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0:59

Teaching meditation can be a deeply rewarding

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1:49

The smaller the stakes, the bigger the

1:51

drama. https://www.dharmamoon.com

2:00

You know, like, maybe we could

2:02

get upset about something bigger, you know,

2:04

and we're going to get upset. And

2:06

I think that's really

2:07

true, that we do. It's like we

2:09

recapture a lot of energy by

2:12

not getting so invested in every

2:14

single small thing that really is not making

2:16

a difference for anybody.

2:19

What we get invested in, nonetheless, and I

2:21

think of clarity as really perspective.

2:23

Hello

2:39

and welcome to the Manta Hour

2:41

podcast with Sharon

2:44

Salzberg. I'm Lily Cushman

2:46

and

2:47

I produce this wonderful podcast.

2:50

And today we are bringing you episode 221,

2:57

which is the second to last

3:00

episode in our real life

3:02

series that we've been doing since

3:04

the spring. And

3:07

of course, this series is all

3:09

conversations

3:10

centered around Sharon's new

3:12

book by the same name, Real Life.

3:15

And today's guest is the wonderful

3:18

Daisy Hernandez. This

3:21

conversation was originally aired

3:23

as part of the Living an Authentic

3:25

Life Summit that we helped to

3:28

put together as part of

3:30

the launch of Real Life. And

3:34

so the theme for this conversation

3:37

is the dawning

3:39

of clarity, the emergence

3:42

of equanimity. I'll

3:44

let Sharon introduce Daisy to you more.

3:46

We're very excited to have her here

3:49

on the podcast for the first

3:51

time. Before we get into

3:53

the episode, a quick announcement

3:56

for you. We have a

3:58

brand new edition of.

3:59

one of Sharon's books that

4:02

just came out last week, Love

4:04

Your Enemies. And

4:07

this is a book that Sharon co-authored

4:09

with the wonderful Bob

4:11

Thurman, Robert A.F. Thurman.

4:15

The occasion for it being released

4:18

as a second edition is the 10-year

4:20

anniversary of when it originally

4:22

came out. It's a wonderful

4:25

offering, and we're delighted

4:27

to

4:27

have it out in this new 10th

4:29

anniversary edition. There

4:32

are new introductions, both by Sharon

4:35

and Bob, and you can

4:37

get it in paperback or ebook. So

4:40

you can head over to Sharon's website, and

4:43

you'll see it there on the homepage with

4:46

ordering information. So

4:48

that's all

4:48

for announcements. Let's dive into

4:50

the episode. Sharon

4:53

Salzberg and Daisy

4:56

Hernandez.

5:06

Welcome back to the summit. I'm Sharon Salzberg,

5:09

and I'm very pleased to welcome Daisy Hernandez

5:11

for a conversation about emergence,

5:14

the dawning of clarity, and how

5:16

creativity and awe are part of that.

5:20

To begin with, Daisy Hernandez is

5:22

a journalist, associate professor of creative

5:25

writing at Northwestern University,

5:28

and the author of The Kissing Bug, the true

5:30

story of a family, an insect, and

5:32

a nation's neglect of a deadly disease.

5:35

Joined the Penn Jean Stein Book Award,

5:38

and was selected as an inaugural title for

5:40

the National Book Foundation Science and

5:43

Literature Program. A memoir,

5:46

Cup of Water Under My Bed, won

5:48

the IPPY Award for Best Coming

5:50

of Age memoir, and Landa Literaries'

5:53

Dr. Betty Burzen Emerging Writer Award.

5:55

The memoir was also a Publishing Triangle Award

5:58

finalist. Hi Daisy.

6:01

Hi, so good to be with you. It's

6:03

very good to be with you. I wonder if

6:05

we can start by your talking about

6:08

how you became interested in mindfulness meditation,

6:11

how you began practicing, and what's

6:13

kept you following that for

6:16

all this time?

6:19

Yeah, it has been a long time now. Amazing

6:22

how the years took by.

6:24

I, you know, the first time I came across

6:26

Buddhism was actually in a magazine.

6:31

And it must have been

6:33

excerpt of a Pema children book. It

6:37

was all about anger. And I was

6:39

in college around that time. I

6:42

was not one of these people who did

6:44

a traditional going away to college, living on

6:47

campus. I lived at home with my

6:50

father, whom I was angry

6:52

with all the time for very valid reasons.

6:55

And I worked at the public library

6:57

in town, which is actually how we got a subscription

6:59

to a Buddhist magazine was wonderful in

7:01

that time period. So

7:04

it was my introduction to Buddhism

7:07

was actually all about anger and

7:09

how,

7:10

and the idea that I didn't

7:12

necessarily have to make the anger go away. And

7:14

at that time in my life, it was like I was

7:17

battling with anger and

7:19

I would say also with rage and trying

7:21

to get rid of it.

7:22

And so the idea that

7:24

I did

7:27

not have to get rid of it was just

7:29

completely shocked

7:31

me. And also there was also, I

7:34

still remember, there was also the idea that there

7:36

might be some wisdom there for me,

7:38

that if I was willing to be with the experience

7:40

of anger to really experience

7:44

it, to be present to it, that there might be some

7:46

wisdom. That it just felt like

7:48

someone had offered me a completely

7:51

different way of looking at myself in the entire

7:53

world.

7:54

I was also not the only person in my family who was angry.

7:58

So it did get me.

7:59

of me also some ideas about

8:02

everything else to my family. So that actually

8:04

made me curious, like that made

8:06

me seek out

8:08

a Buddhist group and

8:11

to sit and, and

8:14

to, yeah, and now here we are. I'm

8:16

not going to count the decades, but it's

8:19

been so many years later. Yeah. I'm having

8:22

shock about this lately. So it's funny you,

8:25

it feels like I just

8:27

learned the teaching about the teachings yesterday.

8:30

So very strange to me. Yeah.

8:32

No, I understand totally. Like

8:34

when I get introduced these days somewhere

8:37

and somebody says, and she's been practicing

8:40

more than 30 years.

8:43

I think no, it's more than that. Like,

8:46

yeah, but maybe we won't talk about that. It's

8:50

technically true. Yeah. Yeah.

8:54

So we're talking about emergence

8:56

today.

8:58

I like that word for one thing. I mean,

9:01

I do that following a path, certainly

9:03

there are ups and downs repeatedly,

9:06

but there is a kind of trajectory that

9:09

I think we experience where maybe

9:11

we get caught up in the same old stuff, but for

9:13

not as long. And

9:15

it feels better to

9:18

feel in harmony than to feel discordant

9:21

and instead of just denying

9:24

reality in some way. And, and

9:26

that state I'm calling emergence

9:28

as we continually progress

9:31

in some way. And some of

9:33

the attributes that just come naturally, you know, not

9:35

cause we're craving them or we're trying

9:37

to force them, but they're just part of that emergence.

9:40

And one of them is clarity is

9:43

the dawning of clarity and perspective on

9:45

things. And I'm wondering if you have something

9:48

in your life, a time in your life or an experience

9:51

where that was very

9:53

pronounced that that you had a

9:56

different kind of clarity. For

10:00

some reason, the first memory that comes

10:02

to mind is the parking issue.

10:05

So

10:09

I lived in the Bay Area for about seven

10:11

years, and I worked in downtown

10:13

Oakland, and

10:17

I could take public transit to work. So

10:19

I rarely took my car to work,

10:22

and I was actually starting to ride a bicycle at that point.

10:24

So I was biking to work, which was really exciting. But

10:27

this particular day, I had the car,

10:30

and I

10:31

could get pretty intense behind the

10:33

wheel. People think I'm very

10:35

sweet and so forth, full

10:38

of equanimity, and then just put me in a car, and

10:40

I'm like, I've got places to go.

10:42

I've got parking spots that I can see a mile

10:45

ahead. And it was hard

10:47

to get parking around

10:49

my office building, right? But

10:52

again, I am a little, I should

10:54

probably be more fearful behind the wheel. I'm a little fearless

10:56

sometimes. And

10:58

I saw the parking spot a mile away.

11:01

And I guess

11:05

I'm thinking of this because it was around that

11:07

time in my life where I was going more often

11:09

to Spirit Rock, sitting on a more

11:11

regular basis with Sanca.

11:14

So I think that emergence was

11:16

happening for me. I didn't quite realize it.

11:19

So the most amazing

11:21

parking spot opened up. It was the coveted

11:24

parking spot, the parking spot that all of my

11:26

coworkers wanted

11:27

right outside the front door of our building.

11:30

It rarely opened up, and

11:33

this was after lunch. That

11:35

was the thing. I would also, if I did bring my

11:37

car, I would have to rotate it around the neighborhood

11:40

at various points throughout the day. So this was

11:42

one of those. It was going to be the last rotating around the

11:44

day. I saw the parking spot.

11:46

I was going to parallel

11:49

park into it. So I got

11:51

in position and

11:53

I go to back up and I

11:56

back up. And there is a

11:58

little sports car. pulling

12:01

into it and I was

12:03

like, oh no. Clearly

12:07

first dibs are mine. And

12:09

so this actually ties in with like rage

12:12

and anger because I could

12:14

talk about more serious topics, but yes,

12:16

put me behind the wheel and I connect really

12:18

quickly with my anger and

12:20

my sense of

12:22

I know what's best on the road

12:24

and clearly no one else has learned how

12:26

to properly drive or park in this case.

12:30

And I proceeded to talk

12:34

away. I

12:37

don't remember what else I did. I think

12:39

I rolled down the window

12:41

and like I didn't make bad

12:43

hand gestures, but I gestured

12:45

like this is my spot. I'm backing

12:48

up, you know, clearly. I also

12:50

think

12:53

I was not driving the best car in town.

12:55

I can't remember which car it was. It must've been the

12:57

little gray,

13:00

wasn't a Honda. Anyway, whatever

13:02

car, it was my used and abused

13:04

car. So

13:06

I was feeling a lot of rage about the

13:09

cute new little sports car that was

13:11

trying to take my parking spot.

13:13

And we sat there for a while. I'm just going

13:15

to be honest. We sat there for a while. It

13:18

was a while. And

13:20

I was like, oh, I can do this.

13:22

Like

13:23

sit here for hours until the other person

13:25

decides they can't take it anymore. So

13:29

inadvertently I was sitting there

13:31

with myself. And

13:34

I think just, it's

13:38

still amazing to me how, you

13:40

know, what happens on the cushion happens

13:42

off the cushion, right? And I just had this

13:44

moment of like, wow, like

13:47

my adrenaline is going. I am ready

13:49

to get out of the car and key this cute

13:51

little sports car. Like I am ready

13:53

to take him out. And

13:56

I found myself noticing my breath

13:59

and just,

13:59

yeah. was going on for my body,

14:01

which was like, really? And I was like, I was

14:04

like, what? This is not worth

14:06

this. I was like, you

14:08

need your serenity.

14:10

That's what I was saying

14:12

to myself, Daisy, your serenity is worth more

14:14

than this parking spot. And

14:17

your integrity is worth more than this parking

14:19

spot. And just feeling at peace

14:21

is worth more than this parking spot. And

14:24

so I am happy to say I pulled away.

14:27

I pulled away. I pulled

14:29

out of the parking spot. I found another

14:31

one that was not that far away, which I feel

14:34

like is an important part of the story. Sometimes

14:36

when we tell little spiritual anecdotes,

14:38

we're like, and then I took the high moral ground.

14:42

I didn't get what I want, but it was OK. No, I still

14:44

got what I wanted. It was

14:47

not horrible. The

14:49

other option was not 20 miles

14:52

away or anything like that. It was not terrible. But

14:54

yeah, it was this moment of like, wow,

14:57

something is really changing for

14:59

me. Like, I am just, it

15:02

might not sound like progress to others. But

15:05

for me, the ability to

15:07

say, wow, I think my peace

15:09

of mind is more important than this. And

15:12

this is not, I remember getting

15:14

to the parking spot and just thinking, wow,

15:17

this is also now how I want to relate to anyone,

15:19

a stranger or a friend.

15:21

This is so not worth

15:24

it. Why did that feel

15:26

so important? I had

15:28

this opportunity to be like, wow, I was really attached

15:30

to that parking space. Yeah,

15:33

that was a moment where I felt like,

15:36

yeah, some new part of me was emerging.

15:38

And I do have to say, I haven't actually thought about

15:40

this since then. But yeah, I do

15:42

feel like

15:44

it was some kind of unexpected turning

15:46

point about my relationship with parking. Because

15:49

I definitely don't. I

15:51

have not, I don't

15:53

have that ongoing relationship. Where

15:55

I know sometimes when I'm in someone's car, they've got that

15:58

going. Like, do you see a spot? Do you see a spot? bringing

16:00

your car parking car, come on, come on, you know, and

16:02

I'm like, it's gonna be fine. Wherever we

16:04

park, we'll be just fine. Not

16:06

the end of the world. But yeah,

16:08

that was, yeah, that was a moment

16:11

that immediately came to mind when you asked that question.

16:15

It's so funny you say that because I

16:19

am a New Yorker. I didn't learn how to drive

16:21

until my 30s. And

16:23

I'm an extremely timid driver. Like

16:26

I sometimes say to people, I would not be fighting

16:28

with you on the road. Well,

16:31

you might be because I might be in front of you and you'd

16:33

be furious and really slow. And

16:36

I say

16:36

to people, like, if I'm not driving, I'm sitting

16:39

there as a passenger, we get

16:41

to some kind of intricate turn and

16:43

they just like scoot over. I say,

16:45

you know, I'd still be there a week later.

16:47

And he's waiting, having some

16:49

how to stop, you know, so I can make the turn.

16:52

I'm very timid as a driver and parking is

16:54

not my really great skill either.

16:57

My friend recently had to move to another

16:59

stage to

17:00

take a parking, a lot of driving

17:02

tests, which was like a parking test in my

17:05

mind. I said, did you have to parallel

17:07

park? And she said,

17:08

they didn't make me. I said, oh good.

17:12

He's like, can't do that either. But I

17:15

relate to the rest of what you said, that

17:17

maybe the particulars of being a bold

17:19

and strong

17:22

driver. But, you know, that sense

17:24

of as I get older,

17:26

you know, and hopefully wiser, just

17:29

that sense of like, choose your battles and

17:32

maybe it's not worth A,

17:34

B or C. I'd rather have peace. You

17:38

know, but it doesn't mean getting weak or giving up

17:40

a sense of principles or, or urgency

17:43

about certain things. It's just like, I

17:45

guess when, you know,

17:48

the book came out of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, it

17:50

was really pretty true.

17:52

Yeah, absolutely. It's

17:55

a form of strength actually. Yeah.

17:58

My mother used to say, I guess in Spanish.

17:59

the equivalent to don't sweat the small

18:02

stuff is, um, no te algues

18:04

en un baso de agua. Like

18:06

don't, literally don't drown yourself in a

18:08

cup of water. Don't

18:10

get so overwhelmed by every small

18:13

thing. But when I was

18:15

a child, I hated every time

18:17

she said that, because I felt

18:19

like it was the dismissal that I was going through

18:21

something, you know? Whereas I think that

18:23

moment with the parking, what made

18:26

a difference for me was that I was actually acknowledging

18:28

what was happening. Like,

18:29

okay, I am

18:32

making a very big deal. This feels like a big deal. This

18:34

is what's happening. And I think there's something

18:37

about acknowledge, like, you

18:39

know, both like acknowledging what's happening.

18:42

Um, and then acknowledging that,

18:44

like, I can put it in its right place that

18:46

like, it feels like those two things have

18:48

to happen together for me.

18:50

Yeah. Well, that's clarity, right? That's

18:52

a great example. Yeah,

18:55

clarity and compassion. Right. Yeah.

18:57

You know, because I think I have a friend who says,

18:59

um, this obviously plays

19:01

out a lot in families and relationships

19:04

and institutional life, the

19:06

sense of priorities and perspective

19:08

and choose your battles, you know, and you

19:10

fight the ones that are really important to you.

19:13

But my friend says something like, um, it's

19:15

very clever, like, um, the

19:17

smaller the stakes, the bigger the drama.

19:19

So it's

19:22

like some itty bitty little

19:24

thing that everyone's like completely freaked out

19:26

about anything. Well, wait a minute. You know, like,

19:29

maybe we could get upset about something

19:31

bigger, you know, we're going to get upset.

19:34

And I think that's really

19:35

true that we, we do, it's like we

19:37

recapture a lot of energy by not

19:39

getting so invested

19:41

in every

19:42

single small thing that really is not making a

19:44

difference

19:46

for anybody, but we get invested nonetheless.

19:48

And I think of clarity is really perspective

19:51

on things. It's like, oh,

19:53

yeah. Another place

19:56

I've been very timid is about

19:58

in the past was about like public speaking,

20:00

which was an impossibility for me for

20:03

a very long time as a teacher, which

20:05

was a problem. But

20:09

the kind of clarity that came from

20:13

realizing I could

20:15

be myself or I could

20:18

make a mistake or people were really looking

20:20

for predominantly a sense

20:23

of connection, not expertise.

20:28

And you're a teacher and I

20:30

think it is very much in play, like what

20:33

will people retain? Maybe some technical

20:35

skills for sure about writing.

20:38

But largely I think they'll retain your

20:42

sense of faith in them or

20:44

interest in them that will

20:46

be onward leading for them. Absolutely.

20:50

It's so interesting you say that because I was terrified

20:52

of public speaking. And before I

20:55

was teaching, I was in situations where I

20:58

was invited to give talks on certain subjects,

21:01

mostly at colleges to come and talk about media

21:03

representations, about women of color

21:05

and feminism. And

21:08

it was terrifying. It was so,

21:11

so terrifying. I had a

21:13

wonderful friend who had worked

21:17

as a theater director

21:19

and she really encouraged me

21:21

to go to the spaces where I would be speaking

21:24

before the event or as early

21:26

as I could, you know, and

21:29

to actually sit there and

21:31

really look at the physical space that I

21:33

was going to be inhabiting.

21:36

And she also really recommended that I

21:38

allow myself, because sometimes I would like

21:41

hide behind stage or whatever little

21:43

green room they would tuck you into. I was like, oh my

21:45

God, I'm going to just have my little panic

21:47

attack here by myself. And

21:50

she encouraged me to do the opposite. She said, no, get

21:52

out there and allow yourself to

21:54

watch people coming into the room,

21:57

which felt like when she first said it to

21:59

me, I thought.

21:59

Yeah, no, that

22:02

is more, that's like watching all of my fears

22:05

walk into the room. And I

22:07

kind of had something similar to what you're describing,

22:09

which is that

22:10

as people work, I still remember the first event where

22:13

I did this, and I started allowing

22:15

myself to watch, watch

22:17

each person that as they were coming in, or like groups

22:19

of students as they were coming in, and, and

22:22

to just like invite

22:24

like a like, I don't know, like a spiritual

22:26

sense of connection with them. And sometimes, and I kind of

22:28

started to translate to like, Oh, hello,

22:30

I'm so glad you're here. I didn't know who they were. Um,

22:33

you know, like just welcoming them into the

22:35

space. And it actually gave me a sense

22:38

of comfort with the space,

22:40

you know, like,

22:40

it actually felt like a little bit like, Oh, this

22:43

is my home. And I'm welcoming the

22:45

people here. It was really such a change.

22:49

And what people said is also true. I don't know if

22:51

this is true for you. But for me, it was also true. People

22:53

told me, Oh, the more you do it, the more

22:56

at ease you will feel with it, you know, but

22:58

I thought they meant like the first three times,

23:00

not the first 300 times. So

23:04

if any of you are waiting for it to get better, you

23:06

might just not have reached, you know, 300 or whatever. It

23:09

took a long time.

23:10

But it is really interesting how differently I

23:13

feel about it today than 20 years ago.

23:17

Yeah, well, for me, like everything you said so

23:19

beautifully translates into loving

23:21

kindness, like welcoming people into the space

23:24

and seeing

23:24

them looking at them, you know, instead of

23:26

this sort of blur of, you

23:29

know, faces sitting

23:31

there waiting to judge it, you know, it's

23:34

a sense of connection. And that's really how

23:36

I did it. Like inadvertently, like

23:39

I began teaching

23:41

formally in retreat form,

23:44

which was how we did all our early teaching

23:46

in this country. It

23:48

was a month long retreat with Joseph

23:50

Goldstein as my colleague.

23:53

And so month long retreat, given the pattern

23:55

of our days on retreat, which

23:57

is that people practice during the day and there's questions

23:59

and answers. answers and small group

24:01

meetings and things like that. And then there's one

24:04

formal discourse in the evening.

24:07

And I could not do a single one of them because I

24:09

was so terrified. And Justin had

24:12

to speak for 30 nights in a row. And people

24:15

were going up and yelling at him saying, why don't you let

24:17

her have a voice? Why don't you let her speak?

24:19

He said, I'd love a night off. Talk to her. You know,

24:22

I could not do

24:22

it. I was absolutely terrified. Whereas

24:25

if you're going up to him, you anti-feminist?

24:27

How dare you? Exactly. Squash

24:30

the woman. Yeah. And

24:32

I couldn't do it. And what I was afraid of specifically

24:35

was that I'd be speaking and my mind would go blank.

24:38

And I'd just be sitting there and everyone

24:40

would know. I'm like, oh, her mind just went blank.

24:42

Would it hurt? And

24:44

I just could not do it. So we did that

24:46

retreat. We did subsequent retreats.

24:49

I could not do it. And then I

24:51

remember it. And this was a long time before

24:53

I went to Burma, intensively practiced

24:55

loving kindness meditation. But I remember

24:57

there was such a thing as loving kindness. And

25:00

I thought, oh, you know, if that happens,

25:03

if I'm speaking about loving kindness

25:06

and my mind goes blank, I can always launch

25:08

into the guided meditation because there's a guided

25:10

meditation. So I thought, oh,

25:12

no one will know. So then the

25:15

only thing I could talk about was loving kindness

25:17

because, you know, and I have here

25:19

in the house, I have piles of cassettes

25:22

because it was that long ago of

25:24

me giving really one talk, which was loving

25:26

kindness to just so many of

25:29

them. And then one day I had the thought, kind

25:31

of like what I was saying earlier, like, oh,

25:33

it's all about loving kindness. It's all just

25:35

about connection. That's what's

25:38

really happening here in these evening

25:41

lectures. You know, it's not that someone's waiting

25:44

for my, you know, peerless

25:46

expertise on something. They

25:48

want to be connected to the material. They want

25:50

to be connected to their own experience.

25:53

They want to be connected to me, to us,

25:55

to the world that we are co-creating

25:57

in this retreat from

25:59

then on. I can speak about anything because

26:01

it was all kind of based on

26:03

that. That's

26:06

so true. I feel that I teach

26:08

creative writing and I really feel

26:10

like what I'm doing, yeah, is holding the

26:13

space for them to connect with

26:15

one another, with the text that we're reading,

26:17

with me as a professor, if they

26:19

want to, they don't always want to. But

26:21

yeah, a lot of it, you're absolutely right. I hadn't thought

26:24

about it that way, but a lot of it is like holding

26:26

space for connections, genuine

26:28

connections to happen. And

26:30

it's also, I think this about meditation

26:33

and Dharma talks too, it's a space

26:35

of play as well. Like,

26:37

I don't know what's going to happen. It can't be pre-planned.

26:40

It can't be put on the agenda. There's

26:43

an element there of surprise, which

26:46

is partly what we also come for, I think, too.

26:49

Yeah, that's true. So that's

26:51

all clarity. I mean, I would call it clarity,

26:54

you know, having some perspective. Because

26:57

it's different than feeling, you

27:00

know, kind of the normal ego

27:02

satisfaction of accomplishment

27:06

in some way, even though we're doing it by, you

27:09

know, suffering mightily is something very

27:11

different. So I think, as you know,

27:13

as the equanimity lady, because

27:15

I first came upon your writing for

27:19

Tricycle Magazine on equanimity,

27:21

and I was writing something on equanimity. And

27:24

so researching the topic again, I thought,

27:26

oh, look at that. She's really good, you

27:28

know, and you embody it so much

27:30

and you've written about it so beautifully. So you

27:33

said that the word equanimity struck you as a far

27:36

off concept

27:37

and a mouthful of a word. So

27:39

thinking about it in terms of a little house

27:41

or a casita, something much more workable

27:44

for you, both conceptually and culturally.

27:46

And can you say something more about that?

27:50

Yeah, I think I've said this to you before,

27:52

but my partner, you know, does find it funny that you think of

27:55

me as the equanimity lady. So every time I

27:57

talk to you, I'm like, right.

27:59

I need to practice this more at home.

28:04

But yeah, equanimity as a word

28:07

felt, you

28:09

know, just we don't use it as often,

28:11

right? So it felt very formal.

28:15

It felt like, yeah, sort of a level of expertise

28:17

was required. I

28:20

think I wrote in my essay, or

28:22

I don't know if it made it to the final draft, but

28:24

it also kind of felt like retirement or

28:26

like thinking about like 401s or

28:29

like money in retirement,

28:29

like, I'll have to worry about

28:32

that someday, far off

28:34

in the future. And then oh, wow, it's

28:36

here. It's coming. Okay. So

28:38

I felt that way with that word equanimity, like, I

28:41

must need to do other things before I can

28:43

fully appreciate the scope of that word.

28:46

And then yeah, as I started thinking about

28:49

it, you know, it came up because of,

28:51

you know, being

28:53

a human being in, particularly

28:55

in the United States in the wake of the 2016 election, it

28:59

was like losing

29:01

equanimity every day, every morning,

29:04

I would wake up and turn on the news and something

29:07

new had happened that just

29:09

devastated me. And I was like, if

29:12

I'm going to survive just

29:14

on a personal level, if I'm going to like keep my emotional

29:17

well-being intact for the next four

29:19

years,

29:21

I need something. And an equanimity

29:23

was what came up for me. And

29:26

so I did, I, you know, yes, thinking

29:28

about it as the little casitas I needed.

29:31

I think this is sort of, I needed an image

29:33

and I think that that worked for me.

29:36

Yeah, that's little casitas, little houses,

29:39

the divine abodes. I needed

29:42

to really connect with that image. And actually,

29:44

it's kind of interesting because

29:46

right now I'm at a point where I'm grading

29:48

all this creative work from my students. We're

29:51

on a quarter system, so we just ended a quarter. And

29:55

I find myself oftentimes, you know,

29:57

telling them and the feedback that I'm giving them

29:59

which is when you can create an image,

30:03

you allow the reader to have a sensory experience, you

30:05

allow the reader to step into that moment.

30:08

And so for me, I realized I needed to do that for myself

30:10

in a spiritual way. And so thinking

30:13

about it as a little house that I could

30:15

walk into felt so

30:17

inviting and felt more familiar. I think

30:19

also,

30:20

honestly, bringing Spanish to it. Also,

30:23

that's the language that we

30:26

still speak at home with my parents. So

30:28

that also made it much more familiar and

30:30

more inviting. And

30:32

I think I often forget that about spiritual

30:35

practices, that like

30:37

the sort of question of, oh, what can I do

30:39

to make this easier for myself? Like,

30:41

what can I do to make it more inviting and more familiar?

30:44

It doesn't always occur to me. And

30:47

as a person of color, I often am translating

30:50

culturally different ideas. But

30:53

somehow, yeah, with that one, it was necessary

30:55

to do a deeper, a much

30:57

deeper translation to feel like,

30:59

yeah, this

31:02

is a value, equanimity is available to me, the

31:04

sense of I am able to have some

31:06

kind of emotional balance,

31:07

even in this incredible

31:10

storm that we all went

31:12

through as well as a country. And continue,

31:14

I would say continue in. It was not

31:16

only one four-year period in time,

31:19

although that was pretty brutal. Let's acknowledge

31:21

that. But yeah, yeah,

31:24

I feel like I'm losing, like I'm like, what

31:27

else can I say about this? My

31:29

mind is going blank. So this

31:31

is what I, this is what my trick is. Let

31:33

me turn back to the other person.

31:35

Well, you're making such an interesting point, right? Equanimity

31:39

in the Buddhist tradition means balance, but

31:41

it's not apathy. It's not

31:44

indifference. It's a very kind

31:46

of exquisite definition of balance.

31:49

It might mean in some contexts, the

31:51

balance of loving kindness for yourself,

31:54

as well as others, or compassion for yourself, as

31:56

well as others, or the balance

31:59

of compassion and wisdom. like I

32:01

want to do everything I can to

32:03

try to help you, but it's not ultimately

32:06

my hands. I'm not in control

32:08

of the universe, or change might take time.

32:11

I need to do everything I can right

32:13

now, and I may not see

32:15

the flowering of my efforts right away,

32:18

because that's just in the nature

32:20

of things. So it's bringing wisdom

32:22

into a company, compassion,

32:25

in some way, or a company, anything, you

32:28

know, so that we try our very best

32:30

to

32:31

make something happen. And it is also kind of

32:33

letting go, realizing that, you

32:36

know, I gave you this gift, I can't insist

32:39

that you say it's the best book you've

32:41

ever read, you know, like,

32:43

I might want to just like, here,

32:45

here it is, I did the best I could.

32:49

So it does bring elements of peace, but it's

32:51

not like relinquishing

32:54

of aspiration or wanting to make

32:56

a difference at all. And that's what's tricky

32:59

about it. So you're talking about how equanimity

33:01

might be an asset in very difficult

33:04

circumstances,

33:05

with a lot of adversity and things not going

33:08

your way, you know, for

33:11

yourself, for your country, for, you

33:13

know, your community. And so it's

33:17

a very interesting reflection how equanimity can

33:19

be a source of strength, and

33:21

not the kind of weakness we tend to be

33:23

thinking it is. Oh, yeah,

33:26

I think it's such a source of strength. Oh,

33:28

my goodness, I actually I feel like it's one of like,

33:30

it's like, yeah,

33:32

the secret power. I don't watch enough, like,

33:34

of those Avenger movies. But anyway, whatever they talk

33:36

about, like, having like, yeah,

33:38

the sort of like superpower that's like, not

33:41

necessarily always visible to others. Because I

33:43

also think

33:45

that it's hard for me to know what the

33:48

next right action is, if I'm

33:50

not in a place of equanimity, you know,

33:52

so I feel like,

33:55

yeah, I don't know, I feel like that's really,

33:57

you know,

33:58

that's I don't know yet. I

33:59

I need to be in that place of balance and peace

34:02

and having clarity about what

34:04

I think I can do and what I can't do.

34:07

So, yeah, and I don't, you know, I

34:09

feel like I took extra care of myself

34:12

during, in the wake of

34:14

that particular election,

34:16

because I realized like, I'm not going to be

34:18

of use. Like if I wanna go,

34:20

you know, march in DC, which I did,

34:22

it was like an incredible life experience.

34:25

I've never been with that many thousands

34:27

and thousands of women in one place. But

34:30

in order to show up for that, like, and

34:33

channel like my energy

34:35

and my anger in the right direction, I

34:37

needed to be in a place of equanimity beforehand

34:40

and I needed to have slept well. I

34:43

needed to have good meals. I needed to have gone

34:45

with friends and loved ones, not by myself,

34:47

you know, I really needed to get them together as well.

34:50

So yeah, I needed to do a lot of things so I could show

34:52

up and use my voice, right,

34:54

in that moment in a way that I felt would

34:57

be effective, even

35:00

though there's so many

35:03

moments of despair, yeah.

35:06

You know, I think sometimes we don't realize that

35:09

some of the people we admire are

35:12

really manifesting a kind of equanimity,

35:15

but, and not my

35:17

most recent book, put in an earlier book, I

35:19

quote you,

35:20

and maybe you could tell that story

35:22

again. Was it your aunt who was cooking

35:25

food in the- Oh, the hurricane?

35:27

Yeah, yeah, some kind of devastation. Yes,

35:29

my father's cousin. So

35:32

we were in Florida, this

35:35

was a very long time ago when it was very,

35:38

southern Florida was very downstated by

35:40

a hurricane. And

35:43

I'm wondering how much of the story I told in

35:45

the essay, there's a lot, that's like a whole little novella

35:48

in and of itself. But yeah, but

35:50

it was a very scary night. You

35:53

know, we boarded the windows and

35:55

we spent it on a mattress on the floor,

35:58

away from the windows as well.

35:59

and more in the center of the house. And

36:02

the sounds that night were just really

36:05

horrifying. And so when we woke up, then,

36:07

you know, got up the next day, the

36:10

winds had calmed down, the hurricane

36:12

had passed, and anyway, we were finally

36:15

able to go out. It was very scary,

36:17

and we were not even the worst affected at that

36:19

point with that hurricane. Homestead was the

36:21

one that was really that area of Florida

36:24

was very devastated where many, many,

36:26

you know, their lives lost, homes

36:28

completely shattered. But

36:30

even in our neighborhood, or my

36:33

cousin's neighborhood, you know, trees

36:35

were completely uprooted, which I had never

36:37

seen before. And I'm not talking about like a little tree

36:39

on the street corner, I'm talking about these just immense,

36:42

I don't know what specific tree

36:45

species, but just very thick, you know,

36:47

trunks, just, I think

36:49

I might have written, I mean, just look like a hand had come

36:51

down and pulled them up out of the earth. All

36:54

their roots splayed everywhere. It

36:56

was just very intense and no running

36:59

water,

37:00

everything was shut down

37:02

during that time. And

37:05

the men in our family were

37:07

having a very hard time as

37:12

people who are used to being the providers

37:14

and in Latinx culture, you know, just a lot

37:16

of men have a lot of feelings about

37:19

the role that they have in a moment of

37:22

disaster like that. And there was

37:24

little that could be done. And my

37:26

cousin, my dad's cousin just

37:29

amazed me because she was just,

37:32

you know, this is a woman who fled communist

37:34

Cuba, has

37:35

went through another country to get to the US,

37:39

had to start over, you know, folks, it's

37:41

not the first time that folks have been through something

37:44

really difficult. And she was the one

37:46

who was calm and was like, boiling

37:51

water and making,

37:53

she's also an amazing cook. So

37:56

cooking these black Cuban beans that were just

37:58

amazing and just continued.

37:59

continuing to cook and

38:02

be this kind of spiritual

38:04

center during that moment. I just found

38:06

her energy to be so soothing.

38:08

Kind of goes back to what you were saying before, too, about connection.

38:11

I felt very connected to her in that moment.

38:14

And I can't do anything in kitchen. And

38:16

I was pretty young, actually. It was good. I didn't

38:18

offer to do anything in the kitchen. But just

38:20

watching her

38:22

felt like a meditative

38:24

practice. And

38:26

I feel like she really kept everyone together during

38:29

that time. And she was so balanced. And

38:32

I could totally see how someone

38:35

could read her as being indifferent

38:38

to all the destruction

38:40

that had happened during that time. But

38:42

for me, in that moment, I did not read

38:45

her as being indifferent. She was very clear.

38:48

She was very clear. We did not have running water. We did

38:50

not know when the water was going to come back. You

38:53

couldn't go to the bank and get cash. Whatever you had

38:55

on you was it. She was

38:57

not only providing for her family, she was also hosting

39:00

me and my mom and my sister, et cetera. So

39:02

she had an extra full house.

39:05

So she was very clear. Yeah,

39:07

talk about someone having clarity. But

39:10

she wasn't off course. And I think in

39:13

the essay, I compare her to it really felt

39:15

like sometimes I lived

39:17

in Florida for a few years. And I would just be

39:20

amazed by these palm trees. You would get these ferocious,

39:23

not hurricanes, but just ferocious storms,

39:26

tropical storms. You would just get pounding rain. And

39:29

you would watch these palm trees

39:31

just sway and sway from one side

39:33

to the other. I had an apartment building.

39:36

I lived in an apartment building during that time where I

39:38

felt like, are

39:39

they going to fall on top of me?

39:41

But they always just swayed right away.

39:44

It's in the other direction. And

39:46

I was like, that is an image

39:48

for me. It's like you can stay rooted.

39:51

And still, you're going to get knocked off course.

39:53

You're a human. I'm a human. But

39:56

I'm still rooted. And I felt like she was so rooted

39:58

for all of us during that time.

39:59

time it was incredible. Yeah, her

40:02

name's Margaux.

40:05

Margaux was very rooted. I

40:08

mean one of the images or a moment in

40:10

the metaphors you've used is

40:13

equanimity as an anchor. You

40:15

know, which is very much the sense of something that helps

40:18

us have some steadiness in the

40:20

face of tremendous adversity

40:22

sometimes. Absolutely,

40:26

absolutely. Yeah, she was absolutely an anchor

40:28

for us during that time. And I feel

40:30

like, you know, kind of going back to what you were saying

40:32

about teaching as well, I feel like

40:35

she was teaching me so much in that moment,

40:38

you know, there was such a connection. And

40:41

she was teaching me by how she was living her life.

40:43

And I was like, yeah, I want to be like that when

40:46

the storm comes, you know, to be

40:49

able to stay anchored, to stay centered,

40:52

to know what to do next, to

40:54

not give in, you know, to acknowledge the despair

40:56

of the moment, but not to give into it. That's

40:59

like, that's big stuff. Yeah,

41:02

she's an incredible elder.

41:05

Like, not everybody, of course, cultivates

41:07

that quality through meditation. But one

41:09

of the things I've always been

41:12

asked about meditation or people

41:14

comment

41:15

about meditation practices. You

41:18

know, I did it when my life was really

41:20

unhappy, and I was under all the stress and things

41:23

got a lot better. So I just stopped.

41:26

You know, once I was interviewed for

41:28

a magazine, I never got in when they published

41:31

the interview, they weren't including me. But

41:33

the question was something like, how

41:36

can mindfulness play a role and will

41:38

substitute equanimity here for mindfulness?

41:41

But how can my clothes play a role

41:43

in a time of complete crisis?

41:46

And I said, I wouldn't wait. Sometimes

41:50

people do wait, it's only the pain

41:53

or stress of something that has them think

41:55

differently or, you know, reach for something different. But

41:57

it's like, if you don't have to wait, it's

41:59

like, that ordinary day by day,

42:01

you know, just strength training,

42:05

which is building up a kind of resource and

42:07

confidence and a

42:09

kind of sense of connection to

42:12

others that should the bottom fall

42:14

out of your life, which it does,

42:16

at least sometimes,

42:18

and you have

42:20

something to draw upon. You

42:22

know, you've built up this kind of resource

42:25

and this clarity and this ability

42:28

to be present and more balanced with whatever.

42:31

So like, don't wait, you know, it's like

42:33

the really ordinary, boring routine, repetitive,

42:35

like, I've got to sit, you know, that's

42:37

when it's actually happening. And

42:39

yet we do wait. Why is

42:42

that Sharon? Why do we wait? I

42:45

say this as someone who I feel like I am such

42:47

a part time Buddhist. This last

42:50

year I have been the most consistent. But

42:52

yeah, I'll go through these periods. I'm like,

42:54

it's exactly that. Like things are cheery. I'm

42:56

like, oh, a lot of away

42:58

I go. You know, it becomes much

43:01

more sporadic, more infrequent.

43:04

And then something happens and I'm like,

43:06

where's my cushion? Someone

43:08

get the cushion. But yeah,

43:10

it's like, why? It's

43:13

like it's so

43:14

I don't know. I often think I've been thinking

43:16

about that lately because I'm like this last week

43:18

I was traveling for a work conference and blah.

43:21

Anyway, things were good. I was seeing so many people. I

43:23

feel it felt like the first conference since COVID. And

43:25

I'm like, ah. And then I'm like, where's

43:27

my cushion? Yeah.

43:31

It feels like, I don't

43:33

know. It feels like a spiritual paradox

43:36

that like when there's joy,

43:38

it's harder to sit.

43:41

Yeah, it's true.

43:44

But we can do it. You can do it. We

43:46

can. You really can do it. So

43:52

you're a writer, of course, you're a writer of fiction

43:54

and nonfiction,

43:56

journalism, memoir,

43:57

and congratulations again. the

44:00

accolades and on your last

44:02

book and you teach

44:04

creative writing, which fascinates me because

44:07

I felt always

44:11

that there's a path to everything

44:13

because I learned there was a path to

44:15

meditation or living a happier life. And

44:18

it's not like a prescribed path, you know, where

44:20

you must do this, then you must do that. But there

44:23

are guidelines and there are ways of looking

44:26

and their inspirations and their ways

44:29

that we are almost urged

44:31

to step outside of the familiar, step

44:34

outside of the box and like, let's look

44:36

from this angle, you know,

44:38

or something like that. And so I wonder

44:41

if you could say something, first of all, about

44:44

the role of creativity. And as

44:47

a combo, you know, as you were saying earlier, and

44:49

we were talking about,

44:50

you're not giving people rules,

44:53

you're creating a space where

44:55

they can connect, but I

44:57

think it's combined likely with

44:59

some sense of a path.

45:02

Right? Somebody said to me once and

45:06

urging me to write, you know, better.

45:12

Kind of saying, because

45:15

like everyone, I have strengths and weaknesses, and my

45:17

great weakness, often

45:19

in writing has been structure, which I

45:22

think the single most common comment I ever

45:24

got from an editor was, how'd you go from

45:26

here to there? I

45:29

just weren't, I don't know. No, I just

45:31

went. And

45:34

I went and I hope you will follow me. Can't

45:37

you see like, tell me you tell

45:39

me that I couldn't read it. You know, and

45:41

somebody said to me once, well,

45:42

what you have to do is look at the first

45:44

sentence of every paragraph

45:47

and make sure they can line up in

45:50

some way. That's so interesting.

45:53

Never occurs to me what I realized I have been doing,

45:55

which is true. It's like

45:57

if the last sentence of a paragraph

45:59

said something like, and

46:03

then they had a conversation before

46:05

getting in the car. And then I

46:08

jumped to learning how to drive, you know, because

46:11

word card been in there. But nothing do

46:13

with what I was writing about, you know,

46:15

and I appreciate

46:16

things like that. And I find that

46:18

fascinating, just kind of the structure

46:21

of a pursuit of any kind and the

46:24

so-called rules and the

46:26

ability just to connect to what is

46:28

and what's true. I'm

46:32

laughing because, yeah, structure.

46:37

With my last book, structure came

46:39

at the possible, at the

46:41

last moment that it could come. And

46:44

what I mean by that was that, you know, it's a book about

46:46

a neglected disease. It's about racial politics

46:49

and public health. And so there

46:51

was a lot of research. I worked on it for seven years.

46:54

And I was writing as I went along, I would write

46:56

these like little essentially vignettes. And

46:58

sometimes it was about it was based

47:00

on an interview that I did with

47:01

someone. Sometimes it was based on an article

47:03

that I had read and was needing to like translate

47:06

it to my own non-scientific

47:08

language. And sometimes it was about my family

47:10

because this was a disease that my auntie

47:13

had been diagnosed with and ultimately

47:15

died from. And so sometimes I

47:17

would be reading something and it would awaken

47:20

something about my auntie. So I had a lot

47:23

of little vignettes. The

47:25

sentences did not line up as you

47:27

were saying.

47:30

And one of the things that

47:32

I learned is that like the structure itself

47:35

is such a creative act. It's a form

47:37

of writing actually. And I'm really

47:39

glad that I let myself write as it

47:41

came to me. And then

47:44

I took the structure as like its own creative

47:46

practice in a way. And

47:48

so then it was like about arranging all these elements

47:51

to be in relationship with one another. And

47:54

then this is where a fantastic editor, thank

47:56

you Macy at Tin House came in. And

47:59

I gave

47:59

her 80 pages and she started

48:02

to create some chapters for me. That was

48:04

fantastic. And still,

48:07

you know, I was in conversation with a lot

48:09

of other writers about like the

48:11

overall structure of that book. And it was

48:13

not until we were like, we were about to go into production

48:17

where I realized, oh my gosh,

48:19

it's a three part structure for the entire

48:21

book. And this is how it needs

48:23

to be arranged. First, my family story,

48:25

then the medicine and science in the second part,

48:28

and then the stories of other families

48:29

that I found in the United States that I wanted

48:32

to share. And, but

48:34

I almost, I really felt like I couldn't

48:36

see that at the beginning. And I know for some writers,

48:39

it's actually the opposite, like too much structure,

48:42

you know, or they can't start writing even until

48:44

they have a structure, you know? So I feel like

48:46

I'm at this place now where I'm like, whatever

48:49

your relationship is with structure, honor

48:51

that and take that as like,

48:54

that's an important part of your creative

48:56

practice, you know, however

48:58

you work with structure. But yeah,

49:01

with teaching creative writing, it's so

49:03

much, it's really being an apprentice, you know?

49:06

And I feel like not only are the students an apprentice,

49:09

I'm an apprentice too, because,

49:11

and what I mean by that is like,

49:12

you know, what I'm sharing with them are like, hey,

49:15

here's what I know works based on

49:18

other writers that I have studied with over the last 20 plus

49:20

years. So and it worked for me,

49:22

it might work for you, but it might not.

49:25

This could be a total fail. So you're

49:27

gonna have to use it right here, the

49:29

tools. And so so I know that writing

49:32

about the sensory experience, whenever

49:34

we can write about the body, especially the sensory

49:36

experiences that we ignore, like smell

49:38

and taste, whenever we write about those, we make

49:40

the writing much more vivid for readers. Whenever

49:43

we can recreate a scene on the page

49:45

and nonfiction, that's the moment

49:48

where that author disappears. And

49:50

the reader can be really close to the

49:52

moment, you know, so that works. However,

49:55

it might not. So, you

49:57

know, again, you have to test drive. And I one of

49:59

the things

49:59

something I'm really appreciating in this moment too

50:03

is that my apprenticeship continues as

50:05

a teacher. Like I'm constantly learning from

50:07

them. You know, one of my students just, I taught this

50:09

like all across genre class. So we had

50:11

students writing poetry and nonfiction

50:14

and fiction. And it was just a

50:16

beautiful line break at the end of this

50:18

poem that I was just like, wow,

50:20

the

50:22

words were so simple, but they really

50:24

earned their place on the page at the end of this

50:26

poem. I was like, I love that.

50:28

I love that that's working, where

50:31

I might not have thought it would work. And so, yeah,

50:33

there's just, it's such an apprentice,

50:36

you know, which I feel is actually very similar to being

50:38

a meditator, right? Like what do we do? We

50:41

show up, we show up again.

50:44

We listen to the talks, we test drive it,

50:46

you know, coming back to that driving analogy.

50:51

And

50:51

yeah, it's kind of amazing.

50:54

It is amazing, you know, not to sort of belabor the point

50:57

about meditation, but I was, I am about to ask you, even though we're

50:59

talking about creativity is something

51:02

that emerges, I'm about to ask you what

51:04

you might do to actually

51:07

nurture or attend to your creativity.

51:09

And so I answered the question myself being

51:11

an apprentice also. And I realized that a lot of what I

51:13

do comes through my meditation because

51:17

structure, my great weakness,

51:19

one of my great weaknesses is around the world.

51:21

My great weaknesses as a writer is

51:24

about relationship. How does one thing relate

51:26

to the next? How does one sentence relate

51:28

to the next? How does one

51:30

example relate to the,

51:32

you know, the body of the context

51:35

and so on? So, and the two

51:37

times I have the best

51:39

sort of insight

51:41

come to me

51:43

when I first wake up in the morning, because like

51:45

the sensor is not yet woken up. And

51:47

when I meditate, not because I'm trying to think,

51:50

how do I get from here to there? But

51:52

it just comes in a place

51:54

of more quiet, more letting

51:56

go, more peace. It's like, oh,

51:58

there it is. That's how I

52:00

get from there, here to there. So

52:04

for me, meditation would be

52:06

something that actually nurtures my

52:08

ability to be

52:10

creative. So how about you? Yeah,

52:13

absolutely. Yeah,

52:16

so how does the meditation nourish

52:18

the creativity? I mean, is there

52:19

something that you do that actually nurtures, or

52:22

what do you suggest to your students, you know,

52:25

to nurture? You know, to

52:27

nurture their creativity.

52:31

Yeah, the novelist

52:33

Christina Garcia, she said that one

52:35

of the things that she does before she sits down

52:37

for a writing session, is that

52:40

she reads poetry, and she'll read poetry for

52:42

like 20 minutes. And that

52:44

can be a dangerous suggestion, because a lot

52:46

of people have been taught to be afraid

52:49

of poetry. I was

52:51

one of those people, and I associated poetry

52:54

with like dead white men, who I had

52:56

to like decipher what they were saying and really

52:58

work hard at it.

53:01

And so a big change

53:04

is that I had to find poetry that I liked,

53:06

which is part of what I do with my students. I remember,

53:08

actually,

53:11

I played a YouTube video of the poet

53:13

John Murillo, reading one of his poems.

53:16

And I still remember this was such a win for

53:18

me as a teacher, a student saying,

53:21

you know, when I finished playing the

53:24

video of him with his poem, of reciting

53:26

his poem, this one student

53:29

yelled out, that's poetry?

53:31

I didn't

53:31

know that could be poetry. I was

53:33

like, yes. So

53:35

for me, yeah, it's finding, you know, when I

53:37

found Mary Oliver's poems, ah,

53:40

that was such a life changing moment

53:42

as a reader. I was like, I love these poems.

53:45

The funny thing is I mentioned that to a group

53:47

of writers one time. Oh, no,

53:49

actually, I didn't mention that I was reading Mary Oliver.

53:51

They made a reference to Mary Oliver's

53:54

poems. And the person

53:56

who was mentioning it was apologetic because

53:58

she was saying, oh, it's a poem. And I'm like, I love it. I love it.

53:59

I know they're so accessible. I

54:02

was like, that's a bad thing that I

54:04

can understand the poem in certain

54:06

circles. That's like a bad thing. So

54:09

I've come to appreciate that

54:12

I am someone who likes to understand the poem.

54:14

I have to look for poems that I can understand.

54:17

So when I go on the PAP Poetry Foundation

54:19

website, I'm

54:21

looking for the poems that I can understand

54:24

at one level very quickly. I

54:26

can

54:27

read for other layers of meaning as

54:29

I tell my students. But you have to like

54:31

love it

54:33

at the level of your body. Like you need

54:35

to like hear the poem or read it

54:38

on the page and feel like, oh, I'm feeling something.

54:40

And I can't always even explain what it is that I'm feeling.

54:43

But that really nourishes me a lot

54:46

to see what other writers are doing.

54:49

And yeah, and I think

54:51

it's kind of similar, I don't know, similar to

54:53

being in Sangha actually. It's like, oh,

54:56

I guess everyone else is doing it. I can do

54:58

it too. There's

55:01

something about being in community that

55:03

nourishes that, I think both the creativity

55:05

and the meditation for

55:07

me. So great. Now,

55:09

just to broaden the definition

55:11

of creativity and

55:14

not thinking that it's only for so-called

55:16

artists, professional artists, I

55:19

write in real life, my

55:22

most recent book about how the

55:24

process of going deep within to access

55:27

and then express the truth we find is

55:29

the greatest of creative endeavors,

55:32

whether it is formally recognized

55:33

as art or not. Every

55:35

conversation, every encounter, every

55:38

working through and misunderstanding, and

55:40

every new unfolding in a friendship is an outlet

55:43

for that process.

55:45

And that way our lives themselves become our

55:47

creative medium.

55:48

And our days are marked by discovery, celebration,

55:51

and surprise in a way we take

55:53

ourselves less seriously while

55:56

still maintaining standards of excellence. We

55:58

can nonetheless relax. more, surrender

56:01

more to seeing what happens next. You

56:03

can enjoy the unruly process of getting

56:06

somewhere as well as hold in high

56:08

regard the idea of the somewhere. It surprises

56:11

me to read that because I don't remember writing that, you

56:13

know, but you know what that's like. It's just like,

56:16

where did that come from? So,

56:19

uh, ultimately we are like little

56:21

vessels, right? The

56:24

words come through on a really good day. It's

56:26

like, I'm just a vessel. So,

56:30

uh, I'm wondering if you could just

56:32

talk a little bit about that unruly

56:34

process of creation

56:37

and how

56:38

it plays out in your own life

56:40

and in your work. And part of that, and

56:42

you've already described it when you talked about the

56:44

poetry, is when you might

56:47

experience awe.

56:51

Yeah, I'm in the unruly process

56:53

now because I'm working on a new book and

56:55

it is unruly. And every

56:57

time, I know you know this every time a friend

57:00

sent this to me, which is really clarifying. Every time

57:02

you start a new creative project, you forget

57:04

you've ever done it before. Like the first time

57:06

was super scary because you really had never done it before.

57:09

And yet every other time you just forget

57:11

like, Oh, I wrote a book before I kind

57:13

of know how to do this. Totally forget it. So it

57:15

feels unruly. I think the only difference

57:18

between unruly now and unruly, you know,

57:21

uh, 10 years ago is that like,

57:23

Oh, I knew it's going to happen. Like it

57:25

is part of the process. It doesn't matter how many books

57:28

you've written or what you've published in or whatnot.

57:31

Like it is just always a little wild, which

57:33

is what I love about it, which

57:35

is what I love about it. Um, and

57:37

I was working, uh, every project

57:40

is so different, but yeah, I think part of

57:42

like, what's making a difference

57:44

this time is like just accepting that it's

57:46

unruly and allowing myself to have fun with

57:49

it. So I bought a special notebook

57:51

in which I get to be totally wild

57:53

and unruly.

57:53

And, um, and,

57:57

uh, so I don't know that anyone

57:59

can fully approve.

57:59

I appreciate this, but

58:01

I had a formal journalism training. So

58:04

when I interview someone, it goes into a reporter's

58:06

notebook. It's very specific. It's used for nothing

58:08

else. This time, I was like, I'm

58:10

throwing that out the window. It's going into my

58:12

beautiful notebook. So I did an interview with

58:14

this legal scholar. And it went into the notebook

58:17

with all my other doodles and

58:19

whatnot. And I'm like, wow, I'm being really

58:21

wild right now for my own standards.

58:24

So also knowing that unruly means one thing

58:26

for you. It means something else for another person, whether

58:29

somebody acknowledges it as art or not, we do

58:31

not have

58:31

to wait for that. It is still creative work. And

58:36

yeah, I also find it

58:38

also really helpful.

58:41

In

58:44

my case as a nonfiction writer, I

58:47

find the research to be grounding when it

58:49

feels unruly. So I actually

58:51

am really enjoying reading these really difficult

58:53

art. I'm writing a book about citizenship

58:56

in its many forms. And so

58:58

it's actually really great for me to hang out in these

59:00

legal articles that

59:03

are very dense and totally not the writing

59:05

that I'm doing. But I actually find that to be

59:07

part of what offers

59:09

a balance to the unruliness of the

59:11

creative moment.

59:13

Yeah.

59:15

Oh, great. So you're

59:18

not expecting this. But

59:21

given how inspiring it was when you were talking about

59:23

poetry, I wonder if we

59:26

can end our time here together

59:29

by reading a poem that

59:33

has brought you to all or part of a poem. We

59:36

want to take a few minutes. Oh my goodness.

59:38

This is my favorite book right now, which I

59:40

know that a book that's called Obit

59:43

might bring up questions about why

59:45

it's my favorite book. But

59:48

Victoria Chang is amazing. And

59:51

many of these are actually all prose poems.

59:54

So I discovered I'm a lover of the prose

59:56

poem. And if

59:58

you think you don't like poetry,

59:59

go read some prose poems and

1:00:02

I think you will like them or

1:00:05

find them more a little bit sometimes have an easier

1:00:07

entrance into them and

1:00:09

this is a book where she

1:00:12

she was caretaking her parents at

1:00:14

the end of their lives

1:00:17

so she writes an obituary for

1:00:20

like

1:00:21

for example my mother's lungs she

1:00:23

writes an obituary for privacy

1:00:25

so it's an obituary for both

1:00:28

ideas and also

1:00:31

actual you know for

1:00:33

her parents as well the

1:00:36

future died on june 24 2009 a pioneering

1:00:38

figure in the past the future was

1:00:42

the president of the present

1:00:45

you are sitting

1:00:46

but the future wants your chair she

1:00:49

is demanding she is not interested

1:00:51

in the spine but what it holds up she

1:00:53

is interested in award ceremonies she

1:00:56

is interested in fallen petals that look

1:00:58

like medals she is interested in

1:01:00

anything with the word track in it

1:01:03

tenure track deer tracks track

1:01:05

suit

1:01:06

but she doesn't want you to get sidetracked

1:01:09

or to backtrack the future

1:01:11

can be thrown away by the privileged but

1:01:13

sometimes she just suddenly dies

1:01:16

the way the second person dies when a mother

1:01:18

dies reborn as third person

1:01:21

as my mother the way

1:01:23

grief is really about future absence

1:01:26

the way the future closes its offices

1:01:28

when a mother dies what's left

1:01:31

a hole in the ground the size of violence

1:01:38

i feel like that's not

1:01:40

a cheery ending to our conversation it's

1:01:42

wonderful i love that

1:01:45

thank you

1:01:46

but i come back to these poems all the time

1:01:48

because of what she's doing with language is just

1:01:51

so beautiful and um

1:01:54

yeah and i was thinking about

1:01:57

a lot i was thinking a lot about grief with my last

1:01:59

book i still think about grief. There's

1:02:01

so much to grieve. So, yeah. Yeah.

1:02:04

Well, thank you. And thank you for introducing the concept

1:02:06

of a prose poem because I too am afraid

1:02:09

of poetry. You know. Oh,

1:02:11

prose poems are for you, Sharon. This

1:02:15

is a really good one. Oh, I'll send you another

1:02:17

type, The Arranged Marriage, which I don't know where

1:02:19

that is in my book.

1:02:21

Yeah, The Arranged Marriage

1:02:23

is fantastic by Johan de Bro.

1:02:26

Thank you. And thank you so much for

1:02:29

joining me today. It's really it's such a

1:02:31

joy to spend time with you, Daisy. And to

1:02:33

learn more about her work, visit Daisy Hernandez

1:02:36

dot com. It's D-A-I-S-Y-H-E-R-N-A-N-D-E-Z

1:02:40

dot com. Thank you. Thank you.

1:02:43

Hey, folks, thanks for listening. To learn more

1:02:46

about Sharon's

1:02:49

many different offerings, her

1:02:51

courses, virtual classes, or to get a copy

1:02:54

of Real Life, you can visit SharonSalzberg.com.

1:03:01

This has been the Real Life series

1:03:04

on the Metta Hour podcast.

1:03:13

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