Welcome to Kyndall!
I am very excited about this week’s guest writer, Kyndall White. To be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever not been excited about a guest writer. But I am excited Kyndall is here because we’ve had a rich, almost ten-year mutual social media follow situation. I’ve always appreciated what she has to say because she’s hilarious, but especially within the last year because she’s a public health pro.
My favorite memory of Kyndall is that one time freshman year she invited me to watch either The Prestige or The Illusionist in her room which happened to be a rare North Russell room with it’s own bathroom. I couldn’t believe it.
Anyway, I’m grateful for Kyndall and that she let me ask, “hey, wanna guest write next week?”
You can get in touch with her via her Instagram, or leave a comment on this here post.
This sentence now has links to the my instagram, and old issues of the newsletter.
Kyndall, introduce yourself
Hey guys, Kyndall here :-)
Katherine and I met our freshman year at Baylor, a phase in my life I fondly refer to as “Freshman Kyndall” because I was very awkward. I like to think I’ve outgrown that.
Something I haven’t outgrown is a love for public health! It started when I watched Sahara (2005), the action rom-dram starring Matthew McConaughey and B.A. epidemiologist Penélope Cruz. That movie with a 41 metascore on IMDb started the journey that led me to get my Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology at Emory University. Now I live in Dallas and am a healthcare project manager.
Why the resumé? If you have any COVID questions, I’d love to connect and discuss. I uncharacteristically took a break from talking the COVID details and kept my Five Things more reflective about my life in the last year.
Number One: Loving your neighbor
If we take away just one thing from this pandemic, I hope it is the importance of loving your neighbor. This is core to the field of public health—the idea that the health of communities requires community interventions and cannot solely be addressed at the individual level.
Loving our neighbor this year has taken a lot of public healthy forms: distancing, masking, getting vaccinated. And I hope it’s also looked like shopping at the local bookstore or actually saying hi to passersby because they can’t see your soft smile under your mask.
What I hope we’ve experienced is that in the neighborly sacrifices, there has been LIFE. I hope it’s actually been fulfilling for us to step back from the hurry and consider our community’s needs.
Number Two: Feeling Known
Have you ever moved to a new city and realized nobody there knows you? And even worse, you can’t get ANYWHERE without GPS? During parts of this last year, I felt a lil’ alone and out of touch with rhythms that shaped my life pre-pani. It almost felt like being in a new city.
When I just wanted to feel known I turned to some meaningful sources, like my faith and Marco Polo videos with my friends, and some less meaningful sources, like Buzzfeed quizzes.
Move over enneagram, I’m back to that Buzzfeed grind! If you too want to do a little self-reflection, I recommend starting with these Buzzfeed quizzes. You might find that Buzzfeed knows you better than you know yourself. Last week a Buzzfeed quiz accurately guessed my age and height based on how much ketchup I would put on different foods. It was astonishing.
Number Three: Cry Like Nobody’s Watching
Speaking of astonishing, there’s a song called Astonishing from the Little Women musical that can make me cry if it catches me at the wrong time (which is apparently right now). For a good chuckle, I like to chase it with this compilation of performances of the show where girls yell the line “Christopher Columbus.”
Sometimes you need to cope with stress by crying and sometimes by laughing. That’s called range. This year has brought me much stress, thereby many opportunities for coping. You don’t know the meaning of healthy coping until you have a ranked list of fast-food parking lot cries.
If you want to cry and you have advanced beyond material like Humans of New York and movies where dogs die, might I recommend: the movie Moonlight, this cover of All Too Well, or old people getting their COVID vaccines and hugging their grandkids. For a good cry-laugh, The Big Sick. And for a pure laugh, Nate Bargatze’s stand-up on Netflix.
Number Four: Data Collection
I used to be someone who saw 3-5 movies a month in theaters courtesy of AMC A List and Movie Pass, may she rest in peace. Once I pivoted to watching movies from home last year, I started some new data collection by documenting every movie I’ve seen on Letterboxd. It’s basically Good Reads but for even more pretentious people.
I think my favorite good movie was Sound of Metal and my favorite bad movie was Assassin 33 A.D. Both are available for free on Prime, so you’re welcome for lining up your plans for next weekend. When looking at the Letterboxd data, I also caught wind of this upcoming movie. This is now all I want and hope for in 2022 aside from a complete end to the pandemic.
Number Five: Listening to the Experts
I am in a weird stage of life where some of my friends spent their pandemic year producing their second child and I spent it loosely plotting my future run for elected office. Where these interests intersect is that there has been a lot of conversation about “good” schools. The fact that we even label schools as “good” and “bad” is reflective of the inequities in our education system that often disproportionately impact students of color. In many ways, COVID has exposed or heightened these inequities.
Going back to the “loving your neighbor” thing, I want my sweet neighbor kids to have an equitable education. To help support that, I must step outside of my own experiences and learn. I’ve been doing lots of listening to the experts about education, race, and how to drive change. Lately I really enjoyed listening to season 2 of The Promise by Nashville Public Radio.
No matter what topic interests you, I encourage you to curate your content to include diverse experts in that field. For COVID perspectives, check out Dr. Emily Smith (churchy), Laurel Bristow (sassy), Dr. Aletha Maybank (doctory), and Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett (a genuine goddess).
Bonus: Katherine here… I love being vaccinated
First of all, thank you Kyndall!
Second of all, Kyndall is a part of why I decided to get the COVID vaccine. I live life needle-averse. I never got the third Gardasil shot. My COVID vaccine plan was to wait until it came to me. But thanks to Kyndall and others putting in the work on social media to inform their followers of the safety and importance of getting vaccinated, I jumped at the first chance.
I got Johnson & Johnson on day two of J&J being administered in Missouri. I was very tired the day after, but other than that, no symptoms. I LOVE BEING VACCINATED. At least four times a week, I have a moment of “oh I don’t have to worry about pressing the crosswalk button,” or “I can boldly walk into this over-packed Texas Roadhouse,” or “I will death glare the guy wearing only a face shield at the Y because he’s breaking the clearly posted mask policy, instead of glaring at him because I’m concerned for my safety.” My overall pandemic stress has subsided, and I am so grateful. There is certainly space for recognizing that this thing isn’t over yet, it’s not. But it’s so nice to know that I won’t be some headline about “vibrant young woman, writer of a newsletter with a small following succumbs to COVID weeks after starting grad school.” Instead I can live with my other fears like car accidents, cancer, dropping a knife on my foot, and dying alone. It’s a good time.
That said, if you don’t have the capacity to jump on vaccine appointments as they open up, but want one, and live in the Kansas City area, I can lurk on KC Vaccine Watch for you. It would be my joy.