0:00

Hi, everyone, Sophia Bush

0:02

here. Welcome to Work in Progress,

0:05

where I talked to people who inspire me

0:07

about how they got to where they are and

0:09

where they think they're still going. I

0:22

think we can all agree that there's

0:24

just something about the mother child

0:27

relationship that is complicated.

0:30

It can be loving, but

0:32

also tumultuous, and is generally

0:35

complex. When I saw the cover

0:37

of the book What My Mother and I Don't

0:39

Talk About, I knew I

0:41

had to read it, And once

0:43

I started reading it, I knew I had to interview

0:45

its editor, Michelle Philgate for this podcast.

0:49

In this collection of essays based

0:51

on her essay What My Mother and

0:53

I Don't Talk About, Michelle

0:55

shares the stories of fifteen different

0:57

writers who reflect on their complicate

1:00

aided relationships with their mothers for

1:02

many different reasons. Some of

1:04

them are beautiful, some of them are painful,

1:06

some of them are close, and some

1:09

of them are not. And

1:11

on today's episode, we talk about why

1:13

the mother child bond is so

1:15

confusing, the maternal

1:18

figures that have influenced us in our lives,

1:20

the importance of reading, and how writing

1:22

can be so cathartic

1:25

both for the author and for the reader. I

1:27

cannot wait for you guys to hear this. I

1:32

have to thank you so much for coming. I think

1:35

maybe because I

1:37

was a journalism student, or maybe because

1:39

I was an only child who lost herself in books

1:42

all of the time. I when

1:45

when a book really hits

1:47

me, I don't put it down. And

1:49

in the case of your book, I

1:52

picked it up and I

1:54

think I was done with it in thirty hours

1:56

or something. I just I was

1:59

like, the day is can't I'm not leaving. I need

2:01

to read this. And it was very interesting

2:03

because from

2:06

the moment that I

2:09

opened it, I didn't know

2:11

what to expect, but I had this strange feeling

2:13

that I needed to read it. I saw it and

2:16

and it was like when you get

2:18

that drum beat in your chest, and I thought,

2:21

I have to read that book. I have to understand

2:23

because as as a as an adult woman

2:26

analyzing my own relationship with my mother

2:29

and seeing all of my friends analyze their

2:32

relationships with their mothers, and also

2:35

in our closeness

2:37

and yet complication because everyone's

2:40

complicated, I get to

2:42

see so much of what my mother's relationship

2:44

with her mother was as we unpack

2:47

sort of matrilineal

2:49

inheritance and from the

2:51

moment I opened the book, I I strangely

2:53

felt very exposed and also very

2:55

safe. And your

2:58

essay opens this collection of fifteen

3:01

beautiful essays, and in the last line of it

3:03

says, I love

3:05

you past the sun and the moon and the stars.

3:07

My mother would always say to me when I was little,

3:10

but I just want her to love me here now on

3:12

earth. I

3:14

was like, Oh, God, And

3:17

and even if that isn't your truth, you understand

3:20

that that's so true. And

3:22

and there's so many stories in the book you explore

3:24

these themes of violence and silence

3:27

and this intimacy that we as

3:30

women and or as

3:32

children either desperately yearned for or given

3:34

very uniquely by our mothers. And

3:37

I'm just so in

3:41

awe of this space that these

3:43

essays open for

3:45

all of us. And strangely, when

3:48

I finished the book, I called my mom and I

3:50

said, you know, I know that we're learning to

3:52

communicate differently as adults than we did when

3:54

you know, I was a kid, And sometimes

3:57

I know, I get really annoyed with you. And I also

3:59

I owe you such a huge

4:01

amount of gratitude. And

4:03

it was strange because it made me realize

4:06

that I also needed to

4:08

just tell her that. And so this

4:11

is a very long winded way of saying

4:14

that I'm in awe of the project and

4:17

of hopefully inviting listeners in UM

4:20

who haven't read it, and I hope after this

4:22

will and for the ones of you who have read it,

4:24

you know what I'm talking about. So

4:27

in this real space of honesty about

4:29

how love itself is very

4:31

hard one for all of us, I'm

4:33

I'm just so curious about

4:37

what prompted you to finally publish this essay,

4:39

because your essays It's tough. It

4:42

is, it really is. Yeah. I

4:44

spent well over a decade

4:46

writing that essay for several

4:49

reasons. One is because when I first

4:51

started writing it, UM, when I was an undergrad,

4:54

I had just come out of the

4:56

situation that I write about in that essay, which

4:58

is that my stepfather or was abusing

5:01

me and I was living with him

5:03

and with my mother and it

5:05

was really difficult. And so when

5:07

I started writing that essay, I

5:10

hadn't really found my voice as a writer yet, and

5:12

my piece was really coming from

5:14

a place of anger and resentment,

5:17

rather than the years I've had

5:20

since then to to think about

5:22

this and think about what the real story is.

5:24

I think it took me many years

5:27

of therapy. I think my therapist

5:29

in the back of the book, because I swear that every

5:31

everyone should go to therapy to figure

5:33

out, especially to figure out their relationships

5:36

with their mothers. But um,

5:38

it took me many years to realize that what

5:41

what I was really trying to write about was

5:43

a daughter longing for a closer connection

5:45

with her mother. And also

5:48

I was trying to write about the what

5:51

silence can do to a relationship, the

5:53

toxicity of silence, and

5:55

so I

5:58

I couldn't have asked for a better timing

6:00

for when this essay was published. Long

6:03

Reads published it in October of right

6:06

when the Weinstein story broke and the me

6:09

Too movement took off, and

6:11

so the essay quickly went viral,

6:13

shared by a lot of people, including some of

6:15

my favorite authors like um,

6:17

Rebecca soul Knit and Lydia Yukanovich.

6:20

I love Rebecca Solnit so much. Yeah,

6:23

and Lydia, They're amazing, They're two heroes

6:25

of mine. And Lament as well. She shared it,

6:27

so um they

6:30

Yeah. All of a sudden, like the

6:32

essay just kind of blew up, And I think part

6:34

of the reason people responded to it is because,

6:37

uh, not just the topic of my essay,

6:40

but the title of my essay, which

6:42

is the title of the book, what my mother and

6:44

I don't talk about. I heard from

6:46

so many people right away who were saying

6:48

to me, I have something I can't talk about with my

6:50

mom, and their relationship might be completely

6:53

different than the relationship I have with my

6:55

mother, but there was a connection

6:57

there and that everyone had something that

7:00

they couldn't articulate and that

7:02

they wanted to share and wished they could

7:04

share. The title is universally

7:07

true, exactly, and I thank god

7:09

I picked that title because originally

7:11

my editor, Sara bought in it long Reads. I

7:14

told her that I wanted to publish it as

7:16

Lacuna as the title, and lacuna

7:18

means gaps and spaces that

7:21

can't be filled, and so that

7:23

to me was a really great way of poetically

7:26

describing my relationship with my mom. And

7:28

Sarah was like, it's a beautiful word. No

7:30

one knows what it means, no one will ever click

7:33

on it. So I came up with a list

7:35

of alternate headlines

7:37

and she was like, okay, that one, And

7:40

so you never know if a headline will

7:42

lead to a book deal, but in my case it did.

7:46

That's the mark of a good editor to exactly

7:48

yeah, she's great. So I'm

7:51

curious because while

7:54

I don't want to harp on the

7:56

unpleasantries, I think that one of the things

7:58

that, to your point in Me to Move It, has highlighted

8:00

for so many of us is that, for

8:03

some reason, to be taken

8:05

seriously, women are meant to just share their

8:08

stories over and over again, which really just

8:10

means we have to re traumatize ourselves

8:12

over and over again, which I find

8:15

a bit confounding. And and while

8:17

if there's anything you want to share, I'm

8:19

here to discuss it. I'm I'm certainly not kind

8:21

of press. But

8:23

what's interesting to me in

8:27

looking at the topic and in you talking

8:29

about the ten years that it took to really

8:32

get to the root of

8:35

what that experience meant for you.

8:37

You know, the source of the pain is

8:39

is the gap between you and your mother

8:41

that allows all the other business

8:44

to fall into that space. You

8:46

know, it's it's what goes into a chasm that can

8:49

make it so devastating.

8:52

I felt so completely

8:56

flayed open as I read your words,

8:58

and I've not been in your position, Shin, but

9:02

the words about silence

9:04

and about what we need versus what

9:06

we say, and then that kind of being

9:09

stuck that makes you feel like you're drowning.

9:13

I felt recognition in that, And

9:15

I'm curious why you think

9:17

that is now that you have um

9:19

some time in perspective on the essay and on

9:21

the book under your Belt, that that so many people

9:24

have read this, both

9:26

the essay and the book, and whispered, oh

9:29

you too, because

9:32

most people don't share the exact same

9:34

circumstances as one another. But there's

9:37

some kind of recognition when

9:40

when in the right way, we

9:42

do get to share our stories and offer

9:44

them to other people has permission to share their own,

9:47

And there are these spaces like this book

9:49

to me feels like a talking circle. It feels

9:51

like a safe space to share and

9:54

to feel recognized. And I'm curious

9:56

how you delineate That's

9:59

that's a great question, because I think that

10:02

you You are absolutely right that, especially

10:04

with women's personal stories, there's

10:07

this it's almost this pressure to

10:09

sensationalize them. Some bad

10:11

publications, will you know, like

10:14

have terrible click baby headlines

10:16

to get people to to read them, and

10:19

really tapping into trauma in

10:21

a because trauma cells

10:23

or some other disgusting viewpoint.

10:26

UM. For me, I did want

10:29

to create a safe space, and not just for women,

10:31

because this book also has men in it. Um, it

10:33

has Son's perspectives as well. I

10:35

wanted to create a safe space in general. I saw

10:38

it as something that um

10:40

is a continuation of the work that I do

10:43

already in in my life. UM.

10:45

I have a reading series that I created

10:48

in Brooklyn called red Ink that is

10:50

dedicated to women writers

10:52

past in present, and it's a panel

10:54

I curate with writers of different ages

10:57

and stages in their career in genres

10:59

and so UM,

11:01

that is something I was I

11:04

was already thinking about, is like putting voices

11:06

together and the idea of community,

11:08

because I really think a lot about community

11:11

and how um I say this in the

11:13

introduction to the book, but it's easier

11:15

to break silences

11:17

together on a rather than being

11:19

alone on a stage. Um. And so

11:21

for me, I always saw this book from

11:23

the very beginning as an anthology,

11:26

a collective of many different

11:28

voices. And the fascinating

11:30

thing to me is that unintentionally,

11:34

these different voices gathered in the

11:36

book speak to each other, right there's

11:38

a lot of overlap, there's and people

11:40

do see themselves, like what you were just saying about

11:42

people seeing themselves in stories that are

11:45

very different from their own, but they still relate

11:47

to it. And I think that's so true.

11:49

I think that we all are

11:52

looking for human connection, right

11:54

and a lot of times we can find

11:57

that in beautiful writing, especially

11:59

in person essays. I think there's really

12:02

a need right now. There's kind of a golden

12:04

age of especially like women essays,

12:07

and I feel that seeing

12:09

it as art rather than just

12:11

tell all sensationalized stories

12:14

is the difference. Like we are looking at people

12:17

creating art out of their pain or

12:19

out of any kind of complication

12:22

they've had. And in this particular

12:24

collection my goal was to have I

12:27

wanted not just you know, a

12:30

diverse lineup of authors, but a

12:32

diversity in the types of relationships

12:34

between the mother and child, because I wanted

12:37

anyone to be able to pick up this book and

12:39

find something that speaks to them somehow,

12:42

And that's the beauty of what personal essays

12:44

can do. I love

12:46

that you write in the essay

12:48

about your writing while you were still

12:50

at home, and that that image of you sitting

12:53

against your dresser with the dresser knobs pressing

12:55

into your back is so vivid to

12:57

me. And I think about

12:59

that that version of like just

13:01

needing to be in a little bit of pain so you know you're

13:04

alive when you're struggling.

13:07

And I'm curious

13:10

if you weren't writing about any of these experiences

13:12

while living at home when you when

13:15

you moved out and started at the University

13:17

of New Hampshire. What's it

13:19

like to make the first crack at writing

13:21

a story like this. It's

13:24

very very rough. Um, it's hard

13:26

because you are re

13:28

entering that traumatic moment um

13:31

so and I think

13:33

at that time I was too close to it. I

13:35

was still very much processing what had

13:37

just happened to me, but not even fully

13:40

processing it. I was still it was still

13:43

such like I

13:46

couldn't I didn't have any distance from it.

13:48

I couldn't see it clearly. So

13:50

I think it was it

13:53

led to some bad writing right where

13:55

it's just about the emotions and not

13:58

about seeing yourself

14:00

as a character, almost right. And

14:02

I so I needed that removal and

14:05

I needed years to kind

14:07

of process those emotions because

14:09

I mean, I think back to that moment

14:11

you mentioned in the essay where I talked about

14:13

writing in my room, leaning up against the

14:15

hard knobs of the dresser. I mean, I'd write

14:17

a lot of really bad poetry,

14:20

as many teen girls do, right about

14:23

my boyfriend at the time and love

14:25

and you know I um and inkst.

14:28

I mean I talked about how I had this collection

14:30

of pros and poetry that I called Summer's

14:32

Snow, and I thought that was very clever. So

14:36

a lot of my writing was really overly

14:39

earnest and pretty terrible

14:41

at the time. But the writing saved me

14:43

in many ways too, because it was an outlet. It

14:45

was it was a place where I could express

14:47

myself. And so writing

14:50

has always been what has saved

14:52

me, whether through my own writing or

14:54

the words of others. Um. You know,

14:57

books have always been my escape as

14:59

well as where I find myself time.

15:03

How do you think, because

15:05

I do think it's it's such a wise observation

15:07

that when you're still too close to

15:09

an experience, it's so

15:11

difficult to clearly articulate it.

15:13

And for example, in this you

15:15

know Me two conversation,

15:18

people will say, well, why didn't they report sooner?

15:20

Why didn't they And you can't

15:22

get the words out when

15:25

you're underwater. It's

15:27

very hard, I think, to make sense

15:30

of any kind of trauma until you've

15:33

finally gotten enough distance from it

15:35

that that things can settle in your body

15:37

and you can figure out how to speak

15:39

without being back in it. Yes,

15:43

And I'm curious about the transformation

15:46

as you got some distance to

15:50

going from the experience itself

15:53

to the realization that

15:55

this core truth was really about

15:58

the fracturing you've felt in your

16:00

relationship with your mom.

16:03

Yeah,

16:07

if that's not too heavy a question, No, it's

16:10

not. I just I think I

16:12

honestly, I think

16:14

I was kind of blinded by my anger

16:16

a lot, and also by fear. You talked

16:18

about like people, you know, not

16:21

reporting things or you know. I talked in my

16:23

essay about going to the school cop.

16:25

We had a cop in our school who was assigned to

16:28

to be there and as a resource, and I went

16:30

to him and would tell him about

16:32

my stepdad, and then I

16:34

would stop him from talking to

16:37

him and to my mother because I was too afraid.

16:39

And I think that's all that's that happened

16:42

so often in these cases where a woman

16:44

is abused and is afraid

16:46

that speaking out will make the situation

16:49

worse. So when you would tell the police

16:51

officer what was happening, but beg

16:53

him not to confront your

16:55

parents. Yes, that came

16:58

from the fear that once he'd to the house,

17:00

it would be worse with your stepdad. Yeah,

17:02

exactly, I was. I was terrified

17:05

that and I also didn't want to I

17:07

was terrified of what my stepfather would do, but I

17:09

also didn't want to hurt my mom. You

17:11

know, I can't. I mean, I

17:15

I blamed myself at that point

17:17

for a lot of what was going on, because that's what abuse

17:19

victims often do. You always you often think,

17:21

you know, if I was a different person, maybe this person

17:24

wouldn't treat me this way. You know. Um,

17:26

he would constantly tell me that I was the cause

17:28

of problems in their marriage. You

17:30

know. Some so stuff he said reinforced

17:33

to the fears that I felt. And so I

17:36

think it took

17:38

me a long time to realize,

17:41

to realize the longing that I had

17:44

to have a better relationship with my mom.

17:46

And I think the reason it took so long is

17:49

because I couldn't really admit

17:52

it to myself, this deep pain that

17:55

I had for so long. I

17:57

could easily be angry about

17:59

my stepdad. But I

18:01

wasn't really thinking,

18:04

and this is what came out of therapy. I wasn't

18:06

really thinking about the absence

18:08

of my mother and my life and and

18:11

how sad that made

18:13

me. And you know, my

18:15

mom still did remain in my life,

18:17

but we just There's

18:20

a line in my essay where I talked about how we

18:22

eventually do talk about it, but it's it's

18:24

not enough. Sometimes when you talk about something,

18:27

if the person, if there's denial involved,

18:30

the person isn't really listening. It's it's

18:32

the same as almost not having the conversation.

18:35

Right. There are all kinds of ways we can be silenced,

18:37

so that silence

18:39

is really something that has lived inside

18:42

me for so long. And

18:45

I felt like, even though I

18:47

was afraid of publishing this essay of what

18:49

it would do to my relationship with my mother, I also

18:52

felt like I had to publish this. I

18:55

had to because I knew it would help

18:57

other women who are

19:00

afraid of speaking their truth for whatever

19:02

reason that might be. And

19:04

there's a real reality I think too,

19:07

that whether it's an issue with your

19:09

mother or something you've been through in the past, when you're

19:11

ready to get it out of your body, you

19:13

have to get it out of yourself somehow, you do

19:16

you really? Do you know? It's it's kind of an exorcism,

19:19

it is. Yeah, absolutely,

19:21

that is exactly how it feels.

19:23

Because I think about this

19:26

all in terms of really your relationship

19:28

with yourself, and and perhaps it's because

19:30

I'm projecting my own experience

19:32

and having to get to a point where I could

19:34

talk about certain things and own certain

19:36

things and not worry about other

19:38

people's feelings in regards to certain experiences

19:41

of my own. So I think about your relationship

19:44

with yourself and what

19:46

kind of permission someone has

19:49

to give themselves to have these

19:51

sort of great revelations about

19:53

their experiences, and especially

19:56

when those revelations include someone else, because

19:58

women have historically and culturally

20:01

been so afraid to say

20:03

this happened to me or this was sucked up,

20:06

because somehow we've been taught that that's

20:08

us saying, well, you fucked

20:10

me up, you did this thing,

20:12

and the irony is

20:15

that that's often the truth. So

20:19

going from you know, this undergrad

20:21

student to ten years later, the woman who publishes

20:23

this essay in hindsight,

20:26

do you see how you mustered up the courage to

20:28

say it was was it getting was it just getting

20:30

ready to get it out of your body? It?

20:33

I mean it was. And it was actually way

20:35

more than ten years until I published this essay,

20:37

so it took well over a decade.

20:39

I think it might have been. Let's see, I graduated

20:42

college in two thousand and six and this came out

20:44

in twenty um seventeen.

20:47

So but I

20:48

I'm really glad you brought up the

20:51

idea of permission and women

20:53

giving themselves permission to tell these kinds

20:56

of stories, because I was at

20:58

a writing conference this past year

21:00

in Portland, Oregon, and I was on this really

21:02

incredible writing panel called

21:04

Writing the Mother Wound. This writer Van

21:07

SMR. Tear, who I really admire, actually

21:09

teaches this class called writing the Mother Wound.

21:12

And I was on a panel with a bunch

21:14

of incredible writers and you could hear a pin

21:16

drop in the room. It was standing room only,

21:19

and so so many people showed

21:21

up because everyone there

21:24

had their own kind of mother wound somehow.

21:28

And I after

21:30

the panel was over, a bunch of strangers

21:33

these women came up to me asking

21:35

me for permission to write about their

21:37

own stories, and I had

21:39

to tell them I can't give

21:41

you permission. That's something you have

21:44

to give yourself, and that's easier

21:46

said than done. And

21:48

I think that sometimes you

21:51

just have to force yourself to give

21:53

yourself permission, even if it feels difficult

21:57

or if you're afraid. Often the

21:59

things were doing come with a lot of fear,

22:01

right And so I

22:04

I've found that in my life at least, that often

22:07

the things that have been the most rewarding and the most

22:09

significant and most important to me

22:11

have come with a tremendous amount of fear at

22:13

the same time. And so I

22:16

think that, you know, one of the things I

22:18

was thinking about in publishing this essay

22:20

and this book is I've taught creative

22:23

nonfiction, including like personal essay

22:25

and memoir writing, for years now, and

22:28

one of the things I always teach my students

22:30

is to, like one of the very first exercises

22:32

I give them is to write from a place

22:35

of shame or vulnerability. To make

22:37

a list of things that they feel shame

22:39

or feel vulnerable about, and

22:41

to pick one of them to write an essay about.

22:44

And I wasn't following

22:46

my own advice. So I was teaching this, but

22:49

I was avoiding myself on the page,

22:51

you know, And I think a lot of women do that.

22:54

I think a lot of us do because we're because

22:57

we shy away from the stuff

23:00

that has kind of set us on fire again

23:02

to be back. And you know, wonder because

23:04

in this moment, while you're talking about this, a my

23:06

chest is burning be I'm

23:09

like, oh, right, We've also, for

23:11

generations been told that our role is to nurture

23:14

others. And no one's ever

23:16

taught women how to nurture themselves, how

23:18

to soothe themselves, how to love themselves.

23:21

Were meant to put it all out and hope

23:23

that someone else gives it back, exactly, And

23:25

it's this really kind of warped exchange.

23:28

It's not like when a battery charges, it's

23:30

like plugging into something else. Right,

23:33

And hearing you say that, I'm just thinking,

23:35

Oh, of course, we make space for everyone else's pain,

23:37

but never for our own. And if

23:39

we don't really make space for our own pain, are we

23:42

really making all that much space for our own

23:44

joy? Right? Right? Because

23:46

we need to? We are, right. That's an excellent

23:48

question. And I I'm really glad you just

23:50

brought up like nurturing yourself because

23:52

I'm working on an essay right now actually

23:54

about learning to be a mother to yourself,

23:57

because that's something I've really realized in

23:59

putting this action together especially,

24:02

is that no matter how close

24:04

someone is with their mother, or if they never

24:06

knew their mother, or if they're estranged from their

24:08

mother, no matter what their relationship

24:11

is, you can't depend

24:13

on one other person to be everything

24:17

you need for nurturing, right,

24:19

And so so much of being an

24:21

adult is about learning how to

24:24

navigate that and to be good to yourself,

24:27

whatever that might mean for you, and to allow

24:30

yourself to be good to yourself,

24:33

right. Giving their going back to like

24:35

giving permission. We need to give permission

24:38

to ourselves to to be the

24:40

mother's are the ideal mother

24:43

to ourselves, right, whatever

24:45

that might mean. And

24:48

in some ways I feel like we have that conversation

24:50

finally more about partnership, that idea.

24:53

You know, you you're never going to be able to love someone

24:55

else until you love yourself or

24:57

accept love from someone else until you love yourself.

24:59

But you haven't crossed the threshold of

25:03

you have to be your own nurture. You have

25:05

to learn how to be your own mother, even if you love

25:07

your mother, yeah you know, yeah,

25:10

yeah, Because I think even if a mother is

25:12

great. A mother can't possibly

25:15

check all of the boxes of what we need. I

25:17

talked about this in the intrup of my book. You know, we

25:20

mothers are set up to fail in our society

25:22

in so many ways, and as

25:25

women are, just as women are exactly

25:27

like you know, I personally don't

25:30

want to have kids. I'm child free, and

25:33

I've always felt kind of judged by

25:35

that. But I have friends who

25:37

are amazing moms, who who might feel

25:39

judged because of how many kids they have. You

25:41

know, so even no matter what, whether

25:44

we have kids, whether we don't, whether

25:46

we get married, whether or not, whatever

25:48

choices we make that involve our

25:50

bodies and our relationships, it's just

25:53

like society

25:55

is just there to judge and

25:59

it's ridiculous me. So, yeah,

26:01

it's really strange. And I do think

26:03

that it is an

26:05

act of revolution to learn to love

26:08

yourself. It really is. And I

26:11

mean, look, we're all working on it, right. It's like

26:13

that's I don't think it's a place that you arrive

26:15

and then you go, oh my god, look I solved

26:17

it, and forever all feel great.

26:20

But it's it's about creating a kind

26:22

of new practice and reparenting

26:25

and re partnering with yourself

26:28

to create a new way of relating

26:31

to yourself in the world. And

26:33

I've been looking around lately going like, nobody

26:35

told us about this ship? Where

26:38

where? Why have we not been having

26:40

this conversation? Because everyone

26:42

I know who's in their thirties and in their forties

26:44

is in the throes of this right now,

26:47

And I'm going, huh, okay,

26:50

we there there's some some version of, you

26:52

know, an empathy curriculum or an intimacy

26:54

education that we need to start in

26:57

schools so that this stuff can change.

27:00

Seriously, I know, when

27:12

we talk about school, I'm

27:14

curious because I do love to know. I

27:17

get to meet so many people and and invite

27:19

so many friends into the space when I'm

27:21

already so impressed with the adult that they

27:23

are. And you know, I'm clearly so in love with

27:25

your work, and I know you

27:28

to be this beautifully eloquent and thoughtful

27:30

writer. But I'm always curious

27:32

when I look at really impressive people

27:34

and I go like, what were you like when you were a little were

27:36

you always were you always

27:39

so observational? Were you very wordy?

27:41

Were you quiet? Were you rampunctious? Like? Who

27:44

who is Michelle. As a kid,

27:47

you always have your head in a book. Okay.

27:49

Yeah. In fact, in some of the family home

27:51

videos you can see me walking around

27:54

like reading aloud to myself

27:56

in the background, I would always

27:59

have my head and like a babysitters Club

28:01

or Sweet Valley High or you know.

28:03

Matilda was my favorite book when I was

28:05

a kid. I loved Matilda good

28:07

right movie. It was so good,

28:10

amazing. I know, I know, I

28:12

still watch it sometimes I do too.

28:14

I loved it, um but that you

28:16

know, I I just that was like one of the first books

28:19

where I found myself on the

28:21

page in Matilda's character and I was like,

28:23

oh, a bookworm who has superpowers

28:25

to that's so cool. I want superpowers, no

28:27

stuff and is smart no matter what the grown up

28:29

sat exactly and defends the

28:32

me mean headmistress or

28:34

I'm sorry, defeats the mean head

28:36

mistress. But yeah, as a kid,

28:38

I was I was a bookworm. I

28:40

was nerdy. I was

28:43

definitely picked on a lot because

28:45

I was a nerd. I but

28:47

I spent a lot of time imagining

28:50

things. I grew up on a lake

28:52

in Connecticut, a beautiful lake, and

28:55

so I feel very fortunate about my

28:58

upbringing and that for my parents

29:00

got divorced, we lived with my grandmother and

29:03

so I would spend a lot of time actually

29:06

like in the woods around the house,

29:09

playing there and um,

29:11

taking walks there. And so

29:13

a lot of my early short stories

29:16

have to do with that landscape, and that landscape

29:18

really like looms large in my imagination.

29:21

Still. She's actually the one who turned me

29:23

into a bookworm, because she

29:25

would take me to the library

29:27

book sales and we'd fill up, like you could get

29:29

a bag of books for a dollar. So I would

29:32

love that. And she played

29:34

organ at the local church, and

29:37

she would take me with her when she was playing organ

29:39

at funerals and weddings and mass,

29:41

and we would stop at the library or the bookstore

29:43

on the way and I'd read while I

29:46

was in the loft with her, sometimes

29:48

during these stranger's funerals, which was really

29:50

weird. And so

29:53

yeah, she and but she herself,

29:55

this is memo, that's what I call her memo.

29:58

She she was fired for one

30:00

of her first jobs because she was caught reading

30:02

behind the clothing racks at this close

30:05

store. So and she's

30:07

kind of your spirit, Oh yeah, she totally is. So

30:10

so yeah, from a very early age. I always

30:12

knew I wanted to be a writer. Um,

30:15

I got sidetracked for a little while and was a

30:17

journalist and worked at

30:20

the CBS Evenings with Katie Kirk, which

30:22

was great. But I always knew

30:24

I wanted to be a you know,

30:26

a writer. And so that's

30:28

that's where I've landed. And how old were you,

30:31

um, when when the dynamic and your family

30:33

changed, when you were no longer living on the lake.

30:36

So my parents got divorced

30:39

when I was I think nine or

30:41

ten, and so that's when

30:43

things kind of changed. And

30:45

then when I was like entering my preteens

30:48

and my teens is when stuff got bad

30:50

with my stepdad. So my stepdad was

30:52

in the picture pretty much right away when he was

30:54

in the picture right away when my parents separated,

30:56

and so yeah,

30:59

and that was really hard, I

31:01

can imagine. And

31:05

you say that you always knew that you wanted to be a writer,

31:09

and we talk about you know, angsty teen poetry,

31:12

but were you also writing

31:14

in the sort of more idyllic years of your childhood

31:17

when you were playing in the woods and living on

31:19

the lake, where you were you also writing poetry? Were

31:21

you like trying to be a little Mary Oliver. Oh

31:24

man, I love Mary Oliver. Have

31:26

you listened to her be interviewed by Krista

31:28

Tippett being I've

31:30

got to because I love guys. I mean, I think

31:33

she's ninety two when they do the interview.

31:35

It's one of the most fascinating conversations I've

31:37

ever heard in my life. I'm going to go listen to that, like I

31:39

will look up the link before you leave in something it's

31:42

so good. Yeah, but I do. It's

31:44

weird because the way you're explaining it and also talking

31:46

about your grandmother, I'm literally picturing

31:48

her like Mary Oliver and you like a mini

31:51

me of her in the woods, and it's like I'm

31:53

directing a movie about your life in my head.

31:56

Now, I love it. No,

31:59

I would saying the idea of years of my childhood.

32:01

Actually, what I was obsessed with writing

32:04

were ghost stories and mysteries.

32:06

Mystery stories. But I like, like, I loved

32:08

sending ghost stories on the bottom of

32:10

the lake because the lake I grew up

32:12

on is supposedly built over an Indian

32:15

burial ground and it's a man made

32:17

lake, and so so I

32:19

loved I don't know, I was obsessed with

32:21

ghosts. And remember those Scary Stories

32:23

books that we had, the really creepy illustrations.

32:26

It's now being turned into a TV show, which

32:28

I'm so excited about. But I loved

32:30

those books and scary stories

32:32

and fear Streets. Yes ruined

32:34

me. Oh my gosh, I read fear Street all

32:36

the time or else Snein was amazing. Yeah,

32:39

So I I loved being scared,

32:42

even though I was terrified being scared

32:44

too, like I was a very scaredy cat kid,

32:46

but I loved ghost stories at the same

32:48

time. So I wrote a lot of stuff about

32:50

ghosts. So I

32:53

know that you you studied English

32:55

and college, right, Yeah, I studied English journalism.

32:58

Yeah, okay, and that was sort of as

33:00

you say, how you got sidetracked and wound up at the

33:02

evening news. What did that feel

33:05

like? I'm curious not

33:08

only what the side track looks like into journalism,

33:10

but I also wonder now, in hindsight, what

33:13

you were watching or observing.

33:16

You know, when you were watching Katie. You know, she's the first

33:18

solo female news anchor ever.

33:20

That's such a moment for America. And

33:23

and in a way, when

33:25

I think back to watching her, I think,

33:27

as I'm contemplating this idea of nurturing

33:30

and intellect and all

33:32

of the things that women are, but for some reason

33:34

we're told to be one or the other. I

33:36

think about the way she was able to really nurture

33:38

and hand hold us as

33:41

viewers, but also really cut to the core

33:43

of issues, and I wonder

33:47

what was it like to watch that and to be there.

33:49

It was incredible. I actually started

33:51

there the first week she started, So

33:54

yeah, my first very first day

33:56

at the job was when Bob

33:58

shei for they were

34:00

throwing like a thank you party because Katie

34:03

was taking over, and my my

34:05

very first job was to be that

34:08

evening. I was stationed at the front door and

34:10

my boss was like, do not let anyone in

34:12

who is not on the guest list. So

34:14

here I am, right out of college, right, so

34:16

excited to be there, and

34:19

I'm monitoring the guest list and I'm

34:21

I'm doing my job, and then I

34:23

turned someone away and I just hear dead silence

34:26

and the person next to her says, you

34:28

do not turn Maureen Doubt away

34:30

from a party. Oh

34:33

my god. I became a joke in the

34:35

news from people put moreen doubts. Picture

34:37

above my desk. I was my first day on the

34:39

job. Is that I accidentally tried to turn

34:41

Maureen down away. You're like,

34:43

I don't know what, I don't know, leave me off. I

34:45

wasn't even looking, you know, if I had looked up and seen

34:48

her. But I was just like head on down

34:50

on the list, waking at the list. But

34:53

she had like a Leslie Man moment and go doorman,

34:55

Doorman, Doorman, Doorman. I'm

34:59

sure, but

35:01

but yeah, Katie. I mean, it was incredible

35:04

to be there in that historic moment with Katie

35:06

taking over. There was a lot of excitement

35:08

in the news room. So that

35:11

really inspired me. I mean. The reason that I

35:14

mean when I said that, like I side

35:17

tracked with journalism, I actually still see

35:19

myself as a journalist and love journalism,

35:21

you know, in addition to many of the things I write.

35:23

So it wasn't really a sidetrack in just that like

35:26

it fed who I am now. It absolutely

35:29

did. And the reason I worked

35:31

there is because when I was a kid, my

35:34

dad he took me to subway

35:36

at a ka the sandwich shop in

35:39

Ridgefield, Connecticut, where I grew up, and my

35:41

dad loves TV news and we would

35:43

watch NBC and

35:46

we would always watch the local New York

35:48

NBC news and one

35:50

day we were there and he said, that's Carol

35:53

Jenkins whose NBC. And

35:55

I was so excited. So he brought me over and

35:57

introduced me, and she invited

36:00

us to shadow her at the

36:02

evening news. So we went. I went a couple

36:04

of times, and so Carol was a mentor

36:07

to me. She's amazing. She's no longer

36:09

at NBC. She left and became

36:12

head of the Women's Media Center for a while,

36:15

and now she does I

36:17

believe the show is called Black America on Cunei

36:19

TV. She's the host of that.

36:22

She's incredible. So Carol

36:25

was already somebody who I admired.

36:28

And then when I was in college, I interned for Ed

36:30

Bradley at sixty Minutes and

36:33

that was amazing. I interned

36:35

for a couple of his producers and I spent

36:38

the summer working on a story about

36:41

the Emmett till civil rights

36:43

case. It was an incredibly

36:45

inspiring summer to work on such an important

36:48

story. So that

36:51

gave me the thirst for

36:53

for journalism. Um. And so when

36:55

I graduated, I got this job working

36:57

with Katie, and Katie is amazing. She's

37:00

are inspiring. I feel

37:02

like she's really great at taking other

37:04

young women in the newsroom kind of under her wing.

37:06

You know. She definitely like encouraged

37:09

me with my own writing, and I wrote for her

37:11

blog a few times and that was great. So

37:14

yeah, that's so cool. And

37:16

from there, I know, you went back to New Hampshire,

37:19

you worked at River Run, and

37:22

and then you ended up back in New York and

37:25

you were you were working

37:27

for a scientist like you you have this these crazy

37:29

couple of years where you're

37:31

all over the place and what happens

37:33

and how do you wind up back here? And and

37:36

beginning to I think prepare for all

37:38

of this. Well, while I was still in

37:40

college, I worked for River Run bookstore in Portsmouth,

37:42

New Hampshire, and I loved it. And

37:44

then when I was working for Katie, I worked there for a

37:46

year for that show and

37:49

ended up producing a segment on the show called Assignment

37:51

America where I would find the feel good story

37:54

of the week, which I loved. And Steve Hartman,

37:56

the reporter, was wonderful to work with, so I

37:59

really really loved and I was torn

38:01

about leaving, but you

38:03

know, I was definitely like on the rise there and

38:05

already producing a segment within my first year,

38:08

which was great, But my heart

38:10

was still so set on books and on

38:12

print and that, and

38:14

I felt like I had to give that a

38:16

chance. So I

38:19

quit a job at

38:21

a national TV show to move

38:23

back to New Hampshire to run events

38:25

at River Run Bookstore because my former

38:28

boss there said, hey, come,

38:31

you know, come run events here. And

38:33

I'm I do not regret that move

38:35

at all because I learned so much and

38:37

being able to curate the events series

38:39

and meet writers and hear

38:41

how they wrote their books and get inspired

38:44

by them. It was like a little mini m f A program

38:47

And I learned so much about the industry and

38:49

started writing really in earnest at that

38:51

point. And I moved back to New York

38:53

City because Sarah McNally,

38:55

the owner of McNally Jackson Um, had

38:58

heard about me because I like

39:00

was really involved in the bookselling

39:02

world, and she recruited me to come run

39:04

events at her store. So that

39:07

was what got me to come back here. I didn't

39:09

think I was going to come back here. The

39:11

funny thing is part of why I ran away

39:14

was like the first time around, New York really

39:16

overwhelmed me, even though

39:18

I grew up an hour outside of New York and I loved

39:20

coming here. But I moved to Bushwick

39:22

in two thousands,

39:25

six or seven. I can't remember

39:27

the exact year. Um when I was working

39:29

at the Evening News and I lived in this really

39:33

not nice apartment and as

39:35

a lot of people did that year, I got bed

39:37

bugs and it

39:41

was awful. I'll never forget the third

39:43

time the exterminator came. I was like out

39:45

and in Union Square, actually

39:48

at a cafe, and the guy next to me was

39:50

scratching his arms furiously and it turned out

39:52

he had bed bugs too. It was just very

39:54

common that year, especially, a lot

39:56

of people had them, and uh,

39:58

I ended up but it that experience

40:01

ended up turning into an essay that I published

40:03

on the Paris Reviews website because

40:06

because bed bugs turned you into an accidental book

40:08

Yes, tell me, how do you

40:11

accidentally set a book on fire? Well, it's

40:13

really hilarious. So I

40:15

had to microwave every single book

40:17

I owned, which was a lot of books, because the

40:19

externator told me that the bed bug

40:22

like eggs can live inside of the books,

40:25

so I wasn't thinking it was just microwaving,

40:27

and of all books to put in the microwave. I

40:30

had Insomnia by Stephen King.

40:32

So it's like the poetic justice

40:35

that this is hilarious because I'm not sleeping

40:37

well because of bed bugs. And then I put

40:39

this book in and it had a metallic cover and

40:41

it's set it on fire in microwave.

40:45

So I ended up writing this essay years later

40:48

about that experience. Yeah,

40:50

but so I had the Paris

40:52

Review in

40:54

the Paris Review Daily their website, Yeah,

40:56

they have a blog, and I wrote that essay for them. So

40:59

I, I mean, so everything

41:02

happens for a reason, I feel like, and you

41:04

know, I didn't think i'd end up back in New York, and

41:07

second time around has been amazing. I've been

41:09

back here since eleven and I

41:12

ran events at McNally Jackson for a year, and

41:14

then I left

41:17

there and ran events at Community Bookstore

41:19

in Park Slope in Brooklyn, and also got a job

41:22

for working for a scientist at Rockefeller

41:24

University. And so, just

41:27

as most writers do, you have to kind of cobble

41:29

together a career, right because writing

41:31

does not pay enough to pay the bills. So

41:34

I would do whatever I could to be around

41:37

writers and to soak up the information

41:39

and learn as much as I could. And is

41:41

that what got you to start writing? Yeah?

41:43

Yeah, because because of my time running

41:46

events at all these different bookstores, I

41:48

had really wanted, always wanted to

41:50

have my very own series with complete control

41:53

over it, even though I could do that when I

41:55

was running events at the other places, I just wanted

41:57

to be able to have my own thing and

41:59

not being responsible for all

42:01

the other events at the stores. So it's

42:03

a quarterly series because it is a lot of work.

42:05

I read every single author's book that's on

42:08

the panel and write questions directed

42:10

towards them. I mean, you know,

42:12

I know as you look at my nerdy

42:14

prep docs, I'm like, I get

42:17

it. Yeah. So

42:19

you do this quarterly series. You interview these

42:22

writers about their work, their life.

42:25

Do you think that there's some piece

42:28

of that that started informing this idea

42:30

of turning the essay into a book of

42:32

finding and sourcing other writers asking

42:35

them all this question, what what do you

42:37

and your mother not talk about? Yeah?

42:39

Absolutely so. I you

42:41

know, I didn't have open submissions. Once I sold

42:44

the book, I knew the authors I wanted to

42:46

approach. I was so curious how

42:48

you connected with them because it's

42:50

such an incredible group. So so you found them

42:52

all ahead of time, not all of them,

42:54

um, but I got a bunch of them to agree before I

42:57

sold the book, and then I approached some

42:59

mothers after the book was sold. How did you

43:01

start picking people? How? How do you go about

43:03

that? I mean, it's oh,

43:05

man, well, a big thing is that, I

43:09

it's kind of hard to approach people and be like, so, what's your

43:11

relationship like with your mom? But

43:15

but you have to and so you

43:17

know, some people signed up to do it and

43:19

dropped out because they realized they weren't ready

43:21

to write about their mom um.

43:23

And some people, um

43:27

were signed up with the project right away. Like

43:29

I knew I wanted to have Leslie Jamison,

43:31

who closes the book with her incredible

43:33

essay about trying to understand

43:35

who her mom was before she became her mom

43:38

by reading an unpublished manuscript

43:40

by her mom's first husband that's based

43:42

on their marriage. He wrote a novel based

43:45

on them. Is so fascinating.

43:47

It's really really fast, especially because

43:49

her mom and her mom's first husband are still so close

43:52

exactly, yeah

43:54

that was mine. Yeah, and she's

43:56

very close with her mom. And I find

43:59

that essay to be extremely hopeful, which is why I

44:01

wanted to end on that on that piece for the

44:03

book. But so when you right away, I

44:05

mean Leslie Jamison is one of the best essayists

44:07

of our time. She wrote this incredible book called

44:09

The Empathy Exams. I don't know if you've

44:11

read that, but what how do I know? Oh,

44:14

it's amazing, quite literally writing

44:16

it down. Yeah, And and everything

44:19

she writes is great. She has a new essay

44:21

collection coming out this fall actually

44:23

called Make It Screen, Make It Burn, And

44:26

so she was signed

44:28

on from the get go. Same with Alexandrici,

44:31

who wrote a really beautiful essay

44:33

for this book about being abused

44:35

when he was a kid in hiding it from his

44:37

mom to protect her. And

44:40

Alex has this stunning

44:42

essay collection that came out recently called

44:45

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, and

44:47

he's he's one of my favorite essays.

44:49

So there were people who automatically

44:51

came to mind like, oh, I love the writing,

44:54

I need this. Then there were a few people

44:56

in the book who whose essays had already

44:58

been published elsewhere, and I read them and thought, immediately,

45:00

I need this in the book. And and that for

45:03

those two that was Brandon Taylor, who

45:06

wrote a piece for Literary Hub about

45:09

his mom, who was very abusive and

45:11

she is no longer alive, and he wrote

45:13

about he wrote just like

45:16

with tremendous tenderness about her despite

45:18

what she did to him, and it's

45:20

one of the most beautiful essays I've ever in devastating

45:23

essays I've ever read. And then Andrea

45:25

Asimum is in the book and his piece

45:27

was originally in The New Yorker about growing up

45:29

with a deaf mother, and I thought

45:31

that was a fascinating angle

45:34

to have in this book. And also I love him because he

45:36

wrote Call Me by Your Name, which is one of my favorite

45:39

movies, and I love his book too, but the movie

45:41

isn't eazy, So yeah,

45:44

so the right away I knew they would be in there.

45:46

But yeah, I mean, I the main thing when

45:48

putting this anthology together was that I

45:50

didn't want to have too much overlap.

45:54

Although the irony is there is a lot of

45:56

overlap, even with the stories being very

45:58

different. There's a lot to a lot of common

46:00

themes that emerge. But I didn't want the essays

46:03

to be exactly the same as what

46:05

I'm saying, Like my especially my

46:07

editor at Simon and Schuster was like, we cannot

46:09

have every single essay be an abuse story,

46:11

and I agreed with her. You know, I wanted

46:13

to have a wide array. I love the diversity

46:16

of perspective. I love that that it's

46:18

so many women and so many men. I

46:20

love that it's so multicultural. Every

46:23

essay really surprised

46:25

me. And yet you're right, you

46:28

do feel the through line

46:30

in all of it, and I guess that that

46:32

makes me curious. Why do you think that

46:35

the mother child bond is

46:38

so unique yet so universal?

46:41

Oh that's a great question. Oh,

46:45

I mean it's universal because everyone comes

46:48

from a mother. Everyone has a mother for even like

46:50

just a brief amount of time, So there's

46:53

always this idea of I

46:56

mean, in my essay, I open it with our mothers,

46:58

our first homes, and that's why we're is trying

47:00

to return to them to have some sense

47:03

of where we belong or where we fit. And

47:05

I think that's true, is that like, as

47:07

we live our lives, even if our moms are no

47:09

longer in it, we're trying to

47:11

understand who we are in relation to where we

47:14

come from. So even

47:16

though our stories with our mothers

47:18

might be very different there.

47:21

You know, at the end of the day,

47:24

the stories of relationships are universal

47:26

in general, Like there there are so many common

47:29

threads we can see in somebody who

47:31

might have had a completely different upbringing,

47:34

completely different relationship with their mom, there's

47:36

still there's That's the same

47:38

way you might feel in watching a movie where

47:40

you connect with a character who

47:42

grows up in a completely different place than

47:44

you did and has a completely different story,

47:46

but they come to some realization about

47:49

life that speaks to you, right, Yeah,

47:53

and you mentioned it. You know that mothers

47:56

really are set up to fail. Yeah, the

47:58

the expectations are unrealistic. Not

48:01

one person can be all things to all people

48:03

at all times. And obviously

48:05

that means that the mother child connection is a complicated

48:08

one. So there's this great

48:10

disparity between the greeting card family and

48:13

most people's reality. Yet we

48:15

still make the greeting cards. We

48:17

still live in a society where

48:19

we have holidays that assume a happy

48:21

relationship with your mother or with your father. And I'm

48:24

curious why you think that is. And and

48:26

and as a person who

48:28

exists on the not happy end

48:30

of the spectrum in your in your maternal relationship,

48:33

what advice do you have for people who

48:36

are experiencing that

48:38

dissonance? Similarly, what do you what

48:40

do people do with Mother's Day? I

48:44

myself have a very difficult time on that day,

48:46

especially on Facebook. You know, people

48:49

tend to use that day to post photos

48:51

of their moms and celebrate their mothers. And

48:55

that's wonderful and I'm really happy

48:57

for everyone who do who does have a great

48:59

relationship with them mom. But for those people who

49:01

who have some pain around that, I

49:05

think that you really need to practice self

49:07

care on that day, of all days, whatever that might

49:09

mean for you. And that might mean avoiding

49:11

social media and the parade endless

49:13

parade in your feed of people celebrating

49:16

their moms and buying into

49:19

Mother's Day. I think that

49:21

that could be a great day to practice being a mother

49:23

to yourself, right. But I also think

49:26

it might be an interesting exercise to

49:29

to write down your own thoughts about what

49:31

you would say to your mother if you could. Um.

49:34

Actually, the Smarter Living section

49:36

of the New York Times someone just recommended

49:38

that exercise from my book in the

49:40

New York Times last week, and I was like, Yeah, I

49:42

love that somebody did that, because it is

49:44

a good prompt right, what would

49:46

you not? What would you talk about with your mom

49:49

if you could, even if your mother is no longer

49:51

around, maybe that might be something that helps you

49:53

feel better if you can't actually say it to her

49:55

face to face, And

49:58

so that might be a good thing to do that day if you can't

50:00

get your mom out of your head. And I'm very

50:03

curious what what your

50:05

thoughts are also

50:07

for those people out there who might just be

50:09

starting to figure out what they're complicated

50:12

relationships have been or or

50:15

or who are coming to terms with whatever trauma

50:17

they've been through. Because again,

50:20

in this world where we are not

50:22

really taught to nurture ourselves and we are often

50:24

taught to deny our experiences, I

50:27

had to to learn that doctors,

50:30

psychologists classified

50:32

trauma as any environment that is not nurturing.

50:35

That's where trauma begins. And

50:37

then on the sliding scale, you can

50:39

go from you know, an unsupportive,

50:43

dangerous, manipulative home all

50:46

the way up to what I think so many of us

50:48

think is the definition of trauma being

50:50

you know, veterans who come back from war with PTSD,

50:53

But yes, that's trauma.

50:56

But doctors have also now shown in tests

50:58

you know, psychological and brain tests and everything that

51:01

you know, women have been sexually assaulted experience

51:03

and carry the same levels of PTSD as war veterans.

51:06

And so that's a far end of trauma.

51:09

And then there's there's sliding

51:11

into it from any non nurturing environment.

51:14

And I am

51:16

just so curious about

51:18

how we help people

51:22

recognize what might be traumatic

51:24

in their lives so

51:26

that they don't have to carry it, how

51:29

we help them recognize it. I mean, I think

51:32

your book is helpful. I was going to say, I think that

51:34

people might find themselves in

51:36

one of the essays in this book. I

51:39

absolutely recommend meant, I

51:41

recommend that they read it in that case.

51:43

Um, I

51:46

mean, I think what

51:49

we need to do, especially for people we care

51:51

about, is help them recognize

51:54

trauma, right like, because sometimes, like

51:56

you said, you can be blinded to yourself and not

51:58

really understand it. Um.

52:01

And there's so much stigma. There is so much

52:03

stigma, and not everyone has access

52:05

to a therapist, right like, having a therapist's

52:08

privilege, having the money to afford to go to a therapy

52:10

as privilege. And so for

52:13

me, I often, like I talked about

52:15

earlier, I found myself in books and books were

52:18

really what helps me to to

52:20

come to an understanding of

52:23

what I had been through. And I'm

52:25

hoping that that's what this book can do

52:27

for for people, is break these silences,

52:29

break these stigmas. I mean, I even know

52:31

some like as I've toured around the country,

52:33

there have been some moms who have bought

52:36

copies of this book for their

52:38

daughters. Um even

52:40

though they at least they tell me they have good

52:42

relationships with their daughters, but they want

52:44

their daughter to feel like

52:47

they can talk about anything, Like there's no topic.

52:49

That's even

52:51

if a relationship is good, it's not

52:53

all good. No, it's not possible, no, exactly,

52:56

that's not a relationship. That's a cartoon. Every

52:59

relationship is laud and complex

53:01

exactly. So, so I think

53:03

we need to break the stigma of there

53:06

are certain things we should tiptoe around

53:09

or or or keep to ourselves,

53:11

because I think I

53:13

think it's really important to be able

53:15

to articulate what

53:18

we carry in our bodies, whatever

53:20

that might be, and to give yourself permission

53:22

to recognize it and carry it and also

53:24

still carry joy, also still have a really

53:27

good time. Exactly before we started

53:29

this interview, we were laughing about travel and

53:31

trips, and you were telling me about, you

53:33

know, backpacking with your significant

53:36

other through Europe and being

53:38

an artist in residence and getting to say above

53:40

the Shakespeare and codebook story like how amazing.

53:43

And so I guess I'm also

53:45

curious where where do you find

53:47

joy? What makes you happy? You know what,

53:50

when you're not exercising the

53:52

profundity of words like what are you doing

53:54

for fun? Traveling

53:56

definitely and spending time with friends

53:58

and family really important

54:01

to me? What else gives me joy?

54:04

It's like, whenever anyone asks me what my favorite

54:06

thing to eat is, I can't think of anywhere I've ever been,

54:08

And literally I planned my entire life

54:10

around where my next meal was, but

54:13

I don't when someone asks, It's

54:15

like my brain just goes like white

54:17

noise. Well exactly, and that same one

54:19

people are asking for my favorite books. But I'm

54:21

glad you brought up eating, because actually

54:23

food is what gives me a ton of joy.

54:26

So and it's something that connects me to my mom

54:28

because my mom is an amazing cook. So even

54:30

though we have a complicated relationship,

54:32

whenever I'm cooking, I can think

54:35

about how that's something that relates

54:38

to her. But yeah, I live to eat. Basically,

54:40

I travel so that I can eat. Yeah, I

54:42

like I'm always looking for the best reviews.

54:46

Yes, and we have to trade less.

54:50

So talking about you

54:52

being being an artist in residence, you know,

54:55

you're getting your um,

54:57

your master's which is so cool,

55:00

and you're teaching, yes, And

55:02

I'm curious you're teaching creative

55:04

nonfiction. But I'm actually teaching

55:07

fiction and poetry all at n y

55:09

U. I'll be teaching for the first time. I mean, can

55:11

I get your syllables? Of course,

55:13

I'm really proud reading

55:16

it. I would really like to see it,

55:19

Like we can learn out about this. But

55:21

I am curious as a teacher,

55:24

what advice do

55:27

you give to your students. You mentioned that you take

55:29

them through that exercise, and

55:31

I do having heard you say

55:34

that. I think a lot of writers, a lot of people are

55:36

afraid of delving into certain topics, you

55:38

know, for what that kind of vulnerability might mean.

55:41

How do you encourage your students

55:44

to put that fear aside and and dive

55:46

in. I you know, when

55:48

I was on book tour, I read

55:50

and gave talks with a lot of the contributors to

55:52

the book And one of the my favorite things

55:54

someone said was Melissa Phoebos, who's

55:57

an amazing writer, gave the advice when

55:59

we were on a panel that you really need to write

56:01

with blinders on when you're writing about

56:03

your own life and I and and that

56:06

is essentially what I tell my students too, is

56:08

that you have to kind of trick

56:10

yourself into thinking that no one else is ever

56:12

going to see this. It's different than writing

56:14

for a diary. Write a diary is just more

56:16

stream of consciousness and not about

56:19

trying to create a narrative out of something

56:21

necessarily. But when you're writing

56:23

for an essay about

56:25

something that happened to you, even if

56:28

it's not traumatic, just something in your own life

56:30

where there's any kind of complication,

56:33

you do need to pretend that no one will

56:35

ever read it, because otherwise you might

56:37

paralyze yourself. Um

56:40

and I think that's so important

56:42

is to just worry about getting

56:44

the first draft down and thinking

56:47

about it as a conversation between

56:49

you and the blank page, and

56:51

not thinking about the wide

56:53

world out there and what people will say. I

56:55

love that a conversation between you

56:57

and the blank page. That believe it's

57:01

so much pressure it really does.

57:03

Immediately. It does, because otherwise

57:05

you're instantly thinking about like, oh,

57:07

if this is published, what are people going to say about

57:09

this? What is my family going to think? How are people

57:12

going to react? There are a million things

57:14

you can say to talk yourself out of writing

57:16

something, but there are a few things you

57:18

can say to talk yourself into writing

57:20

something. And the other thing. The other thing I

57:22

have my students do that I learned from my friend, the

57:25

writer Dylan Landis, who also has an

57:27

essay in this book. Um is the

57:29

palmadoro technique. Do you know about this? Oh,

57:32

I love a technique, I love a tool. Oh yeah,

57:34

me too. So this is like something that's used

57:36

in a lot of colleges. But it's basically,

57:38

you set a timer for twenty five minutes,

57:41

and during that twenty five minutes, you do not check

57:44

your phone, you do not check the email.

57:46

You know, you're not on social media, you are

57:48

just writing. And there's something about

57:50

that concentrated amount of time. Twenty five

57:52

minutes feels like possible, even

57:55

no matter how busy you are, right and so

57:57

there's something about just being able to

58:00

focus for twenty five minutes that it's

58:03

enough time to get you into what you're writing, but

58:05

also to not feel overwhelming. And

58:07

then when the timer goes off, you said it again for

58:09

five minutes to give yourself a break to do whatever

58:11

you need to do, and then you set another

58:13

twenty five minutes if you have time. But

58:16

I really like breaking it into those little

58:18

chunks because what I find is it's a

58:20

lot more doable than just sitting

58:22

down for like a four hour stretch and being

58:24

like I need to write, which just there's

58:27

no that's daunting.

58:30

Yeah, exactly exactly.

58:33

So I think that, you know,

58:35

that makes it manageable. I think it's all about

58:37

like that. And then another thing

58:39

I one of my favorite writers is Elizabeth

58:42

Gilbert. She's incredible. Her new book

58:44

is so good. She is the

58:46

best. Yeah, but her book Big

58:49

Magic about Creativity and her ted

58:51

talks on fear and creativity have really

58:53

stuck with me. And one of the things that

58:55

I've I take away from that that I try

58:57

to remind my students of and I

59:00

tell them I learned this from Elizabeth Gilbert is she

59:02

talks about finding the

59:04

joy and creativity, which can be

59:06

hard, especially if you're writing about complicated things,

59:08

right, because like, where is the joy in

59:10

that. But there is this

59:13

She talks about how we have this myth

59:15

of the suffering, tortured artist and

59:18

that there can be joy

59:20

in the act of creating um

59:23

And I think that's true. And I think, you know,

59:25

like this this essay in the book that I

59:28

wrote, it's the hardest thing I've ever written. Did

59:30

I have joy while writing it? No?

59:34

But did I have joy in knowing

59:37

that it helped other people? Yes? And

59:39

there's other stuff I'm writing now where I do feel

59:41

joy, right, And I think it's

59:44

important to be able to work on the things that

59:46

give you joy, especially

59:48

if you're working on something that's hard, right, and

59:50

maybe you had to get the

59:52

icky thing out of the way so

59:55

that you could plug into the joy exactly.

59:57

Yeah, It's it's that duality again. Yeah.

1:00:00

And I think it's so important that we give ourselves permission

1:00:02

to be whole people, because

1:00:04

it really is the sum total that puts us where

1:00:06

we are. So

1:00:10

on that note, I have a last question

1:00:12

that I love to ask everyone because the title of the podcast

1:00:14

is called work in progress, and

1:00:17

I think from the outside, when you've published a book

1:00:20

or work in media or whatever,

1:00:22

looks you know, fancy people

1:00:26

think, Oh, that person has it all together,

1:00:28

but any of us who sit in a talking

1:00:30

circle are talking about what we're still trying to figure

1:00:33

out. So I'm I'm curious at this

1:00:36

stage in your life, whether

1:00:39

it's something personal or professional, or

1:00:41

political or passion project, what

1:00:44

feels like a work in progress to you myself?

1:00:48

I mean the same I

1:00:51

would say imposter

1:00:53

syndrome, right I it's ridiculous.

1:00:56

But the more successful I am,

1:00:58

the more I haven't poster syndrome.

1:01:01

Everything that happens, I'm like, oh, well, this only

1:01:04

happened because of this reason, or

1:01:06

I can like justify everything, right, I

1:01:08

can think of it that way. And I'm

1:01:11

going to be thirty six in October. I'm

1:01:13

a grad student right now, I'm like

1:01:16

everything that happens to me, I'm always

1:01:18

explaining a way of like, oh I only got this because

1:01:20

of this, or this only happened because of this. And

1:01:23

I'm really trying to get out of

1:01:26

that mindset and I and I want my

1:01:28

friends to get out of that mindset too, because I have a lot

1:01:30

of friends who also have a similar feeling.

1:01:33

I mean, I think anybody who has

1:01:35

ambition has imposter syndrome,

1:01:38

especially women. Oh yes,

1:01:40

I'm right there with you, and it's interesting.

1:01:43

Some friends and I. I don't know if this is helpful, but

1:01:45

we just had this conversation that can you imagine

1:01:48

if you spoke to one

1:01:50

of your best friends or or your

1:01:52

boyfriend the way you talk

1:01:55

to yourself. If your boyfriend

1:01:57

looked at you and was like, hey, Michelle,

1:01:59

I love you, and you were like, yeah, but you only say that because

1:02:01

you have to, he'd be like, the funk is wrong with you?

1:02:03

You know, like like if we

1:02:06

spoke to the people who we love

1:02:08

and value in the way that we talk to ourselves,

1:02:10

they would just be like, are you okay? And

1:02:14

and when you think about saying what you say to yourself

1:02:16

to someone else who you trust, you realize it's

1:02:18

an insane thing to say yes. And

1:02:21

that when my imposter syndrome is really

1:02:23

firing. You gave me some exercises.

1:02:25

This is the exercise I've been doing where I

1:02:27

literally imagine saying everything I'm

1:02:29

thinking to my best friend and the like smack

1:02:32

on the back side of the head she would give me if

1:02:35

I ever did that. Seriously, I love that. I'm going to

1:02:37

use that from now on with myself because

1:02:39

it's the worst we can be our

1:02:41

own worst enemies. So awful how

1:02:43

we talked to literally, I think about like saying

1:02:45

things to Nia and her just going no, no,

1:02:49

sit down, and I'll be like, okay in trouble.

1:02:51

Well, this is also the part of learning to our

1:02:54

mother ourselves, going back to that, right, like imposter

1:02:56

syndrome, like getting over that that

1:02:58

idea is part of being good to yourself

1:03:02

and nurturing yourself. So I

1:03:04

think I I at the same time,

1:03:07

I think that you know, it's

1:03:09

okay to be like questioning

1:03:12

where you are at and what you

1:03:14

can do to make yourself better. That's something that's

1:03:16

different though than imposter syndrome of

1:03:18

the idea of like I don't belong here,

1:03:22

And when you think about how much energy we probably

1:03:24

waste worrying that we're not supposed to be

1:03:26

somewhere where we've been expressly invited,

1:03:29

it's so crazy. It's the worst. So

1:03:32

I'm I'm trying to get over that, and I

1:03:34

think that will be something that I work

1:03:36

on for a long time, because

1:03:39

are again, I think our society

1:03:41

kind of encourages women to think

1:03:43

this way, and we have to actively work against

1:03:46

that encouragement. Absolutely,

1:03:48

even you know, I've I've heard several editors

1:03:51

from magazines or publishers

1:03:54

tell me how you know, whenever

1:03:56

they give encouraging rejections

1:04:00

to people, without

1:04:02

a doubt, they'll never hear from a woman again, but

1:04:04

a man will send them like a bunch of new

1:04:06

ideas. So again,

1:04:10

it's about like getting

1:04:13

over this idea that we're not enough. My friend Jen

1:04:15

passed alof who's another great person you could have

1:04:17

on this podcast. By the way, She's amazing. She's based

1:04:19

in l A. And she wrote a book that Elizabeth

1:04:22

Gilbert like, raved about it on Instagram

1:04:24

and Cheryl Strae blurbed at Pink, blurbed

1:04:26

at patent oswal a bunch of people. So Jen

1:04:28

used to work in a famous restaurant

1:04:31

in Hollywood called the Newsroom

1:04:33

or in l A. I'm sorry, yeah, and so

1:04:36

um. Her book is about

1:04:38

She's she's one of the most inspiring people I know. She

1:04:41

is partially deaf, but she's one of

1:04:43

the best listeners I've ever met. She

1:04:46

leads these incredible manifestation

1:04:48

workshops around the world. I mean,

1:04:50

we have to go, yeah, you do. They

1:04:53

They are life changing. You will not leave that

1:04:55

room without crying. And she talks

1:04:57

about all kinds of stuff like the bullshit stories

1:05:00

we tell ourselves. And I think about that a lot,

1:05:02

and that ties into the imposter syndrome. And

1:05:04

the you are enough is one of her other phrases.

1:05:06

I love that, And so that

1:05:08

book on Being Human is a

1:05:10

dear treasured book to me because so much

1:05:12

of what Jen says in there speaks to this

1:05:15

idea of questioning ourselves

1:05:17

and thinking we're not good enough, and

1:05:20

actually, you know we we

1:05:23

we are good enough, right, We just have

1:05:25

to allow ourselves to feel

1:05:27

that way. Yeah, and we have down the anxiety

1:05:29

backpack and we're good enough. Flaws and all.

1:05:32

That's the thing that she really encourages. And

1:05:34

I love that because we are all

1:05:36

flawed. There's no person who is

1:05:38

not, not a single

1:05:40

one. Yeah, exactly. So awesome.

1:05:44

Thank you so much, of course. Thank you for

1:05:46

coming and sharing and for writing your beautiful

1:05:49

book. I think everyone in my life is

1:05:51

like, we get it, the essay book, We get it. Stop talking

1:05:53

about it. But I just I feel like a broken

1:05:55

record. I keep coming back to it. It's so

1:05:58

special. Thank you, Really,

1:06:00

this conversation has been wonderful. This

1:06:06

show is executive produced by Me, Sophia

1:06:09

Bush, and sim Sarna. Our

1:06:11

supervising producer is Alison Bresnick,

1:06:13

Our associate producer is Kate Linley. Our

1:06:16

editor is Josh Wendish, and our

1:06:18

music was written by Jack Garrett and produced

1:06:21

by Mark Foster. This show is

1:06:23

brought to you by Clarion. Anatomy asked