My Date with Dignity

In this opening episode of the season, I’m stepping in solo to share a quick recap of my summer with my kids as they head into a new chapter: college town life and off-to-school mornings that feel like both a goodbye and a beginning.

But the heart of this episode is my “date with dignity.” I’m sharing a personal story in honor of my late aunt, an important relationship, a lasting lesson, and a reminder that dignity isn’t just a word we say. It’s something we practice, protect, and show up for.

From there, I’ll talk about what you can expect this year, including: a new collaboration with a national group, upcoming local conversations, a new type of book club, and policy breakdowns. 

My Date with Dignity is a season opener about meaning, civic life, and what it looks like to insist that our communities, and the people in them, matter. 

Thanks for being here. 💜

Find Alexis on Instagram and JOIN in the conversation: https://www.instagram.com/the_idaho_lady/

JOIN the convo on Substack & STAY up-to-date with emails and posts https://substack.com/@theidaholady?r=5katbx&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

Send Alexis an email with guest requests, ideas, or potential collaboration.
email@thealexismorgan.com

Find great resources, info on school communities, and other current projects regarding public policy:
https://www.thealexismorgan.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey friends, welcome to the purple zone where public policy, practice, and people meet. Because policy isn't abstract, it's personal. So let's talk about it. Hey friends, welcome to the show. It's Alexis. And today I am thinking about how school has already started. Summer is not over because that doesn't actually technically happen until the end of September. Though I was just walking around Costco today, and while I saw Halloween stuff in July, now I'm really seeing a lot of Christmas stuff. And my mind is blown because I'm thinking, we just head back to school. And what that meant for me was that now I have three kids in college. Again, another kind of mind-blowing moment. And one of my kids is married. So now I am a mother-in-law. I actually was talking on the phone today, and that kind of came up. And I was talking about the dinner that I had just gone to one Saturday night down in the college town with the kids. And I said, Yeah, my daughter-in-law. And I had to stop because I thought, whoa. And my friend said, nope, that's right. She's your daughter-in-law. Um, so it was just one of those moments of, oh my goodness, this is my, you know, this is my uh new reality, which is so fantastic. I love it. Love her, love the opportunity to be a mother-in-law and grow in this role. Uh, but also that just there has been a lot of change in my house over the last couple of months. And so last night as we were kind of preparing for our youngest, uh, my youngest to go back to uh she was, you know, starting another week of school. I thought, oh my goodness, just one kid at home now. And we were kind of, we were all in the kitchen together, she and my husband and I. And I there was just like this moment where I went over to her and she just uh got, you know, teary-eyed and started to cry. And I had cried earlier that day as we were driving back from college town. And as you know, there is with all the beautiful things that come with kids that launch from the home, there is also an ending and there's grief with ending. And so this right now is this bittersweet moment for me. And I'm really grateful that my kids are out and they're on their paths, and of course they will come home. And I hope that I will uh continue to be a part of that process. Uh the other things that you know, among the other things that are occurring right now in my life, we are in the process of trying to sell our home. And that's been really challenging because I have zero control over the housing market. I have zero control over who comes and is looking at my house or who's interested. There's very few things I have control over that. And so I'm noticing that, you know, in the presentation of the house and the way that the house needs to be staged and ready as people ask to see the home. I'm noticing these negative traits that are popping up and wanting to make sure that everything looks just right every time there's a house showing. And I have to say that uh I have one kid in particular that now he's off at college town. And he was such a huge help over the summer as I would get a phone call and or a text message, and the realtor, a realtor would call and say, Hey, can I show your home in an hour and a half? Oftentimes I wasn't getting much um, I wasn't getting much warning. And I, you know, you want to show the house. You want people to have an opportunity to see and experience it. And so I'd say yes, and then I'd holler to my uh to my teenager. And he was just such a steady help. Um, and I really appreciate that. And I have to stop talking about my college kids because I don't want to get weepy on the show. Uh, another thing that happened over the summer that was really hard was that uh I had an aunt that died. And I know that in family settings, people have different uh connections, strengths of that connection, relationships with people. Um and this one for me, this aunt for me, was a really important part of my life. Um I considered her to be, I consider our relationship to be very close. And so when she passed away a couple of weeks ago, it was really hard. Uh, but the episode, the title for the episode today is actually um it's a nod to her because uh this uh back in 2010, uh my husband and I and our family, we were living, we were living in Oregon as my husband was going through uh medical training. And this particular aunt, um uh she also lived in Oregon. So I got to see her a little bit more frequently. And this, my gosh, this was 16 years ago. It's so crazy. Um, so crazy to think that this was 16 years ago. Anyways, to the point, uh, something was going on in the extended family. And I was hearing about it from some of the adults. I was not, uh, I wasn't a part of it, but certainly I had a perspective. Um, and it was impacting, it was impacting my parents and um, you know, as they were navigating some of these challenging things that were going on on that level of the family. And so uh I happened to be on the phone one day with uh my aunt's daughter, and my aunt has many children, and I fall between numbers seven and eight of her kids. And so I spent, just to give context, I spent a lot of her uh time at her house growing up. Um and she was an older sister to my uh dad. And so we just I just had a lot of interaction with her. I can still hear her laugh and see her smile and all of those things. And so, anyways, this this uh conflict was going on uh in the extended family, and she was a part of that conflict, and so as a young 20-year-old, I was talking to her daughter on the phone, and the conflict came up. And I shared my perspective on something within the conflict. And at the time, I felt that I was well within my bounds to have this perspective. And conversation went on, didn't think anything of it. A couple weeks later, I get a phone call from my aunt. And that was not unusual. She, I kind of thought, oh, maybe she's, you know, kind of checking in or having something at her home. Maybe I'll be invited to something, you know. That's where my head, that's where my brain was when she called. And she said, uh, I, you know, I said, Hey aunt, how are you? And she said, I'm good. How are you, Lexi? You know, it was a very friendly start to the conversation. And I said, Oh, good, you know, talked about the kids, the stresses, the different things of young motherhood, which I knew that she uh was very familiar with. And then she said, Um, she's like, Lexi, I've called because I have heard that you shared a particular thing about me to one of my kids. And oh my gosh, my heart stopped. And I thought, whoa, you know, whoa. And uh I I said, yeah, I did. And she said, Why did you do that? And I explained why I did. And in that moment, I realized that while I had an opinion, it wasn't my lived experience. I wasn't actually inside the conflict. And what I had done was judge her, and I had passed that judgment on in my conversation with her daughter. And what she did in that moment when she made the phone call and she asked her question was she offered me dignity because she approached me with curiosity and with kindness. And so I apologized. I said, I I can see that I overstepped, I can see that I um I judged you in that moment, and I'm really sorry. And the reason that this podcast episode is titled A Date with Dignity was because I thought of her as I was thinking about what I wanted to share uh in regards to kind of what's going on and what you can expect this season. And it just feels like uh I I want I'm taking this moment to nod to give um a lot of love to my aunt because I think we can all ex uh reflect on those moments, those different kind of snippets in time when we're maybe we as individuals uh didn't act in kindness, we acted in judgment, and we in some measure stepped into the scale of contempt. And I use that language because I'm really excited to announce, and I've had um I've had the co-creator on my show that I am going to be working with the dignity index this year. And what that means is that I will have opportunities to give presentations on the dignity index and to have workshops and to try to create um and try to create relationships and more opportunities to share the dignity index. If you don't know what that is, please definitely go back and check check out that episode. It came out in the spring of 25, and it was with the uh one of the co-creators of the Dignity Index, Tammy Piffer. She is uh the chief impact officer for dignity.us, and that is the nonprofit organization that has been spreading the Dignity Index around the nation and world, actually. Um, and most recently they just announced that they are partnering with the National Governors Association to start the um oh my goodness, it just left me, but to start um a policy, a policy center basically, um, on the centered around dignity and politics. And so very excited about the opportunity to work with the dignity index. And so the premise of the dignity dignity index, just in case you don't know, just a very uh like a visual for you, it's a scale, uh, a measurement of contempt and dignity. And the scale goes from one to eight. So the closer you get to the number eight, the more dignity you're offering someone, that you're honoring them as a human being, and that you are um giving them space and maybe even finding some connection between the two of you. And the closer that that we get to number one, the more contempt that we um that we are using in our language, in our behavior. And so uh this is something that I have really, I know first interacted with the Dignity Index two and a half years ago uh in Washington, D.C. And I have just uh I latched onto it, and I think it's a beautiful way for me to reflect and measure how I'm moving and interacting with the world. And certainly on a regular basis, I mean, on any given day, I could be in any one of those uh slots one through eight. Um, I think that's just the nature of uh being a human. But uh when I reflect on that moment with my aunt and I think about what that conversation was, I had used contempt. I had othered her and I had judged her in that moment in my conversation with her daughter. And she had called with curiosity and kindness. She had offered me dignity. And so I love, um, I love that that moment is so uh poignant in my mind right now as I reflect on her and as I uh get ready to travel to her funeral uh at the end of the week. So yeah, this year, the things that you can expect from me on the purple zone, and then also some things that are just going on in my life. Uh working with the Dignity Index, I've um already got some things happening in the state of Idaho, but certainly I can travel outside the state and will have done that and will be doing that. Um, and working in the space of governance in community and a little bit also in uh education. And I have already started having conversations with some of the lawmakers in Idaho and what it would look like to uh make policy, public policy, through the lens of uh using dignity in um in our gatherings as stakeholders, in our conversations, as we work to tackle some of these hard topics that we all know are there and at are the center of just what's facing our communities today. Um The other things that you can expect from me this season are that I'm going to be increasing my collaborations with people. And I'm excited about this. Um, I'm gonna be increasing my collaborations with Matt Todd at the Ranch uh at the Ranch podcast. Um, I'll be doing some deep dives on my show, going through different public policy. Uh, one of those things is going to be the um the ballot initiative that's coming up in Idaho. I plan to break down what it means to have a citizen initiative as I've been going through some of these things that I see lived out, you know, played out at the election, um, at the ballot box and different things. Sometimes these things are occurring, and I think I don't even know what that is. So I'm taking a dive into that. So I will have the opportunity to be on the ranch podcast and break down those, um, break down those policy pieces. What was really cool this last legislative session was that I had that opportunity to do that with Matt. Uh, we had a legislative breakdown where I was invited onto a show and I'd bring a bunch of public policy and we would go through and tackle and talk about the various different angles on those different public policy pieces. And what was awesome was the feedback that Matt gave me uh from his listeners and how our legislative breakdowns on his show were one of his listeners' favorites. So very flattered with that and excited to uh continue to do that with Matt. Um, on the purple zone, I am looking forward to having an opportunity to play out a book club uh with a representative in Idaho, Representative Britt Raybold, who is on the eastern side of the state, has been working through some of her social media. And as she is diving into meet the needs of her com uh her constituents, one of the things that she's realizing is that she wants to start a book club too uh that is topic-based. And so um I've invited her onto the show, and hopefully, we're we're actually testing this out in the month of September. We're gonna see how these book clubs play out on the podcast and how you guys receive those. So I'm excited. The the first one that's coming up, we're gonna be talking about the topic of learning. Um, and the other thing that's really cool about this is that Representative Raybold is also Dr. Raybold. She uh was in the same PhD program that I am in at Boise State, which is public policy and administration. And she actually just received her doctorate in April. I was able to attend her dissertation defense, and she focused on water policy. And I can tell you that really up until that point, I didn't know much about water policy. And I was a little bit worried that I might get uh that the conversation was either gonna go way over my head and or also be a smidge uh bored. You know, I just wasn't sure. And as I sat and listened to her presentation, I was enamored. Um, I thought, whoa, the things that she's studying are so and uh sharing are so applicable to what's happening in Idaho. So um I'm excited that she's gonna bring that public policy perspective, but also that PhD perspective. And so we can have conversations about what we have both experienced in our program too and bring um bring that lens. Uh and then also just upcoming topics that I am uh excited to share with you. I have a conversation coming out next week, uh, a tech guy in Idaho, and he and I talk about AI and education. And we kind of go through this process that we were in together as stakeholders in a work group that created the policy that went through the Idaho legislature. And I found out during the conversation that Idaho is actually a leader in this space. And since I've had that conversation, I have learned so much more about AI. And the the, I mean, I knew and I have these kind of differing perspectives that float around in my head. Um, but they're like so many things, there are great things about AI, and there are not so many good things about AI. And during my conversation with this tech guy, I realized that in this legislation that Idaho had and in our conversation, the most important thing is to put people first. And we have to make decisions that are based that are best for people. So that's an awesome conversation. Uh, I'm like I mentioned, I'm gonna go through the ballot initiative in Idaho and cover some of those topics that Idahoans are going to be voting on in November, which include um access to abortion, which include marijuana, which uh plot twist, you are going, Idahoans are going to be voting about marijuana, but a large part of that particular uh vote is actually about how much power do we as Idahoans want to give the legislature. So that one is kind of just all jungled uh in there. And then another one on that is how um uh a gun advisory uh um uh question, and you're gonna be asked about guns. And I don't know much about guns. So that was actually something that I had to look into uh for that episode. Uh and then also making Idaho, Idahoans are gonna be voting on whether to make English uh an official language in the state. And I looked it up, and there are so many states that have English as their official language. Um, and so Idaho is actually kind of later to the table on that topic. Uh going to be having the state historian in here. And I think you guys probably know that I started in history. I love history, and so I'm so looking forward to having the state historian on the show, and then uh also going to be having a professor out of Utah on the show to talk about rural towns. Um 70% of our public schools are rural, and rural is a big part of Idaho. Um, and then the other thing that I'm doing, just for you guys to know, is that I'm doing a little teaching. I mean, I'm putting air quotes around teaching, a little teaching at Boise State. Um I'm it's really actually that it's officially called a group discussion leader. So uh a lot of times these classes, you know, you have a large um lecture portion, and then they break them out into smaller groups. And so um I am going to be one of those leaders of those smaller groups. So I'll have 25 students. I'll be going in and re leading a discussion and then, you know, doing a little bit of grading. Uh, and I'm looking forward to kind of getting back into the classroom and having uh having that space to pursue that. So, anyways, want to wrap it up for you. Um, and the thing that I'd love to leave with you today is I'd love for you to go look up the dignity index. Um, I want to honor uh this week I'm really honoring my aunt and what she did and how she moved in the world. And she, I think for the last 20 years, has sent birthday and anniversary cards to our entire family. Um and that includes, you know, her children, grandchildren, uh, but it also includes her nieces and nephews, their spouses, their children, and their children's spouses. Um, the last thing that she asked from me uh before she passed away, and she passed away pretty quickly, was she had asked for my future daughter-in-law's uh full name and her birth date. And to me, that was just one way that she moved in the world to honor people. And uh she would send these sweet birthday cars with a message, and so uh we would always get six cards that year and every year in the mail, actually seven, because there would be an anniversary card in there too. So, what I would love, uh what I'm asking you to do as a listener and a uh a community member of the purple zone is to think about a moment where you or someone else showed you dignity and what that meant to you to be offered that in that moment. And if you want to, definitely go check out dignity.us, uh, where you can learn more about the dignity index. And then also uh you can go listen to that podcast episode back from uh May of 2025. And I just want to end on the idea that our everyday civic lives are run by everyday people like you and me. And it's important for us to show up, to ask questions, and to insist that we have good communities. Uh, thanks for listening and thank you for participating. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Purple Zone. Thanks for being here. If you liked what you heard, leave a review on your fave podcast app or on YouTube. And from me to you, the heart of the purple zone says community is where policy comes to life.