Guest author Cade Russo-Young
INTRODUCTION
This week the words we will be witnessing with not be only my words. They also will be the words of guest writer Cade Russo-Young. Cade and I went to the same college. Except we never knew each other there. We met on Facebook.
Meeting on Facebook as a cultural concept in the 2020s hits differently than either of the two previous decades of its existence. And I find myself, reflexively, needing to state for the record it’s not that I love Facebook, really it isn’t. I don’t hate it. Hate I save for Twitter. But I definitely don’t love Facebook. Love, I could at once point say with completely a straight face, was how I felt about Instagram.
But I have quite a few things to thank Facebook for.
My husband, for one. We had both very recently created accounts when, in the fall of 2006, we connected through a Facebook group for the archaeological dig we had both worked at that summer. Somehow in those early days of minimal algorithmic nudging, James had seen a post on my wall announcing that I would be studying at his university that spring, and he offered to help with any questions I had before and after the term started.
You should know that James and I had spent 2 weeks in each other’s presence a few months earlier, in summer of 2006. There’s lots of photographic evidence of the two of us comprising blurry throng of other dirty Indiana Jones-wannabes, by the trenches, down the bench from each other at the pub, or part of a group playing cards in video footage the dig was producing to make it appear far less cold and rainy and socially complicated that it in fact was.
But in those two weeks of adjacencies, James’s existence had made no impact on me. Actually I found his name written in the diary I kept at that time–the only diary I’ve ever kept in my life and I mention this not as a brag but as an attestation to just how very very little there was to do after hours at a campsite in rural northeast England. Yes the diary. Some ten years hence, I rediscovered my diary from that summer and oogled at the name now inextricably linked to my own written in my distinctive handwriting amid a description of a completely, distinctively different man all together. Over his name and in a different color ink I’d layered some lines, above which I’d written a different name, the correct one that corresponded properly with the fashionable man with long blonde hair to whom I’d meant to refer. James–with his mousey brown short back and sides hair cut and distinctively unfashionable Tesco Value t-shirts–had so minimally registered in my awareness in the moment that I couldn’t even perceive that he couldn’t possibly be the person I found so attractive that I would add to the annals of my desires.
And I would never have registered James in my memory had it not been for Facebook. For it was only thanks to that tool of social connectivity that I retained any slight connection this person of the most oblique interpersonal consequence, until the autumn of 2006 when he reached out to me. Why yes I would like someone to help me figure out what housing to request. And yes would you mind helping me figure out the public transportation options? Any thoughts on the history department? Oh yes of course, you’re a history major too. And archaeology. Obviously. Wait do you think you could show me around town when I arrive? I’ve actually never been there before and don’t know my way around. Yes dinner and a walking tour sounds fantastic. And so on. I always say it wasn’t love on first sight, but it was “oh you handsome” on second sight. And then a kiss a few weeks later, and I love you a few days after that. The rest is well documented in the Facebook memory feature “On This Day.” A wedding, a house, a kid, a house, another kid, another house, another house, another kid, and so on. Trust me: it all looked great on Instagram.
Less well-documented, or rather accurately-documented, are the fractured years–the years of too little sleep and too much responsibility. Of caring for kids and accosting each other. Of working full-time jobs we believed in and not believing we would make it. Of biting off and chewing and biting off and chewing and being too proud for a spit bucket.
Once again Facebook offered connection, especially in spaces made by and for fellow alums of my alma mater. I joined groups for parenting, for elder care, for sex, and for make up, and for “divorce, custody, and separation.” In each of these groups I read a lot. I empathized a lot. I saw myself in posts. I shared my pain in posts. I connected with folx who got it. I started to make plans. It had gotten too bad. I wanted a divorce.
Then, things shifted. IRL. James went to a week long therapy intensive. We arranged for a couples counseling immersive weekend. The pandemic hit, and our responsibilities shifted. We had time together. We started watching more TV together–the prestige kind mostly with a few episodes of “The Tiger King” and “Bridgerton” thrown in. We had some great sex. We took some nice walks.
None of this is well-documented on Facebook. Certainly the orgasms beyond Bridgerton should remain private. But the people we really knew learned, one by one, that things were better.
I’ve stayed in that Facebook group for “divorce, separation, and custody.” I like to chime in when someone is looking for success stories of couples therapy.
I don’t post often to the group for parents, but I delight in reading the triumphs and crisis of my collegiate siblings. I try to weigh in when helpful and abstain when wiser thoughts have already been voiced. I feel privileged to have this group of parents to connect with, and to contribute to. Most of all, I am grateful for how the group unquestionably understands the holistic nature of parenting. Questions are rarely limited directly to children. Posts encompass transportation and in-laws and holidays and technology and sex and work and life. There is no place I feel more like a whole person than I do in that group. On Facebook, of all places.
Meta it seems has figured that out and has taken to showing me more and more from the Parents alum group. A couple of months ago, amid questions of norovirus and car seats and food sensitivities, came a post. The poster had written something. She used to write a lot, but hadn’t for a while, but had just had a really special night and found herself writing. She attached a Google Doc in case anyone wanted to read it. Seconds later, I’d enlived the link.
“The night I met Ani DiFranco".”
I immediately loved the directness of the “how I spent my summer vacation” title. As I read, I felt that wonderful mixture of familiarity and newness. I didn’t know the author, despite our shared collegiate heritage, but I could hear the cadance of her voice in how she punctuated her thoughts and structured her sentences. Sometimes she wrote like I was already up to speed, othertimes she knew to give me the cheat sheet about her family dynamics. At the end of the piece I felt….grateful. That she’d taken the time to write. That she’d trusted the group to read. That she brought artistry and authenticity to our simple Facebook group for parenting.
There are few things in this world as plainly human as Facebook. It showcases all of the dysfunction when our highest ideals meet our basest inclinations. It ineffectively rejects hateful and dangerous statements, as effectively as it sells its data and insights to anyone who can pay. It is a gossip, and a teacher, and a family reunion, and a space of tribute, and my god I’ve learned a thing or two about eyeliner on there. It can also be an intensely personal space, one that facilitates connection and community, confessions and collaboration.
I’ve always said I love towns. That the country is too sparce for me and that cities are too intense. I like some space and I like some connection. Facebook groups feel to me like the towns of the internet. You don’t like and agree with everyone, but when you find your local bar or cafe or knitting circle, you’ve sure got a good group to turn to.
I reached out immediately after reading “The Night I Met Ani Difranco.” I could look it up to be sure but in my recollection it was some mash up of “you don’t know me but man I loved that piece and thank you for your authenticity and bravery and oh did I mention I’m a writer and have a podcast and would you like to come on sometime and share the piece and anything else you’ve got on the back burner.” I basically fangirled this stranger, in a way much less justified than fangirling a public figure and artist like Ani Difranco.
But she wrote back. She thanked me for reading. And she agreed to share her piece on here. She even found herself writing a second piece, and offering to share it here, an offer I accepted with immense gratitude.
For this is the community I want to make space for on WRENCast. As Ira Glass of “This American Life” fame says, “Great stories happen to those who know how to tell them.” He’s right. However I’d like humble to add, “Great stories happen to those who know how to tell them and who take the time to tell them.”
All of which is to say, thank you–sincerely–to my guest this week, Cade Russo-Young. Thank you for recognizing all the great stories you have, for spending time putting them together, and for taking the time to tell them, first on Facebook and now on WRENCast.
One last note of appreciation for Cade. As you know if you’ve listened before, every episode I say in this introduction, “I want the words I write to be witnessed, to have life breathed into them.” However this pod is still small and when we first connected Cade wouldn’t have know that that is my line. I was of course completely delighted that she accepted my invitation to read her pieces on the pod, but I was really floored when she mentioned she needed time to “marinate in them vocally,” a phrase I just love and relate to deeply. Finally when, a few hours ago, I listened to the recordings of her pieces I appreciated just how rich her recordings sounded, thanks I am sure to the time she took marinating.
So without further ado, I am honored to present two pieces by author Cade Russo-Young.
