The Sensory Accessibility Checklist

San Francisco’s Apple Store in Union Square. Photo: Nigel Young/Foster+Partners.

Last month, I visited my daughter’s pediatrician’s office for her annual checkup. We have been going there since she was a newborn, and the office has changed little in the past 12 years. It has the same wood-paneled waiting room, the same small windows in the exam rooms, the same deafeningly loud fan in the bathroom. Every time I use it, it’s a race to finish and wash my hands before the low, roaring sound causes me to have a sensory meltdown. (I should probably email them about that.)

The pediatricians’s office was designed for economy, but even businesses with high-end design can be difficult for sensory-sensitive people to cope with. Take the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco: the second floor of the building is devoted to computer repair, but when you enter the space, it’s a wide-open room with no clear spot to line up or speak to someone in charge. It’s bright, loud and confusing.

These are accessibility issues for the 5-16% of us with sensory sensitivities, similar to how the absence of wheelchair access and braille signs is an accessibility issue for wheelchair users or people with vision loss. Just as there are checklists to make sure public spaces are accessible for people with a variety of physical disabilities (as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act), I have created one to help people create businesses, workplaces and other public spaces that are more accessible to people with sensory differences. This isn’t required by the ADA, but it’s good practice nonetheless, and it creates spaces that everyone feels more comfortable in — not just people with sensory differences.

You can see and download it here.

I developed it with the help of the folks in a large Facebook group for adults with sensory processing disorder, as well as my neurologist, who has studied and treated kids and adults with SPD for years.

If you’re designing a business, workplace, or another space that will be used by a variety of people, please consider using the checklist as you’re creating those designs. Your customers, guests and employees will be grateful.

🎵 (Partially) vaccinated and it feels so good 🎵

I got my first Covid-19 vaccination last Wednesday, the Pfizer version. After a few months of watching my elders and friends in healthcare get their shots, it felt strange for it to suddenly be my turn. I was giddy as I chose the dates for my shots and confirmed the appointments. 

My arm was sore and was really tired for a couple of days after the shot, and I napped a lot. It reminded me a lot of when I get flu shots. Other than that, I felt fine. I expect the next one will have more side effects.

Although I have a number of health conditions (fibromyalgia, thyroid disease, etc.), none of them qualified me for the vaccine. But my weight does. 

That made me feel really conflicted. On the one hand, weight and health are not strictly correlated. I don’t have any of the diseases commonly associated with weight gain. My blood sugar, cholesterol, heart and lungs are all healthy. 

While it’s true that many bigger-bodied people have heart disease or diabetes, it’s more likely that weight gain, heart disease, diabetes (and others) stem from the same causes: chronic stress, especially coupled with traumatic childhood experiences, such as divorce, abuse, loss of a parent, or living under systemic oppression. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, writes about this in her book The Deepest Well. 

On the other hand, one study shows that people with higher weight/BMI had worse outcomes when they contracted Covid-19. But most of those didn’t just have higher weights; they also had high blood pressure, heart or kidney disease, or another risk factor, so it’s tough to say for sure that weight alone was the issue. 

Also, we don’t know how many of those people might have avoided their doctors early on in their covid infections because they’d been fat-shamed and dismissed in the past, or how many avoided hospitals until they couldn’t anymore, knowing that overwhelmed hospitals may de-prioritize them. 

I don’t know whether I agree that weight alone makes me more vulnerable to covid infection (and there’s also the chance I already had it), but when California said it was my turn to get vaccinated, I was glad to sign up. I’m relieved to be on my way to protection -- not just for myself, but for my family, for the kids in my child’s classroom, and for the employees at the stores I visit. I’m looking forward to it being your turn soon, too.  

To all the kitties I've loved before

I’ve lived with cats for most of my four-plus decades on this planet, and I’d like to introduce you to (most of) them.

This is Tommy. It was taken in the first few weeks after I was born; my mom was feeding me and Tommy decided to get in on the snuggling. He looks pretty pleased with himself.

Cricket. We got Cricket and her brother, Fred, from Amir, our neighborhood mechanic after his cat had a litter of kittens. Fred died a few years after we got him, but Cricket was my heart-kitty through most of my adolescence and early adulthood. She was such a sweetie, and loved snuggling and sleeping in with me on the weekends.

This is Sunshine. It’s hard to tell from this picture, but she was a long-haired tortie cat (with the attitude to match). When we adopted her I wanted to name her Panther, but my parents overruled me. She was born with a tail, but had a habit of sitting in the street with her tail jutting into it, and we think she got it run over by a car — she came back to the house with a dislocated and fractured tail. The vet amputated it and she quickly learned how to balance without it.

Here’s Macaroon. He and his brother Willie came to us from our neighbors, Arrow and Rio (that’s their house on the other side of the fence in the background). He was a sweet and very social cat who grew very round in his later years. He loved hanging out with people, even people he hadn’t met before, and his meow was more of a quack.

And here’s Willie. I don’t have many pictures of him; he also died pretty young. He’s still a kitten in this picture, and he’s inspecting the fish tank close-up. (I love that this photo also features my brother, my encyclopedias, my Garfield and Duran Duran posters, and my Singer Featherweight sewing machine.)

Meet Emerald. We adopted him and his brother, Merlin, from Eric, my boyfriend at the time. Merlin ran away to live with another household in the neighborhood but Emerald stuck around. He preferred hunting for his food (birds, mice, etc.) over eating the food we provided him, and had a corner of the yard where he would store leftover critter parts, sorted by type: feet, beaks, wings, and so on. He also really enjoyed “helping” my mom make quilts.

Later in life, Macaroon and Emerald bonded with each other. They slept curled up together a lot of the time, and Macaroon would give Emerald extensive baths. They really loved each other and it was so sweet.

This is Mouse. She was my partner’s cat for the first few years, but lived with both of us after we moved in together in 2001. Even though she was part of a litter of mixed-coloration kittens, she came out looking like a French Chartreux. She was beautiful and smart — she learned a bunch of facial expressions from us, which was pretty funny. Despite being a bit antisocial, she loved laying on my pregnant belly and was gentle with our kiddo as a baby and toddler.

And here’s Pigeon. We adopted her from the SF SPCA about six years ago, when she was a brand-new and recently spayed mama. Her belly was shaved and stitched up, and her nipples were still full of milk. She was very skinny and her coat was scraggly and she farted every time she jumped onto or off of something. We soon discovered she has a lot of sensitivities and allergies, got her onto some more appropriate food, and she began to look and smell a lot better. She’s not a terribly smart cat, she’s quite anxious and she has asthma, but she’s also a total love.

Finding unexpected validation in the doctor's office

In mid-July of 2020, during one of the early Covid-19 spikes, I developed a cluster of covid-like symptoms: shortness of breath with any exertion and even with talking, chest pain when I breathed, extreme fatigue, mild fever, muscle aches, and an occasional dry cough. I got a nasal-swab test; it was negative, but at the time, false negative rates were roughly 20-30 percent. I also got a chest X-ray, which showed my lungs were clear. After a couple of weeks, the fever subsided, but the fatigue lasted at least a month and the shortness of breath lingered for months. 

My doctor referred me to a pulmonologist, who was brusque and dismissive of me from the first meeting. She told me that the covid test I’d had -- a gentle swab inside the opening of the nostrils, not the one that goes all the way to your brainpan -- was garbage.

But she also told me that, since I’m fat, it was more likely reflux causing my lung symptoms. And also, because I sometimes have trouble sleeping, I probably also have apnea. (She wasn’t just a pulmonologist, but a sleep doctor). 

I tried explaining to her that I have sensory processing disorder, and I wake up at the slightest unusual noise or movement at night, and that’s why I don’t sleep well. “It’s possible that you have … whatever that is,” she said disdainfully, “But apnea is very common in people of your size.” Never mind that we were on a video call and she could only see me from the shoulders up, and had no idea what size my body was.

Unfortunately, I’m accustomed to having interactions like this with doctors. I’m fat, I have fibromyalgia, I’m neurodiverse and I’m well educated on my own health. I do a lot of self-advocacy in the doctor’s office, and some doctors don’t like it. They also don’t always know how to handle it when someone turns up in their office with so many unfamiliar conditions (even though none of them are particularly rare). 

I stopped seeing that pulmonologist. My GP put me on a steroid inhaler, which was the first thing to really bring my lungs any relief. After a month of breathing freely, I met with a different pulmonologist, who took my history again. He said right away that my symptoms strongly suggested I’d had a virus that affected my lungs, and that covid was entirely possible. He also said that lasting shortness of breath was common after these kinds of viruses, and that sometimes a miscommunication between the nerves in the throat and the nerves in the chest/lungs can be part of the problem. 

I laughed. “No, it really can happen,” he said.

“I believe you,” I said. “I have fibromyalgia -- my nerves misfire pretty often.”

He didn’t question it. At all. 

He referred me to UCSF’s voice and swallowing center, where they would check for any signs of a nerve issue. On the day of my visit, the speech-language pathologist talked me through my history. Again, she mentioned the potential for nerve systems misfiring. When I mentioned I have fibromyalgia, she nodded knowingly. “It’s really common for folks with fibromyalgia to have these kinds of issues. We see it all the time.”

My body warmed with relief. It’s rare enough to find healthcare workers willing to take fibromyalgia seriously, let alone ones who are familiar with treating patients like me. 

“We also find that this happens in patients who have a lot of sensory sensitivities,” she said. 

“That’s me, too!” I said. Of course, I’m not at all surprised -- people with sensory sensitivities are more likely to develop chronic pain conditions, and vice versa. But not that many people in health care seem to be aware of that. 

I thanked her for being familiar with these things, and she smiled. And then, when it came time to numb my sinuses and run a scope through my nose and down into my throat, she did two things that really helped: One, she explained everything she was about to do. And two, she got the tiniest scope possible, the one they use for infants, so it would cause me the least discomfort. 

I’ve written before about having to craft my own healthcare procedures. It’s exhausting, and shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s also worth it. So it was a huge surprise and relief to be taken care of -- without having to do any of the work myself. Why can’t more medical appointments be this way?

I still don’t know if I had Covid-19. My lungs feel a lot better, and the voice and swallowing center didn’t find anything wrong with the nerves in my throat. And I’m grateful that, at that appointment, I felt genuinely seen.

We Are Here to Help Each Other

Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden/Unsplash.

When we’re together, humans constantly influence each other’s emotional states. A grumpy person on our bus can leave us feeling cranky, while a calm doctor can soothe us from the moment she enters the exam room. When our kids or partners are testy, it can make us short-tempered, escalating a moment of tension into a fight. And when we snuggle into a loved one’s arms, both of us quiet and breathing slowly, we settle into a bubble of calm and safety.

In psychology, this is often called “co-regulation,” especially that last example. Scientist Stephen Porges believes that humans, like all mammals, were designed to settle their nervous systems in connection with others. We learn to self-regulate through the safety that co-regulation teaches us, and teaches our bodies.

“Our ability to achieve a state of regulation—and especially to be able to support others who are in distress—actually comes from our capacity and opportunity to lean on support ourselves. And we need the support of not just one strong relationship, resiliency research shows, but of many. We need a distribution of support, so that we have access to a wide range of relationships to keep us resilient without overtaxing any one of them,” Porges said last year.

Growing up and even now, it’s hard for me to feel 100% safe leaning on other people for support and comfort. I think it’s for a combination of reasons: being on the autism spectrum has made it more difficult for me to understand human behavior sometimes, especially when I am too trusting and wind up getting burned. I’ve been hurt a lot by people, and I’m still learning that, while some interpersonal harm is abusive, we also accidentally hurt each other even in the best of relationships. And then we mend again.

Co-regulation doesn’t happen only between mammals of the same species. Anyone who’s had a close relationship with a cat, dog, horse, or other sweet critter knows that we can soothe and support each other across species. For much of my life, I’ve sought comfort and safety from animals, cats in particular. They have helped me immensely.

The brilliant folks at Queer Nature talk about the idea that co-regulation can go beyond mammals, beyond other critters, to other beings in nature (trees, stones, rivers), or the earth itself. As someone who instantly settles down when I am among trees or by the ocean, I love the idea of co-regulation with these spaces. But is it “co”? Am I helping them return to calm and safety in the way they’re helping me? Sometimes I would swear I feel a tree lean into me when I lean against it, or the playfulness of water as it laps around my ankles, certainly.

Getting to these ideas, and accepting them, can be challenging, especially for those of us raised in white privilege, a white/human supremacist culture, and/or in a culture that values individualism and doing everything on your own. Humans in leadership have been dismantling close connections to nature for centuries, especially in an effort to eradicate those connections among the indigenous people of the Americas. But when you look at how many ways different species rely on each other for survival, it begins to make more sense. In her book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about how the sweetgrass grows better and healthier when some of it (about 50 percent) is harvested by humans. Or think about how our gut flora couldn’t live without us, and we couldn’t live without them. Nature is full of such examples.

I have been reading these ideas and absorbing them, ironically, in an effort to reach out more often to my fellow humans for help, comfort, and safety. I’m lucky to be at a point in my life where I have a lot of people around me who understand the value of community, particularly communities of care, and of not enduring something alone. And, slowly, it’s getting easier to reach out to them when I need. But that hasn’t diminished the value, for me, of finding comfort with my kitty, the shoreline, the birds in my backyard or a quiet grove of trees. I’m very lucky to have that, too.

Tell Me Baby All Through the Night

Mike Tramp of White Lion.

When I was in my teens and 20s, I would occasionally have dreams in which I became friends with a musician I admired. We would take long walks together, talk for hours, snuggle and hold hands. Or I would dream that something stressful was happening, but then suddenly Metallica would arrive and start playing music, launching a fun, impromptu party that made all the stressful things go away.

It’s common wisdom, especially these days, that everyone (and everything) in our dreams is an aspect of ourselves. I’ve written about how I fell in love with hard rock and heavy metal as a teenager, because the music comforted and soothed me so much. I also had crushes on many of the musicians, both because they were so good-looking, and because they made music that was such a good friend to me.

I dreamed at least once of spending a day with Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose. Although I now see him as a very problematic (and racist, homophobic, and misogynist) person, as a teenager I saw him as a troubled/wounded soul. Sometimes I imagined I could heal him; other times I’m pretty sure I identified with his woundedness. In the dream we talked and talked and hugged and hugged. It was really sweet.

In another dream I met up with White Lion singer Mike Tramp in Copenhagen, and he showed me around the city as we talked and held hands. At the end of the day — I still remember this clearly — we sat on the stoop outside his house and snuggled. Tramp projected an image of a good-hearted guy, deeply worried about the state of the planet and unafraid to love. It was that sweetness that came through in the dream.

I wrote to Tramp about the dream, telling him all the details and how I wished we could be friends in real life. He didn’t reply. That’s okay.

These days, I see these dreams as an effort on the part of my subconscious to befriend and love different parts of myself, whether it’s a part that feels broken, a sensitive part, or a part that wants to soothe a tense situation with music and joy. In them I felt so much peace and love, and I’d wake up missing the person I’d dreamed of. That was the hardest part. They felt so real.

I rarely have such dreams anymore. I miss them.

What I Watched in 2020

I spent a lot of time sewing this year, and often while I was sewing, I was watching movies and series. Also, I’m part of an online slack community where we watch a lot of things together, so a lot of the rewatches on my list (plus “Lost” seasons 2-4 and “Avatar: The Last Airbender) come from there. It was a year for comfort, for revisiting familiar things.

Movies:
Knives Out
Hail Satan?
Rocketman
Booksmart
JoJo Rabbit
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Mystify: Michael Hutchence
Parasite
Ever After (rewatch)
In Bruges (rewatch)
Pride and Prejudice 2005 (twice, both rewatches)
Anna Karenina
Tea With the Dames
Can’t Hardly Wait (rewatch)
Mad Max: Fury Road (rewatch)
Ladybird
Terminator (rewatch)
Terminator 2 (rewatch) 
Terminator: Dark Fate (rewatch)
Disclosure
Lost and Delirious
Little Women 2019 (rewatch)
The Others (rewatch)
The Craft (rewatch)
Practical Magic (rewatch)
The Lady in Black
Mary Shelley
Nightmare on Elm St. 3
The Witch (rewatch)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (rewatch)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (rewatch)
Legend (rewatch)
Willow
Twilight (rewatch)
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn 1&2
Christmas Vacation (rewatch)
The Two Towers (rewatch) 
Joe Vs. The Volcano
The Return of the King (rewatch)

TV:
Messiah
Shrill S2
Anne With an E S3
The Gift S1
The OA S1&2
Self-Made
The Magicians S5
Next in Fashion S1
Lost S2-4 (rewatch)
Devs
Queer Eye S5
The Celts: Blood, Iron & Sacrifice
The World of Stonehenge
Avatar: The Last Airbender S1-3
Pose S2
Mrs. America
Tales From The Green Valley
Victorian Farm
The Haunting of Bly Manor
The Haunting of Hill House (rewatch)
What We Do in the Shadows S1&2
Fleabag S1&2 (rewatch)
Great British Baking Show S8
The Undoing
Ugly Delicious S1&2
His Dark Materials S2

Favorite Podcasts of 2020

Podcasts are more popular than ever, and it can be tough to find the gems. I can’t promise that my favorite podcasts of 2020 will be ones that appeal to you — they are perhaps somewhat niche — but I hope some of you will really enjoy these.

In no particular order:

Feminist Survival Project 2020: Emily and Amelia Nagoski wrote an indispensable book in 2019, “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle,” and this is their podcast companion to the book. They had a feeling 2020 would be a difficult year, but they had no idea how difficult it would be when they launched this podcast in late 2019. Each episode is full of chatty, useful science and tools for getting through life. Favorite episode: “The Madwoman.”

I Weigh: Hosted by Jameela Jamil (“The Good Place,” “Legendary”), each episode features a deep, vulnerable interview with someone who’s making a difference in the world. I love how honest and cathartic these conversations are. Favorite episode: “ALOK.”

How to Survive the End of the World: Sisters Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown’s podcast about “learning from apocalypse with grace, rigor, and curiosity” feels a little too relevant in 2020. Early this year, Autumn did a series of wonderful solo interviews that focused on different survival skills: housing, health care, agriculture and much more. My favorite was the two-part interview with Queer Nature, which connected wilderness survival skills to trauma survival, nervous system regulation and much more: “Tactical Hope” and “The OODA Loop.”

Maintenance Phase: Aubrey Gordon (Your Fat Friend) and Michael Hobbes (“You’re Wrong About”) launched this brilliant new podcast late this year, with deeply researched episodes on aspects of the weight loss industry, including Snackwells cookies and “wellness” culture. They’ll be back with new episodes soon. Favorite episode: “Anti-Fat Bias.”

Rebel Eaters Club: Writer and teacher Virgie Tovar’s podcast features a lively and fun interview each episode on food, diet culture, and feeling good in our bodies. (Each one also features one of the guest’s favorite snacks). Catch up now and get ready for season 2, which begins on Jan. 5. Favorite episode: “Food is Life” (with SF Chronicle food writer Soleil Ho).

Feels Like the First Time: It might be cheating to include this one, since it’s only available to people who are Patreon supporters of “The Storm: A Lost Rewatch Podcast” or “Buffering the Vampire Slayer.” In this bonus podcast, culture writer Joanna Robinson (“The Storm”) introduces activist Kristin Russo (“Buffering”) to major movie franchises she hasn’t seen before, quizzing her beforehand to see if she can guess key plot points and catch phrases. Sometimes Kristin turns the tables and shows Joanna a movie she hasn’t seen before. Either way, they are hilarious and charming — and now there’s a slack where subscribers can live-watch movies with them each month. It’s some of the most fun I’ve had this year. If you’re already interested in either “Lost” or “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and want to invest in a quality podcast, it’s worth it to get this bonus podcast.

What I Read in 2020

I read a lot in 2020, I think to distract myself for a few minutes or hours at a time from what was going on in the world around me. Granted, a lot of what I read was heavy and difficult, but I often like reading books that help me grow.

I also attended a lot of book events this year — only one or two in person (the last one was for the launch of Danielle Svetcov’s book “Parked”) and many more online. I appreciated virtual book events because I didn’t have to go anywhere, and I could attend events happening all across the country. Even when we go back to in-person events I hope some live-streaming options will remain available.

If you’d like to follow along with what I’m reading in 2021 and beyond, you can add me on Goodreads. And now, on with the list!

1. “H is for Hawk,” Helen Macdonald

2. “You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-acceptance,” Chani Nicholas

3. “Fangirls: Scenes from Modern Music Culture,” Hannah Evans

4. “Open Me,” Lisa Locascio

5. “Binti #1,” Nnedi Okorafor

6. “How Not to Let Go,” Emily Foster

7. “Dog Medicine,” Julie Barton

8. “Covet,” J.R. Ward

9. “Parked,” Danielle Svetcov

10. “The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook,” Matthew McKay, Jeffrey Wood and Jeffrey Brantley

11. “Our Bodies, Ourselves: Menopause”

12. “First We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety,” Sarah Wilson

13. “Insecure in Love: How Anxious Attachment Can Make You Feel Jealous, Needy, and Worried and What You Can Do About It,” Leslie Becker-Phelps

14. “Death Wins a Goldfish,” Brian Rea

15. “Blossoms and Bones,” Kim Krans

16. “Daisy Jones and the Six,” Taylor Jenkins Reid

17. “Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames,” Lara Maiklem

18. “At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond,” (anthology)

19. Water Log,” Roger Deakin

20. “The Power,” Naomi Alderman

21. “KTLN,” Alee Karim

22. “A Black Women’s History of the United States,” Daina Ramey Berry and Kali N. Gross

23. “Brown Album,” Porochista Khakpour

24. “Big Girl,” Meg Elison

25. “Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art,” James Nestor

26. “Braiding Sweetgrass,” Robin Wall Kimmerer

27. “Real American,” Julie Lythcott-Haims

28. “Invisible Gifts,” Maw Shein Win

29. “Bury Me in Thunder,” Moira J.

30. “The City We Became,” NK Jemisin

31. “Wow, No Thank You,” Samantha Irby

32. “Writing Ourselves Whole,” Jen Cross

33. “Every Heart a Doorway,” Seanan McGuire

34. “Gideon the Ninth,” Tamsyn Muir

35. “Emergent Strategy,” adrienne maree brown

36. “The Mermaid, The Witch and the Sea,” Maggie Tokuda-Hall

37. “Axiom’s End,” Lindsay Ellis

38. “Meeting Faith: The Forest Journals of a Black Buddhist Nun,” Faith Adiele

39. “She Votes: How U.S. Women Won Suffrage, and What Happened Next,” Bridget Quinn

40. “The Tower at Stony Wood,” Patricia McKillip

41. “The Companions,” Katie Flynn

42. “Resistance,” Tori Amos

43. “Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and the Revolution in the Americas,” Roberto Lovato

44. “Find Layla,” Meg Elison

45. “You Can Keep That To Yourself,” Adam Smyer

46. “Occult London,” Merlin Coverley

47. “The Five,” Hallie Rubenfold

48. “Paranormal London,” Gillian Pickup

49. “Hench,” Natalie Zina Walschots

50. “Hyperbole and a Half,” Allie Brosh

51. “Solutions and Other Problems,” Allie Brosh

52. “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of Our Bodies and Hearts,” Resmaa Menakem

53. “Inferno,” Catherine Cho

54. “Proper English,” K.J. Charles

55. “The Story of Dion Fortune” (as-told-to)

56. “Stalking Tender Prey,” Storm Constantine

57. “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life,” Ayelet Waldman

58. “Pagan Britain,” Ronald Hutton

59. “Maid of the King’s Court,” Lucy Worsley

60. “My Dark Vanessa,” Kate Elizabeth Russell 

61. “Shit, Actually: The Definitive, 100% Objective Guide to Modern Cinema,” Lindy West

62. “Fat,” Hanne Blank

63. “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat,” Aubrey Gordon

64. “Wired for Love,” Stanley Tatkin

65. “So You Want to Talk About Race,” Ijeoma Oluo

66. “Magic Lessons,” Alice Hoffman

67. “The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love,” Sonya Renee Taylor

68. “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America,” Ijeoma Oluo

69. “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You,” Elaine N. Aron

The Storms of Sleepy Hollow

Philipsburg Manor, Sleepy Hollow, New York, photographed by Daderot in 2005, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

One branch of my family tree includes many folks who were among the first settlers of the legendary town of Sleepy Hollow in New York. Even better, their family name was Storm. 

A side note before we get started: Sleepy Hollow wasn’t always called Sleepy Hollow. The little village north of Tarrytown was most often called North Tarrytown from its incorporation in the late 19th century until 1996, when it officially changed its name, staking its claim to the Washington Irving story. 

One of my earliest ancestors to settle in Sleepy Hollow (in Haudenosaunee territory) was my 10th great-grandfather, Dirck Goris (or Gorisszen) Storm. He was born in 1630 in Leiden, in the Netherlands. He married Maria van Montfoort in 1655, and they had a son, my 9th great-grandfather, Gregoris Storm, in 1656. The family, including two other children, traveled to North America in 1662; Maria gave birth to a daughter during the journey. 

Before arriving in North America, Storm had served as the Town Clerk for Oss, in the Netherlands. When they arrived by boat -- at the foot of Wall Street in Manhattan -- Storm became involved in local affairs right away. He owned property, including a tavern on Beaver Street, and later served as Town Clerk for communities in Brooklyn. In 1670 he became Secretary of the Colony. In 1691 the British sent him north to Tappan, where he became the first Secretary and Clerk of the Sessions for Orange County, New York. Later that decade, Dirck and Maria were recorded as members of the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, not long after the church was built. 

The Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow, built in the 1690s and seen here in a postcard from 1907.

He was also a skilled writer, and the church members asked him to write the history of the church, dating back to 1697. His book, Het Notite Boeck der Christelyckes Kercke op de Manner of Philips Burgh, offers a rare look at early colonial life. He died in 1716, and is buried in Sleepy Hollow. 

The original village was quite small, with several large and active families that sometimes intermarried. My Storm ancestors married Van Tassels at least three times: Pieter Storm, son of Dirck, married Margaret Van Tassel in 1696, and Elizabeth Storm married Lt. Cornelius Van Tassel in 1756. A third marriage played a small role in one of the spookiest stories of all time.  

Sleepy Hollow was well established by 1820 when Washington Irving -- who had lived in nearby Tarrytown and socialized in Sleepy Hollow -- wrote his famous short story about the Headless Horseman. The character of Katrina Van Tassel was inspired by a flesh-and-blood daughter of the Van Tassel family. Although historians believe the actual girl was Eleanor Van Tassel; her aunt, Catriena, inspired the name. Eleanor’s grandparents were Jacob Van Tassel and Aeltie Alberts Storm. They married in 1724 in the First Reformed Church of Tarrytown. 

Dirck Goris Storm’s descendants remained in and around Sleepy Hollow for generations. Gregoris lived in North Tarrytown much of his life and is also buried in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Likewise his son, Derck Storm, who was born in 1695 and died in about 1762. His son, Hendrick, was born in 1709 and lived until 1793; his son, Gregorus, was born in 1731, baptised in North Tarrytown, and lived until 1807. Most or all have headstones in Sleepy Hollow. (So does Washington Irving.) 

The latter Gregorus Storm and his wife, Jannitje Williams, had at least three children, including my 5th great-grandmother, Mary Storms, who was born in 1760 in Haverstraw, just up the Hudson River (and on the other bank) from Sleepy Hollow. It’s unclear to me why she went by Storms instead of Storm; her brothers, Jacobus and Johannis, didn’t. Mary married Joseph Allison in 1781 and they had 11 children together. Mary died in 1829. The Allison lineage carried down to my grandmother, Frances Allison Nesbitt, whose middle name comes from that line. 

As with the other ancestors I’ve written about, I’d love to visit Sleepy Hollow, walk the streets they may have walked, visit their bones at the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and find out just how haunted the village really is.