What’s influencing ME right now (that’s worth sharing)

It feels like I just started writing this blog, so I was surprised to see this is my 14th post – whew! I’m also up to a whopping FIFTY followers (thanks, y’all!), and I am constantly amazed and delighted to see views from places like Australia, China, Estonia and Israel. I feel like my world is expanding exponentially, and am so grateful for your interest.

I do have fashion and travel posts coming (I promise!), but this week I want to point out some of the bloggers and Instagrammers I’ve found personally influential over the past few months. I’ve also enjoyed a feature some of my favorites use, of sharing what they’re reading or watching at the moment, so I’m going to try including that at least once a month. And yes, there’s a very English theme to it all these days – unrepentant Anglophile here…..

BLOGGERS

The first blogger I have to mention is my own fairy blog-mother, Jodie Filogomo of Jodie’s Touch of Style. Jodie blogs about fashion daily, with a format of a theme for the week expressed by women in their 50’s (herself), 70’s (friend Lesley) and 80’s (her mother Charlotte). Infinately creative, she includes great information about everything from health (a retired dentist who knows her stuff) to travelling and just plain FUN! Her motto is It’s Never Too Late to Look Great, and she proves it every day.

The Cutlery Chronicles is a food AND travel blog (two of my major passions!) written by Leyla Kazim, a ball of energy who lives in London, and (until the lockdown) was eating her way across the world and taking us along. Her enthusiasm is ultra-contagious, and I would love to travel someplace (ok, anyplace!) with her some day.

READING

I’ll be talking below about the education I’ve been catching up on, but in a less serious vein, I’ve been loving The Yorkshire Shepherdess series by Amanda Owen. There are 3 volumes (so far) of the wry and humorous autobiography of this amazing woman, who lives on and farms Ravenseat, a remote hill farm in Swaledale, Yorkshire, with her husband Clive and their 9 children. Reminiscent of the adventures in All Creatures Great and Small, there is never a dull moment! I highly recommend for anyone who loves farming and rural life in the English countryside.

WATCHING

On Amazon Prime, we’ve just finished watching a whole season of Escape to the Country, where folk from a British city visit and try to choose from 3 country properties for sale, in the area they want to move to. It’s a great geography/history/culture lesson each episode, although usually the most the couple ever does is choose which to view a second time – in 22 episodes, they told us of two actual sales! Similar format to Househunters on HGTV in the US, with thatched roofs.

The other channel we watch regularly is Turner Classic Movies. Recent classics have included Casablanca and Singing in the Rain, as well as Kings Row (1942) – a sprawling saga with a gripping plot, starring Ronald Reagan and Anne Sheridan. Just when you think you know what’s happening, everything turns on its head!

INSTAGRAM

All the bloggers I mentioned above have IG accounts I really enjoy too. Other favorite accounts I follow include Hannah Jackson, The Red Shepherdess, who farms in Cumbria with her sheepdogs, Dales pony, and farrier boyfriend, wringing joy out of every day.

About as different as you can get is Gina Danza, @wildginaa. She is an American outdoor photographer, writer, director and producer. What I value, though, is her IG stories, in which she shares blistering Black perspective on media, social media, history and back-story explanations and resources. She WILL make you uncomfortable, and she pulls no punches. That’s why I follow her…

ANTI-RACISM

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, the events in our country over the last couple of months have galvanized me to seek change both within myself and the world. I am making this a category not to applaud my own efforts, but to both hold myself accountable and share ideas and resources of how we can all “keep our foot on the gas”, and not let our good intentions pass as just a fad or temporary frame of mind.

In addition to some good reading so far (White Fragility, Men We Reaped and Citizen), I’m really excited about two programs I’ve committed to – one short-term, one long-term.

30 Days & 30 Ways to Be a Better Ally is “over 80 pages of stories, resources, conversation starters, journal prompts, videos, and personal anecdotes about how you can better unpack your internal bias and be a better ally for the Black community. Over the next 30 days, you’ll have a total transformation in your thinking, understanding, and commitment to allyship.” It’s an awesome collection of resources put together by Gloria Atanmo, a Black travel blogger with “30 years of experience being Black”. The $27 costs seems very reasonable. I’ll share my thoughts on it when completed.

The other program is called Sacred Ground, which I’m doing through my church (monthly Zoom meetings). Sacred Ground is “a film- and readings-based dialogue series on race, grounded in faith.  Small groups are invited to walk through chapters of America’s history of race and racism, while weaving in threads of family story, economic class, and political and regional identity. The 10-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.” This will go through December.

Through these two programs, I’m hoping to (paraphrasing Sacred Ground description) “do the white work and getting one’s own house in order before, or concurrent with, showing up more broadly for racial justice”. In the meantime, I hope to see more clearly where my efforts will be most effective.

I’d love to hear in the comments what’s moving Y’ALL – what you watching, reading and following?