
28th.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 00:43
Oops, sorry. November 28. And it's 3pm. in Somerville, S O M E R, Massachusetts 02144.

Kit Heintzman 01:01
And would you please start by talking to anyone who might find themselves listening to this, tell them a little bit about you and the place that you're speaking from?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:12
Sure. I am 75 years old, and very comfortable with my age and my body. Not that the body is perfect, but I'm comfortable with it. I started losing my sight when I was six years old, and the spring of my first grade year in public school in Valdosta, Georgia. And it was from a fall where I bonked the back of my head. I was already wearing glasses for being nearsighted. And the peculiar thing was, I had a terrible headache, and they checked me for concussion. But as it turns out, I had a full detachment in the right eye, which I as a child was not particularly aware of. Therefore it went untreated for quite some weeks. So, I lost the sight fully, then, with the right eye managed pretty decently with left eye. Except I had some cataracts and apparently a gradually detaching retina as well. So I guess I saw colors and shapes till I was 11. Or maybe 12. Difficult to remember, but I treasured light perception, and locating myself by paying attention to where windows were in any new space I was in. Apparently, I can see well enough to navigate a school for 700 kids when I first went to Atlanta, for one or two years to learn braille, and what was then called the beginnings of mainstreaming and resource for learning some skills for being blind, which, at that time, I didn't identify with at all. I laughingly say I was hard of seeing. Mostly I didn't get isolated except for some playground activities like a softball. But on the other hand, we also had ethnic dancing, whatever it could be called that sometimes. And of course, I sang at every opportunity. I also had private piano lessons, but had a horrible teacher. So that went, by the way, until high school. And then I also tried to learn guitar, but my little fingers hurt too much. So ostensibly, I was homeschooled for five years. As a youngest of four children. I was homeschooled by my mother, in a sense by my father, who read to me constantly quite advanced things like Dickens. And I also learn to type touch type, thanks to my mother's color coded poster that I can manage to learn the homekeys probably the most major skill I got, and my childhood. So let's just say by the age of 14, I mean, by the age of even 11 or 12, I'm sure I was more than legally blind, and I would consider myself blind by age 14 or 15. And I had light perception until I was probably 40. I think. So yeah, I didn't actually perceive myself as "disabled", even as a blind person, because I thought being disabled meant as a blind person, everything was all dark. And as I've already related, things were not all dark for me. So I never assumed And this is certainly because I'm white, and I grew up. My father was from poverty. My mother was from some inherited wealth. Not really very poor as a child, but from her aunts. In high school, she had sufficient money could go to college. So I was so lucky that my father was really successful. And his key one of his key goals was that his children, he could pay for Excellent Education, at least through their bachelor's degree. And that in itself in the 1950s, and 60s is pretty astounding.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 05:44
I now know, I didn't know it then. And so after these two years, I went off to a tiny boarding school, where I was the first maybe the only blind student. And I think what, what strengthened me to be in the world, as a person who was blind, quote, disabled, was a certain confidence, and joy, that my mother certainly imbued in me, my father to to a degree, but my mother primarily. And so it was just second nature to me to teach my teachers and my fellow students, how to walk with me how to work out assignments with me, etc, etc. Because even though I learned braille, you could not get any current literature that you just wanted to read in Braille. I remember I wanted a math book and geometry. I think I got the actual textbook, a year and a half after I needed it. Or Ediths Hamilton's book of mythology. No, that wasn't happening. Because in those days, all the Braille books were hand transcribed by volunteers at Red Cross, at least as far as I knew. So I was never very good at Braille. It's good for labeling. That's fine. And is that enough kid? That's [inaudible] I was the first blind student. And over 110 years when I went to Antioch college, and I went there because they promised a year in Europe, and work experience and Co Op jobs. And even though I got into Radcliffe, I turned them down. Like a 17 year old girl now might just do. So I really never thought there was anything I could not do. And mom, I just sort of had a belief. If you've worked hard enough at a dream, somehow, you might be able to realize it. I was a folky toostarted playing guitar and classical piano and singing more in high school. How's that for backdrop? Is that good enough?

Kit Heintzman 08:00
That's pretty great. And what about you sort of more now in the present tense?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 08:06
What about me now? Wow, I feel as though I've had seven lifetimes a lifetime. I forgot to say I've been married and divorced three times, two of those times very amicably. And I'm close friends with both my first husband who introduced me to classical vocal music in north India, which has been a important feature of my life, certainly up to the completion of my dissertation, in ethnomusicology in 2009. And my, I had two children with my second husband. The first was our biological son, in [19]85. And then we wanted a second child. But when he was an infant, I had a herniated lumbar disc, and was kind of put out of work and everything else. For four months, I decided I really want to save the body and have an Indian daughter. So we did that when I went back on our senior research thing and 89/91. So currently, well, I should say one last bit about that early part of my life, from 84 to 89. When I went back to India on this grant, I worked at the Massachusetts office on disability, then, so ridiculously named the state office of handicapped affairs. I mentioned that here because in the last eight years, I've returned to disability advocacy, or not returned. I've taken it on as a real personal and volunteer activity. In a strong cross disability fashion. So for example, national adapt, and Massachusetts adapt, especially national was very much focused on individuals who were wheelchair users, and often in need of certain amounts or many hours of personal care attendants. And I think I might be one of two blind people in the national organization that I'm aware of. So I've taken on civil rights, non violent actions until the pandemic. And I play recorder. That's how I met my true love Frank 18 years ago. He himself is 28 years Mike, are 29 Mike Jr. But somehow, age hasn't gotten in our way. So did I catch up?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 10:58
So it's [inaudible] a course in the prisons until the pandemic for three years on leadership and transformational thinking. It's music at home. It's enjoyment of cooking and in the kitchen, and your word and sourdough bread, and other things too. And what else is my life now? I have had a secretary mostly consistently since 1979. But over the pandemic, I lost one, probably a year. Now I have a great one. So Oh, and I have been a volunteer doula. 15 times. From 1989 to 2007, I think. Yeah. I think that encapsulates past present. And now sort of.

Kit Heintzman 12:00
What does the word pandemic mean to you?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 12:04
Hmm, it means up epidemic was the first word I ever heard, which meant, like Polio, which was so prevalent in my childhood. And vaccine came in when I was probably six. And I was very proud to receive it. Even though I was told that I was very nearsighted, it was a huge hypodermic. And I went to movies when I was that little. And I remember the news reels that showed children and these weird, kind of, like a baby carriage with all metal encased, and kind of a thing over the head, like an arch thing over the head. And scared the pants off of me. And I, I listened and watch a part of that reel was always wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. Don't drink sodas. Don't sit in your bathing suit and let yourself get shelled for any length of time. And I remember I took that all very seriously because I was maybe quite scared. So when I heard about COVID What made me saddest was that first, I had been living cooperatively semi cooperatively with people in this lovely nine room three story house for at that time, 36 years, I think, or 37. And that with usually two women and one or two men or at one point I was living with four guys four years ago out

Kit Heintzman 14:03
it's workin

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 14:04
okay. So I am a branch thinker. So one story leads to another. So anyway, we had a lovely couple living with us or they became a couple fell in love in the year that she lived here. Here's your first third year I think. And then we had one roommate who was a very traumatized individual. But a couple were eager to move out both pandemic because she was going to be a school teacher. And he was going to travel a good deal. Very sad to see them go. And then we had a very difficult, unhappy, unbeatable heart and soul person who when we just said - Please, when you can find a community that you feel comfortable, please move out. So that was in August, and also the pandemic was already well. Well in Whatever operation

Kit Heintzman 15:03
August 2020?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 15:05
Yeah, she moved out in August 2020. But it started in March 2020. And I think, what also affected me why a pandemic meant something to me and means something to me, is my beloved daughter. Now 31, I think, is in Nova Scotia, Canada, I was actually not so worried about her, because there's national health care, and she has a job in which the they're very vulnerable members who are physically and intellectually challenged, they take great pains for health security. And the whole province of Nova Scotia was okay, but my son, his wife, and three children, one just born a few months before the pandemic, live in Budapest, Hungary. And fortunately, they do have national health care. But until it was certain A. that we had a vaccine and B. t hat my kids could get it. And then I started worrying about friends in India, for my lifelong relationship with India, music and friends there. And then I was trying to reach say, they're four or five major people. And also, I have a dear friend in New Zealand, and you know, just all over the map. So, pandemic, was when the thought of the spread of a disease could span the globe. That's really what it means to me is, it's an end the tragedy, that if we were united, to wipe it out, we could have done it so much earlier. And what gave me strength really, and truly, I wish I could remember when, but at least a year ago, if not longer, Frank discovered this incredible podcast called This Week in virology, which had all these amazing biologists, women and men, but they always sort of had fun with each other and explored new research studies and everything else. And one of the companion doctors of virology, worked in New York. And he would would give it gives a weekly update in the greater New York and New England area. And he teaches doctors to and works maybe even does some work in the hospital, I don't know. So I felt strengthened and empowered. By a few things, one was listening to this podcast and getting educated, educating myself. And I was fascinated by the variety and international people in that podcast. There was there's even a not so famous Hungarian woman who was the first one to start publishing about RNA is a possibility for vaccines. And she got poo pooed. And yet, this is what seems to be the key way we got these vaccines to work, you know, to function. So that's, that's a huge, huge thing for me.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 18:53
And I'm Crusader I tell everybody about it, I still tell everybody about it, and they'll listen or won't listen. I forgot another key component of my life over the last 30 years, but even more potently in that pandemic, and that is I've been a community congregation member of The Arlington Street Church since 1992, because they were they were in our progressive theology liberal congregation, where my former husband and and his gay partner and my children could could grow up in a loving, accepting and acknowledging community and during the pandemic, no, I wasn't going to churches often since Frank started living with me a few years ago, but I missed it, I longed for it. And crazily, thanks to this pandemic. The church has gone to all zoom services. And as if that we're not enough, we have all these other zoom things like 12, noon on Monday, Metta 4pm, a free open hour of poetry, where any of us could bring poems, our own or others. And oh my goodness, each person who brings one often gives us bio and a little history of the poet. And the other thing, oh, gosh, I get through all the programs, but poetry, and metta meditation was an hour and a half of deep nourishment. And then I always wanted to go to Buddha's belly reading group and the Zen Center. But taking the red line and the green line on a Tuesday night, bad weather or whatever, I was lazy, I didnt go. But now, since April or whatever, of 2020, maybe March, I don't remember when it began. It's in the Zoom Room. First an hour of discussing a book. And reading for it pushed me to get an app called not screen reader, and come back to me in a minute, where I can get like a major library, any book I want, for free, and it is synthetic voice. But you can, you know, try out at least six female six male voices and change the pitches. And this is the whats a good word for this. There's a real opposite to that early part of my life where, except for LP records from the Library of Congress or the local state library. I couldn't get books, I forgot to tell you that gone with the wind in high school was 72, LP records, played on a talking book machine 16 and two thirds, revolutions per minute. So I've been reading all kinds of books, even published in this year, like Joanna Macy's, revision of world is lover. And then the two other activities of the Buddha's belly is only every other week. And then on Thursday, says creative writing. Well, I've been writing memoirs, off and on for the last four or five years, and in particular, been concentrating on the 18 month story of adopting my Indian daughter in India with her father, and a dear Indian friend, and my then four and a half to six and a half year old son. So I've been writing about a lot of different things. Because we have a prompt, we write for 15 minutes, and then we listen to each other. So that's been another seed activity. The other major thing that happened since I think it was June or July of the pandemic, certainly kicked into view by the horrific video murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 23:51
And we, we set up a small group of five of us with a podcast or Instagram thing by so I do it yourself. I can't remember Rachel Carville. That's her last night. And so she had 30 days of assignments, which we stretched out to months and months and months. And it included reading the very recently published begin again, James Baldwin's America by Eddie God. So we would read parts of it together and parts of it you know, between weeks, but it the discussion was more alive than ever, and I have done undoing racism workshops, couple in the early 2000s. But most impressive about one in 2017 called it I'm is from the Institute for survival and beyond, which really began to wake me up to very potent extent. So, you asked me, What has it meant to me? Or what is the pandemic been like for me, it's opened many doors that I didn't know existed. Now regarding fear factors. Frank was much more terrifying than I was. And I can't explain why I wasn't an I'm not particularly afraid. One, he would go out all masked up and get our food or get any supplies we needed. So I didn't have to stir from the house. Loneliness to some extent was there, but I'm a big talker. And I stay in touch with family and my close friends on the phone. Let me think you can poke me with more questions, too. It's just, that's what comes up first for me. I worried more for Frank than for myself. And for my children. Yeah, definitely. And for any elder friends I had, I think I forget that I'm elderly. Yeah. Oh, and heartbroken. Because in my prison leaders body before women who were working in one particular prison, and one of the four of us somewhere in the first six months of the pandemic moved over to the anti Vaxxer side. And I remember her saying to me, once you really are read the, I don't remember what's called Epic times, or something like that. And I asked Frank or others, what's it? Oh, it's a super conservative, sort of Breitbart, whatever it's called, kind of news feed. And we found out, you know, like, we would have lunch together in the late summer of 2020. I wore a mask and Bonnie right next to me and did not wear a mask. And one of the things it's been hardest to ask for is a are you masked? Will you mask, you know? Protect me, please. So, this woman is strange, because she even had a roommate throw her out. Because as she put it, because B would not get vaccinated. So this kind of split started rising, but I had this illusion that it wasn't going to affect me, or I wouldn't know someone why I thought that was okay. I'm not sure. But that it just existed, and that we were still under the yoke of Trump being in the presidency. I think I tend to veer away from the the most distressing sides and keep looking for nourishment. And the ways I've already described.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 28:41
One other thing, the pandemic is meant, at least in the first year, say from March to March 20 to 21. Frank and I played music, sometimes five days a week, one hour at night, anywhere from starting 11 11:30 12 o'clock at night. And since we weren't living with anybody, we can play as much as we wanted, mostly on alto recorders. And Frank would draw melodies out that either 15 or more years ago and doing English country dance.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 29:19
Yeah. And Frank is a most extraordinary human being. We're so different. He's an engineer, electronics engineer. And very successful at that. But like so many brilliant people quite plagued with impostor syndrome, I think.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 29:44
Oh, I should say something else about disability too. Since I can see light, I didn't want to be around any other blind people. They spoke to me and then when I was 19 I was supposed to go to Mexico. And I didn't go to Mexico, because the director said, Oh, I can't have a blind co-ed Comment down here. I can't take care of her. I didn't even know what that meant. But I was furious. And so they gave me another job at the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. And I got the christening of fire of gentleman who had been lost their sight saved from diabetes, or whatever, I don't know. And so they were learning to be, you know, federal building. Newstand what do you call newsstand operators, and their Pinnacle leagues for the blind and all these other social activities. And I thought, I don't need those. I got my own social life. What's the problem?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 30:59
Anyway, that was just a little piece of it. And I didn't pick up using the white cane until I was 19. And I had to take two buses to work. So that was quite a crash course. Including a young man who molested sash messed with me in the two hours of training, I got I just said, No, thank you after that, and taught myself the rest. For the most part, I only bring that up. Because it was only when I started working at the mass office on disability, in 84 that, I would say I came out as a person with a disability. And then I started carrying my cane everywhere, and realize how much that was of help to me walking on skinny little streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or other place, people paid attention, you know. And in Germany, when I was studying there, I had to get a veterans arm pen yellow with three black dots, because the white cane and 66 was not yet fully internationally recognized. And I bring this stuff up a bit separately from the pandemic. But it's important because all these cumulative experiences have affected me in my disability advocacy. So pandemic. I guess I have some foolish, no pun intended blind faith that we will come through this I guess, last agony which I am, and still little in denial, but not really is that my brother's an anti Vaxxer. And he's 84 years old. And he's been like a behind missionary in South Africa, probably since 1981 82. raised his youngest child there from age 11. And during the pandemic, he started watching too much YouTube, and then sending me all these crazy links about ivermectin. And when someone is on the other side of the divide, in terms of what makes sense to them, then it's just like it's heartbreaking. It's like one of the guys on the virology podcast said, Whatever you do, do not call a vaccine hesitant persons stupid. I was like, isn't that obvious? First? Not really. But I hear my friends kind of cursing them, like, why are they using their intelligence? What's wrong with these people? And I occasionally try to make a rebuttal like why do people get hypnotized by Hitler? You know, and what scared me much more than the pandemic is the rise of fascism and the falling apart of it, of the democratic. What we thought we had as a democracy but really was only there for us white folks and highly educated Chinese and highly educated Indian. But not for the rest of us. Also, one other incredible, sweet, sweet thing about the pandemic was that during 2019 and 2010, no 2020 When Emily was living with me, and throughout the following period of time, she and I have been reading young adult books together I mean, she reads to me. And I think we read 20 to 23 books, of course of whatever it is 20 months or something. And she's a full time teacher so that we've been able to continue as amazing intermittently, but we're still there. So that that's what I can pull up about the pandemic right now. What do you think, more questions?

Kit Heintzman 35:25
Many. Would you, would you try and give a kind of definition to what you mean, when you say anti Vaxxer?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 35:34
Sure, sure. I mean, I don't really like categorical names. I'm not, I am a semi trained anthropologist. I've lived seven years in India over the course of 25 years, and I've lived two years, pretty consistently in Europe, in the 60s. So slapping a label like anti Vaxxer feels grossly over generalized. I guess. What does get lumped together for me, and I don't even know if it's anything close to accurate. I'm gonna get a little water here is I think when we had the attack on the Capitol, was that January 2020? Or 21?

Kit Heintzman 36:37
21

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 36:38
21? Yeah. I finally had to admit to myself that things are radically off. And Frank would read on line to me that lots of white women voted Trump in even some black folks voted Trump in.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 37:10
So this kind of fear and conservatism that feels safer. Having a belligerent leader who talks straight in quotation marks was more appealing, and seemed less conniving. And say, a Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden now. Yeah, like, well, they're talking nice, but they're not really doing anything. And it's only that idea that people felt it was straight talk, that has we have any comprehension of why a pussy grabbing asshole could be the presidency. I just just been incredulous. And having had an abortion myself when I was I was 36, I think 35 When I so desperately want to have a child, but I came to the realization I really was not prepared to be a single mom. And then in that very same clinic here in the Boston area, two young women who are reception or working at the one I went to, were murdered by pro lifers. So that these kinds of views of what's a woman supposed to be and what's life supposed to be and that we can be led that's more comfortable to just have someone else who has a certain type of communication be more important than the actual substance of what might come in communication. I mean, truthfully, I like the word vaccine hesitant because I've listened to quite a few programs on radio lab and other places that and 12 to This Week in virology that examine the gradations of what has people be vaccine hesitant, and certainly made sense to me that African Americans who knew the history of the Tuskegee Institute where African Americans were horribly experimented on just beyond comprehension. In a way including Henrietta Lacks was that her name I think, whose cancer cells are, were the first to actually be grown in, in, in, in a petri dish outside of the human body. And I've just been most incredible, incredible medical resource, but her treatment, or insufficient treatment, and her horrible death I heard about both in podcast and a book about her. And it's just, it's agonizing to think about it. Another big thing on race that has just gotten more and more amplified for me over the last eight years, is my closest buddy in mass ADAPT is an African American woman who, because of second rate healthcare, and cultural assumptions, landed in a wheelchair to begin with. She came in with gross pain, this woman went to Emerson College, did a bachelor's in communications was in the was in the I forget Army or Air Force for several years, and I'd even set up a catering business, etc. So she went in with extreme pain. And they just kind of shunted her off with some minor painkillers, said you'll be okay. And that happened twice in the third time, she was beginning to lose the feeling in her legs. So a nurse practitioner took her seriously and found out that she had an infection going up her spinal cord. And she had emergency surgery, which meant she's apparently lost the use not entirely but mostly of her legs, but not her arms. And she and I have shared a bed. I have when she accidentally pooped in bed helped her clean that up.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 42:07
We have walked behind her in her power chair. And she loves to speed around. And she loves to give me a lot of crap. She'll say that Harriotte, she's always in the way. And she can really see what she's just not looking. And she she teases me outrageously. And we had this huge battle over TV being too loud in the hotel rooms. And I just didn't think I could sleep with the TV on. And at some point, she, she said, Well, it just makes me feel comfortable at home. And then much later, she said to me, you know, all those days in rehab, I was super isolated. TV was my primary comfort. And after that, I didn't mind it so much. And after that, she started turning down her volume when I called her on the phone. Not every time but so we have a fighting sibling relationship. But truthfully, she's the first African American since I was in high school that I've had a real personal relationship with, and that sort of segregation of our lives with race and her being a section eight, and just a lot of stuff like that. Oh, and she smokes. So that makes it difficult to go visit her for me. Anyway. You see how race and disability and orientation, gender, gender, gender identity, and she is tried to spy interest in a disability intersectionality group cross disability, including all those areas I mentioned, orientation, gender identity, etc. So yeah, that's some of it. More questions, please.

Kit Heintzman 44:28
Thinking about pre pandemic world, what was your access to healthcare and healthcare infrastructure like to the extent that you're comfortable sharing?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 44:36
Oh, sure. I have a I don't know what do you call it. Disclaimer something that just seems shamelessly fortunate for me. I wasn't it


Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 45:00
was never on Social Security. disability. I didn't need to be I was working. I was a long term student with grants and so forth. I did take a student loan from my PhD 95 to 2001. And what happened was, I was paying my own insurance. I also inherited some money from my uncle, which I use for my kids education until the dot coms busted. And so my private insurance kept going up and up, was 700. I was for immigration, married to my Indian friend. And

Kit Heintzman 45:48
700 a month?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 45:49
Yeah. Which was getting really insane. Except living in this house, with a mortgage of $1,300 divided by five, wasnt to bed. Plus, of course, I had to pay the house insurance and property tax and water and sewer and all that. But anyway, we're making it and but in 2001, she I had made him head of household and he was 19 years younger than I. So you know, the right wasn't too bad. Well, health insurance, they got wind of that and thought about it. You're the head of household. So suddenly, my private insurance jumped to $1,400. Mind you, I had word for mass office on disability did it occur to me that blind people are always eligible for Medicaid. So I was able to get my kids and me on Medicaid. And my former husband was able to get on MassHealth. So I've had Medicaid and Medicare. I don't really understand this. I think this is accurate. Is that possible, because I was only 55 at the time. But I've practically never paid any substantial amount of money out of pocket. And I had two hip replacements in 2005. I had a vascular surgery, I think in 2012 2013. And I had to have my eyes removed is called enucleation and 2017. Unfortunately, it was two surgeries. Because part of the first one failed. So and almost $6,000 to pay for these beautiful handpainted eyes and shaped eyes. So Oh, plus I have afib. So

Kit Heintzman 47:53
What's AFib

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 47:54
AFib is atrial fibrillation. And it's when the atrial side of your heart, the electrical impulses somehow get disrupted. And so your heart can beat super fast. And my mama had it. And my sister has it. And I didn't anticipate it. I just don't want let's see what happens. And about eight years ago, almost nine, I was sitting upstairs in this very house. Frank was on his computer, I was on myown email or something. I noticed my arm was going to be better. I guess I'll just breathe. And after 20 minutes, it didn't go away. So I said, Frank, Will you drive me to [inaudible] hospital? So we went over there I mean, I was pretty uncomfortable, but I wasn't thinking much. My heart rate was 180 beats a minute. So man, they went to tell around me got monitors and IV and all that stuff. Fortunately, it's very treatable. And I'm extremely lucky to have found, it took a while to find the right drug, but they found a medication, which works very well for me. Mostly. And guess what? They're hesitant to use it because it's strong, but also, it can impair your vision which was of no concern to me whatsoever. Nope, it's blank. Been there done that. But it seemed like a playful irony in like [makes a sound] that. So compared to most people's desperate needs for health care. I've been relatively unscathed. And I learned about national health care when I was in Germany and even as a foreign student. I even had allergy testing for antibiotics. I didn't pay for that. I think the only time I paid a fair amount was when I was in India in 2016. And I had an afib. And some other complications, mild ones, but whatever, I ended up in the heart international Heart Institute in New Delhi, in what they called an ICU. And, but that whole song and dance of 10 days, or maybe 12 was made 3 or $4,000, which was manageable.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 50:37
So considering I've worked and advocated for people to get health care if it's a big crack in my heart, that this culture, this, really do it. Get all you can for yourself. leaves so many people insecure for health, not to mention food, of course. So that's, that give you a glimpse into my healthcare situation

Kit Heintzman 51:12
It does. And what is your experience with healthcare and healthcare infrastructure been like, if any, during the pandemic?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 51:23
Oh, I forgot to say one thing. You must know how did that work? I'm still dependent on Medicaid and Medicare. But it's sort of under the Health MassHealth thing. Like Medicare pays for everything, and then Medicaid fills in. But with MassHealth, there was a terrible period where you could only get tooth extractions and an and teeth cleaning, nothing else. So if you needed fillings, if you needed dentures, and all that stuff. And even now, I can get fillings in a cleaning. But anything more substantial, like a night guard or other stuff like that, that has to come out of pocket. The only way to mitigate that is to go to one of our three dental schools here. You know, Harvard dental school, Tufts dental school. Maybe it's only two be your dental school. That's right. And then you just have to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You'll get good work done in you. You'll be seen by the senior senior dentists after the students were trying. But you know, it's there. Now, what was the question you just asked me? I think I I doubt it was something else other than what I just told you.

Kit Heintzman 52:51
I asked about if you've been accessing medical services over [kit and Harriotee talking over each other]

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 52:57
there. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Good question. Mostly over zoom. But I had to have a colonoscopy at the beginning of November this year. And of course, that required me to go in. And I felt relatively well, I'd already had two vaccinations that helps to. I'm trying to remember if I had face to face, I think I might have had one eye infection. So I had to go to the mess is near. And again, I'm sure Frank was watching out who had masks who didn't, etc. But it seems to have been relative, you can't call it safe, safer, I guess. And you reminded me of something else about health care. Ah, one of the things that I do when I meet a new health care person, is I kind of introduce myself, you know, Hi, I'm Harriotte. Yeah. I just got back from India, or I've been fortunate enough to do graduate work and study of culture and music, particularly in India or something, you know, just give them some hints as to or I do advocacy in the prisons, or whatever it is, you know, because if you're elder and you're blind, that's kind of the little lady who's become blind. And you know, can't tie your shoes right. Now, mind you in less degrees, I've done the same thing all my life, and I've become pretty comfortable and have my own arrogant view that when people are over patronizing, even in a PC way I could just emotionally pat them on the head and say, Poor dear poor dear you just ain't got the education yet to know who you're talking to. It's really arrogant of mine my part. Yeah. But it works, you know? And if I spent all that energy being angry with people, not knowing what my life is like, what energy what I have left, you know? Instead, I don't even mind astounding them. Oh, my God, watch how she handles a knife, when she cuts vegetables? Harriotte, Harriotte. Are you okay? Yes, I'm okay. Or, I like to say my best friends dropped me off sidewalks, run me into telephone poles and leave me in crosswalks. As a joke. I tell people, and they're like, Well, what do you mean? I said, Well, when I get to be really good friends with someone, they no longer are so over preoccupied with my safety. And the other thing I say is, if you're blind and fairly comfortable with your body, you are a professional stumbler. And theyre like what's a professional stumbler, I say, Well, you almost fall down, but you don't. And if you do, you fall softly, you roll. And then you roll right back up again. And then that at least a few 100 times. So oh, I even had an opportunity 10 or more years ago, to give a ground a grand rounds talk to physicians at Mount Auburn hospital, through a former sweetie of mine, who's a doctor who's taught patient doctor relations and HIV AIDS education to medical providers. And it was very interesting. I mean, granted, it was sort of biographical a lot of it the way I'm talking to you. But it really just boils down to saying to them, If you wonder how to relate to someone with a disability, all you got to do is say do you want assistance with this or that? And then you take their answer as it is.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 57:43
Or if they say yes. And the person asking says In what way could I best assist you? And those two questions just completely in my mind. Now that doesn't that doesn't work if there's a language barrier. For ASL, you really need an interpreter. And you could hope that the interpreter is by virtue of having credentials as an interpreter has a real sensitivity to the to the Deaf culture and the deaf individual. You know, regarding language for a very short time, I was a I was a language liaison for the Tibetan, the Nepali and Indian families. Even though I only speak Hindi Pakistani to I forgot to say for the Cambridge School origine Latins High School and so I pulled off the tracks got anything else?

Kit Heintzman 58:55
I do. Would you tell me what safety means to you?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 59:01
Wow. Now there's one to have me reflect on.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 59:16
It's very curious, because I think what I'm going to tell you is absolutely true. And is not altogether true. I am the one to declare my safety. It is not external. Now, that's a bold statement. I realized that's very bold. Let me see if I can give you a kind of odd example. I've learned or maybe I just So gained over my life in which I've traveled a lot, met millions of people. Millions not 1000s of people in the New York subway system in the Chicago public transit system, above ground. And even in Germany, and Boston, even a little bit of solo travel in India that was the sketchiest. I hitchhike on the subways. Anybody getting off at such and such can I do.give me a walk over to the, to the F train at West Fourth Street. Here they come. Now, you would think I would run into some thug or other thug or other, in truth in Boston over the last 38 years, maybe three drunks. And I think all but one, someone came dashing up and said, Oh, mam, can I give you an arm, and then we lose me from the drunk guy or person, right, you know. And so that safety, I say is internal. Now at the same time, I do have a little bit of street smarts. So when I was commuting weekly, for lengthy rehearsals with an ensemble, we were playing for my friend who was Indian dancer, and taking shiatsu massage classes. I was staying uptown at 187. And Washington Heights before became more Hispanic, I guess. More Jewish at a time in the 70s, late 70s. And so I would not take trains late at night. I took a bus occasionally. And late night, I even had a bus driver stop and walk me across the street at 11 o'clock at night. That really blew my mind. And but I so I'm careful what I'm really super nervous, not about people more about do I know my physical surroundings well enough, not to hurt myself. So for example, I have a safety thing that I do with the Davis Square Station. And I would do this with any Island station that has tracks on both sides. I will solicit a hand to the escalator at Davis square. Once in a while I've been on there late at night, not during the pandemic. And there's nobody there. And I've stepped off and had no clue where was the platform. And a platform is very long. And I seriously don't want to walk down the platform. I was never known for walking a straight line. So what what has happened to me a few times, not many. I get off the train, I walk beyond those little yellow bubbly strip. And I'm standing there. And I will go through some moments of sheer panic. Like if I fall too far to that side or that side, I might fall over the thing you know. And then I breeze, I stand there and I listen. There's the escalator but it's kind of a long way off. But if I wait to the next train comes or if I hear someone walking down I hail them. That's the way I get safely to the this way.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:04:06
Now I figured out some better techniques, which is when we had a few more T officers. If I were going like in the middle of the day or later in the evening, I would find the T officer and say excuse me could you walk me up to the head of the train so we can talk to the conductor and they'll make sure I have someone when I get to Park Street or wherever I'm going in and they are much obliged to number good conversations so I got to know some friends by name and they meet and I mentioned to Roberto who had knee lot of knee arthritis about possible use of primerica things like that are Angelo who worked at Quinsey when we had the huge snowstorm in 2016, or 15, or whatever it was and He met me when I got here. He moved to square to work. And I said, So Angelo, you guys closing up shop? He's Uh huh. What are you talking about? We have to keep the trains running to keep the tracks clear. I said, Wow, I said, I live like a block from here if you need coffee or anything, because he he wouldn't walk me home, but he walked me across Buena Vista.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:05:22
And that's the kind of relational safety I've created for myself I guess, strangers, it sounds being able to relate to people has me feel safe. This relates also to living with more people. When, when I was in my first marriage ages, like 23, to 33. And for example, when we were in India, I was totally reliant on my husband. And we used to ferry me around on the back of a bike. And, you know, it was pretty intense. The second time I went on the Fulbright, fortunately, someone found me, a trustworthy cycle rickshaw driver. And he learned all my routes and became just a marvelous support to me. So I had my own chauffeur, as it were, you know, anyway, after that first marriage, it became really clear to me, I did not want to be dependent, or even mildly dependent on one person. So even though I knew living with two, four or five people was going to be pretty demanding. It's so exceeded living with only one other person. And I rarely meet anyone who feels the same way. But I also know the isolation of many people on Section Eight who are disabled, and live alone. And during the pandemic. So many people lost their PCAs or had great difficulty replacing their PCAs. And I mean, when you need someone to help you out a bed and bathe your body, shop for your food or whatever, you know, just really scary. That's scary for me. That kind of dependency. You and my children's dad was so depressed at times, I was really glad that I was not living along with him. When we came back from India, when it was clear to me that his being gay was no issue. What was hugely problematic was his inability to take actions or just to be be present in our world, in our children's world, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So, safety I still say it's by my own declaration that I am safe. I mean, objectively, for example, I have felt when I walk around New York City, should I get mugged. That's just a part of probability. And I will do my best not to walk in the wrong places at the wrong time. That's just probability. I mean. But I have so many contradictions to a fatalistic view that something bad will happen to me. And I also have to say the following. Though my father yelled too much at my mother and my sisters, and I learned much later, was really corporately punishing them until I came along. He did not beat me. He did lecture me to death, which was its own torture. Not always just sometimes. But I think he was so terrified by prospects from my life and my future, that any success I had just blew my parents away. So I got a lot of kudos and they didn't know what I could accomplish. So that was positive. So even though my dad was from a very poor, Pennsylvania minor, immigrant family he still was a loving and it in many, many ways, cleaned my fingernails carefully and gently cracked pecans for me. But I, I was really afraid when he would be angry and shout, or somehow he stopped doing after I started going blind, to my recollection, very strange.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:07:43
And I've been realizing, perhaps a little more during the pandemic openly that avoiding conflict is one of the ways I create safety for myself. And, and men who raised their voices, raised voices, certainly triggers anxiety for me. And as we spoke earlier today, I have a, I'm avoidant, and I freeze, you know, I, and also just like my mother, I want to smooth over things. So mom, because dad was so intense, she would just quietly do whatever she wanted to do, what he wasn't around. And I think that's what a lot of women have done for centuries, millennia, whatever, you know, and had ally ship with other women to cover up or work around problems that they had to deal with. So there's some safety businesses that are beginning to illuminate?

Kit Heintzman 01:10:39
With that, with those ideas in context of safety in mind. Thinking about narratives of safety during the pandemic, they've been a lot more narrow about sort of safety in relationship to catching COVID and staying safe. What are some of the ways that you've been thinking about safety under that sort of more narrow view?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:12:04
Oh, well. being committed to not meeting people face to face, first and foremost. Also, accepting being very dependent on Frank, we did not have a housecleaner for more than a year. But with Frank's agreement, we paid her weekly, undocumented person from South America. So I'm pretty good at house cleaning, but I don't do floors. Frank is a brilliant, professorial sort of person. So he literally only sees was directly in front of him in the kitchen table, will become this sort of cascading papers and books, and I can't see the papers to sort them. So anyway, that's not about how safety is established. So mostly, it was just really limiting. Not going out, or if going out, just going out with him for walks. And I got pretty insistent on going for walks. And for a year, just after he retired or retired in December, by March, the lab was closed. And that was his whole thing was my god, I found a lab I want to be the lab. So there we were. So the marooned in this house, you know. And fortunately, he's become close friends with some of my girlfriends too. And we've sort of invited them into our meals from day one in particular, we've invited into her, you know, sitting at the table and talking to her. She didn't want to be seen, but she doesn't mind being on voice. She's in Western Mass. And we've talked her through some of her health crises quite a lot, because she has had a far more traumatic life experience overall. And so I think it's mostly really limiting contact people. And thanks to let's say, all those community things that the church offers, and a prison leaders have been people been rewriting a course and spending an hour a week together as I did this morning, you know, another half an hour with a small group of women that I was telling you about the woman who is conservative and doesn't believe in the vaccinations. She No longer is asserting that she wants to work in the prisons. She wants to be successful. She's teaching advertising at BU as an adjunct, and she's moving to Florida. But she likes being with us on the phone and doing some of the projects on Wednesdays. So if those kinds of calls also, in recent months, I've also been participate, oh, I forgot to say we have monthly calls with national adept. And the local chapter. And we even did one people's hearing, when they were working on confirming what's her name, ACB, ABC, ami, whatever, the Supreme Court Justice, and few people were actually physically in DC. And I And Frank and a couple of other people did sort of face to face, we got Facebook Live thing from the steps of the courthouse with a great deal of safety taken for ourselves. So but mostly, it's very, and also, we sort of occasionally would order out. But as the months rolled on, we cooked more and more for ourselves. And Frank would try to amass the groceries once every three weeks except for milk and a couple of other things. So that's, I guess that's how I created physical safety, or we created it for ourselves and each other. And I guess I was accepted an acceptance that you can only do as much as you can do. And, you know, when things began to lighten up the beginning of the summer or something like that, he was very skeptical about it. And I just assume the same posture.

Kit Heintzman 01:17:10
September 2020, or 2021?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:17:14
I think it was, when was it that we sort of had the illusion that things were lightening up? I think it was once we started vaccinate, vaccinating, maybe 21. I mean, it was predicted if you listened to things carefully, that because of vacation time, things would get much worse again, I think that's how it went. But I'm just sort of treated this continuously, except for the Thanksgiving dinner last Thursday, where four out of eight of us were triple vaccinated. And all the other three were double back, or four were vaccinated. And everybody went through rapid testing the day of so yeah.

Kit Heintzman 33:06
Would you compare the experience of Thanksgiving that just happened to what you did for Thanksgiving the year before that?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:18:16
I can't even remember what we did in 2020. I'm not sure we did anything. You know what I mean? Because I I've been having 20 to 30 people at the house every year since 1983. And when we were in India, 89 to 91. Our friend and housemate who took care of the house, he held it, you know, so it was a huge missing, but there was nothing to do. You know, I wasn't gonna have anybody over here. I guess we did have the vaccine. When did we get the vaccine? Did we get the vaccine 21? Or December 20? I guess, but we didn't get it ourselves until Yeah, I got mine in April 21. That's right. Yeah. I would have starved to death socially if it weren't for for the Zoom calls of the community in the church, I think. And to further educate myself, I've been on two national calls on emergency relocation and climate disaster. What's going on all across the country, things like that. So again, you began to getting colleagues and and knowledge and hopefully listening. So all social Well, here's the funny part. For me, I love to touch people. And thank God, Frank is a person who receives touch with joy. Because one way I could go nuts is not to have anyone to touch. And let's say if I lived alone, that could have been the case of your record, I just lost my thread.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:20:29
It's Oh, I know. So for me, the world is woven with a million. Interesting, difficult, phenomenal sound and soundscapes and the socials, social soundscape are all the voices. And that's the big difference between being blind for me and the sighted everybody else somehow seeing a face and a smile. And that kind of gaze connection. I think if we didn't have so many sighted people would have totally lost it. Because sighted people need to see each other's faces. And I don't need to see faces. And touching is a luxury, which I've learned to be a little more thoughtful about, though I rarely meet someone who doesn't want my touch, but you know, so my key sense of human contact is voice. And I think that altered my perception enormously.

Kit Heintzman 01:21:58
Do you remember the last time you touched a stranger?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:22:07
Yeah, in health care holding the health care persons arm. So that was as recently as three weeks ago or going to the dentist. But no, she wasn't a stranger. I know other people, my dental office trying to remember if I've traveled on the T by myself, I don't think so. Because those would be the occasions that I would actually really hold a stranger's arm. Lord God, thats so weird. It would feel so natural to me though. And I think now that I'm well vaccinated, even though I know I'm not impervious to a variant infection, I think it would feel so organically natural to me on the T that I might I might forget, and I might not be paying attention

Kit Heintzman 01:23:21
Were on again

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:23:23
Do I should I identify myself in each of these roles?

Kit Heintzman 01:23:25
No, I'm gonna I'm gonna snip all of these together.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:23:28
Okay, good. So speak to me

Kit Heintzman 01:23:34
I wanted to ask what the experience of going to get vaccinated was like for you?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:23:39
Oh, yeah. Um, well, I think I would have to attribute the ease of it to all the hours we had sat and listen to the virologist talk. And and I really think again, just what I'd said about the visual stuff, I think visual stuff can be so scary. And for me, walking into a clinic on Frank's arm, and doing a little dance with mass exchange and spacing between people and lines that don't have to worry about that just hang on to his arm and it happens, right. And, and I sat down in a chair. I got an injection. Kind of like getting a flu shot. I was out, you know. The second time was even more peculiar. We went to a large CVS, I don't know where it was. And, and I said lightly to the woman. Oh, this is my PCA. Ta but he doesn't have a date a problem sit down. So we got both his shot a my shot. But I was, had listened to so much. And I lived through in a very child way, the polio epidemic. And I also gone through the question of vaccines regarding my own children. Because in the 80s is kind of when the, the the anxieties and fears of vaccines kind of began to take root. And there was that terrible period of time where some British doctor was, was claiming that vaccines had some part in people becoming autistic. And but when when my kids were born, you know, when I was vaccinating them, my son first and then it was just no question after that. I asked Ron, I said, hey, Ron, as a medical doctor, what do you think about vaccines, you know, like, in pertussis, it's, that's whooping cough. It's one out of 10,000 that possibly might get so sick, they die or whatever, I don't remember what it was something. And he said, Well, Harriotte the thing you need to consider is it's a very small chance, and you're doing something for the social good. Don't ask me, maybe it's a being a Quaker, at heart, or maybe it's just whatever. Social Good is huge to me. And if my kids, I had them vaccinated for everything, you know, diptheria, whatever, you know, tetanus, oh, my God, we have tetanus, we do tetanus, you know. So, I did, even though it was a new vaccine, I from all that we'd educated ourselves on was convinced they weren't going to be dumb enough to put out something that hadn't been in serious trials to see about the effects of it, because they'd be shooting themselves in the foot if they did. So that was the logic I had. So I had no second thoughts about getting the vaccine. And I'll go back to what I said before. I think the fear factor is escalated by everything looking differently by people's faces being covered. Because a certain sense of trust and familiarity can make a big, big difference, I think. I mean, what do masks mean? Oh they may have been ditto, they mean at robber they mean?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:28:02
You know somebody who has bad intent, classically speaking, stereotypically speaking, so I think masks have been made this whole process scarier for people to I mean, I have some friends, you know, Erica being one that she's had cancer and feel she's immune suppressed and hurt her wife got vaccinated she works for Bridge Over Troubled Waters is their account, I think. And, you know, that was that. What it's like to me, can I live with an alcoholic? No, not an active one anyway, you know, I mean, if you think of people in recovery, you know, it's continuous. But anyway, I know better, better analogy. I will not live with a smoker. That's, that's clear for me. That makes me feel like I'm endangering my health and I can't stand it. The smell of it anyway. So I just wonder how D and E can live together and it doesn't eat at them.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:29:35
And on the other hand, they both seem to enjoy attending Christian Science services I don't know. I don't know. She did come they did come to our porch and bring us something to eat. Last few months


Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:30:00
and they sat on stools we sat up all the stairs so I guess she's, except for my brother who is all been electronic. And this woman I have taught in the prisons where the lead in the princess prisons with are the only three people I've had direct contact with. And I've been loathed to address it. With with friends. And even my brother. Except Frank and I discussed at length decided just what they say on this week in virology. It's not a question of will we get COVID At some point, it's only when. But in the meanwhile, the vaccines we've received and maybe more will come out are the best protection. I mean, if you want to take a chance with no vaccine, it's kind of like, I don't know, having a sword fight without it without a suit of armor. So it just is an unquestioning stance, and also a bafflement to me that people who themselves may have had vaccines as children, you know. Because sometimes their parents like me, are younger parents still who have had vaccines and and say this is, this is a no brainer. But I'm wondering if the entire political situation conflated with the pandemic has made this problem much harder? Do you have any more refinement to that question, because I'm trying to poke around on my own thoughts about it.

Kit Heintzman 01:32:24
Would you talk about the ease or disease of access, and maybe the physical experiences of having been vaccinated and then boosted?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:32:38
The ease and the disease? Oh. Having been vaccinated?

Kit Heintzman 01:32:49
Of getting to a vaccine, so

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:32:51
Oh, I was I was so relieved when I got the first dose. And a month seemed like a long time before the next notes of like, come on guys. It has to be a month has to be a month and of course later we found out that longer spacing happens to be better. So Maya had her first dose I'm not sure if she got her second one or not. But if she did, it was a lot more than one month. And one of the things they're finding out is it can be sometimes more effective. And so when Keeler came here, and he got to Sputnik spaced a month apart.

Kit Heintzman 01:33:40
And Keeler is your son?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:33:42
Yeah, Keeler, my 36 year old son. And he came to help his father out and stayed with me, which was wonderful. So he, of course, had his PCR leaving Europe and an antigen test with us when he arrived. And that same day, we just marched him over to CVS and he got his free vaccine. Just said no, I don't have insurance. What's your name and what's your name? [inaudible]. Name and they said Ah 65 schools St. ActOn this was here and I they bring receive me so it was like rolling all the log. I'd had the booster I think I don't remember. So terrible. I really don't remember. I also remember being a little hesitant when I went. And CVS they were doing flu vaccine and, and COVID vaccine. I was a little mistrustful. But Frank assured me that. No, it was not gonna conflict. So I took his word for that. And in fact, scarcely had an akin neither arm not poor Frank, on the other hand had 102 Fever, his second and third doseis. So, but he, he welcomed and he said, Okay, proves, to me my immune systems work and I said, Okay, after 24 hours, I began to argue a little bit for Tylenol, I need to get.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:35:21
In the name of being able to see friends and family I was, ah, deeply eager to get a vaccine. So, all the education, conversation, things we'd read together. It was unquestioned in my mind. And oh, the day that we went for my booster, and I think he got his same day. We got our time, our date at CBS at Porter square at 10pm as we don't know, won't be a big line then. And it was true, it wasn't maybe there are three people in line. And so while either he or I were getting my vaccine, I said, How many people do you think you vaccinated today or have been vaccinated? She said, 500 she said 300 Or maybe she hit 300. But she said we've had as much as 500 a day. How was like incredulous. So I feel jubilant. I feel jubilant that I could get it. And I was so relieved to also hear that it's good for women who are pregnant because they can pass on some of that immunity through their milk. And my dear friend, Alisa has been facing this same Pro and anti vaccine issue in the intentional community of 40 people she lives in, out in in the neighborhood of [inaudible] Massachusettes it's an eve in her house is a pregnant woman and her husband have chosen not to get the vaccine. And I have to say that would that would generate anxiety for me a lot living with someone who was not vaccinated I would find that very very troubling. Ease and dis ease Yeah, that that would that would describe dis ease for me would be voluntarily living with someone who were not at this point in time vaccinated.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:37:51
I think you've I've covered all the bases ease and dis ease. Well, it's interesting one of the last piece which I'm sure Frank spoke about, he has said to me on a number of occasions, if you're okay with it, because it's your safety, he says that he's worried about not his own so much. And he said if you're really okay with it, then I'm okay with it. So in some of these more recent visits removed or whatever I mean, the most social and big was obviously the Thanksgiving dinner together. And I would check in with him to like with Keeler coming. Also Maya came from Canada for four days. So it felt like we melted down a whole bunch of barriers and or mask most of the time, even in the house, but not always that we were willing to run the risk. I'm sure I'd had two back seats before they came though. So that's what I can pull out of my thoughts right now. What [inaudible]

Kit Heintzman 01:39:23
What do you remember about the beginning of the pandemic?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:39:27
Being very nervous about let's just call her J. Who, when she was working was excited and energetic but then she lost her job and she didn't get another job. And she loved to have parties on the 13th of whenever there was a Friday the 13th she was a real drama queen at the beginning of the pandemic. Should have said you can go to New Orleans but you bloody better find another place. is to live when you get back.

Kit Heintzman 01:40:02
So J was someone who lives with you?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:40:05
So she rode off with another friend promising to be very careful to pick up her furniture, I mean to protect themselves, and go pick up her furniture in New Orleans. And she was gone for about three weeks. If he came back with something about her personality, never are your feet hurting?

Kit Heintzman 01:40:32
No

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:40:32
Never fostered a sense of trust. Partly because when she said stuff, she either said it too boldly, or timidly. And her behaviors were for me very difficult because most people, I don't have to tell. Please announce yourself, even if I walk into the kitchen, that you're there, and they just do it. But I had to tell her any number of times because she would be just kind of lurking by the cellar door, maybe nibbling at something. Like, are you there, J? I'm here, you know, and she's big gift giver. So she'd like to make nice things for people and stuff like that. Which was okay. But the fact that you know, we were not bold enough with her to say after you get back from New Orleans, you really have to move, you know, because it pray on Frank, and prayed on me. Yeah, that's where the DIS ease were just ginormous. And, you know, looking back on it, I don't really know why. I don't, I didn't make it mandatory for her to find another place to live. In fact, I was trying, we were trying to negotiate with her boyfriend, then boyfriend, and his two female roommates, one with asthma. And one who turns out was working in the hinds auditorium, in a special unit, for unhoused people, which wasn't told about originally, eventually, we got to know that she stripped of all you know, like, as she came in the house and showered and took clothes and you know, all that stuff.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:42:43
But we couldn't get them to decide to be in our bubble, or not to be in our bubble, right. So it just failed. The whole thing just failed. And so I've kind of blanked out I feel like she took another stupid trip between April and August. And I think at the end of July, we asked her to look for a place to live and she moved out by the 22nd. But yeah, so that you're right, she was the MSG of the beginning of the pandemic. And, like, some of us tend to submerge our early childhood traumas. I think that's what I did. From March until August. And Frank lost weight. He lost like 10 pounds or better while she was here. Yeah, that's right. So that's a good thing. You asked that penetrating question wherever it was. Because really, perhaps for my own my own sanity, I often will diminish past traumas. Maybe everybody does that. I'm not sure. But I've had the illusion. I think now I think it is an illusion to some degree that I processed it sufficiently that it isn't gonna dog me later. Now as time goes by sorry Im so yawning as time goes by, I'm more skeptical. I mean, I think getting to know Gobble Montes work with wisdom of trauma and allowing myself to experience reflecting about this is I think a step in the process of unwinding the tangle of hurt traumatic experiences goodness me

Kit Heintzman 01:45:19
How are you doing in the sleepiness, do you want to,

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:45:21
I'm gonna have a drink of water. But I think if I drink a little more water and jump up down for a second, and be good, just stand up

Kit Heintzman 01:45:33
How you've been taking care of yourself during the pandemic?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:45:38
That's a good question. Well meditating, not as much as I'd like, and I can't wait to join in the Monday night thing. Alexandre lessons are key. And I have one hour of a private yoga, I mean, yeah, yoga lesson every week with a lovely young woman in Western Mass. And walking. I think I've been a little antsy last four or five days since Thanksgiving because I have walked as much as 7000 steps. And I love the fact that I have a healthcare app application on my phone, which enables me to see how much I've walked in steps. Miles kind of makes me laugh because I can walk maybe two miles an hour, maybe two and a half. I don't think I get it up to three. So getting sunlight and air on at least my face. I really miss swimming though. I mean, swimming during the pandemic has been iffy. I did swim once and Walden this past summer.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:47:18
Singing I don't do as much of that. But also, I think I mentioned for a good nine months or more Frank and I were playing recorders an hour a day and loved nourish that back into life. It's kind of faded off. Self massage when I remember to do that, which as I said you earlier today when I have sore knee joints. And I rub article oil, arnica and lavender oil into them is a way of ministering and caring for myself. I also used to use a BiPAP and I thought I could not ever want to use that. And actually, when I was doing it, well was great and I actually used it right up until May of 2021. And I could start again just haven't quite got it right yet. Because I had skinny skin skin cancer surgery on my nose. I had one on my forehead where my third eye is like nine years ago and I had one other one couple years ago before the pandemic right here. And then I want somewhere my nose here. So during the the healing period, I didn't want to put the mask on my face, you know the the press to the skin, silicone mask thing. But anyway, and for sleep. I use a very small amount of Lorazepam, which is anti anxiety or insomnia and I guess of sorts. Oh, I forgot to say I'm a narcoleptic. That might account for some of those yawns because my narcolepsy dose of Modafinil is only supposedly to work for six to eight hours i doubt that. And God, that was a great gift to my life. Before that, I just thought I was a jerk. So yeah, that's my other disabilities narcolepsy.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:49:45
I mean, really, if you can fall asleep or social circumstance, like music, concert or play if you fall asleep In an almost any passive activity, like listening to a staff meeting, it would be so horrible does not {makes noises} and not know how long I was just terrible. And I have to say it was thanks to a very teenage juvenile 49 year old boss when I worked for Mass Rehab actually got myself tested. Long time ago, 25/26 years ago, before going to grad school, that was good the second time. But back to so self care, I think in cuddling, cuddling with Frank, oh my god. Sometimes when I feel cranky towards him, or one of the hardest things for us as a couple, for me, in our relationship as he is so computer attuned. And since the use of phones, cell phones, I would like to have no cell phones at the table when we eat. On the other hand, we will listen to great programs and stuff, but trying to work it out that we could have a common a common something to listen to. The other thing that would be so helpful, which is really hard for him to do. And I had this problem with other roommates in the last eight or 10 years, which is you having a nice conversation, and suddenly the atmosphere goes dead. Oh, they're looking at their phones, you know, but it's very disconcerting. Because like the human presence was there. And then it's gone. But we so acquired this kind of code switching, though pun intended to look at the phone and follow a curious question. In fact, I've been so astonished that Avi is listening to our conversation. And when a question comes up, he's just looking it up and reading it. I would like more of that. Although I'm getting a little better looking at things myself. So I also know about Frank that he needs quiet in the morning. And he's realized that taking walks is really important. So he's had the same problem in the last six days not enough walking. So even though I would love to be walking with him, he needs a really brisk walk. So made up that I will sit down and write while he's out walking. I haven't succeeded very much because I feel very good when I write. So I think let's see, so covered, walking, and now I have a friend across the street I can walk with and one other friend since we've been double vaccinated, who's a singer and mothers out front, you know, stops fossil fuels work. Fred, and we get together usually once a week. So that's really good.

Kit Heintzman 01:53:50
How are you feeling about the immediate future?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:53:58
Now that I know my brother is not going to be here for a month, I'm feeling much better. Or I actually should reframe that. I have a much stronger sense that even if he had arrived next Monday in Atlanta, he really wouldn't make it here until January. So the immediate future think I feel that in some strange fashion. It's not too different. I mean, we only learned that there's this new damn variant on Friday. And somebody asked me well, is it as variant as Delta. And I either wrote them or said to them, wait a minute. We won't know that for months or weeks anyway, because you got to have the numbers and the data to figure that out. You can't otherwise tell. I mean, it took a while to figure it out. I think it was the beta. Was it the Alpha anyway, one of them was much more virulent than the other. And there have been a couple, as Avi noted, and Frank noted that have gone by, we didn't even know about it. So the fact that delta is such a big deal, does have me worried about this next round, too. However, I'm not holding out hopes of traveling to see my children. My son in Hungary. I was kind of hoping for Christmas, I might fly up to Nova Scotia, just be with my daughter and her partner. And so Frank could go down and see his parents, but with a new variant. And the fact that his father's only in a single j&j. And his mother had horrible reactions to her maderna so she's way not interested in a booster.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:56:29
So in the sense of loving people and protecting each other. I think I can accept that it's indefinite when I'll be able to go and see them, but that is softened by the fact that my son heard the call from his father to come and assist him clean up his house in his yard overall, to make it possible to rent some rooms again. And that afforded me Frank and his sister a little time with each other. Which is so sweet. So sweet. You know, this is another curiosity about my life, which I would be amazed if you run into this same characteristic. And I'm glad to share it here because I think it's quite relevant about the immediate future. I went away willingly. Well, not initially to camp but after the first summer totally willingly to this Quaker camp tiny in North Carolina. And my world felt so cramped and small in Valdosta.

Kit Heintzman 01:57:58
When did you do this?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:58:00
Oh, well, when I was 10, almost 11 I went to this Quaker camp in western North Carolina. My parents were sort of Quakers at large through my brother going to Antioch college and becoming a Quaker and a conscientious objector way back in the 50s. And I think they did this very consciously. I was so traumatized by being in the hospital at Mass i and year to get the one attempt at retinal reattachment. i little kid, youngest of four. When in those days in the children's ward, they only let parents in for an hour a day, in 53 and there were two other kids in my room. I was closest to the door. Not only that, my surgeon had said they wouldn't put bandages over my eyes right away so I could get used to the environment. I miss mercy decided walk off those eyelashes and put that thing on, put them on.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 01:59:20
And I was pretty terrified. And why I'm bringing this up is because I was three weeks in the hospital and my parents were amazing. They flew their college nurse who was retired Lady Alice Bingo to Boston to sit with me for hours and read to me and talk to me. But still, there were the nights and the sirens. And one boy who liked to talk to me and that was hell. But after that experience and we went back to Georgia finally I was terrified that my parents if they spent a night away from me, they might die. I just fixed this idea in my head. And that was that. And at the same time I see I was seven at the time, just from seven. My great great aunt Hattie, about 70 miles away from us in Georgia. Maybe 93/94 was losing her health. And she had a cook, and a butler and sort of a living companion.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:00:32
I loved aunt Hattie a lot. But, you know, my mother or my mother and father would drive over there, with some regularity. Get this other thing, I was afraid of the dark. So I had a nightlight. And I was just terrified of losing my parents, you know, my girlfriend would come over and sleep in my house, I wouldn't go to her. Anyway. So when I was 10, my parents really wanted to help me get over that. So I went to this camp. And they probably paid for my sister to go is a fake counselor. Before we used to sleep in the same tent with me. And then I had gotten so used to the kids and made friendships that then she could ship herself back to a teenage summer. And my mother came up to see Lo and lived in a little cabinet mile or two away. Only the first night that my sister was gone. I got a little fake fever or a little anxiety and they took me in the house. And I don't think mom came that night. But the next day briefly, after that I was home free. I love to camp, I learned to milk a goat, you know, just so many freedoms. So this was leading up to the net result of going away home and willing going away from home willingly first there. And then to Atlanta, Georgia, with a very sweet family. But it was also isolating in that I had to take a cab to the school that had mainstreaming program. So I did a lot of reading, listening to music. Oh, I did a couple of handicapped kid activities like swimming at the Y. But I was the only kid who could swim in the deep end because I learned to swim a camp. And I'm going to roller skate. Again, I had the best capacity of the kids who were there. So anyway. Then when I went away to high school, oh my god, I was in a dorm with 30 girls. And it was boys and girls school and we did so many activities. I felt like I had gained wings. Now, I mentioned all this because from camp I started writing letters to my parents, those were dictated. But when I went to when I was in sixth and seventh grade, and in high school, I typed letters to my parents once a week religiously, like I set up a time, I just wildly typed one or two pages folded up, address the envelope on a typewriter, stamped it and off it went. Right.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:03:24
So we didn't find each other that much in all that period of time. And the same thing held when I went to Germany when I was 19. I just wrote letters. And I develop the ability to hear my parents voices inside of me hear their praises, hear their love so that sense of closeness at a distance is something I unconsciously have an urge at all my life. And I think that too, affects me to a great extent, in the pandemic, it eases me when the pandemic hearing my granddaughters voices and my son's voice and his wife and my daughter it really is equivalent are very close to equivalent of being with them.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:04:36
So the immediate future, I can't go see them or visit with them or hold them and I just want to keep doing all the things that helped me take care of myself. I'm going to do more writing. If I'm isolated for crying out loud, sit my bottom down in the chair and write. Or as I did with my girlfriend who helped me format and finally, complete my dissertation, Miranda, who's a wonderful freelance artist of Contra dance music, and just great flutist. And she and I worked in July on a wonderful electronic card for my son. And then we worked on one for my daughter in law. Both of them are painters. She's representational, she paints construction sites. And then we spent this past week constructing a little book from my I mean, another card from my granddaughter turn nine yesterday. So these kinds of collaborations just light me up. And as Miranda said to me last night, Harry, and I wouldn't do this for anyone else. And yet, I'm having the best time creating. See, I'm over fortunate Kit.

Kit Heintzman 02:06:12
What are some of your hopes for a longer term future?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:06:16
Oh, well, I have lots of those. I really want to complete my daughter's book and find an editor that I could afford or just whatever, you know, whether it's self published, or otherwise, I want to finish that I think I will follow Frank's advice and interview myself or find others to interview me in different parts of my life, because different things pop up as I have today. And because it's not that I think my life is utterly unique. But I also have read many biographies like Maya Angelou, or Paul Farmer, farmer, farmer, farmer, who did so much great work in Haiti or Helen Keller, different people are different people. Not that many, maybe I've only read a dozen. But what I find in, in biographies of real people, is you never know what you'll identify with, or what resonates. And so, I'd like to complete some of this for that, in particular. And I want to create myself practicing Indian vocal music, which because of other traumas, in the early 2000s, related to [redacted] being molested by my Indian husband, I really stopped performing, stop practicing. And I want to generate that just for myself. Regardless, I mean, my God, I learned music, poured myself into it off and on from 1971 until 2006, thank you very much. I want to bring that back in my life. So music in any form, whether it's recorders or Indian music, and I would really like to walk a lot more, create more swimming in my life. And ultimately, when we can travel, I've dreamed about walking on the Camino for any length of time, or any pilgrimage path. Or even I would so love to walk village to village on some of the walking paths in England. There's a phenomenal book called the old ways pie. Isn't MacFarlane can't quite remember Robert McFarlane, anyway, where he describes all these footpaths through people's property because you cannot make a footpath private. That's the thing to do. And I would love to tour Ireland just sitting and listening to good musicians. I mean, given that I don't want to use fossil fuels. I'm not so sure I'll do those things transatlantic.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:09:18
At the same time, it's kind of nourishing thought. Yeah, I like to do physical things. I would actually love to interview other people about their lives. I would really like to continue disability advocacy in some capacity. Although even though I've been arrested a few times in DC, in Little Rock, Arkansas, in Denver, Colorado, to the end of the equal right to live and be supported in the community, integrated way and all all that that entails and healthcare for all. So those are a wide palette of things that I would like to create in my longer term future. And whether that future is 10-20-5 years, whatever it is all that is very rich, and just staying in communication with the enormous network of phenomenal people I've been privileged to become friends with. I love to teach Hindi to and teach German, and learn Hungarian and get much better my Spanish. So there's a lot to do a lot of things I want to work on.

Kit Heintzman 02:10:53
And my penultimate question,

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:10:56
Holy mackerel, go for it.

Kit Heintzman 02:10:59
So we know we're in this moment where there's all of this biomedical research happening and there has to be, I'm wondering what you think people in the humanities and the social sciences can be doing to help us understand the experience of COVID-19?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:11:16
Ah the first things that just come to the top of my mind are, it would be so amazing. If there were a podcast or different ways in which scientists would tell, to talk about their life stories, before and during the pandemic, because we often isolate scientists off into being not exactly people, you know, like there. We either think they're God, or they think their god or something like that, right? That's just a personal that occurs to me. And I think that the life stories of scientists would assist us to realize that human beings who failed who have succeeded, who've gotten lost, like that, that sort of thing. That's the first thing. And then for the Humanities, I think is what you're doing in part. I mean, I think it's, oh, my Wow.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:12:33
Well, even even in high school or college, if it were not artificial, be so amazing. To share kind of like those. There's that NPR thing, what's it called? Not tell a story. But you know, they do these short three minute interviews between two people. Like, could be a son and a father, or whatever, people who've affected each other, and they want to share stories. And so I think, I think oral history is an extremely important thing. And if someone wants to interview me, or somebody else, and I'm not afraid, anyway, I think I think if kids were more exposed to oral history, and making their own histories, my former husband was hoping to be a high school history teacher, but things didn't go the right way. Exactly for that and what he had his kids do, which is probably commonplace now, he would have them make their own timeline of their lives of the important moments on their lives. And because I think truly what's troubling our societies and the Western world, and everywhere, because everybody's westernizing to some degree, is we're losing a perspective of what has come before, for example, I had the most phenomenal experience because Radiolab podcast did at least 8 maybe 10. Oh not wait a minute, is that accurate? Well, and not in 2018 They did a remarkable historical recap of the Spanish flu pandemic. Well, epidemic we call it then. And I learned so much from that. And I think likewise, Ah historical telescoping of time is so important. And part of that is, you know, it's sort of happening now because people are looking at their DNA and trying to understand their genealogies and their racial roots and cultural roots.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:15:24
Humanities and science. I think science needs more of the humanities. It needs more of a science to put a silly, perhaps overgeneralize point of view. This is a very interesting question. It's very interesting in particular, because from a science point of view, data, data collection, and data analysis is critical. And at the same time, we need translators of data. Make it not just headlines, not just simple condensing headlines, but something with more dimension in it. So be like a group of scientists who have been data collecting or working on why is data important? What is the history of vaccines? I don't think most people in this country born here or emigrated here, have a clue about the history of vaccines. And I feel I've just touched the tip of the iceberg. So I guess we would call it interdisciplinary. We need to know more about each other. And the difficulty is, for sure, in science, people hone in on microscopic views quite literally another. But those lead back into macro views. And thank be to TED Talks. And thanks, be to French research. We've gotten to know several women scientists who are doing amazing work, marine work. Yeah, I like to just say the name, pro Clora Caucus, which is a single celled creature that covers huge swaths of the deep blue ocean and makes oxygen, oxygen for us to breathe. Lots and lots of it. And if we tamper with the oceans too much, it'll mess up that equilibrium. So anyway, one woman decided they were important. And just kept exploring that since 90 1986, to today, shes MIT, and he isn't like that. So maybe there already are these lives of scientists around. But except for the fact that Frank has introduced me are we've, I've asked questions that had him find them. I wouldn't have I wouldn't know. And I know that school curriculums are probably insufficient. So I'm not really sure how all this bridges and I think personal histories, as I said oral history and some kind of collaborative work. Between history of art, history of science, history of manufacturing, you know, from the Stone Age to today. Yeah, those are some of the things that I think about. Okay, yeah, go ahead.

Kit Heintzman 02:19:43
This is my last one.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:19:44
Okay.

Kit Heintzman 02:19:46
Imagine talking to some historian in the future, someone who never witnessed this moment so they have no experience of COVID-19 at least as a pandemic new event what kinds of histories would you tell them are critical to write? Tell them what stories you want remembered from this moment for future generations

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:20:19
Wow I would like to tell the stories of oh, people unreasonably reaching out and choosing to support each other in ways that they never could imagine. And it's so hard to imagine this because during this present pandemic, the sense that we're self annihilating creatures between the fear that motivates people not to get the vaccine at this moment in time. And the fear that almost has all of us xenophobic, or whatever it is, you know, racially, racially, divided, religious divided, politically divided all those divisions, feed our fears. And that's huge fuel for self annihilation. Combine that with starting with a Western civilization are recklessly mining, nature's resources. It will be a miracle if you future historian 100 or more years from now are actually hearing my voice and this recording it would, it moves me deeply to imagine the future in which you might hear this, that we have turned a corner that we know how to nourish our planet and ourselves and recover from huge losses of life.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:23:11
And huge losses of nature. We, we started rebuilding we found some rebuilding to do. And the fear that drove us apart. Somehow we came back to ourselves. I don't know how to recognize that. Being a human, no matter how we look. No matter what our race was, is would be no matter sexual orientation. Because if anybody looked at nature, they know that all nature is permeated with heterosexuality homosexuality asexuality. I don't know what happened to the human brain to think about it here for centuries to think that we will have a longer view of what we've learned and what we're learning that we will throw our hearts minds and bodies on this side of living. That you, you, whoever you are. You found some lessons and our naivete in our ignorance in our blindness Oh yes. We've made frightening, destructive, destructive things and actions in our lives and the generations before us. And historian I hope you're listening to me societies and cultures that literally honor each human being for whoever they are.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:25:33
And that there aren't hurtful standards. It actually gives me great joy to consider. You historian, well, maybe 200 years down the road that way might be loving and learning from this glorious planet. Even if some of us got siphoned off to some other place, because we we didn't have faith just to even dream of your existence is kind of a life giving thought. Because it's very easy to see the futility and hopelessness of the enormity of the pickle, the mess, the horror we put ourselves into. But then I think when you take it apart, you'll find that fabric that sustained human beings, year by year, decade by decade, maybe century by Century, do you having access to our lives? That's all I want to say. Thank you.

Kit Heintzman 02:27:17
I want to thank you so much for everything that you've shared with me today. And at this point, I just want to open some space. If there's anything you want to say my questions haven't facilitated to give you that space to say so now.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:27:41
Oh, wow.

Kit Heintzman 02:27:43
It's the secret last question.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:27:47
Well, I think a couple things I just like to say which is you're very deep listening and giving me space has facilitated me to share much more the breadth and depth of my life experience than I could imagine I suppose. And wow, I may have to ponder if there are other questions or things I would add to this maybe along with the self portraits but it may be too slanted a question What have you loved in your life? What do you cherish in your life? Might be there and maybe maybe depends on the person. How would you like to be remembered? And that was another thought I had. Let's see.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:29:42
Again, I wouldn't know where to put these questions in. I'm just sort of throwing them out. For me, if you ask me, who are the key guides in your life from let's say 1 to 12-12 to 24. You know, decade by decade like that. Those are questions maybe that I just personally want to answer at some point. And what experiences and what relationships have contributed to freeing you up from old trauma and fears, if there are any that pop into mind?

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:30:47
Yeah, those are some of the questions but they're kind of very personal or specific. I guess I'm a little less confident that they would be questions you'd ask of someone whom you didn't know well, I guess you could say you don't know me well, but I still feel you do know enough. I guess I asked question about what you love and cherish because the inner critic that each of us has tends to cover up anything that we've contributed in life and not saying that it would come up easily. Oh, here's one thought about human beings to it has become enormously clear to me that I am unable to measure or see my own contributions in life. So how the heck does that work? It is with those friends or family member friends reflecting back to us what their experiences of us so in my relationship with Frank, he's one of my great mirrors. And I do what I can to be his mirror and learning to simply listen to how someone else experiences me. It's very humbling because if I don't really listen and think and welcome it. I'm maybe not negating but I am minimizing what that person is sharing me sharing with me if I'm unwilling to embrace their perception of who I am think that's probably way more than enough.

Kit Heintzman 02:33:42
Thank you so much, Harriet.

Harriotte Hurie Ranvig 02:33:45
You are so very welcome.