Care Package: 1. A parcel of food, money, or luxury items sent to a loved one who is away. 2. A digital gathering of cultural touchstones on ethandezotelle.com, put together to brighten your day a bit.

It’s been a long, difficult winter with plenty of stress and not enough work on my part to change that. So I’m bringing back the Daily Care Package.

I posted the first Daily Care Package three years ago today as a way of putting a bit of cultural light into the world each day. Sometimes I’d even put together a couple a day. The posts evolved as time went on, different topics caught my eye, and needs changed, but putting songs, poems, art, and more together in daily bundles was therapeutic for me. And readers enjoyed it. 

I hit a mental low point this past July, and I stopped doing those posts everyday. They became spotty at best. Then after Aug. 5, 2021, I stopped altogether. 

Now I’m taking a crack at getting back on the daily with this thing. It’s not the first time I’ve tried since last summer to do this, and those attempts didn’t work out. Fingers crossed for this attempt. I’ve tried to update and enhance the experience with links to take you well beyond each post if you’d like. I’ve also added a Back to School category at the end for my colleagues in education.

Thanks for checking this thing out, and enjoy.

POEM: Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
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ART: Tetyana Yablonska’s Girl with a Butterfly Net, 1959, Ukraine
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QUOTE: “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.” – William Wilberforce
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SONG: Winds of Change by The Scorpions
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TRAVEL: Tunnel of Love, Klevan, Ukraine
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WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: The Forgotten Female Revolutionaries Behind Latin American Independence
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BACK TO SCHOOL: WKRP In Cincinnati: Venus Explains the Atom