May we honor their sense of wonder

Also: Cognoscenti's best stories of 2022 [View in browser](    [❤️]( December 18, 2022 Dear Cog reader, This past Wednesday, Dec. 14, marked a decade since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. To remember the gruesome day, we published three stirring essays this week. The first, a more hopeful piece by Miles Howard, is about the evolving [politics around guns in America]( thanks to the activism and engagement of Gen Z. The second is an essay by Dr. Ayesha Dholakia, who grew up in Newtown and was [a student at Sandy Hook]( years before the shooting; the trauma of that day inspired her to be a pediatrician. Finally, the writer and novelist Leah Hager Cohen, who also [helped Cog]( reckon with this tragedy 10 years ago, wrote a new refection on the shooting. As a mother of three young children (8, 8 and 5), there’s [a line from Leah's essay]( I can’t shake: "They were so small, the murdered children. They were 6 and 7. The age of hilariously botched knock-knock jokes, the age of wiggling your loose tooth with your tongue. The age of exquisite curiosity. The age of boundless questions." Her full essay on how to honor their memory is worth your time. We’re also sharing [our favorite essays from 2022]( this week. After 2020 and 2021, I think we were all hoping this year would be better somehow. More peaceful? Less harried? I’m not sure it delivered. For us, it was a year punctuated by the [omicron variant]( the [Jan. 6 hearings]( the Supreme Court’s [reversal of Roe v. Wade]( threats to [American democracy]( the [war in Ukraine]( and [walking]( — so much [walking](. Life during the height of the pandemic was very scary, but also pretty simple. Life in the “after" — a world that looks similar but isn't the same — is more complicated. Maybe we were all so busy getting “back to normal” in 2022 that the “after” crept up on us? But it's only the “after” now. In many of the essays we published this year, our writers were starting to make sense of that. And how our continued longing for the “before”— and the resistance to accept the world as it is now — can be exhausting and limiting. We'll get there. Wishing you and yours all the joys of the season!  P.S.— We're taking next Sunday (i.e. Christmas) off from sending the newsletter, but we’ll be back in your inboxes bright and early to kick off the New Year on Jan. 1. Cloe Axelson Senior Editor, Cognoscenti [Follow]( Support the news   Must Reads [WBUR Cognoscenti's best stories of 2022]( We published hundreds of essays and commentaries in 2022. Here are the pieces that attracted the most readers, and took up the most space in our hearts and brains. [Read more.]( [WBUR Cognoscenti's best stories of 2022]( We published hundreds of essays and commentaries in 2022. Here are the pieces that attracted the most readers, and took up the most space in our hearts and brains. [Read more.]( [The lessons I learned at Sandy Hook Elementary]( My elementary school's motto is written on a small sign in my bedroom: “Think you can, work hard, get smart, be kind.” I'm a doctor now, but Sandy Hook is always with me, writes Ayesha Dholakia. [Read more.]( [The lessons I learned at Sandy Hook Elementary]( My elementary school's motto is written on a small sign in my bedroom: “Think you can, work hard, get smart, be kind.” I'm a doctor now, but Sandy Hook is always with me, writes Ayesha Dholakia. [Read more.]( [May we honor their sense of wonder]( Perhaps one way to honor the memory of the 6- and 7-year-olds killed at Sandy Hook, writes Leah Hager Cohen, is by committing to try, collectively, for some measure of exquisite curiosity. [Read more.]( [May we honor their sense of wonder]( Perhaps one way to honor the memory of the 6- and 7-year-olds killed at Sandy Hook, writes Leah Hager Cohen, is by committing to try, collectively, for some measure of exquisite curiosity. [Read more.]( [How Gen Z is changing the politics of guns in America]( A decade after Sandy Hook, the shooting of school children has become a fixture of American life, writes Miles Howard. Gen Z voters understand that to change this reality, the Republican Party must be clobbered into humility. [Read more.]( [How Gen Z is changing the politics of guns in America]( A decade after Sandy Hook, the shooting of school children has become a fixture of American life, writes Miles Howard. Gen Z voters understand that to change this reality, the Republican Party must be clobbered into humility. [Read more.]( [The other ecological crisis that should keep us up at night]( We cannot afford to conflate the climate and biodiversity crises, writes Frederick Hewett. Both threaten the future of human societies. [Read more.]( [The other ecological crisis that should keep us up at night]( We cannot afford to conflate the climate and biodiversity crises, writes Frederick Hewett. Both threaten the future of human societies. [Read more.]( What We're Reading "We rarely talk about the possibilities, experiences, and value of middle age, instead focusing on how to avoid looking like it or on the hopeful exploits of the young scratching at our heels." "[The Mindf*ck of Midlife]( The Cut. "If Americans continue to average three burgers a week while the developing world starts to follow our path, it’s hard to see how the Amazon survives." "[No One Wants to Say ‘Put Down That Burger,’ but We Really Should]( The New York Times. "Not so long ago, you were the oracle of all things, your authority infallible on everything from boo-boos to astronomy. Now you are utterly devoid of expertise on anything ..." "[Congrats, your kid is a teenager!]( The Boston Globe. "What makes us fall prey to the delusion that we’re not all connected?" — Leah Hager Cohen, "[May we honor their sense of wonder]( ICYMI [Technical difficulties | WBUR]( No description found. [Read more.]( [Technical difficulties | WBUR]( No description found. [Read more.]( If you’d like to write for Cognoscenti, send your submission, pasted into your email and not as an attachment, to opinion@wbur.org. Please tell us in one line what the piece is about, and please tell us in one line who you are. 😎 Forward to a friend. They can sign up [here](. 📣 Give us your feedback: newsletters@wbur.org 📧 Get more WBUR stories sent to your inbox. [Check out all of our newsletter offerings.]( Support the news     Want to change how you receive these emails? Stop getting this newsletter by [updating your preferences.](  I don't want to hear from WBUR anymore. Unsubscribe from all WBUR editorial newsletters [here.](  Interested in learning more about corporate sponsorship? [Click here.]( Copyright © 2022 WBUR-FM, All rights reserved.