Picture an American football stadium, seats filled to capacity, 80,000 fans, pumping fists in the air, screaming and cheering on their favorite team. Now imagine this stadium filled, not with football fans, but with large trash bags, trash bags so full and bloated, they are bursting. There are so many bags that the playing field is no longer visible, neither are the seats - these bags pile up all the way to the dome ceiling.

So, what’s in these bags? Food. Rotting food that was once fresh, edible, and perhaps delicious. This food represents one day, yes, one day of food waste in America. Consumers, grocery stores, and restaurants toss away roughly 330 million pounds of food per day. This food waste is disposed of in plastic garbage bags that won’t decompose for possibly another 1,000 years. And the smell is putrid, rancid from the foods’ decomposing fat. This waste will sit in landfills where it will continue to rot and release methane gas into the environment and help advance the climate crisis.

In addition to climate change, the issue of food waste has other misfortunes. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Security Status of U.S. Households report showed 47.4 million people lived in food-insecure households - 7.2 million of them were children.

Growing up in New York City in the 1990s, Robert Lee was one of those children experiencing food insecurity at home. His parents had immigrated to the U.S. from Korea. Their English was passable but not adequate to resume the jobs that they had in Korea. Life presented its challenges. Mr. Lee explains, “I watched my parents struggle and scrape together every penny to make ends meet. I grew up thinking that food insecurity was normal. I thought it was the way everyone was living. My parents would often skip meals so my brother and I could eat.”

Wanting to help his family out of the situation, he chose a career that didn’t involve a lot of schooling. He wanted a short track to make money. He says, “I chose finance at NYU and, fortunately, was able to get a scholarship, which helped pay for the full ride.” While at NYU, he joined a student club that brought left over food from the school dining halls to shelters and food banks in the city. “That’s when I learned about the prospect of food rescue,” he explains.

In 2013, after graduating from New York University, Mr. Lee took a position with financial titan JPMorgan Chase. But, as he explains, it didn’t last long, “After about a year of working there, I quit to rescue food full time. I wanted to make it more of a universal standard. It could be a grassroots, volunteer movement that I saw at NYU. I wanted to bring that out to the public and have people be the solution. We could transport those smaller amounts of food, especially in the

city. It would be easier to do on foot.” This career change was a big leap of faith, Mr. Lee laughs and recalls, “When I left my job at Morgan, my boss said to me, you know you’re leaving to do something illegal, right?” It wasn’t.

Not long after his departure from finance, Mr. Lee founded Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, a New York City-based nonprofit, which now has branches in nine other cities around the country. Rescuing Leftover Cuisine works with restaurants, bakeries, corporations, and other donors to rescue left over food from being wasted. Volunteers pick up left over food from donors and deliver it to the recipients, whether it be a homeless shelter, family shelters for women and children, food pantries, and other organizations in need of food donations. They also partner with other nonprofits to reach families who are experiencing food insecurity.

While businesses are beginning to recognize food waste as an issue, they’re not the biggest offenders when it comes to filling up landfills - consumers are. Yes, consumers are the biggest source of food waste. U.S. households produce, on average, more than 42 million tons of food waste in a year. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, each year, the average American family of four loses $1,500 to uneaten food.

As consumers, how can we change our behavior and be proactive about reducing food waste? Mr. Lee suggests, “Start by not going grocery shopping when you’re hungry. Don’t buy more than you can consume. When you eat at a restaurant, if you don’t finish your meal, take the rest home and eat it later or the next day. When you dine at one of your favorite restaurants, ask them what they do with their excess food at the end of the day. Let them know that, as a consumer, you care.” It’s these small efforts and changes that can help reduce food waste and feed people in need.

“Habits are so hard to break.” Mr. Lee admits, “Sometimes people can’t imagine doing things differently. But we’ll get there.” He cites the reduction in plastic straws as an example, “I feel like we’re on this movement where we’re getting close to a tipping point. Like the use of plastic straws, where it seemed like overnight, everyone was onboard with paper straws. I’m sure when looking into that, it was years of work, years of effort, years of bringing on restaurants little by little until it hit a tipping point, and then everyone transitioned over to this new system.” That’s how he sees food rescue–there’s an opportunity, and if he keeps pushing, he can raise more awareness and bring in more donors, one by one, little by little.

Working towards this hasn’t been easy, Mr. Lee admits, “There are definitely higher highs and lower lows. I get super depressed about people just not caring about this, people just saying no, and choosing to still throw away their food, that kind of thing. But, despite those days, there are a lot of things that keep me going. The stories about people who Rescuing Leftover Cuisine have helped with the food we provided give me hope.”

It’s up to consumers, supermarkets, restaurants, large-scale farms, and other food-producing entities to help mitigate food waste and reduce the amount of food that ends up in our landfills rotting away, emitting methane, carbon dioxide, and toxins that contaminate groundwater and soil. These emissions are escalating climate change and present increasing health risks for all of us. Can we rewrite this dystopian narrative? Can we make small changes to move the needle? Can we help create a future where 47.4 million people don’t experience food insecurity, including 7.2 million children?

“My therapist said faith can straighten what nature bent,” he leaned in and told me.

As a trauma therapist, I found his treatment in the therapy room deeply troubling.

This week, the United States Supreme Court ruled against a Colorado state law barring the practice of conversion therapy and sent the case back to a lower court for a stricter review. In an 8-1 decision, the justices found that these bans violated the First Amendment. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, reading, “it threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.” The treatment does medical harm — First Amendment rights are not the issue here.

Conversion therapy attempts to change a client’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. It tries to make LGBTQ+ individuals heterosexual or cisgender. It is a fraudulent practice that does not work, and what’s more, it is capable of doing profound — even deadly — harm.

As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I have witnessed firsthand the deep damage this type of therapy inflicts, including clients who experience trauma, shame, depression and suicidality because of it. I had advised against it for my nephew and explained that this supposed “cure” for homosexuality is considered abusive and unacceptable in the professional community, as it threatens the lives of countless LGBTQ+ youth.

Major medical organizations, among them the American Psychological Association, declared “sexual orientation change efforts” harmful. The practice is rejected by every major medical and mental health organization because it has been proven to cause measurable psychological damage.

Experts agree that the approach is an extremely dangerous practice, and it was abandoned by the American Medical Association in 1994. A 2020 report by the Williams Institute found that “LGB people who have undergone conversion therapy [are] almost twice as likely to attempt suicide” as those who have not. This is on top of the already alarming rates of attempted suicide (12%) or suicidal ideation (39%) that LGBTQ+ youth said they experience.

My fears proved well-founded. The treatment scarred Isaiah, and when he recently came to me and shared what he had endured, he told me, “It was so scary. They didn’t allow parents. I had to go in there alone and sit in front of a man I didn’t know.” He added, “his questions came rapid fire and full of judgment. I don’t remember all the details.”

I wasn’t surprised when he apologized for not remembering. Isolation and disassociation are common side effects of conversion therapy. When a child endures a distressing experience, the brain and nervous system respond by pulling away from the self. The body’s fight or flight system creates a numbing distance from thoughts and feelings as a way to survive the pain.

While he has experienced memory gaps, Isaiah does recall important sobering truths. He remembers the therapist sitting across from him and asking, “Do you have thoughts of a sexual nature toward men?” Isaiah was confused about how to answer. Should he tell the truth or lie? When he told the truth, his “homework” was punishing, and the shame spiral was intense. When he began to lie, the pressure let up and so did the homework. He quickly learned to lie.

“The therapist tried to ‘fix me’ and make me ‘normal,’” Isaiah explained. “For example, he said I was ‘sitting too girly’ — not ‘manly’ enough.” This created a core wound for him. Being told that the way you sit is defective may sound trivial to some people, but it strikes at something profound. It told him that his most natural, unguarded self is somehow inherently wrong — not what he did but simply how he exists in a moment of rest. That is a violation of a client who is in a vulnerable position. It goes against everything therapy strives to be.

As therapists, our training requires us to do no harm and the majority of therapists consider conversion therapy to be destructive — both psychologically and emotionally. The basis of conversion therapy is that homosexuality is a sin, and it’s the therapist’s job to convert the child and make them “normal.” It’s akin to telling a person they are fundamentally broken and need to be fixed, or that they have a disease when no disease exists.

Like many children forced to undergo this kind of “treatment,” when the interventions did not work, Isaiah internalized the failure.

“It made me feel bad about who I am,” he explained, admitting that the shame ruined his ability to have healthy relationships. Trust became a big issue. “It will always be something I’m working on.”

“It affected my identity,” he added. “I wanted to come out sooner, but I was scared. It stifled my growth. Their biggest tool is shame. I became ashamed of who I was.”

The choice to place Isaiah in conversion therapy came at a steep price. The words caught in his throat when he told me that suicide was a real consideration at that time. Dark thoughts crept in during quiet moments.

From the outset, the odds were stacked against Isaiah. In the small Christian community he called home, he was already feeling isolated and alone. Isaiah ended up in a deep depression as he repressed his sexuality and hid his young life from view. He experienced overwhelming feelings of worthlessness, guilt, and sadness at an age that’s already difficult for almost every young person.

“Conversion therapy tried to change me,” Isaiah told me. Indeed, my sweet, happy, talented nephew did change, but it was not in the way his church had hoped. Instead of becoming “straight,” he learned to lie and keep secrets. He realized the only way out of the treatment was to say, “I’m healed. I don’t have those thoughts anymore.” And that’s how he got out of it. He receded deeper into the closet, pretending to be the way they wanted him to be, and he didn’t come out until years later.

The following year, Isaiah found drama club and acting and starred in every play his performance troupe put on for the entirety of high school. He then went on to a renowned drama conservatory.

“College was a transformative moment for me,” he revealed. “I saw gay men living openly, and I think it clicked something in my brain and changed everything. This is what it feels like to be free of the shame that’s holding me back.”

As a result of that acceptance from the LGBTQ+ community, he found the courage to come out at 19, but the psychological damage he’d suffered didn’t fade.

“Truly, I don’t think I will ever be over it,” he said. “You know it’s always gonna be something where I’m working to be better — to deconstruct all that stuff.”

Despite the scars, Isaiah now lives in New York City, where he’s enjoying “his best gay life” running a high-end interior architecture gallery.

“People need to know that conversion therapy is not helpful for anyone,” he explained. “They need to be educated about how terrible it is.”

This ban was extremely important because it protected a vulnerable population from coercion disguised as treatment. Now, with the Supreme Court’s ruling, countless young LGBTQ+ kids could be at risk and some will choose to end their lives after experiencing the torture of conversion therapy. Their blood will be on the hands of these justices.

Looking back, I realize now my nephew was lucky to have survived such a traumatic experience. As both a therapist and a mother figure in his life, I’m grateful he’s still with us. When I asked Isaiah what he wanted people to understand about conversion therapy, he said, “It’s the most damaging thing you can do to a young person. You’re abusing them. It’s mental abuse.”

End.

If you are in crisis, here are a few resources that could help:

The Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people, providing information and support 24/7, 365 days a year.

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I was 15 years old. The pulse of music reverberated against the cold cement in which I sat. Swarms of newly pubescent boys, clumsily and madly kissed their new finds from an hour prior. The air smelled like hotdogs and beer. My insides burned. I desired to be wanted, to lusted over. My head began to feverishly bob back and forth. My peppermint breath labored and my skin began to prickle like burnt grass. I waited. I waited. I waited. The clock mocked me as hours passed. And then it happened. I saw him. He had jet black hair that matched his eyes. His fingers were pencil thin. He walked within a cloud of cheap musk cologne towards me. My world began to decolor. I could feel my heartbeat within my groin. This was it. “Hey” he moaned. I stared blankly paralyzed in fear and lust. “Hey” he repeated with more gusto. “Breathe” I mumbled to myself. I lifted my innocent gray eyes to meet his. “Hi,” I said, “my name is Tammin” “Hey Tammin, I’m Steve. And I want to tell you something.” My heart stopped. I had daydreamed for years this moment would come. “Yes” I fumbled to say. “You need to go to Jenny Craig.

I was 17 years old and I sat on the floor of an antique bathroom in Italy. I had spent the last 40 minutes ramming my chapped and raw knuckles down my throat. I knew this routine well. I had become an expert at lying. Swirling within the bowl were six fluorescent braces bands dancing like tropical fish. My fingers stung as they dove into the oily water. It didn’t matter though, for secrets kept me warm at night. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and saw my eyes, they looked like they were bleeding. I weakly smiled at my reflection. I was 100 pounds, I thought, now people would love me.

I was 21 years old and he was 30. He smelt like sweat and promise and kissed me deep and long. He had movie star hair and bleached teeth and always called me babe. He would take me back to his house that was bought with his parent’s money, and let me share a place for my toothbrush. I overlooked the fact that he chose to talk about me looking like an Olsen twin with my large forehead and flailing arms because I was taught in school, boys that like you, make fun of you. I waited up for him when he would leave for days to find himself. When he would eventually return he would ask me to take my clothes off. To which I always obliged. Because, again, I was taught it was the right thing to do. He would then, while he proceeded to have his way with me, pause for long enough, just to say “Your stretch marks are getting better.”

I was 30 years old. I had just given birth to my first child. I would brush my hot skin with the tips of my fingers. They would fall into the grooves on my stomach that looked like a map of Venice. I cried salty, plump tears. Was I now deformed? I had spent the last 30 years being told that the only way to happiness, worth and love was for other people to view my body as good enough. I had let my body be objectified by the hands of men, I had let my worth be valued by the headlines of the media, I had let other people’s opinions bathed in hate define the way I viewed myself. For too long. Not anymore.

I have spent the good part of 35 years hating my body. I can’t get that time back. But my children can. And it starts with me.

To all my fellow women warriors that have ever struggled with self worth, body image and the fear to break free of old belief systems, I see you. May we all love ourselves. May we all rise together.

.https://substack.com/@tamminsursok?r=8i3191&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=stories&shareImageVariant=image

Written by Tammin Sursok.

Some critics have scoffed at a book about an influencer but Yesteryear is a fascinating and relevant novel. It is a biting commentary on our culture and we need to hear it. We need to deconstruct influencers and stop our obsession with social media.

Natalie has Narcissistic Personality Disorder as classified in the DSM-5-TRl. As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, diagnosing a literary character sounds a bit nuts but follow the thread here. She has grandiosity, a preoccupation with power and beauty, a constant, excessive need for validation, entitlement, and lack of empathy.

And, as consumers of Instagram, we listen to people like Natalie every day.

In the treatment, I get annoyed when my clients reveal that an ‘expert’ told them to do something and they have complied. Armchair experts deliver psychobabble on attachment styles, trauma responses, neurodivergence, and boundaries that they don’t fully understand. But if it’s on Instagram, we’ll listen and follow their suggestions.

I do it too. All the time. Drink lemon water. Check. Forty six grams of protein a day. Check. Japanese interval walking. Check. On and on the list goes. Do I need to do pull-ups? Have I done 10,000 steps? Do I need a rebounder? When should I start Tai Chi?

We need to STOP. And Yesteryear might just help us because it places us inside the mind of Natalie and she’s a monster. I’m not saying all influencers are monsters but it takes a certain type of person to perform a life of perfection for the camera.

Yesteryear puts the reader inside the mind of said influencer and allows us to experience the cruel, inane and idiotic thinking of Natalie. Her followers are obsessed with her, listen to her, watch her, and heed her advice. Millions of people. Natalie is in active psychosis. She’s very sick. She is a tradwife with a 500-acre farm and an idiotic husband. She hates him, her kids, and the mundane life of baking bread, keeping chickens, and homeschooling kinder. She has fragile self esteem and is highly sensitive to criticism, which causes intense rage.

Is Yesteryear telling us something about our own behavior? Why are we fixated on influencers? Do we believe that they’re perfect? How does she do it? The answer is she isn’t perfect. She’s pretending. She’s an actor. Just know that.

Yesteryear actually got me thinking about spending time on Instagram. It made me reconsider who I follow. I am now more intentional because random scrolling works against us. It inhibits new neural pathways from forming, stops us from deep sleep, daydreaming, being present in a conversation, and sitting with our feelings. Even boredom, which is essential for creativity, is intolerable.

Dopamine loops and passive consumption keeps us scrolling and we become unreachable. Doom scrolling re-wires the reward system making us crave instant gratification. Making us into demanding toddlers. It is certainly not for leisure.

I know this is meta. I am touting my opinion online, but over here on Substack we’re all getting smarter. Right? What did you think of the book? What did you think of Natalie? Did she help you realize that some of the folks you follow on Insta could be nuts?

Love

M xx

Youssef and his band were traveling musicians. It was a job like any other, selling yourself and the company product to stay afloat or, in their case, stay alive. Ouds, flutes, tambourines, and finger cymbals. The musical sounds of the Middle East. It was exotic to the ears of the well-traveled and wealthy. It was an opportunity to exercise their braggadocio. Even the rich and powerful can’t resist a snappy beat.

In a moment of weakness, maybe drunkenness, or perhaps an unexpected brush with humanity, the warden allowed the musicians to play their instruments outside the walls of the old prison, now the home of little wanderers.

Explosions could always be heard in the distance, the ambient soundtrack of the time. The noise gave Youssef an idea and possibly an opportunity. He would convince the warden.

“Sir, due to the noise, the children aren’t always able to hear the music. Would it be possible for us to play inside?”

The begrudging answer, “Yes.”

“We’re in,” Youssef told his band mates.

They could hardly contain themselves, but had to.

The rusted gates were unlocked by the warden, simply known as Jones, most likely his surname. A hefty man who waddled around in a pair of old, worn sneakers that may have been too small. He also wore sagging, eroded trousers and walked with a limp, a sad presentation. A misfortune, but not to be pitied. Cruelty isn’t an accident; it’s a tool of intent.

Jones led the band down a long dark passageway to the venue, a derelict cafeteria. Youssef surveyed the cluttered chaos of squalor, the scattered dirty dishes, fetid garbage barrels, crumbling concrete walls, windows with lightless panes crudely darkened with red paint, a steel door at the back of the room with a dangling hinge, and the persistent sounds of dripping faucets and buzzing flies.

This wasn’t what Youssef and his band envisioned when they were conscripted by a Qatari billionaire to travel to the United States to entertain him and his cohorts. Not what they had planned on, but here they were.

Sundays at camp were free days for most of the small staff. Jones would take advantage of the free time, calling it his holy day, his day to go into town, and gobble at his favorite diner, stuffing his face with chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, apple pie and ice cream for the finisher, and then visit his mother.

His deputy Mike Olson would be at the helm while Jones was enjoying his day with the lord. Mike was the opposite of the warden, tall, handsome, ironed trousers, and hiking shoes. He’d been in the employ of the camp for a few months. He was the deputy, in name only. He was a traitor, an imposter, a turncoat. He was a father, a father who was searching for his daughter. He hoped she’d be here, like all the other places he searched. She wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. Get the children, whoever they are, out.

He and Youssef had been planning and the day came. A truck would be waiting.

“Hello little ones! How are we today?”

Youssef greeted the children as they scurried into the kitchen, bouncing up and down, eager to get singing and dancing. The band took their places and instruments. The children formed a circle around Youssef as they always did. He started the tempo with a hand clap and the band followed. Sounds of joy erupted, feet stomping, giggling, jumping. The temporary retreat from trauma was exuberant, uninhibited movements, the screams of angels, bouncing their little feet on the cracked dance floor. Spontaneous, joyful children, life in its purest form.

When the last song ended, Youssef told the children, “Today, we’re going to do something a little different. When I say go, all of you are going to run out that door over there, as fast as you can. Run straight for the trees. Mr. Olson will be waiting for you.”

“Go!” he said.

Where are we going?” one little girl asked.

His eyes went wide.

He bared his teeth in joy, “You’re going outside to play.”

Their sniffles and fear paralysis subsided. Out the rusty door they went, syncopated in a sprint so fast, only tiny blips on a radar. Like shooting stars you might miss if you blink.

faridah àbíké-íyímídé 6/5 7:00 pm Presented by Porter Sq. Books, hosted at GrubStreet Boston

Jeremy Tiang 6/6 7:00 pm at Brookline Booksmith

Julia Cooke 6/7 2:00 pm at Peabody Essex Museum

“Pencils Up!” Porter Square Books Writer’s Hour 6/7 5:00 pm (You are the author at this event!)

Anna Badkhen 6/8 7:00 pm Harvard Book Store

Ann Pachett 6/10 7:00 Presented by Porter Sq. Books, hosted at First Parish Church Cambridge ***Sold out, of course!

Keep writing, Substack friends! x

o