Have you ever wondered... what in the world do we mean when we talk about design for connection?

That is the question the wonderful people of See Change Sessions asked recently as we sat around a warm stage surrounded by interesting people from across the globe, coming together for one week in Burlington, VT.

I love people. My love of people is the reason I chose architecture, and the reason I focus on social health and human well-being. Not to mention one of the many reasons you’ll nearly always find me at coffee shops - well that and um coffee. 

But even so, extensive time surrounded by even the most wonderful humans can overwhelm my system. Part of my ability to dedicate myself to human connection, relies on time connecting alone with myself. For this reason, I was delighted when Francesca Specter reached out to discuss solitude for the New York Times.  

Summertime in our house growing up meant that my mom was up early and spent the day in her element. Some people are trained to be special education or vision teachers, but mom was born for this, and you could see her giddy excitement spending summers with teen and pre-teen kids at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in central Austin.

Mental health month is a great time for self-reflection and active experimentation regarding how we spend our time. These exercises are designed to help you reflect on your current life, explore various life paths, and prototype experiences to build a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling. They encourage an active and iterative approach to life design, much like how a designer would approach creating a product.

Early in my life, I didn’t have the words “highly sensitive person”, or “sensory processing sensitivities”, I just knew the world often felt too loud, and I struggled to find a place where I could be myself. So, I did what so many other people do, and learned how to hide my sensitivities.

This is one of the many reasons that when on a trip to Ithaca, New York last week, visiting Cornell University’s Human Ecology building, I was floored when I walked into a beautiful exhibit celebrating neurodiversity.

Maybe it took a child’s eyes to see what was there all along wanting to be, a green space of connection, play, and possibility. A place to welcome everyone.

Growing up, I didn’t think I liked history. It was this colonel, that war, those weapons. It wasn’t until I took architecture history, while dual enrolled at Tulane in early 2000s, that I realized that history didn’t have to just be about wars and men. It could be about the evolution of movements, cultural shifts, people, and the places they called home, and that I as a woman could have a place in history.

In 2006, I found myself floating down the Grand Canal in China, in awe of the way that in the middle of the bustling city, it felt like a moment of calm. As we would approach each bridge, a near perfect circle would appear – half of the arch in the bridge, half in the reflection in the water. The synchronicity, balance, and mystery of it, felt like experiencing something magical.

Perhaps this is a small part of what the UNESCO world heritage site saw when they talked about the Grand Canal as “tangible proof of human wisdom, determination and courage”. It was not simply its utility that gave this ancient masterpiece of hydraulic engineering, but also its beauty, and reminder of the interconnectedness with nature and with each other.

Mentorship matters - in work, in life, in times of transition, and especially in times when we feel lost, unseen, stuck, and seeking. Mentorship is not the exchange of services, but the building of a meaningful relationship between mentee and mentor. In that spirit, I wanted to share a few of my takeaways from amazing mentors and mentees in my life. And, hoping that you will share some of yours with me!

Staring at my desktop after a particularly hard day, I see cherry blossoms dancing in the blue sky and read the words, "when you focus on the good, the good gets better."

Although the quote, attributed to Esther Hicks, seems to have just appeared in my life without a clear start I can trace, it feels deeply rooted for me. It reminds me of all the good I have in my life - this unique miracle it is to be alive now, in this time and place.

More than half of American adults say that having close friends is essential to living a fulfilling life. And yet Americans (and many others) appear to be declining in social connection across measures over time.

How do we turn this around to cultivate connection?

On a brisk fall day at the campus of Harvard University, I gathered with global and national leaders to do just that!

For those addressing loneliness, isolation, and social connection for the Building Connected Communities action forum was such a powerful place of connection.

Sitting in the kitchen as a high school senior, I was tearing up again. Wet cheeks in my hand, I poured out my heart to my mom as she reheated dinner from the night before. I had started the semester hoping to be a social worker, impassioned about the vast injustices I saw in the world, and hoping to be a part of the change I had seen her be in the lives of so many children.

“I am just not sure I am strong enough for this,” I said, disappointed in myself.

“It’s OK honey, there are so many ways to help the world. You just need to find yours. And you will,” she told me calmly.

I recently had the honor of sitting down with the amazing NBC Texas Today host, Kristen Dickerson, to share ways to connect and how design can help heal loneliness.

Perched on white stool beside her, I was struck by something she said that is still rattling in my head today – that loneliness is such a sad word. And perhaps it is. I get it. No one wants to be lonely, and yet roughly 3 in 5 Americans are. Loneliness often feels like a personal fault, “what, no one wants to hang out with you?!” but that couldn’t be further from the truth, it is the trick that loneliness plays on our minds, and the way it grows in the darkness.

It’s back to school! I can’t believe my daughter just started a at a “big kid school”. We are all in our feels at the Casa de Peavey - excited, terrified, proud, and protective - and that’s just me!

Working on a card for her new teacher she hasn’t yet met, I ask “what message would you like me to write?” Cocking her head to the side and furrowing her brow, she considers, then looking up at me, says, “Dear Maestra… I love you so much… I hope you like me ok.”

I was recently talking with a friend describe a community that he works with, one that has been disinvested in, whose streets are filled with potholes and cracks, physical symbols of neglect. He was telling me that in their experience, they’ve seen that desperation is the culprit for so many ills, and that HOPE is the antidote.

It got me thinking about art can be a small, tangible symbol of hope in our lives. Art through dance, song, and brass bands like the second line in New Orleans that celebrates a newly wed couple. Or the beautiful murals that line the buildings down the street from me. Announcing to all – let there be hope. Let there be love!

One of my favorite recent finds is The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, by global mental health and trauma expert, Gabor Mate, and his son Daniel Mate. This book, along with others, has really got me reconsidering our focus on “normal”. It is becoming clearer to me every day, that normal, doesn’t mean good, healthy, or natural. But what does it mean?

According to Miriam Webster, normal means “conforming to a type, standard… characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, routine.” And stemming from the Latin word, norma, which refers to a carpenter’s (or architect’s) T-square.