Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Christy Gas live from the compound.
Speaker 1: Shall we spin the wheel my friends? Oh that's tricky.
Speaker 1: It's landed half on the pals, which of course refers
Speaker 1: to people who are my actual friends and the music makers,
Speaker 1: and that can only mean one thing. The luminous Claire Boat,
Speaker 1: which is an award winning musician, author and actress. But
Speaker 1: I like to refer to her as a gold standard
Speaker 1: see the listener Encourager and cupboard Wiper. I'm just so
Speaker 1: thrilled that she is here because I love her. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Christy Cast Claire Boat, which, well, gosh.
Speaker 2: It's a thrill to be here. Finally, what do you mean,
Speaker 2: cupboard Wiper? Is that just a way of describing that
Speaker 2: I love you?
Speaker 1: Yes, you came over to my house recently because I
Speaker 1: had made for the express reason and it was clear.
Speaker 1: I'd made it very clear what you were coming over.
Speaker 1: Apart from that I needed to see you. I'd made
Speaker 1: pumpkin SCons from my grandmother's recipe, and there was no
Speaker 1: there was one person that popped into my head that
Speaker 1: would enjoy them with me, and it was you. You
Speaker 1: came over and we ate the pumpkin SCons. Eventually, and
Speaker 1: then we talked and talked and talked. And the whole
Speaker 1: time you were cleaning my you were washing down.
Speaker 2: The front of my cupboard. It's quite It actually sounds
Speaker 2: quite rude when you say that, but as a Dutch woman,
Speaker 2: this is just so normal to me. My mother and
Speaker 2: I we always stood and talked and we did little
Speaker 2: bits and pieces. And you know, it was my fault.
Speaker 2: There was pumpkin scon on the front of the cupboard
Speaker 2: because you showed me an incredible recipe. I never considered,
Speaker 2: really considered, no, well it's a Queensland thing. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I loved watching you clean my cupboards and I thought, ah,
Speaker 1: that's another reason I think that we love each is
Speaker 1: you might be like me in that you can't think
Speaker 1: unless you're doing something. So I have learned that about
Speaker 1: myself that I can't come up with anything unless I'm
Speaker 1: doing something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I do really like to be a sort of
Speaker 2: I find my body likes to move and do. But
Speaker 2: this could also just be the fact that I am
Speaker 2: a mum of three and we run a small business
Speaker 2: and there's always been a lot to do. But if
Speaker 2: I really reflect back on childhood, I was always a
Speaker 2: bit of a busy person. I thought, what a wonderful world,
Speaker 2: let's get into it. There was always something to do. Yes,
Speaker 2: what sort of child were you? I was brought up
Speaker 2: the youngest of five. Oh gosh, I get emotional thinking
Speaker 2: about it enough, because you got a croak in my throat. Now.
Speaker 2: I was the youngest of five. We were all born
Speaker 2: eighteen months apart, and I was really lucky. I'm often asked,
Speaker 2: did you come from a creative family, and on a
Speaker 2: traditional judgment, perhaps no. My mum was a nurse, my
Speaker 2: dad worked in the law. But my parents were deeply
Speaker 2: loving and very creative people, and so I remember my
Speaker 2: childhood is actually a place of great fun. You know.
Speaker 2: Mum was a kind of woman who should give you
Speaker 2: a can of paint and say, go on, off, you
Speaker 2: go paint the wall. Oh we had lots of Brussels
Speaker 2: sprout fights or you know, and so on. But it
Speaker 2: was also really difficult.
Speaker 1: How that Why was it difficult?
Speaker 2: Because my sister died Rowie. Yeah, so she was two
Speaker 2: years older than me when she died. When I thought
Speaker 2: we'd just get into it when she I was five
Speaker 2: and she was seven, and my parents very fortunately had
Speaker 2: very strong faith, so they stayed together, held the family together.
Speaker 2: But ROWI had been sick for a long time and
Speaker 2: we really missed it, and I think that made me
Speaker 2: and my siblings really close. But that's the truth of it.
Speaker 2: That was part of the waters that we grew up in.
Speaker 1: When something catastrophic like that happens to a small child,
Speaker 1: how important is talking about it.
Speaker 2: I don't know as a child that it was terrifically
Speaker 2: important to talk about it, But as an adult and
Speaker 2: someone who then became a parent myself, it's been really
Speaker 2: important because she's in the room with me and with
Speaker 2: us always, so to not talk about her, you know,
Speaker 2: in beloved company, or to pretend that she wasn't there
Speaker 2: is just not possible for me. Her photos were always
Speaker 2: all over the house. We always spoke of her, and
Speaker 2: we still do. You know, she was absolutely glorious And.
Speaker 1: Who did she look like? Funny if I've seen your
Speaker 1: siblings and you're all and I've seen your parents, and
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with genetics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know when you're a kid and you have
Speaker 2: like Holly Hobby pillow cases or so on. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: So in my childhood mind, she always looked like Holli hobby.
Speaker 2: You know, it's so funny. So she sort of if
Speaker 2: I look back at the photos, now I see my mom,
Speaker 2: I see my dad, I see my brother, I see
Speaker 2: my sisters. But she really was her own unit, you know,
Speaker 2: And she was kind of born that way. She was
Speaker 2: super bright, super husky, super bossy and super kind. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but a really smart kid. And you know, I think
Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of who we are as
Speaker 2: a child remains who we are as adults. I find
Speaker 2: that more and more as I sort of head into this.
Speaker 2: I'm almost fifty now, Swanny, and you gonna have fiftieth
Speaker 2: if you'll come, my will, but I've come. I'll organize
Speaker 2: it for here. Okay, done, I'm.
Speaker 1: Good at that.
Speaker 2: Should we go back to Europe like you did last time?
Speaker 2: Oh my god? What though? I've heard you say this
Speaker 2: that we you know, every decade we feel like we're done.
Speaker 2: So at thirty we might feel like we're done, At
Speaker 2: forty we might feel like we've done, and over at
Speaker 2: fifty we feel like we're done. And that the friendship
Speaker 2: that we have always reminds me to not fall to
Speaker 2: that story, like who is it who you said yes to?
Speaker 2: Big Brother? Twenty one years ago on a crazy whim,
Speaker 2: a crazy whim, and it changed my life. I think. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So as we move into fifty, we keep saying yes,
Speaker 2: and we bring the ones we love.
Speaker 1: You say yes, and you know what I can, I
Speaker 1: can sort of, you know, attribute that element of my
Speaker 1: like sort of life vibe to my dad, Can you yes?
Speaker 1: Because I remember I think he turned It was on
Speaker 1: his seventieth birthday or something, and I said to him,
Speaker 1: what can you tell me? You're so far down the trap?
Speaker 1: What can you tell me that you know?
Speaker 2: For sure? What a sweet daughter that you would ask
Speaker 2: that question? Good for you?
Speaker 1: Well he really thought about it too, which I appreciated,
Speaker 1: and he said, I reckon. The most important thing I've
Speaker 1: learned is that if you ever hear yourself saying to yourself, oh,
Speaker 1: you're too old for that.
Speaker 2: You're not what great advice?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that has because we do say things. We
Speaker 1: do say that to ourselves. Absolutely are not you're too
Speaker 1: old for that, you can't do that. That that horse
Speaker 1: has bolted, That horse has never bolted.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more. I had this through recently of
Speaker 2: making this new work. It's about everyday creativity.
Speaker 1: Yes, we are going to get onto that. It's an
Speaker 1: audible course, audible original.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what it gave me was an opportunity to
Speaker 2: speak to my friends and my brain's trust in a
Speaker 2: really different way. Yeah. Do you ask really direct questions
Speaker 2: like do you consider yourself creative? If not, why not?
Speaker 2: What dreams do you still have left that you'd love
Speaker 2: to do if only you could or gave yourself permission?
Speaker 1: Okay, let's backtrack for a second. I want to give
Speaker 1: a proper plug to this audible original.
Speaker 2: You're the first person I've spoken to it. I know.
Speaker 2: Give me if I'm clumsy.
Speaker 1: I know because it's only he is making it.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: It's only been available since the first of December. Go
Speaker 1: get it. If you think it's for you, it is
Speaker 1: for you. Like as my dad says, if you're saying
Speaker 1: to yourself, oh no, that's not for them, I can't
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: You can. I would find your creative courage, and it
Speaker 2: is if you want it, It's there for you.
Speaker 1: And creativity is when I think of creativity, I think
Speaker 1: of you you've become I'm like a champion for the cause,
Speaker 1: and I think to use creative as an adjective about
Speaker 1: yourself sometimes feels and I don't know if it's an
Speaker 1: Australian thing, feels up yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really really common misconception. We think it's
Speaker 2: for special people who do special things through special gifts.
Speaker 2: We failed to realize that we taught ourselves to walk,
Speaker 2: to talk, to think through this act of creativity, bringing
Speaker 2: two or more things together, smushing them and then creating
Speaker 2: something new. That's what you did with your grandmother's scones, Like,
Speaker 2: if you think about it, sure, we're just making SCons
Speaker 2: in the every day, but you're bringing in a memory
Speaker 2: and love and you're sharing that with me. That's in
Speaker 2: itself a worthy creative act. And the more of them
Speaker 2: we can get into our lives are more meaningful.
Speaker 1: It is what happens to us as children, growing up
Speaker 1: and learning how to survive, that creativity becomes not important.
Speaker 2: It's sometimes more that we are shamed into playing small
Speaker 2: because of our adaptive responses. So we are pack animals.
Speaker 2: I'm someone who has researched this quite deeply because I've
Speaker 2: always sung. We sung normally naturally in our family. No
Speaker 2: one was a professional singer, but we sang harmony. My
Speaker 2: mom was from Holland you know, around the sink and
Speaker 2: at church and all the rest of it, and at
Speaker 2: birth days. You know, someone always threw on a harmony.
Speaker 2: It wasn't beaten out of me. But as an adult
Speaker 2: who worked in music, I would so often meet strangers
Speaker 2: after shows who would talk to me about their relationship
Speaker 2: with their voice. They say, I can't sing. And I
Speaker 2: always found this curious because my training is that if
Speaker 2: you can speak, you can sing.
Speaker 1: You can speak, you can sing, that's my man truck correct.
Speaker 2: And I can't run like you know, you say bolt,
Speaker 2: but I can run. You know, there's within our own
Speaker 2: capacity we can all engage in this act. So I
Speaker 2: got curious, and I found a lot of people had
Speaker 2: And this is just one particular story, but it's typical
Speaker 2: of what happens. They shared their voice at a certain stage,
Speaker 2: perhaps they were four, five, six seven, and they were
Speaker 2: shamed in some way, told to stand at the back,
Speaker 2: why don't you mind, you know, be quiet? Oh my god,
Speaker 2: who's that?
Speaker 1: And or they shamed themselves. We're like, oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: as good as it. I don't sound like Tina Arena.
Speaker 1: That means I can't do it.
Speaker 2: God blessed, none of us sound like Tina Arena. No,
Speaker 2: she's she was a Reek. She was the one who
Speaker 2: was in James and she made the song out of it,
Speaker 2: you know, like she was the one who was Sorrento mooning.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can't be Tina, but that's a really
Speaker 2: great point. So to find our own unique longing and
Speaker 2: to have the courage to attempt that in our own
Speaker 2: everyday lives. What I say is it's fair enough. You
Speaker 2: feel vulnerable. We pack animals. We don't want to stand
Speaker 2: out from the crowd necessarily in a way that will
Speaker 2: bring us, you know, vulnerability in an unsafe place.
Speaker 1: Potential ridicule. It's like, oh god, correct, I'm two steps
Speaker 1: ahead here.
Speaker 2: I'm going to sing.
Speaker 1: It's going to sound average, and people are going to
Speaker 1: think I'm shitty idiot.
Speaker 2: Exactly, So you do it a shittiot. That's brilliant. Did
Speaker 2: you make that out? I just see active creative. That's
Speaker 2: a portamentteau you just made there. That's got a name.
Speaker 2: But this is about trying it in your home where
Speaker 2: it is safe, and having a play with the notion
Speaker 2: that maybe you two are creative, maybe you two can
Speaker 2: can benefit from Really there's extraordinary health benefits related to creativity,
Speaker 2: and it's all you know. The research is there.
Speaker 1: Now tell us what they are well.
Speaker 2: For example, cognitive decline in elderly people, it's so often
Speaker 2: like my father had dementia, it was so hard to
Speaker 2: know how to connect back with him. But anyone who's
Speaker 2: ever been on TikTok YouTube or knows this from themselves.
Speaker 2: If I put on a song that was familiar to
Speaker 2: him to his childhood, all of a sudden he could sing,
Speaker 2: he could speak. And if you put a if you
Speaker 2: put a a if you basically scan are scanning someone,
Speaker 2: If you're brain scanning someone while they're singing at that
Speaker 2: stage of decline, you see some really interesting things in
Speaker 2: the brain. So it's one of you know, in therapeutic
Speaker 2: settings that can be really useful. We know an end
Speaker 2: of life care, it's useful. We know that even when
Speaker 2: people are recovering from any sort of major trauma or
Speaker 2: change in their life, creativity can help us need it
Speaker 2: back together. Even knitting itself is there's a I think
Speaker 2: it was a UCLA study around the health benefits of knitting.
Speaker 2: Don't quote me, because I've spent two years researching this.
Speaker 2: All the things we intuitively know about. Oh I enjoy
Speaker 2: doing that and I feel good, and then we tell
Speaker 2: ourselves it's too small. I say, do it anyway, because
Speaker 2: you are doing yourself a real service.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love to sing. It's not about how it sounds.
Speaker 1: It's about how it makes me feel.
Speaker 2: It's amazing, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I can thank thank you for that because
Speaker 1: you've always been very like sings, wanty sing. So on
Speaker 1: the back of that encouragement, I have a microphone at
Speaker 1: home set up ready to go, and I'll just grab
Speaker 1: it and it feels like a Whenever I do grab
Speaker 1: it feels like such an event and such a treat
Speaker 1: just for me. It feels like a treat.
Speaker 2: These things are like companions and friends in our lives,
Speaker 2: and they're there for us in our hardest times as
Speaker 2: well as our most playful times. Every single time you
Speaker 2: do a show and think a new thought, that too,
Speaker 2: is an act of creativity. And there are people who say, look,
Speaker 2: I mean the way I made this was in conjunction
Speaker 2: with the brain's trust. So a crew of about one
Speaker 2: hundred people who over the years i'd you know, spoken
Speaker 2: to about creativity or we'd worked on some stuff together.
Speaker 2: Or they come to the workshops and so on. The
Speaker 2: point is that each of us have these different propensities.
Speaker 2: You have voice, I have voice. We have these different longings.
Speaker 2: But it's not even just about those you know, traditionally
Speaker 2: artistic things. It's really about bringing in newness and novelty
Speaker 2: and new thought, which can bring hope. So anytime you
Speaker 2: think hmm, instead of oh god, it's over for me,
Speaker 2: I'm fifty, what if you if you throw in this
Speaker 2: little thing got a question there, and ask what if
Speaker 2: it's not? What if it's not what if that's not true?
Speaker 1: What if I can actually use all the amazing experiences
Speaker 1: and lessons and time I've spent getting to know myself
Speaker 1: up till now, Yeah, to do more things.
Speaker 2: Well, you are a classic example of that. You call
Speaker 2: it your midlife crisis. But really again, you know you
Speaker 2: recommend it to everyun Why.
Speaker 1: I really do, because once you have it, I mean
Speaker 1: midlife crisis. I just don't know why we have to
Speaker 1: make everything so negative, you know what I mean? It's
Speaker 1: like it's an awakening and an ownership and a like
Speaker 1: falling in love with yourself properly where you are because
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 2: Correct and because of our negativity negativity bias, which is
Speaker 2: just part of our evolutionary inheritance. It's part of what
Speaker 2: keeps us safe. We need examples of people who are
Speaker 2: still making brave choices and surviving them, only surviving them,
Speaker 2: but thriving them. So I remember one summer a couple
Speaker 2: of years back, when you would have said maybe you
Speaker 2: were in that period of time. I was having a
Speaker 2: real lull. You know, I was missing my mom, she'd
Speaker 2: passed away during COVID, and I didn't really want to
Speaker 2: I couldn't really play the game, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 2: be around people that I had to tap dance for
Speaker 2: or pretend I wasn't feeling what I was feeling. And yeah,
Speaker 2: you're someone who I can be very honest with. And
Speaker 2: you showed up and it was kind of like you brought,
Speaker 2: you know, some treat but what you brought was yourself
Speaker 2: in this stage of exploration. You've been walking, you've been
Speaker 2: finding treasures, and it lit a little spark in me.
Speaker 2: It was one of the things that helped me start
Speaker 2: turning around. The story that you know that we all
Speaker 2: get when we are missing someone or angrieful when there's
Speaker 2: been too much change, which is that, Gosh, what's the point?
Speaker 2: You know? What are we doing? All the rest of it?
Speaker 2: Often we don't know, and the way we find out
Speaker 2: is to get walking, get into action, do something new.
Speaker 2: See how we feel. That's what I want to encourage
Speaker 2: people to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is that when you started your sour dough journey?
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's like having a newborn baby.
Speaker 2: So some context here. We had a conversation last week
Speaker 2: that picked up on, Yes, what was one of the
Speaker 2: grand obsessions of that deep dark ride, the Lockdown. I
Speaker 2: loved it, don't get me wrong, and it was a
Speaker 2: friend to us. Sour dough. I mean in the we
Speaker 2: have actually a scene with sour dough in this audible
Speaker 2: original where the sour dough is still calling from the fridge.
Speaker 2: I'm still higher, I'm sleeping. You can wake me up
Speaker 2: at any point once you what to do with me,
Speaker 2: That's right. So we considered, you know, is it time
Speaker 2: to revive it now? I lived in fitzro North at
Speaker 2: the time, and there was, in fact, this is twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: a deep desire to make our own bread and a
Speaker 2: deep shortage of sour dough. Starter. I mean, it had
Speaker 2: been spread through thin throughout the neighborhood, and I had
Speaker 2: the good fortune of coming across a rest buy Sylvia Coloqua,
Speaker 2: Oh Sylvia, who reminded in her book she said, you
Speaker 2: can start your own, you know, you just need sultanas
Speaker 2: and some water.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, what a sourdough starter's rare as hen's teeth.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's wonderful to get that inherited one from
Speaker 2: Red Beard Baker as a friend of mine. Steve has
Speaker 2: spoiled me with that deeper strain. I have to get
Speaker 2: that for you. I have to get that from him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got some for you. But it does make a
Speaker 2: bit of an ask. You know, there are sort of
Speaker 2: you can just start with a yeasty bread and it
Speaker 2: doesn't ask you to feed it each day. Sourdough does
Speaker 2: ask you to feed it each day or else put
Speaker 2: it in the fridge and remember that it's there. So
Speaker 2: I understand your hesitation. I think it's interesting. Sourdough as
Speaker 2: a gives a lot an element. Yeah, yeah, tell me more.
Speaker 1: I was like, why am I doing this? Because like,
Speaker 1: why am I actually doing it? Because Philippers, for example,
Speaker 1: Wonderful Bakery or aa A Bakery. Oh yes, there was
Speaker 1: no shortage of bread, right, I could get bread even
Speaker 1: in lockdown. So I was like, why am I doing this?
Speaker 1: And I think, for me, and tell me if you
Speaker 1: think this is mad, I'm curious. Likely it is doubt
Speaker 1: it because we saw so few people. Yes, and I
Speaker 1: get a lot personally from caring for other people and
Speaker 1: showing that care. I get that I do that for myself. Really,
Speaker 1: I think I got obsessed with sourdough because I wanted
Speaker 1: something new to look after.
Speaker 2: I understand, and you won't be surprised. Really when you
Speaker 2: think about it. That is the perfect and a very
Speaker 2: natural and normal response in a time where everything was
Speaker 2: out of control and we actually needed small friends with
Speaker 2: I mean sour dough. It is alive that you know,
Speaker 2: it is a it is a fermented good. Anything can happen.
Speaker 2: So you had a random creative adventure. Anything could have
Speaker 2: happened with the sour dough. It seemed really small and
Speaker 2: silly in conversation. But a friend and neighbor of mine,
Speaker 2: Sharon Flynn, who has an organization a company now called
Speaker 2: the Fermentary, and they make my favorite bubbly drinks. So
Speaker 2: I came. You know, I really enjoyed this sauer Kraut
Speaker 2: and so on. Yeah, she made But then you know,
Speaker 2: she ended up being a neighbor and I got to
Speaker 2: have a really great chat with her, and she's written
Speaker 2: some beautiful books. She came to her what she calls
Speaker 2: really a deep and profound relationship with fomenting and with
Speaker 2: the process of it. And it sounds silly, but you know,
Speaker 2: when you meet Sharon, you'll understand like she is fizzing
Speaker 2: with life and liveliness. She came to that at a
Speaker 2: really difficult time when she was in transition, was in
Speaker 2: a foreign country. She really didn't she was caring for
Speaker 2: her children and she really needed company. And seriously, it
Speaker 2: was like having you know, a company there really and
Speaker 2: that makes.
Speaker 1: Me feel better about my inkling that it wasn't about
Speaker 1: the bread.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily, and it is. There are actually, again all
Speaker 2: these health benefits that are really clear when it comes
Speaker 2: to gut health. And so there's something instinctive as well.
Speaker 2: You wanted to do something good, something you could control
Speaker 2: in a way, something that was collaborative and somewhere to be.
Speaker 1: I had alarms to feed and it was like a
Speaker 1: real lifetime gotch.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Your book, Go on because I find that, like, when
Speaker 1: was it released twenty nineteen, that's five years ago. And
Speaker 1: the annoying thing with books is the people that you
Speaker 1: know are going to read it. I haven't read it,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? I think we need
Speaker 1: to talk about books more because they're permanent. They're in
Speaker 1: the world, but a big song and dance is made
Speaker 1: when they're released, and then no.
Speaker 2: One ever talks about it.
Speaker 1: But the important thing is still there. Yes, I loved
Speaker 1: your book so much that there are a few things.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's called Your Own kind of Girl,
Speaker 1: Thanks Monny, and it's still available. If you haven't read it,
Speaker 1: you must, like you absolutely must. Very rarely I will
Speaker 1: start consuming someone else's creativity, whether it's a book or
Speaker 1: a movie or whatever series, and when I know that
Speaker 1: it is matching my soul, I get so greedy about it,
Speaker 1: and then I have to recalibrate my consumption of that
Speaker 1: because it happens so rarely that I don't want to
Speaker 1: be greedy. I want it to last longer. And I
Speaker 1: was a sort of kid that, you know, Easter Sunday,
Speaker 1: I'd get my Easter eggs. They would be gone by Sunday, lunchtime,
Speaker 1: you know, go to the show, get my requisite two showbacks.
Speaker 1: They'd be gone by the time the train pulled in afterwards.
Speaker 2: I never understood how anyone could do anything else.
Speaker 1: Though, But then I missed it the next outwakeup, and
Speaker 1: I what I wouldn't give that raspberry sunny Boy that
Speaker 1: I didn't really appreciate because it was coming in after
Speaker 1: two packets of sandboard chips. So now I actively control
Speaker 1: my consumption of things that make me feel good because
Speaker 1: I wanted to last longer. Discipline, I know. And with
Speaker 1: your book, after the first chapter, I went right, okay,
Speaker 1: don't lose your mind, just wanting did you really yes?
Speaker 2: And you know me quite well. Yes, we're surprised. Did
Speaker 2: you did you feel yourself in the Yes?
Speaker 1: I felt myself in it. And the way that you
Speaker 1: write is so like you are. Oh, I just never
Speaker 1: wanted it to end lovely.
Speaker 2: Please buy the book, you know, I've got it. Are
Speaker 2: you writing another book? Yeah? And I've this sometimes happens.
Speaker 2: I'm a little like, I'm a little lush and in
Speaker 2: some ways too when I hit on like find your
Speaker 2: creative courage, transform your life using everyday creativity. It was
Speaker 2: just this sort of funny little title, sweet little title,
Speaker 2: I'll do something useful. It was three years ago when
Speaker 2: I fished it to Audible off the back of doing
Speaker 2: an audiobook with them, audiobook of that book that we mentioned.
Speaker 2: And my mom is one of the characters in the audiobook,
Speaker 2: meaning she does a swear swear warning and she shares
Speaker 2: her apple tart recipe. But I thought it would be
Speaker 2: a small project that I know the content so well.
Speaker 2: I have this conversation with so many people about hey,
Speaker 2: have you considered maybe you are creative? Why don't you
Speaker 2: try this out? And how's this for a random creative adventure?
Speaker 2: Just you know, it took me down the most interesting
Speaker 2: and profoundly fascinating rabbit hole and connection with strangers and
Speaker 2: conversations and delight and really trying to find a good
Speaker 2: argument for what I believe is the most sustainable, renewable, underrated, squandered,
Speaker 2: ever available affordable power that each of us have within us,
Speaker 2: which is this power of a new thought of creativity.
Speaker 2: That it overwhelmed the book that I was going to write,
Speaker 2: I overwrote. And I tell you where, so, you asked,
Speaker 2: am I writing another book? Yeah? I've written a number
Speaker 2: of books since twenty nineteen's release, I am a little
Speaker 2: overwhelmed by which story to tell next, Which is the
Speaker 2: most useful, which is the most present, And this is
Speaker 2: a really classic conundrum, and I think the trick is
Speaker 2: to just get it out there, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: What are the stories that we are going to get
Speaker 1: from Claire.
Speaker 2: The books that I wrote during this time, and it
Speaker 2: was really again just out of twenty twenty was about
Speaker 2: small l acts of pleasure for all kinds of weather,
Speaker 2: and this was in a way I kind of make
Speaker 2: him do book that told stories, and it was about
Speaker 2: how we can survive difficult things sometimes by bringing in
Speaker 2: a sense of play. So it was in line with
Speaker 2: the work that I'm doing now with Audible. But a
Speaker 2: part of me then had to grieve my mother and
Speaker 2: grieve changes in life and grieve look just learn to
Speaker 2: live used to it. Yeah, it's new ways to live
Speaker 2: well without you know, these things that were so familiar
Speaker 2: in our lives and we've changed. So that became then
Speaker 2: a really big story to this story of how do
Speaker 2: we live well? And for me that was around many
Speaker 2: many things. But there's another part that people just want
Speaker 2: me to tell the next part of the memoir. I
Speaker 2: only really wrote the first memoir up until the point
Speaker 2: of having my first daughter, Asher, and that's something I
Speaker 2: wanted to write too. So I think maybe we need
Speaker 2: to just put it. Like I know, we all have
Speaker 2: our own sort of you know, trip wise or rabbit
Speaker 2: holes that we fall down, and I've fallen down one
Speaker 2: and I actually need a bloody good talking too. Actually
Speaker 2: really yeah, And I think if I were going to
Speaker 2: draw me in a champion, think of yourself, think of
Speaker 2: our mates. Maybe Catherine Debonie, who's a wonderful encourager of writers,
Speaker 2: share a work workshops called Gunners. You know, I'm going
Speaker 2: to write and so on.
Speaker 1: But I just ordered the cards I've got has made
Speaker 1: these beautiful, you know, prompt cards.
Speaker 2: So my problem is I've written far, far, far too
Speaker 2: much and I need someone well, I need to tell
Speaker 2: myself to just put something out there.
Speaker 1: So I can see fun I can see a funnel
Speaker 1: and there's all these ideas and that it's it's blocked.
Speaker 1: The idea there, what do you want.
Speaker 2: To use twenty through? Oh, I put it on the spot.
Speaker 2: I want to hear all of this. So it's it's
Speaker 2: really frustrating when the very thing we know we should do,
Speaker 2: and I would advise another mate to do, which is
Speaker 2: just start with one yes, sah. I've got to this
Speaker 2: sort of crossroads with myself over it. But really I
Speaker 2: think I wanted to end twenty twenty five back out
Speaker 2: in the world. I've had a good sabbatical with making.
Speaker 1: You know that that's that's a year down the track. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at the end of a twenty five. That's what I
Speaker 1: was just checking cheing.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't mean that. I meant twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you got here's the truth. Oh MYX, this
Speaker 2: is a probably gone now. So last ten years, you know,
Speaker 2: I've been raising guinea pigs and children and doing other projects.
Speaker 2: And my boys are six foot seven and they've just
Speaker 2: finished year twelve. My daughter's twenty one. I think you'll
Speaker 2: hear more from me next year, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I think I will. And you've got to meet yourself
Speaker 1: where you are every single day, and you've got to
Speaker 1: accept that you don't know what that's going to be today,
Speaker 1: So you've got to be flexible.
Speaker 2: Are you giving me in verse now? Because I'm actually
Speaker 2: I'm listening because I was still wearing my mind. You
Speaker 2: got my full attention. Let's talk about this theoretically. So
Speaker 2: I'm someone who you know has lots of ideas, But
Speaker 2: am I not showing enough creative courage myself with these ideas?
Speaker 2: Like what would you advise? No, you've got too many.
Speaker 2: I'm just overwhelmed them. Yeah, there's a traffic jam. I
Speaker 2: really love making work that is useful. I so admire
Speaker 2: people who are ambitious about fame in their career and
Speaker 2: so on, you know, within good reason. But I'm not
Speaker 2: really that. I don't think there's terrifically much value in
Speaker 2: fame or being known or sharing things of the world
Speaker 2: if they're not useful to someone, if they're not giving something.
Speaker 1: Back, if it's not helpful. I agree in the loop.
Speaker 1: So with your Audible series, we'll finish on this. Thanks
Speaker 1: bab go to Audible and get it. I think it's
Speaker 1: just free if you remember amazing. I'm going to suggest
Speaker 1: I would like a workbook to go with it, beautiful,
Speaker 1: because I achieve different things when I consume media in
Speaker 1: different ways. The listening is one thing, writing is another,
Speaker 1: and seeing is another. So if you could just even
Speaker 1: if you just organize a workbook just for me, written
Speaker 1: that accompanies. Yeah, that's the next thing.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I'll look forward to getting it and talking to you
Speaker 1: again about that once it's released.
Speaker 2: I can not tell you how much I appreciate being
Speaker 2: and guests on this crissy task business. Please come back.
Speaker 2: There is so much more to discuss. Claire bot Edge,
Speaker 2: I love you. Thanks for having friends.