0:03

Welcome to Navel Gazing. I'm John Dickerson.

0:06

We start this second episode of

0:08

season one as we have every

0:10

episode in this podcast's long history

0:13

with a written notebook entry. Notebook

0:17

75, page six, September

0:19

2021. They

0:21

chose you. This

0:23

entry greeted me when I opened my field

0:26

notes notebook on the living room Sunday that

0:28

was the topic of the first episode of

0:30

this podcast. I didn't

0:32

notice this entry on that Sunday because I

0:34

was busy trying to write down what Anne

0:36

had said literally about the dog and our

0:39

son and hoping that in so doing something

0:41

would occur to me in the writing. I'd

0:44

excavate meaning. Another thought

0:46

would present and I could put a glass

0:48

around the cocktail of feelings we were having.

0:51

Or failing that, I hoped I would

0:53

capture the words accurately for

0:55

later consideration. So

0:57

what does this entry mean though? They

0:59

chose you. Well, I'm

1:01

not quoting anyone as I was in our first

1:04

entry. These words were the epicenter of a pep

1:06

talk. I wanted to give my

1:08

oldest child before leaving him at college to

1:11

the chill of his cinderblock cell and

1:13

the contusions of new acquaintance. I

1:16

can't remember where I was when I wrote the

1:18

entry, but as I read it now, several years

1:20

later, memory smudges. Time and place

1:22

get linked in ways I know are totally wrong.

1:25

I associate the entry, probably written in

1:27

haste in the middle of a bouncing

1:30

taxicab, with a fixed location

1:32

that is not the taxicab.

1:34

I associate the words, the message,

1:37

the feeling with the restaurant

1:39

where we had our last meal with our

1:41

son before we left him to his adventure.

1:45

That wasn't where I wrote it. Rather, it was

1:47

the moment I intended to deploy it.

1:50

This is how memory works, I suppose. But

1:52

I'm not usually so conscious of

1:55

its collage-like nature as I am right

1:57

now telling this story. I am making

1:59

something new now, not

2:01

something recalled. It's not exactly the

2:03

fact imagined, but an act of

2:05

fiction propelled by a fact memory

2:08

as a branch of the imagination. In

2:11

the end, whatever it is that

2:13

this notation they chose you has sparked

2:15

right now, maybe more true than

2:17

a transcript of the exact

2:19

thoughts I had in the bouncy taxi cab

2:22

the moment I made the notation. So

2:25

I'm going to travel us to that lunch. This

2:27

I know is true. The

2:30

restaurant for this meal where we had

2:32

our last bite before heading home had

2:34

neon script on a blue wall. Like

2:36

a black light poster, neon is an idea

2:39

that seems like a good one right up

2:41

to the moment you execute it. You

2:43

plant the nails, settle the tubes, and the minute

2:45

your hands are free, you're using

2:47

them to search Google. How do you safely

2:50

dispose of neon? We

2:53

ordered fried chicken sandwiches at lunch. The

2:55

waitress made a big deal about the

2:57

fried chicken sandwiches. And when they

3:00

arrived, they still seem to be in the process of happening.

3:02

The steroidal chicken dominated the hopeless

3:04

bun, which was already down on

3:06

one knee, having been pressure washed

3:08

into submission with a chance of

3:11

suspicion sauce. By the time you were done eating

3:13

the wreckage, you felt like you were mostly wearing

3:15

it. So the food was against us, which

3:18

added to the turbulence of this leave taking

3:20

moment where everything felt like it was slipping

3:22

off the bun. And I was trying not to add too

3:25

much sauce. The moment

3:27

had been in my subconscious for a long

3:29

time, hence the notation. Now that

3:31

this moment had arrived, I was looking to

3:33

deploy in a low key way, some

3:36

reassuring advice. But every

3:38

thought I had seemed too grandiose. Neither

3:41

a borrower nor a lender be. Plastic

3:45

son. What

3:48

I wanted to do with some parting advice

3:50

was to try to head off grand conclusions.

3:53

If my son was like me, there was

3:55

the chance. That the natural lonesomeness of a

3:57

new school could lead him to.

4:00

conclude that he didn't belong. In

4:02

other words, that imposter syndrome might

4:04

be genetic. When you

4:06

have those kinds of thoughts, one

4:08

response is to draw grand conclusions. Doing

4:12

so, being declarative assures you that you

4:14

are not powerless. You're exercising

4:16

your agency, taking action by pushing

4:18

the new place away. The

4:21

danger though is that while you might

4:23

rescue yourself from temporary discomfort in a

4:25

moment of transition by rejecting your new

4:27

circumstances, the move comes at

4:29

the cost of becoming yourself, which

4:32

can only happen by passing through those

4:34

moments of discomfort, not

4:36

pushing them away. And

4:38

since adulthood has spent ping ponging between new

4:40

experiences, or it should be anyway, I

4:43

wanted to say something helpful for

4:45

this first extended solo experience with

4:48

fitting in when nothing seems

4:50

to fit. A piece of

4:52

advice that has nourished me over the years

4:54

came from my former colleague at Time magazine,

4:56

Karen Tumulty. She's now an opinion writer at

4:58

the Washington Post. When I entered the Washington

5:00

Bureau of Time magazine in 1995, she said,

5:02

make no judgments about

5:06

a new place for 18 months. She

5:09

had standing to make this argument because she'd

5:11

just come from the Los Angeles Times. I

5:14

don't know if that's the correct number

5:17

of months. It feels a little long,

5:19

but the advice gave me permission to

5:21

delay drawing large conclusions, far more precisely.

5:24

It made me suspicious of the grand

5:26

conclusions my fevered brain was drawing, most

5:28

of which were dire. Preserving

5:31

judgment was hard to do at Time magazine

5:33

in the mid 90s, because at that time,

5:35

the magazine's role in the news world was

5:37

to draw grand conclusions. Stories

5:40

started with a small moment into

5:42

which we would stuff universal significance

5:44

about enormous changes in American life

5:47

and politics. It

5:49

was the era of the great

5:51

theatrical lead where you rolled in

5:53

a full orchestra to start off

5:55

stories. on

6:00

Mr. Frederick Johnson, like countless Americans,

6:02

partakes in the quintessential weekend chore

6:05

of lawn grooming, a vestige of

6:07

the American dream. Yet

6:09

as he maneuvers his mower across

6:11

the suburban expanse, Johnson's regard for

6:14

his democratic ideal is as ephemeral

6:16

as the clippings he casually brushes

6:19

from his dungarees. These

6:23

kinds of sweeping scenes are less common

6:25

now because the internet took away everybody's

6:27

patience. You've got to get right

6:29

to the action immediately in stories now, no shuffling

6:31

around with theatrics. However, this

6:33

training cannot be shaken from my bones.

6:36

You might notice the remnants of this

6:38

time magazine technique in the Sunday afternoon

6:40

living room declaration that kicked off episode

6:42

one. Karen Tummeltz's wisdom about

6:45

waiting 18 months has been

6:47

formalized into a decision-making system I

6:49

once read about. Here's

6:51

what you're supposed to do. When you

6:53

enter a new situation, write down your

6:55

expectations, what you think the likely outcomes

6:57

will be over the next year. Put

7:00

this material in an envelope, tie it with a bow

7:02

if you'd like, put it aside. In

7:05

a year, look at what you've written, you'll

7:07

usually find that you worried about a

7:09

lot of stuff that didn't come to

7:11

pass, dragons, whooping cough, hammer toe. The

7:14

distance between what you expected and what

7:17

took place will be so large it

7:19

will cure you of making such grand

7:21

claims the next time you encounter a

7:23

new experience. Or it

7:25

will at least keep you from worrying so much in

7:28

the next moment of transition. I

7:30

think of this system as learned

7:33

stoicism. The Stoics say,

7:35

don't borrow worry. Fine.

7:38

Great. Marcus, I really appreciate

7:40

it. But some people need proof to

7:42

back up these aphorisms. And this system

7:45

gives you proof as you encounter life's

7:47

repeated new challenges that maybe your worry

7:49

is often misplaced. Before

7:51

the launch of Insistent Chicken, we had

7:54

been seen to by college dorm greeters.

7:56

College admissions authorities anticipate more or

7:58

less this feature. of fitting in,

8:00

and to make new students feel

8:03

welcome, they launch peppy flotillas of

8:05

sophomores at new arrivals in the

8:07

parking lot outside the freshman dorm.

8:09

The enlisted advance-at-you-in-school colors, teeth white

8:11

as picked bones, reaching out for

8:13

suitcase handles and insisting that the

8:15

ice cream social is really going

8:17

to be great. It

8:19

is exactly the same vibe as the wedding

8:21

band singer calling everyone to the parquet floor

8:24

to celebrate good times tonight. Come

8:27

on. In our

8:29

case, the startling teeth and cheer had not

8:31

calmed things. It might have made things worse.

8:35

I was not comfortable in new environments when I

8:37

was younger, and now that I'm older, I

8:40

am also not comfortable in new environments.

8:43

This is why I smoked in college.

8:45

Smoking gave me something to do upon

8:47

entering a room full of people, seemingly

8:49

to so effortlessly engage in human commerce.

8:52

I could smoke while I tried to figure out where

8:54

to fit in or how to make my escape if

8:57

I decided that I didn't. We

8:59

all have phones for this diversionary purpose now.

9:02

The cigarette was useful back then because

9:05

it worked both in solitary contemplation as

9:07

well as in group settings. Hipsters around

9:10

a bar table with varying lengths of ash

9:12

looked like at any moment any one of

9:14

them might produce a volume of poetry. If

9:17

you were standing alone smoking a cigarette, it didn't mean

9:19

you were a loser. It meant

9:21

you might very well be reframing our narrow view

9:23

of the Bronze Age. A

9:25

smartphone lacks this dual purpose. It alleviates

9:28

the awkward aloneness, but when we are

9:30

together, it can make us all feel

9:32

alone. The image of a

9:34

ring of vacant eyes following illuminated screens

9:37

in a circle at a bar does

9:39

not invite the new entrant into the

9:41

circle. It invites sorrow. A

9:44

notebook is a worthy device in these circumstances too,

9:46

I might add. Fish a notebook from your back

9:48

pocket when you're standing alone in the corner and

9:50

people will think you are on to something big

9:53

as you write. They don't have to

9:55

know that the notebook entry you're writing may very well

9:57

read, I'm standing here writing to

9:59

occupy my The

10:16

time has long passed for this

10:18

entry to achieve its intended purpose

10:21

in 2021. That

10:23

is of reminding me about the core of the

10:25

message I wanted to convey at the

10:28

goodbye launch. That message they

10:30

chose you. But it's

10:32

doing good work for us here in 2024

10:35

as I look at the yellow covered field

10:37

notes in the attic where I sit and

10:39

stir this pot of recollections. It

10:41

affirms the experiment that by slowing

10:43

down, looking at these notes from

10:45

a life, that there is

10:48

value. The value that comes from consideration in

10:51

a world of assaults on our attention,

10:53

where we are robbed of even a

10:55

moment to consider. Let

11:05

me unfold some of the things I've realized. My

11:08

first realization is that I'm not very

11:10

good at looking back at the notebooks where I have

11:13

written prompts to remind me about actions I should take

11:15

in the future. I never looked back

11:17

on this entry in the time frame where it would have

11:19

been useful. At this point, so many

11:21

years later, the son of these recollections is a junior.

11:24

He's giving me advice now. A

11:26

topic for a later episode. It's

11:28

possible that I didn't need to look at this

11:30

notation. Then maybe once I wrote down they chose

11:32

you, I had implanted the idea in a way

11:35

that that was all I needed. And I carried

11:37

that sentiment with me in my head and I

11:39

didn't actually need to look when

11:42

I was at lunch that day or standing

11:44

outside before we entered the restaurant. There's

11:46

an entire theory of pedagogy around this.

11:49

The act of writing something down implants it

11:51

in your head. This is

11:53

why they're teaching handwriting in the public schools of

11:55

California again after doing away with it many years

11:58

ago. They

12:00

also realize on this later pass

12:02

that they chose you contains a

12:04

sentiment Anne's parents conveyed when they

12:06

told her she was adopted. She

12:10

wasn't given up by a mother and a father, they told

12:12

her, but chosen by

12:14

a family. They'd been trying

12:16

to assure her that she belonged, that

12:18

she fit in. They

12:21

chose you. I was referring

12:23

to the college selection committee, but the

12:25

message is at the heart of parenting

12:27

repeatedly sending the message in one form

12:29

or another to your kids that they

12:31

belong. No matter where they

12:34

are, they are surrounded by your love. Feeling

12:37

loved, the beginning of belonging

12:39

for all of us. My

12:42

next discovery, looking at this notebook in the attic above

12:44

the sirens in the honking of New York City, is

12:46

that this passage is a marker. Or

12:49

more precisely, that the lunch, which I

12:51

have now associated with this passage in

12:53

the notebook, is a marker. It's

12:56

a marker of the start of a great

12:58

period of adulthood in our eldest child's life,

13:00

and the marker of the start and end

13:02

of a period of time for us, his

13:05

parents. He had spent

13:07

the majority of his days in a year living with

13:09

us. But after I paid

13:12

the lunch bill, and either did or

13:14

didn't give this piece of glittering parenting

13:16

advice in the notebook entry, he

13:19

would never spend the majority of his days

13:21

in a year living with us again. I've

13:24

always thought our job as parents was to teach our kids how to

13:26

leave us. I have no

13:28

idea if we did that, but I

13:30

thought there would be more time, or

13:33

that the opportunities for the transfer of knowledge would be

13:35

more clear. Nope,

13:38

time's up. Put down your pencils. Preorder

13:40

your walkers and pill cases to get big

13:42

savings. But hold on! There

13:45

is a bigger marker that comes to me in

13:47

later consideration of this moment. This

13:50

would be the fourth revelation from this notebook

13:52

entry if you're marking them on your navel-gazing

13:54

revelation tracker home notepad. The

13:58

marker is as obvious as possible. if

14:00

the city fathers had commemorated it on

14:02

a brass plaque ordered from that awards

14:04

and trophy store out by the airport.

14:08

Parenting's end! On this spot,

14:10

did John Dickerson try to sneak past

14:12

the goalie? One last piece of parenting

14:14

advice. I

14:17

wasn't giving my son advice at all

14:19

at this lunch. I mean, of

14:21

course, that's what I thought I was doing back then.

14:24

But now I realize that mostly what I was

14:26

doing was talking to myself. Let's

14:29

review what we've been talking about. The

14:35

natural thing to do when going through a

14:37

moment of transition is to rely on the

14:39

old familiar moves to make us feel comfortable.

14:42

Light a cigarette, pull out a notebook

14:44

or a phone, it gives us control.

14:47

That's what physical ticks are, right? The movements,

14:50

utterances that settle us down and make us

14:52

feel like we are ourselves, even

14:54

in foreign climes. What

14:57

more familiar go-to move is there for a

15:00

parent than to give advice? It

15:02

is the unit of measurement of parenting,

15:04

advice-giving. I mean, I suppose

15:06

I could have brought out the baseball gloves

15:08

and called for a quick game of catch

15:10

to engage in activity that would assert the

15:12

traditional parent-child bond, but that wasn't

15:14

realistic. There were other diners. Plus,

15:17

we might break the neon. And that's

15:19

not an approved method for disposing of it, according

15:21

to Google. Let's run

15:23

down the list of why advice is

15:26

the go-to move for a parent in

15:28

turbulence. A, we

15:30

do it a lot as parents. It's a comfortable

15:32

pose. And B, implicit

15:34

in advice is control. Only

15:37

a person of command gives

15:39

advice. By giving advice, you

15:41

deny for a moment that you are

15:43

an unspooling bundle of emotions causing fellow

15:46

diners at lunch to eye the defibrillation

15:48

machine. I

15:50

thought I was going to assist my son as

15:52

he tried to navigate this new turbulence, but the

15:54

desire to do so is more fully seen as

15:57

a demonstration of my effort to manage my own

15:59

wobble. and the wobble to come when

16:02

you leave home for college or your first experience out

16:04

on your own. It's the first

16:07

time you learn to really adapt and

16:09

find your voice, which I'd always thought

16:11

was like a one-time thing or

16:13

a single skill that you built on. But

16:16

actually, I think when you leave home, it's

16:18

the first time you do

16:20

that voice finding in a life

16:22

full of finding new voices when

16:24

faced with new circumstances, reframing

16:27

and resetting with each

16:29

transition, realizing over and

16:31

over that, as executive coach Marshall

16:34

Goldsmith says in his famous book

16:36

of the same title, that

16:38

what got you here won't get you there.

16:44

The songwriter Nick Cave arrives to this

16:46

moment as if he were there with

16:48

us under the neon. Here's

16:51

what he writes, We're often led to

16:53

believe that getting older is in itself

16:55

somehow a betrayal of our idealistic younger

16:58

self, but sometimes I think it might

17:00

be the other way around. Maybe the

17:02

younger self finds it difficult to

17:04

inhabit its true potential because

17:06

it has no idea what that potential is.

17:09

It is a kind of unformed thing, running

17:12

scared most of the time, frantically trying to

17:14

build its sense of self. This

17:16

is me. Here I am in any

17:19

way that it can. But then

17:21

time and life come along and smash

17:23

that sense of self into a million

17:25

pieces. This

17:30

smashing that Nick Cave is talking about

17:32

is the prelude to building back a

17:34

durable sense of yourself. Life

17:36

keeps hurling the wrecking ball until whoever

17:38

you are is forged. Life

17:40

is always arriving is how Gabrielle

17:42

Zevin writes about it in

17:44

her novel Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Smashing

17:47

is no fun. It's hard. It's full

17:49

of fears and tears and woe. But

17:52

to mix my blacksmith and seafaring

17:54

metaphors, great sailors aren't made

17:56

by easy seas. So

17:58

in this moment of identity, Shattering and

18:00

formation which goes on our entire lives no

18:03

matter which role you're playing at the chicken

18:05

sandwich place I'm brought back

18:07

to this notebook habit. I've kept but

18:09

about which I'm still mystified Writing

18:12

these notes is not just a crutch for

18:15

managing the first moments inside the door at

18:17

an unfamiliar space These

18:19

notes have been a place to construct that

18:22

identity not fully not completely Conversation

18:25

declarations novels journals people's lots more

18:27

help put it all together But

18:29

this process these notebooks are

18:32

the record of that construction of a cell

18:35

Something we all do but which not everyone

18:37

An attack Now

18:50

I'd like to try our first act

18:52

of time travel before ending this episode

18:56

Here's a notebook entry that demonstrates what

18:58

I mean about the notebooks role in

19:00

identity formation And which also

19:02

helps me explain the smashing and that

19:04

was taking place in our lives as parents at

19:06

that lunch It's an entry

19:08

from 2004. This is a

19:11

new kind of time travel through these

19:13

notebooks in this podcast So I'm easing

19:15

you into it later. We'll hop around

19:17

so much. You'll need dramedy notebook

19:20

15 page 4 April 2004 Sitting

19:25

with Bryce by the waterfall throwing

19:27

rocks in stream Loading

19:29

sand from dump truck and loader

19:32

and back again That

19:35

notebook entry is from a visit to my in-laws

19:37

There is a creek at the end of their backyard

19:39

and has a small bridge you can cross at a

19:42

few strides the whole thing looks

19:44

arranged by a benevolent hobbyist with a model

19:46

train set in the basement to on raised

19:48

sheets of plywood a Few

19:50

feet from the bridge is a modest

19:53

municipal improvement to manage flooding planned

19:55

at a zoning meeting No doubt executed by good people

19:57

you went to high school with result

20:00

a small rushing waterfall,

20:02

tailored, abandoned, rush and

20:04

chaos. It runs fast enough to

20:06

change the air on the little beach where the water

20:09

falls, a beach that is only big enough for a

20:11

father and a two year old to squat. The

20:14

air smells like nickels in your mouth. Seventeen

20:18

years before the college drop off, the chicken

20:20

sandwiches, the neon, the city father's plaque on

20:22

the wall, I was trying to

20:24

hold on to something in that moment by

20:26

the waterfall at the creek. Fix

20:29

it in time with a pin. I

20:32

return to this date, not as an act of

20:34

nostalgia. Oh, how our children

20:36

are grown so quickly and time passes.

20:38

I mean, sure,

20:40

but that's not why I've traveled us here.

20:42

I was trying to capture a feeling by

20:45

that little creek waterfall in the relatively early

20:47

period of parenting that marked what

20:49

it felt like when it was going well. The

20:52

water in your ears, the loading

20:54

and the unloading, my son's clarity

20:56

and uncluttered intent. I

20:58

was not trying to cover the waterfront, but make a

21:00

small tidy point. I was where I was

21:03

meant to be. I

21:05

first learned about this idea from David Allen,

21:07

the productivity guru. His point, which I believe

21:10

was that if you were living an ordered

21:12

life, you could arrange yourself

21:14

so that whatever task you were doing in

21:17

that moment, it was exactly the task

21:19

you were supposed to be doing. I

21:22

think you can enlarge this into a general

21:24

principle in life. If

21:26

you can ask yourself in any given moment,

21:29

am I the person I want to be

21:31

right now and answer yes to

21:33

that question, or it's variant, am I

21:35

aware I am supposed to be right

21:37

now? Then you're in pretty good

21:40

shape. I think your actions in

21:42

that moment are in sync with your values.

21:44

A good way to live. We'll return to

21:46

this topic quite a lot in the notebooks,

21:49

but for the moment, stick with me. This

21:51

sink can be achieved in many ways.

21:54

Parenting is one of those ways, but

21:56

by no means is it the only

21:58

way. in

22:00

the notebook identifies one moment where

22:02

that was the case. If parenting

22:04

keeps you in sync or offers

22:06

opportunities to feel in sync, what

22:09

happens when you are no longer actively

22:11

engaged in that effort? You're

22:14

not just missing your child, you're missing

22:16

yourself. The

22:21

closest analogy I have is to when I

22:23

would spend months on the campaign trail. A

22:25

campaign gives you focus. You wake up to

22:28

a different hotel alarm clock every day, but you

22:30

know your mission. When the campaign

22:32

ends, you are at home. The alarm clock

22:34

is the same every morning, but you don't

22:36

know where to start after it goes off.

22:38

Expanse reports, news stories, the crusted paint cans

22:40

that have to go to the hazardous waste

22:42

disposal site, the wiper blade on the Honda

22:45

that's gone droopy. You lose

22:47

yourself in the to-do list where it's difficult

22:49

to find meaning and purpose. I'd

22:54

always thought the empty nest discourse was

22:56

about missing your kids. People

22:58

warned us about crying fits at the dorm

23:00

room door. Sure, I

23:02

love being in their company and I miss it, but

23:05

I saw that coming. What

23:07

I didn't see was the disorder, the

23:10

lack of structure. At any point

23:12

in the day, the answer to the question,

23:14

am I the person I want to be right now, is

23:16

much more up for grabs. The

23:18

separation I anticipated. I didn't quite

23:21

anticipate the smashing, the having

23:23

to rewrite myself. Now

23:26

we have to figure out where we fit in, Ann

23:28

and me. We must be our

23:31

own dorm greeters. I sure hope

23:33

the ice cream social is going to be as fun as they

23:35

say. That

23:41

concludes the second episode of Navel Gazing, or

23:43

as the French call it, navel

23:45

gazing. Our

23:47

next episode will return to this notebook from

23:49

the period of our concern and

23:52

the next entry is about our sweet

23:54

dog, George. Navel

24:06

Gazing is produced by Shana Roth, Alicia

24:09

Montgomery is Vice President of Audio at

24:11

Slate, and our theme music is

24:13

from the band Plastic Mary. Remember, send

24:15

us a note at [email protected] and let

24:17

us know your thoughts. If you are

24:19

a wild noticer out in the world,

24:21

a mopey parent, or a note

24:23

taker or the kin of a note taker, I'd

24:26

love to hear from you. I'm John Dickerson. Talk

24:29

to you next week.