0:00

Oh warning.

0:11

The following show includes discussion

0:13

of escorts, drugs, septagenarian

0:16

tinder eclipses, star

0:18

powered therapy, and Donald Trump's

0:20

former former former lawyer. For

0:22

listeners with Victorian sensibilities,

0:25

please keep a fan, and smelling

0:27

salts nearby. So,

0:35

I guess my biggest question is

0:37

am I ever going to have sex

0:39

with somebody again? Pop anything.

0:47

We're sitting in Jean LEC's third floor apartment

0:49

right off the street stop in Bay

0:51

Ridge. Jean is a former

0:54

teacher, just like my mom, roughly

0:56

the same age, seventy four, but Jean's

0:59

a New York anyfore. She's

1:01

got that city girl edge.

1:04

My name is Gina Lebec and I am

1:06

a storyteller. The

1:09

sex question it's

1:12

big for Gene because she was

1:14

married for forty one years and

1:16

she expected to stay married forever. But

1:18

right before the city went into lockdown, her

1:20

marriage dissolved, and it's taken

1:22

her about three years to get to this point. The

1:25

chooses, I don't want to marry anything. I'm not looking

1:28

for that, and I don't want to live with anybody. I'm not

1:30

looking for that. But she is craving

1:32

something. It's some

1:34

form of intimacy. Okay.

1:37

So my daughter is my biggest support

1:39

and fan, and when I've told her these

1:41

stories about you know, guys

1:43

who just really want to sex text to they

1:45

don't really want to go further than that. All

1:47

the weird men that I have had a

1:50

date with just okay, now

1:52

here's where we're at right now. I

1:55

think what you need to do is call

1:57

of in escort service. Yeah,

2:05

that's right. It's early on a Saturday

2:07

morning. I am barely awake.

2:10

I haven't even had my cup of coffee. And

2:13

I'm pretty sure I'm hearing her right, Like,

2:17

is this sweet seventy four year

2:19

old woman really asking permission

2:21

to hire somebody?

2:24

You are there, and it's a very clear cut

2:27

relationship, you know, hire

2:29

them for four hours. I

2:33

don't know if an astrologer could hope with that. I

2:36

don't know if any astrologer has ever been asked

2:38

whether it's the right time to hire an escort. But

2:43

we're about to find out. From

2:46

Kaleidoscope and I Heart Podcast,

2:49

I'm Mongay Fatika. There. Welcome

2:52

the Skyline Drive H

3:30

Chapter one, pound

3:33

Cake and Chemo. So

3:35

let's talk a second about Jane's question and

3:38

questions like beats well, I ever

3:40

have a partner that feels

3:43

safe and secure? Why does scorpios

3:45

get such a bad rap. I'm kind of curious

3:48

how many dogs I will have in

3:50

my life. Is it insane to consider

3:53

trying to be a stand up comedian as a man

3:55

who is rapidly balding? Well,

3:58

any of my hair ever grow

4:00

back? That's what the show was supposed to

4:02

be, finding people with questions

4:04

I'd never think to ask, pairing

4:06

them with an astrologer, then generally

4:09

having a good time. And I was

4:11

going to take this anthropological view of

4:13

it all like stand back watch

4:15

without judgment, try to understand

4:17

and enjoy. But

4:20

just as our production was about to get off the ground,

4:22

I traveled to Queens to get a reading from a random

4:24

astrologer. And that astrologer

4:27

he warned me that my dad's health would soon take

4:29

a drastic turn. Within

4:31

twenty minutes, my dad had emailed me that

4:34

the cancer had spread through his liver. So

4:37

now a few days later, I'm

4:40

in Kanye's, Georgia.

4:50

Kanye's is mostly famous for being a speed

4:52

trap on the road between Atlanta and Athens,

4:54

and my parents settled here because my dad took a

4:57

job down the road a few years back, but

4:59

there's little else that would have drawn them here, Like

5:02

there are strip malls and waffle houses,

5:04

banks, targets, and

5:06

then these quiet winding roads that veer off

5:09

it with names like Christian Circle. The

5:11

doctor's office is tucked away on one of these winding

5:14

roads, and we're waiting for the doctor

5:16

in a little exam room. It's actually

5:18

the way my dad wants it. All of us

5:20

here, my mom, sister,

5:22

me, and I'm a little surprised

5:25

when the doctor walks in and he's Indian,

5:28

so the pro pathology report

5:31

still says preliminary. I

5:33

didn't know that they had more of us out in conyers.

5:36

I like him immediately. He

5:38

seems to really know and care about my dad,

5:41

and he's concerned for us too. But

5:44

when he starts, it's clear

5:46

the news isn't good. But the show

5:49

that that liver was started

5:51

by small, numerous

5:54

tumors. It

5:56

turns out it's an aggressive, small self cancer.

6:00

It's going to need an aggressive response. The

6:02

painting is okay, but your disease

6:04

is behaving way to it's

6:06

it's wonderful. I've turned

6:08

on my voice recorder, not for

6:10

podcasting, but because I'm feeling

6:13

lightheaded, uneasy about how

6:15

much of this information I'll retain, and

6:18

so far it sounds like the chemo

6:20

can only do so much. Why did

6:22

I say it's not that great news? Because

6:24

small to lung cancer is notorious

6:26

not to stay in control with chemotherapy.

6:29

It goes away, but it comes right

6:31

back. Um so um.

6:34

Not a good diagnosis at all, but

6:37

very treatable in its current situation.

6:39

This whole thing is basically cancer. Whack

6:41

them all you can bat the cancer back,

6:43

cheer a little, and then start again

6:46

until time runs out. The

6:48

only time I smile is when my dad asks

6:52

timidly, oh, yes, I've

6:54

heard that, very

6:56

good Mario, and I can help it. And I

6:59

think I remember my friend Howard

7:02

when his dad got cancer. Howard got him a

7:04

pound cake loaded with THHC and

7:06

they spent the night laughing as his dad

7:08

shared memories along

7:11

with these ridiculous life goals, like how

7:13

his one regret as a young man in

7:15

China was that he'd never taken a ship

7:18

on the doorstep of the French embassy.

7:21

Anyway, I daydreamed a little about

7:23

sourcing some edibles and playing my

7:25

dad's favorite records as we chat through

7:27

the night, before I

7:29

hear this, you really don't want

7:31

the parents to be dealing with metastatic

7:34

cancer us

7:37

away. It's just not invariably,

7:39

no matter household of the dreatment of the long

7:41

bag arts. In

7:49

the best case scenario, will get three to four

7:51

more years with my dad. That's

7:53

if the treatment takes. It's something

7:55

to hope for, but it's more likely

7:58

we'll get three to four months. The

8:00

thing is, there's no time to waste. A

8:02

nurse wheels my dad to a different wing to

8:04

begin the chemo immediately. My

8:07

mom is trying to be brave, but she's still dazed.

8:10

I tug at her arm and hold it as

8:12

we walked to the car. Everything

8:14

is daunting, but it also feels manageable.

8:17

So instead of worrying, I focus

8:20

on our wish list. My

8:23

dad still speaks on Portuguese from his childhood

8:25

and Goa, and I know he wants to see

8:27

Lisbon. I know he wants to see

8:30

his grandkids more. He wants to see

8:32

my sister getting married. So I'm thinking,

8:34

what can I do? What money do we

8:36

need? How can I move my schedule

8:38

around? Four

8:40

months is not a lot of time, but

8:45

I'm going to make it feel like enough. Chapter

9:02

two, Secrets and Lies. I

9:07

lived in a family with a lot of secrets.

9:09

Secrets are the thing that shaped Jean, and

9:12

I have a feeling. It's what's driven her to tell these

9:14

beautiful, unvarnished stories

9:16

about herself. Inside

9:19

her place, past the entry and the

9:21

kitchen doorway and the hallway lined

9:23

with photos, there's a living room filled

9:25

with vintage furniture stuff

9:28

you cover it from your favorite thrift store. Jean

9:32

tells me to sit anywhere, make myself comfortable,

9:35

and so I do, first on this

9:37

bright, beautiful sofa, and then

9:39

on an ottoman. Just

9:41

a little closer, do it. I

9:44

grew up right here in Brooklyn, Latin Bay Ridge, Button

9:46

Crown Heights, which is now a groovy, groovy

9:48

place to live, But during those days it

9:51

was a hard working Irish Catholic

9:53

neighborhood, and we were the only Jewish families.

9:57

Don't ask me. Kids playing marbles

9:59

by Nickel, comics, hanging out on students,

10:01

running around the neighborhood until the lamp post flicker

10:04

and you just know it's time to raise home. It

10:07

all sounds so idyllic, but her

10:09

childhood was also cloaked in something darker

10:12

because of her parents political leanings. We

10:14

lived this kind of life of secrets and lives.

10:17

They couldn't tell anybody they were American Communists.

10:20

They couldn't tell anybody they knew juleson Ethel

10:22

Wilson Earth, Why

10:24

did you run for me? On?

10:30

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

10:33

Julius Rosenberg A Taurus

10:35

and Ethel Rosenberg A Libra met

10:38

and fell in love at the Young Communist

10:40

League. When Taurus and Libra

10:43

come together in a love affair, it

10:45

can be the unification of two

10:47

halves of a whole. Julius

10:49

had a steady job working for the Army

10:52

Signal Corps as an engineer, but

10:54

he was fired for being a socialist

10:58

commmunism What is

11:00

it? Who are the apostles

11:03

of a system that attempts to destroy the

11:05

American way of life? In

11:08

the nineties and fifties, a communist

11:10

panic swept across America, set

11:12

off by a scorpio named Senator

11:15

Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy

11:17

was known for his wild and sensational

11:19

attacks. The scorpio zoiac

11:22

sign concerns itself with beginnings

11:24

and endings and is unafraid of either.

11:27

They also travel in the world that is

11:29

black and white and has little

11:31

use for gray. At the time,

11:34

Hollywood directors, prominent politicians,

11:36

and government insiders were terrified

11:38

for their lives and careers. In the

11:41

couple was put on trial for passing atomic

11:44

secrets to the Soviets. The

11:46

Rosenbergs claimed innocence, but they still

11:48

got the electric chair. The man

11:50

who prosecuted them at twenty

11:52

three year old pisces named Roy

11:54

Kane. One witness from the

11:56

trial, tried to take back his testimony.

11:59

He said the reason he lied on the stand was

12:01

because Cohen had threatened to lock up his wife

12:03

and make life hell for his family. Many

12:06

people associate pisces with dreams

12:09

and secrets as a mutable

12:12

sign. I sees holds adapt

12:14

fluid and shape shifting

12:16

quality.

12:20

Anyway, back to Jean, it makes sense

12:22

that our family hid the fact that they were close with

12:24

the Rosenbergs, but that wasn't the only

12:26

secret they were hiding. My sister

12:28

is gay. Being gay during

12:31

those times was really a

12:33

horrifying thing. And I

12:35

remember when she told me she was gay.

12:38

I thought this was the greatest thing I ever heard,

12:40

and she was like, you cannot tell us, so nobody

12:43

can know about this, Like being Communist,

12:46

being Jewish, being gay was

12:48

just another thing she couldn't talk about. As

12:51

she's telling me about her past, it makes more

12:53

sense why Jeans welcomed me in why

12:56

she's agreed to talk. The

12:58

thing is, Jean is a total

13:00

romantic. One of

13:03

my favorite stories that I told was

13:06

the time I had my first orgasm.

13:08

I had been married, I had a baby,

13:10

and still didn't know my own body. It's

13:13

the seventies and Geine is in her twenties,

13:15

a single mom with a kid. She had

13:17

briefly been married to her high school sweetheart,

13:20

and now she's working at this daycare center where

13:22

she has this colleague named Mona, and

13:24

there are a lot of like they're both putting

13:27

themselves through school in the evenings. They both

13:29

have little girls that are the same age. We

13:31

formed this friendship with each

13:33

other, and then one night we went to

13:35

see this movie and was sitting in the

13:38

car and she looks at me and says,

13:40

you know, I really feel like kissing you.

13:43

I said, so kiss that

13:46

kiss. It was like fireworks.

13:50

I mean, Mona, I had been

13:52

intimate, but I never had

13:54

an orgasm. After this

13:56

orgasm, she put on candles

13:59

and everything, and she looked

14:01

at me and to saying, you know, sweetie, you

14:03

could do this anytime you want. I mean,

14:05

the whole idea of that kind of power.

14:08

And so I

14:10

begin to be kind of a crazy masturbator.

14:12

You know. I would like go to my job at the

14:14

daycare center, and it was lunchtime, night, fun

14:17

back, and

14:19

so it was this whole description of

14:22

just feeling giddy with this kind of new

14:24

fountain knowledge.

14:27

Mona would move away not long after leaving

14:30

the city, but it wasn't long before

14:32

Jean would fall in love again. In fact, in

14:34

some ways, her next love would hit her even

14:36

harder. Here's the story

14:38

she told at the Moth. It's assembly

14:41

day and I'm so nervous. My class

14:43

is putting on a play for the entire school,

14:45

and I'm walking down the auditorium the

14:47

center aisle carrying all these props.

14:50

And takes my hand to

14:52

help me navigate up the stage

14:54

steps, and my hand

14:56

melts into his, and his hand melts

14:59

into mine, nor fingers linger,

15:02

never wanting to let go. And

15:04

as Miss Hall crosses the stage to

15:06

go to the piano, and kids are getting

15:09

their assembly seats, and the rain and is

15:11

beating against the window, we fall

15:13

madly in love Gene

15:15

and that teacher. They get married,

15:18

raised your daughter together, and then a son

15:20

too. They become grandparents together,

15:23

and then one morning, forty

15:25

one years later, over

15:27

coffee, said I'm

15:30

leaving her husband came clean about another

15:32

woman he'd been seeing, But

15:34

it wasn't long before Jean realized there were

15:36

more. He was having

15:38

copious amounts of affairs. It was

15:40

almost like a house of cards fell down. Um,

15:43

he's an expert con man. He swept

15:46

me off my feet. It was almost

15:48

like that love that you know you think

15:50

you're never ever going to find again, and then

15:52

it'll just kind of crashed. And I had to kind of

15:54

weed through the betrayal. It didn't take

15:56

much detective work for Gene to realize he'd been cheating

15:59

since the start of their relationship, with friends,

16:01

colleagues, random women along the

16:03

way. Jean was heartbroken.

16:06

She still is, and it's tainted

16:08

the way she looks at the past because

16:12

I see a happy family, but I think was

16:14

he involved with this woman then? Or

16:16

who was he involved with? Then? Gene is

16:18

done grieving. She no longer

16:21

wants to look backwards. What is

16:23

this next journey about for myself?

16:26

Because I feel like I'm at the brink of something.

16:28

I just don't know what the brink gets. They don't

16:30

know what something is. The truth is, Jean

16:33

does not believe in astrology. She's

16:35

had opportunities before to have her chart read,

16:37

but she's never really seen the

16:39

point. You know, my sister was into astrology,

16:42

but you know, we all thought it was bullshit, you

16:44

know, and I always thought, like, please

16:47

have a glass of wine, relaxed, it's

16:49

more meaningful than this. But that was

16:52

then Today, at seventy four, Jean

16:54

recognizes how precious her time is

16:57

over and over. She tells me, I've

16:59

got ten years, ten good

17:01

years to drink in all

17:03

the richness of life already

17:07

down. And

17:09

if there's any chance that astrology can

17:11

unlock that secret, she's

17:14

open to it. Oh

17:16

and there's still the matter of the escorts. More

17:21

on that after the break. Chapter

17:34

three. Wheels that Work.

17:38

You know, I don't think humans hang on two things

17:40

that don't work, Like the wheel

17:42

is awesome, like we still use it. We

17:45

don't say, oh, this wheel is out of date, Like no, it's

17:47

it's functional, right. So that's

17:49

the same thing with astrology, Like we don't study this

17:51

stuff because it doesn't work. Over

17:59

the summer, my friends and I started the search for a

18:01

house astrologer for this show. We

18:04

thought hard about using Dr Kamar, but I

18:06

was reluctant. Looking back,

18:08

it's obvious why Dr

18:11

Kamar's predictions had set off a chain of events

18:13

that I just needed to compartmentalize

18:15

away from the show. I

18:17

needed a different experience, and Janelle

18:20

Belgrave is definitely that. She

18:23

is sunny and relentlessly encouraging,

18:25

and the first time I chatted with her, I

18:28

was smiling the whole time, like

18:30

I love the way she peppered the conversation

18:33

with this secret knowledge of just how

18:35

pervasive astrology is. If

18:37

you don't think there are multi billionaires using

18:39

astrology to get ahead, let me tell you something.

18:42

They're out there. I mean, that's

18:44

what my whole show was supposed to peek into, but

18:46

it was actually something more than that. As

18:49

my little team of skeptics here talked about the

18:51

production, we decided that using Janelle

18:54

almost seemed faded. Like

18:56

when Mary and Metro set out to find an astrologer

18:58

for the show, they independently

19:00

made lists and somehow not only did they

19:02

both find Janelle, but they both

19:04

had her as their top choice, so

19:07

we chalked it up to destiny and bold

19:09

with it. Janelle's real New

19:11

York too. She's

19:13

from Queens and her parents are immigrants from

19:15

Panama.

19:29

Janelle doesn't sugarcoat things, so when

19:31

I asked her about the birthday for this show and

19:33

the show's timing, well

19:36

let's just say she was less optimistic than

19:38

Dr Kamar, who told me the show

19:40

was going to be a mega hit. So

19:43

you guys said that it was May sixteen

19:47

am in Brooklyn, New York. Correct, Yeah,

19:51

right, okay, right, okay,

19:53

So you guys are a Torus

19:56

son, a cancer rising

19:58

moon, and Sagittarius. Um,

20:01

you guys planned this right under an eclipse,

20:03

which is really interesting. Um,

20:06

not necessarily bad, but eclipse energy can

20:08

be very volatile. I

20:11

guess I've got a temper my expectations.

20:14

But even when Janelle is prepping

20:16

you for a turbulent time ahead, I

20:19

like how she's still encouraging. You're

20:21

starting under a lot of retrogrades and

20:23

that's okay, but you just have to know that you can

20:25

have to be patient use that

20:28

to your benefit. Now

20:31

this is an aside, but last

20:33

year I started giving MONSTERI plants

20:35

away to people who have been going through

20:37

hard things. It is a super

20:39

Instagram mobile plant, but that's

20:41

not why I like it. The monster is

20:44

unusual. It's left

20:46

in the dark exhibit something

20:48

called negative phototropism, where

20:50

all the new stems will actually grow

20:53

into the darkness. It's

20:55

a clever trick. In the jungle, darkness

20:57

signals the presence of a larger tree, so

21:00

the monster trust that they can lean

21:02

into the shadows and pool all

21:04

of its energy into climbing that trunk because

21:07

it believes sunlight will come. I

21:10

like that reminder because I've

21:13

needed that reminder. And that's what's

21:15

so great about Janelle. The beauty She's

21:17

found in reminding people that

21:20

hope still exists. There's

21:22

always hope in the darkest moments

21:24

of our life. When you look back, it's

21:26

like, Yeah, there was that some person that came to

21:28

me that day and said something, and that was the thing I needed

21:30

to get to the next day, and that next

21:33

day was miraculous. There's

21:35

a joy in pairing up a couple you have a good feeling

21:37

about. Gene is so

21:40

clearly yearning, and I wanted to

21:42

witness what magic might come out when

21:44

you put Jean and Janelle and

21:47

all their stars and their stories

21:49

in a room together. Chapter

22:07

four, You don't want to waste a minute.

22:12

It's months before I see Jean again. We are

22:14

sitting in our apartment. This time it's

22:16

my producer, Mitra and me, and we've

22:18

set up a consult with Janelle. But

22:21

twenty minutes in, everything's

22:23

going wrong. Sound waves are flashing

22:25

across the laptop, but apparently

22:28

it hasn't been taping. Worse,

22:30

the backup recorder got jammed, and then

22:32

our batteries died. It's

22:34

like this taping is jinks. Of

22:36

course, Janelle doesn't miss it eat. She

22:39

makes a crack about eclipses and the universe,

22:41

showing us just how real astrology is, and

22:44

she reminds us that if we've tried

22:46

this a few days from now, everything

22:48

would have gone smoothly. We

22:50

all laugh, but we try again.

22:53

Okay, so where should we start? In

22:56

my head, I'm screaming escorts.

22:58

We've got to talk about escorts. If

23:01

you listen to the tape from fifteen minutes ago, it

23:04

is all static, but

23:06

what you would have heard, what I

23:08

wish we still had was the discussion

23:11

and where it began before

23:13

Gin had even said the word escort, Janelle

23:15

basically said, Gene, your

23:18

chart is telling me that you're meant to go enjoy

23:20

yourself. The universe wants

23:22

you to enjoy yourself. So go on

23:24

dates, go on hikes, go have sex, go

23:26

do the things that feel fun.

23:30

But I don't have that tape

23:33

because I started this show

23:36

in an eclipse, and somehow it's

23:38

easier to tell myself that to

23:40

make that the excuse than to stop

23:42

Geane from taking the conversation in

23:45

the direction she needs it to go. I

23:50

have been feeling like I'm on the edge of something,

23:52

but I don't know what that looks like. I

23:55

got you, okay, So I actually wanted to take

23:57

you back to your last new moon that

24:00

you had. So basically, this is just to

24:02

show you that there's no such thing as like linear

24:04

time in astrology. So when we are at

24:06

a new moon phase in our life, it's

24:09

when we're starting a brand new chapter. We've

24:11

ended one chapter, okay. So

24:13

back in twenty eleven, April eleven,

24:16

you had a new moon happened

24:19

in your progressive chart at nineteen

24:21

degrees of aries. So if you

24:23

can think back to what was happening in your life in eleven

24:26

I can tell the I know exactly what was

24:28

happening because that was so I can't believe

24:30

you just said that. I'm blown away.

24:32

Okay, hold that thought, don't give don't give it away

24:34

just yet, because I want us to kind of flow through

24:36

it. So back then you plan to cease, right, and

24:39

then you're gonna track the moon. As she continues,

24:41

Janelle traces her cursor over the flow of

24:43

the moon through Jeans sign and

24:45

she shows her how the moon has moved with her

24:47

over the years. So around

24:50

probably, I would say twenty

24:52

sixteen or so is when things

24:55

probably got a little bit rocky, especially

24:57

when it came to marriage. Oh

24:59

yeah, so September maybe

25:02

would have been a time where things might have got a little bit tough.

25:05

Oh my god, yes, I

25:09

have the chills. I do have the

25:11

chills. Showing you how astrology

25:13

works to show you the timing. So if we're seeing

25:16

this moon hit with Pluto, right m

25:18

so possibly endings, deaths,

25:21

changes, transformations, endings,

25:24

endings. The scene reminds me of what my friend

25:26

Pete, the rock Star astrologer told

25:28

me. This concept of Joe

25:30

DISHMATI what you're going for in

25:32

a great reading like that, shared connection

25:35

between astrologer and the person

25:37

being read, passing the light of awareness.

25:41

I'm really sitting here completely overwhelmed.

25:44

I have to tell you because when

25:46

you, let's say a specific thing like September

25:48

two um

25:51

September looked

25:54

me in the face and said bye bye and leaving you

25:57

for another woman. And so that's

25:59

an a month, that's a time I don't

26:02

really no one really knows, like, oh, that

26:04

happened. But then when you just said, it's

26:07

like you did not just say that,

26:09

like yeah, right. Sometimes

26:11

it's very literal. Pluto is the planet,

26:14

uh that was the planet of death

26:16

and transformation and saying this is the end. I'm

26:18

watching the two of them, and it's clear

26:21

something has clicked. In just a few minutes.

26:23

Gene is transformed from this person who was I

26:25

guess willing to give astrology a chance,

26:28

to someone who's sitting on her hands to stop

26:30

herself from waiving them so excitedly.

26:34

Despite the screen, there is an

26:36

intensity between them. Every

26:38

month or date Janelle throws out seems

26:40

to provoke this avalanche of memories,

26:42

and each time Gene is about to let out this

26:44

rush of words like just let

26:46

them spill from her mouth, Janelle

26:49

smiles like a Chestshire cat, and

26:51

she tells her to hold it in just a little more.

26:53

Janelle is confident there's power and astrology.

26:56

She's felt it for decades now, but in

26:58

this moment, that power is

27:01

so clear. It's animating

27:03

every dopamine receptor in Jean's

27:05

brain and she is buzzing, glowing

27:08

with electricity. But I know if I have two

27:10

and a half years to make use of this energy, I have to

27:13

do it. Otherwise it's not going to come

27:15

back for another one fourteen years, right.

27:18

I don't want to have to waste that time, right exactly.

27:21

No, I don't like at seventy four. You don't

27:23

want to waste a minute ahead

27:33

about the guy gutty to

27:38

get you? John headed Off,

27:42

Chapter five, A Couch with a View.

27:45

My sister is a psychologist, pH

27:47

d. And we have this line you use

27:50

about Indians. It's okay to be

27:52

a psychiatrist, but it's

27:54

not okay to see a psychiatrist. Years

27:57

ago, when my wife and I were looking into international

28:00

all adoption from India, the forms

28:02

indicated that if you've ever seen a

28:04

psychiatrist, you'd be disqualified

28:06

from adopting. I'm ashamed

28:09

to admit that for years, it

28:11

kept me from seeing a grief counselor. I

28:13

mean, along with all the other stresses of life.

28:16

I lost a cousin to a suicide and

28:19

the best friend to an overdose, and

28:21

I struggled. I was a shell

28:23

of myself. The truth is,

28:26

in those years, I was not a great dad or

28:28

a great husband, and I could have used

28:30

the therapy, but I

28:32

also didn't want to limit our options as potential

28:35

parents. Anyway.

28:37

For Indians, including the Indian government,

28:40

the stigma is real. So

28:42

things like religion and astrology

28:45

they filled the gap and it

28:47

makes sense right. Astrology allows

28:49

you to put a symbol on something that's hard to name

28:51

and to reframe your problems from a different

28:54

lens. It's therapy for

28:56

people who just don't want to go to therapy.

29:00

But what happens when those notions are flipped? Like what

29:02

if your therapist was secretly powering

29:04

their sessions, using the stars to

29:07

amplify their understanding of you. Because

29:11

that's what Eva does. Oh my god,

29:13

I feel like I'm a little dashful. I'm a

29:15

licensed therapist. Ava,

29:18

which is not her real name, is a successful

29:20

trauma therapist from the Midwest and she's

29:22

keenly aware of the baggage that astrology

29:24

carries. Do I worry if

29:27

I bring it up people don't take me seriously. Of course,

29:29

for younger clients, I think it's kind of almost

29:32

a way of connecting. But yeah, my clients

29:34

who are older, it's

29:36

a little bit more of a finess.

29:40

So before she dives in with a new client, she

29:42

floats a few questions to see just how open

29:44

she can be with them. It's something that I

29:47

kind of test the waters to see are they into astrology.

29:49

Is it's something they're not at into right? And

29:52

if they are, it's wonderful because we can fold

29:54

that into our understanding, like

29:56

holy shit, like Saturn and

29:58

Mars are being transited by Saturn.

30:01

That, from what you're telling me, that makes a

30:03

lot of sense. Of course, even when they're

30:05

not into astrology, AVA still

30:07

keeps an eye on their chart. I still have their birthdays.

30:10

I can see where their planets are. Which

30:12

isn't to say that that changes how

30:14

I show up to them. My number

30:16

one job is to be here with the client therapy,

30:20

existing in this world

30:22

of diagnoses and insurance

30:24

and all these things that are trying to make it

30:26

be short and get people back to work

30:29

and make people legible

30:31

in this really fucked up system, right,

30:34

So much of that is not helpful

30:37

in the actual work of therapy.

30:39

But I think astrology just it allows

30:41

me to kind of ground back into the

30:43

trust of having this big perspective

30:46

in this small perspective. At the same time. There

30:48

are so many people who see therapy and

30:50

astrology at odds with one another.

30:53

But Ava, she hopes

30:55

there's new ways about thinking about both because

30:58

both have the ability to give you agency.

31:01

I mean, isn't that what we go to therapy for. Isn't

31:04

that what we want from astrology,

31:06

to access perspectives big and small,

31:10

because so much of what we're looking for is someone

31:12

to tell us what really matters, what

31:14

we can set aside, and to

31:16

teach us what to spend our precious

31:19

time on. This idea of human

31:21

progress is linear just boggles my mind,

31:23

Like, what the heck? That makes no sense to

31:25

me, And with astrology it is not

31:28

at all. Right. Planets are

31:30

coming into places and then going back,

31:32

and you're like, this is so frustrating.

31:34

I'm back to where I was, and

31:36

then it moves forward again. To Ava,

31:39

there's something very human about acknowledging

31:42

that in the fog of human things

31:44

are often more complicated than just

31:46

trying to move forward. We're

31:50

trying to understand things

31:52

that are beyond comprehension in some ways,

31:54

right how humbling to know that we don't always

31:56

have to I think that astrology and trauma therapy

31:58

really hold death capacity in a really

32:01

beautiful way.

32:20

Chapter six, mic check

32:24

Gene and I sat in her apartment after the reading

32:27

and we talked for a while. What's

32:30

finning in your head? Like, what are you thinking about? First

32:33

of all, I feel I don't know if I could could. I

32:35

feel stoned in my mind. I feel

32:37

as though I want some like acid

32:40

trip or something. Coming into

32:42

this reading, I thought we'd devote a good bit

32:44

of conversation to the salaciousness and

32:46

fond of hiring an escort, But

32:49

so much of this to me, I felt

32:51

like Jean just needed to be seen. What

32:54

she needed from the astrologer, and what

32:56

she actually wanted from the escort was

32:59

the same thing. She needed

33:01

someone from the outside world to

33:03

remind her just how much she mattered. I

33:06

think what was most empowering about this for

33:08

me was at

33:10

seventy four, your and living alone, you

33:13

often feel very invisible, you

33:15

know you do. And it's like I said

33:17

to myself, Oh my god, I could die right now. No one's

33:20

even gonna know, you know, that kind of feeling.

33:23

And what she did by saying,

33:25

hey, wait, you know this is

33:27

what's happening. I mean I could

33:29

not repeat now to the moon in the house

33:31

and the but there was an overall

33:34

sense of you are part

33:36

of the flow of the energy of the

33:38

earth, my dear, and you are

33:40

on a ride, you know, and

33:43

you have been since you were born, and

33:45

you will continue. And and

33:47

so by saying you have the power

33:49

to do that was like I'm

33:51

not invisible, you know, I'm not and

33:55

I and that was very that was

33:57

very good. I'm mbs of gene

33:59

because whatever you think of astrology,

34:01

she got to feel seen and then

34:03

she had the luxury of time to

34:06

process it, to decide

34:09

for herself what she wanted to take out of it and

34:11

what she wants the rest of her life to be. It's

34:15

a gift. On

34:17

May seven, two,

34:20

exactly a month after I got a warning about my

34:22

father's health in the form of a reading, he

34:25

passed away. I

34:27

won't tell you the details yet. I'm

34:29

just not ready. But I will tell

34:31

you this. That list

34:34

I made for my dad, we

34:36

hardly got through it, and

34:38

all that time I thought I'd been promised.

34:41

It's slipped through my clenched fist. Sitting

34:46

in Jean's room, listening to this talk

34:48

of moons and whether this is the

34:50

close of a chapter or just another middle

34:54

I am not present. But

34:57

before I can slip too far away, Eetra

35:00

adjust my hand. She

35:02

moves the mic I'm holding just a hair away

35:04

from my face, but that

35:06

touch, it pulls

35:08

me back into the moment, and

35:11

then it makes me smile, because

35:14

whatever else I've been through, I

35:17

am so lucky to be here, to

35:19

get to work on projects. I love to meet

35:22

people like Geane. And as

35:24

much as my days now will be divided between

35:26

longing for a past that I cannot have and

35:29

divining what the future can be, I

35:33

know she's right when

35:35

she says things, this is

35:37

the only moment. This is the moment,

35:40

and no other moment will be greater, unless then

35:43

it's just this is the moment. MHM.

36:01

Next week, we tackle an unsolved mystery

36:03

in the Reagan White House. President when

36:05

you continue to allow us drama need to play

36:07

a part in the so

36:12

did Ronald Reagan use astrology to guide

36:14

his corn policy. Also,

36:17

when you get distracted watching Saturday morning cartoons,

36:19

we dig up some televangelist beef,

36:21

We learn about Boris Yelson's late night

36:24

cravings, and we find an incredible

36:26

gem hiding in an old Johnny Carson

36:28

clip. It's eighties week here on

36:30

Skyline Drive, so be short to tune

36:32

in. Thank

36:51

you so much for listening. Skyline Drive

36:53

is a production of Kaleidoscope and I Heeart Podcast.

36:56

This show is hosted and written by me Mondays

36:59

particular. But this it would be a bad idea

37:01

of sitting in a drawer somewhere if it were not

37:03

for all these incredible people. Mary

37:05

Philip Sandy is just the best.

37:07

She's our supervising producer and I don't know

37:09

how she pulled us off with everything else going on. Nietra

37:12

Bunshah he Senior produced this whole

37:14

thing and brought the delightful Genelbeck

37:16

into our world. Mark Lotto is such

37:19

a mench and story editor who

37:21

really made this whole story incredible.

37:24

This episode was also produced and

37:26

mixed by the wonderful Anna Ruba Nova.

37:28

Thank you so much, Anna, with scoring

37:30

as always from Botany. Check out his SoundCloud

37:33

The Insane Music in Between This courtesy

37:35

of Azadi Records, Rogan there Himanchu

37:37

Sury Monsoon Siren, and also Peter

37:40

Matthew Bauer. This song playing

37:42

right now is off his beautiful new album

37:45

Flowers. If you want to hear all of this music,

37:47

we linked to a mixtape in the show notes.

37:49

Oh my gosh, the fifties narration so

37:52

funny, right that was Adam Bozart.

37:54

Thank you so much Adam for doing

37:56

that Roman Bird section and making any laugh

37:58

so hard. Also, this oology descriptions

38:01

come from astrology dot com. Jeene story

38:03

about falling in love is from the Moth.

38:05

Go download their wonderful show immediately.

38:08

Additional production and research support

38:10

from The Wonderful through chivar Rao, Lizzie

38:13

Jacobs, who is my wife and my rock,

38:16

my superstar aunt, Samonoka, the

38:18

Womanca Buckshee, and my cousin

38:20

are Jin Buckchee who helped me out of a giant

38:22

pickle. This show is executive

38:25

produced from my heart by my good pals

38:27

Nicky Eton Tour and Katrina Norvell.

38:29

Also got to thank my partners from Kaleidoscope.

38:32

Just the best team oswo

38:34

Lishian, Kate Osborne, Costas Linos

38:36

and the super dynamic Viney

38:38

Shorey who made the crazy sweet collage

38:41

of my family on Insta ps

38:43

viny my mom loved it special. Thanks

38:45

to all the kiddos who bore with us through this production,

38:47

all my friends at I Heart Shapa and Sorrow,

38:50

my family everywhere, my pal

38:52

Holly Fry who read this episode's

38:54

warning. If you haven't listened to stuff you missed

38:57

from history class, you're missing out,

38:59

or you check out her excellent podcast

39:01

Crimnalia go down the boat immediately.

39:04

And just one last thank

39:06

you as always to my Amma

39:09

and my dad, Lalita and Nomasa,

39:11

who I thank my lucky stars for Thank

39:15

you all for listening. Your

39:20

friends, it's where you grew

39:22

up. Oh

39:26

then, your friends,

39:28

It's where you grew up.