Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Well, shit, here we are, hey,
Speaker 2: and how many of us are exactly where we thought
Speaker 2: we'd be at the midway mark. Those lists we made,
Speaker 2: the ones of the things we wanted. By twenty thirty forty,
Speaker 2: we don't even know them because we're here in the
Speaker 2: middle of our lives, with more, with less, with everything different.
Speaker 2: When I was twenty, I wanted to live in New
Speaker 2: York City. I imagined a life of shoulder pads and
Speaker 2: magazine meetings in gleaming skyscrapers, of rightily brown stones with stoops,
Speaker 2: cocktail parties and dive bars. Do you know where I live?
Speaker 2: I live in a tiny town by the sea on
Speaker 2: the opposite side of the world. It has one pub
Speaker 2: and a bowling club, a butcher, a baker, and something
Speaker 2: called a bottle o that twenty year old me would
Speaker 2: have happily frequented despite not knowing what the hell was.
Speaker 2: Would my twenty year old self be disappointed, Well, she'd
Speaker 2: be confused because she thought she knew who we were
Speaker 2: and that we panicked when the pavement ran out.
Speaker 1: We didn't drive.
Speaker 2: We like the energy of crowds and endless choice and
Speaker 2: people everywhere. And she was right, But we changed. We're
Speaker 2: allowed to do that, my mid friends. Change our minds,
Speaker 2: our opinions, our lives, make a choice, fuck it up,
Speaker 2: make another one, take a turn, go oh wrong way,
Speaker 2: go back, make another one. Find ourselves somewhere we don't
Speaker 2: want to be, find ourselves doing things we don't want
Speaker 2: to do, Find ourselves with someone we really shouldn't be with.
Speaker 2: Surprise ourselves with the strength we have inside us. To
Speaker 2: pull ourselves out of relationships that don't fit us, jobs
Speaker 2: that don't value us, friendships that only take make mistakes
Speaker 2: and apologize for them, Learn something we didn't know, Try
Speaker 2: something we've never tried. Return to a passion we'd talked
Speaker 2: ourselves out of. Leave something behind that's making us sick.
Speaker 3: We're allowed to.
Speaker 1: Do all of that.
Speaker 2: And it's not too late. It's not too late. It
Speaker 2: was just too early before. It was too early when
Speaker 2: we were twenty to truly know what it was we wanted.
Speaker 2: It was too early when we were thirty to understand
Speaker 2: what it was we needed. It was too early to settle,
Speaker 2: too early, to choose, too early, to limit to closed doors,
Speaker 2: too early, to turn our backs on experiences we didn't
Speaker 2: even know that we wanted to have.
Speaker 1: So shit.
Speaker 2: Here we are, at midway and thinking, well, that escalated quickly.
Speaker 2: A lot has happened, some of it joyful, some of
Speaker 2: it boring, some of it devastating, some of it entirely unexpected, blindsiding, shocking.
Speaker 2: But all of that, Bess has woven a life, a great,
Speaker 2: big everything life, and it's not too late or too
Speaker 2: early for us to reset. In fact, it's the perfect time,
Speaker 2: because we're wise enough now to know what's in it
Speaker 2: that matters and how little everything else does. Twenty year
Speaker 2: old me really just wanted adventure and she got it.
Speaker 2: It just didn't look anything like she imagined, and that
Speaker 2: is exactly what mid has taught me. Hello. My name
Speaker 2: is Holly Wainwright, and I am mid midlife, mid family,
Speaker 2: mid identity crisis, and this is our show where we
Speaker 2: unpick all of that. So far in season one, we've
Speaker 2: talked about mental health, dating, alcohol, burnout, bodies, big kids, grief,
Speaker 2: and today we're finishing off our first season with a
Speaker 2: conversation about well, all of it that's not how this
Speaker 2: interview is meant to go, which kind of fits in
Speaker 2: very nicely with that intro about how things are rarely
Speaker 2: how you think they're going to be. It wasn't even
Speaker 2: supposed to be the interview that was going to be
Speaker 2: our final episode. It was meant to be a conversation
Speaker 2: about something very familiar to me many many midwomen divorce,
Speaker 2: and look, it is a conversation about that, but it
Speaker 2: also became one about something much, much bigger, and it
Speaker 2: became clear that it needed to be our first resting point,
Speaker 2: because well, it's everything. Christine r Nu is an Australian icon.
Speaker 2: I can't tell if she'd liked me saying that about
Speaker 2: her or not, because she's certainly a no bullshit kind
Speaker 2: of woman who has no time for me blowing smoke.
Speaker 2: She's a Generation X icon, that's for sure. Christine became
Speaker 2: a huge star here in Australia in the nineties, a
Speaker 2: Torres Strait islander woman whose song my Island Home became
Speaker 2: an anthem, and with it she an enormous star.
Speaker 1: You might be struggling to relate to that.
Speaker 2: We might never have met me in you, but it's
Speaker 2: possible you've never performed on a musical theater stage in
Speaker 2: front of thousands, sung at an Olympic closing ceremony, or
Speaker 2: one swags of shiny awards for the work you do.
Speaker 1: But there will.
Speaker 2: Be something in this wildly honest, raw conversation that brings
Speaker 2: it close you. Maybe you've had days when you couldn't
Speaker 2: get out of bed, when the choices you've made and
Speaker 2: the people you've put your faith in turned to shit,
Speaker 2: and it's not clear how you're going to climb out.
Speaker 2: Maybe you've had to apologize to your kids for the
Speaker 2: mistakes you've made and allowed them to hold you up
Speaker 2: on a difficult day. Maybe you've struggled with addiction. Maybe
Speaker 2: you've wondered where all your friends have gone when the
Speaker 2: shit hits the fan. Maybe you've been told you're too
Speaker 2: old to keep chasing the thing you've always wanted. And
Speaker 2: maybe you've finally decided to stop letting other people tell
Speaker 2: you who you should be and what you're capable of.
Speaker 2: That is what this very mid conversation with the extraordinary, brilliant, honest,
Speaker 2: and supremely talented Christine are.
Speaker 1: Knew is all about. Enjoy it, Christine. This is a podcast.
Speaker 2: For midlife women who feel all powerful and also midlife
Speaker 2: women who are still wondering when it's all going to
Speaker 2: start making sense.
Speaker 3: Where on the.
Speaker 2: Spectrums you reckon you sit in that.
Speaker 1: I sit on the Let me just take bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of what you just said. Hello, by the way,
Speaker 1: it's so lovely to be.
Speaker 3: Here catching up much.
Speaker 1: What's it been like eight years since my last Mamma
Speaker 1: Mia chat? And this would be kind of like a
Speaker 1: pickup from that, wouldn't it. Really, that's true. I've been
Speaker 1: through a lot, and I think I'm at that time
Speaker 1: in my life. Char answer your question is that now
Speaker 1: that everything that's happened and gone before me is all
Speaker 1: starting to fall into place, not necessarily like ducks in
Speaker 1: the road, because that's your future. It's all beginning to
Speaker 1: make sense. And I go, God, I wish I knew
Speaker 1: this when I was, you know, twenty, Yeah, geez, I
Speaker 1: wish I knew this at the beginning of my year.
Speaker 1: But you know that's when you just go, well, wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, there have been great times, there have been
Speaker 1: not so great times, and all of them make up.
Speaker 1: You're the sum of all of that, aren't you. That's
Speaker 1: all of who I am right now? And you just
Speaker 1: take it when you're going through it. It's a cloudy day.
Speaker 1: My mindset has always whenever I do get to those
Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, it's a rut. It's not moving today,
Speaker 1: you know, it's I'm bumping into it like a like
Speaker 1: a getting over a hump that won't I can't get over.
Speaker 1: I always look at a sunny day that I'm going
Speaker 1: to have some day. I imagine it. It's there, it's coming.
Speaker 3: Do you literally do that?
Speaker 1: I literally do that. It's a practice, it's an absolute
Speaker 1: visual practice of mine. And then it becomes just this
Speaker 1: beautiful hum a hum that just a vibration that takes
Speaker 1: over your entire self because you know that you just
Speaker 1: got to get through, just ride it through, because there's
Speaker 1: no way to do it. Can't go over it, can't
Speaker 1: go around, it can't go under it. You got to
Speaker 1: go through it. That is so true.
Speaker 2: That's a really good point. Right, So eight years since
Speaker 2: your last conversation at MoMA Mia and you relatively recently divorced,
Speaker 2: and this amount of time is actually a perfect time
Speaker 2: to look back on, Like when you're in the middle
Speaker 2: of things, you don't know, like you don't know what
Speaker 2: is this? Teach me how am I what's going to
Speaker 2: it's going to turn over next. But with a bit
Speaker 2: of hindsight, as you say, you can kind of go, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm beginning.
Speaker 1: To see that now.
Speaker 2: What would you say to you then, like or a
Speaker 2: woman who's listening to this, who's having one of those
Speaker 2: moments in life that we all have where you're like,
Speaker 2: this isn't how I thought it was going to go.
Speaker 1: Again, always waking up with that positive vibration of like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to get through this. I am going through
Speaker 1: what I'm going through now because Christine at the other
Speaker 1: end of this is what I'm informing. And to do that,
Speaker 1: I have to write these letters right now, these words.
Speaker 1: I've got to build them to get to that person
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be, whatever that is. And looking
Speaker 1: back on that, it's like you never go into a
Speaker 1: partnership marriage thinking that it's that you're going to end
Speaker 1: up not being on the same page together. You don't
Speaker 1: do that, and when it happens, it's not like a
Speaker 1: clean cut of a pie, you know, knife slice, beautifully
Speaker 1: cut down the middle. It's like a cookie, Yeah, break it,
Speaker 1: and it's never perfectly down the middle, and there's bloody
Speaker 1: crumbs everywhere and along and those crumbs are the people
Speaker 1: that are involved in that. You got kids, and in
Speaker 1: my situation, two children with two different fathers, so the
Speaker 1: man that I married wasn't their father, so there was
Speaker 1: a lot of relationship building and that there were relationships
Speaker 1: right there and that were going to be affected with
Speaker 1: the decision to do that. But you have to do it,
Speaker 1: and you have to move on, and you have to
Speaker 1: let them see you be a bumbling mess and allow
Speaker 1: them to be there for you in that way. Oh kids. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also know that you've got to assure them that
Speaker 1: you're they're not your parent, that it's okay that you're
Speaker 1: not having those great days, and that at the other
Speaker 1: end of it, we're all going to celebrate and be happy.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. There were some days where
Speaker 1: they were they be breamy coffee in bed, or they'd
Speaker 1: be seeing how I was and you know, kind of
Speaker 1: taking on that parental role. But then you know that,
Speaker 1: you know, you wake up one day and it's not
Speaker 1: like that anymore, that you have picked up the pieces
Speaker 1: and you've moved on. But gosh, it changes them when
Speaker 1: they see that. Momentarily they're having to take on parental
Speaker 1: responsibilities for themselves.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting because I spoke to a woman recently
Speaker 2: about burnout who said, your children are waiting to take
Speaker 2: care of you, like I don't, not necessarily just when
Speaker 2: you're old, but like in the moments that you need them,
Speaker 2: because you've been giving, giving, giving, and it's okay to
Speaker 2: receive as well. Is your sort of point around that
Speaker 2: is that I think so often women in particular, I'm
Speaker 2: sure maybe men do it too, Like we've got to
Speaker 2: pretend everything's fine, like this hasn't gone according to plan,
Speaker 2: but Mom's fine, Everything's going to be great.
Speaker 3: I'm not sad, I'm fine. Look at me smiling. What
Speaker 3: you're saying is.
Speaker 2: It's like it's actually fine to not be smiling and
Speaker 2: be like, actually, kids, I need you to hold me
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that's absolutely true, And like I find
Speaker 1: I look after my mom now or I am responsible
Speaker 1: for the care and the welfare of my mother. She's
Speaker 1: in a home. We never wanted her to be there,
Speaker 1: but that's where she is. And I really take that
Speaker 1: idea as of being there with my mum in her
Speaker 1: later part of her life as a huge privilege, you know,
Speaker 1: the same way that you give your own children, or
Speaker 1: I gave my children the sense of that privilege to
Speaker 1: take care of me and my emotions. Like the world
Speaker 1: that I've built for you isn't a perfect world. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's not. It's not going to always be
Speaker 1: feel like it's secure. I have to be able to
Speaker 1: have a wobbly day and you need to be able
Speaker 1: to see that, and I'm giving you permission to hold
Speaker 1: me up on either side when that. When those days
Speaker 1: arrive and they do they see I think that they
Speaker 1: really saw those moments as a real privilege to be
Speaker 1: there for me because I reached out to help from them,
Speaker 1: not from others, and we kept that within our world
Speaker 1: amongst each other.
Speaker 2: That's really beautiful, Really, it's really beautiful, because, as I say,
Speaker 2: I think that sometimes we really punish ourselves if we're
Speaker 2: not painting this very secure, safe, like you know, scrubbed
Speaker 2: clean world for our kids. Because I'm imagining the woman
Speaker 2: who's sitting where you were sitting at that time and
Speaker 2: finding it hard to get out of bed because it's
Speaker 2: not the world she thought she was going to have.
Speaker 2: She's not Is there a period of time that it
Speaker 2: sort of took you for the sunny day mantra or
Speaker 2: those practices to start like moving you in that direction.
Speaker 2: You know, did you feel like there was there a
Speaker 2: pivotal moment where you began to.
Speaker 1: Feel like, oh, okay, the moment started changing was when
Speaker 1: I took what I felt was the very thing that
Speaker 1: wasn't making me and therefore the family happy. Was when
Speaker 1: I decided to make the decision to have to have
Speaker 1: the divorce and remove the component that was really not
Speaker 1: making things happy and bubbling along as they should.
Speaker 2: And that's a difficult place to come to, right.
Speaker 1: It is, And it's why isn't this working? And why
Speaker 1: aren't I happy? It's because the other person's not happy,
Speaker 1: and you've got to have that conversation. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a really big conversation to arrive at. You're not happy
Speaker 1: and you're not admitting that to yourself.
Speaker 2: It's one of those conversations that come up in a
Speaker 2: life where you go, if we have this conversation, everything
Speaker 2: will be different, and sometimes you're very you have to
Speaker 2: take a deep breath for that because you're like, am
Speaker 2: I ready for everything to be different?
Speaker 1: You know that's right? Because starting in your own backyard,
Speaker 1: and arriving at that place, you start to look around
Speaker 1: the second part of your world, you know, when it
Speaker 1: goes around in this concentric thing and you I started
Speaker 1: looking at the flow in my business, in my professional
Speaker 1: life outside of the home, and it starts to effect everywhere.
Speaker 1: You start to see, well, okay, there's a chink in
Speaker 1: here that's not working, and that's all a good thing
Speaker 1: because you've got to shed. When you're shedding, you've got
Speaker 1: to properly do that. But there is everything is a process,
Speaker 1: and you've got to do one thing at a time
Speaker 1: because you're only human and learning as you go. What
Speaker 1: do I look like? I've never been married before and
Speaker 1: going through a divorce and now I'm going to divorce
Speaker 1: a partnership that is like a marriage with your management,
Speaker 1: so that all of a sudden there's all of these yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: work and family was enmeshed. Yeah. You start to really
Speaker 1: see how time is such a precious thing. Is that
Speaker 1: what I was actually grieving was the time I can't
Speaker 1: get back and what and the time I perhaps missed
Speaker 1: with with just sweeping the children up and making them
Speaker 1: be a part of all of these decisions. But now
Speaker 1: because the divorce is happening. They're a part of that
Speaker 1: process of rebuilding who we are as a team as
Speaker 1: a unit. And then that, until that was ready, I
Speaker 1: couldn't move on to the next development of what that
Speaker 1: would look like. And that looked amazing because my son
Speaker 1: went on to find his own feet and not live
Speaker 1: that dream that I had had for him, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what, and he was you know, yeah, well
Speaker 1: the first he's there's six years between the two kids,
Speaker 1: so his leaving was it was a it was a
Speaker 1: hard thing, very hard for me to let my oldest
Speaker 1: not be around helping me with his little sister. You know,
Speaker 1: Now I've got to do it on my own, like
Speaker 1: single parenting sort of. I look at my life and go,
Speaker 1: maybe I was always supposed to be that single parent,
Speaker 1: because I was before I was married, a single parent,
Speaker 1: and then after that I was ultimately going to be
Speaker 1: a single parent, but only for a couple of years
Speaker 1: still with a dependent Yeah, and then it just feels
Speaker 1: like I've just had this beautiful little shadow in my
Speaker 1: daughter that that whole time we've had these triumphs together,
Speaker 1: like so many wins, and you know, she's she's brighter
Speaker 1: and she's better as a human for having been a
Speaker 1: part of seeing me as her role model go through
Speaker 1: the things I have and see my inner strengths and
Speaker 1: what that looks like and how what's the result and
Speaker 1: how do I repair? And she's been there to watch
Speaker 1: what it is to be a woman, and she's watched
Speaker 1: that and she's it's been great to have her to
Speaker 1: talk to about you know what it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: grieving my son, leaving home, who's now a father. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be like my parents. Do you want
Speaker 1: to see a video?
Speaker 3: Definitely?
Speaker 1: Afterwards? I wanted a video. Yes.
Speaker 2: So when you just said before, maybe I was meant
Speaker 2: to be a single mom. Yeah, when your divorce happened,
Speaker 2: and as you said that you had your your kids
Speaker 2: were relative. Actually, you know, I was reading that the
Speaker 2: average age from Australian momented divorces in a early to
Speaker 2: mid forties. That's when it happens, right, And I think
Speaker 2: that's actually when when you I.
Speaker 1: Got married at forty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: And then but the thing is is it's a time
Speaker 2: of life when you do have a lot of responsibilities
Speaker 2: around you, right, like financial and all those things.
Speaker 1: As you were saying with work, and.
Speaker 2: It's it's a really stressful period of adulthood anyway. And
Speaker 2: then you throw this in on it when you say
Speaker 2: maybe I was meant to be a single mother.
Speaker 3: Do you think like you're.
Speaker 1: Good at it?
Speaker 3: Like because you're you know, you're.
Speaker 2: A strong woman, who know you don't think you're.
Speaker 3: Good on it?
Speaker 1: Oh god, I know it, don't much. Rather not do not.
Speaker 1: I will not rewrite that book. I had two children
Speaker 1: and that's all that I could manage in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: And how did you always juggle the work? Like the
Speaker 2: fact that your work takes you traveling and away and
Speaker 2: all those things, because that's another thing when you're.
Speaker 1: By yourself, right, that's harder. You know, my son always says,
Speaker 1: or you're such a different mom to supporr was also different.
Speaker 1: And you know I say two different things, mate. When
Speaker 1: I had you, I was like twenty six and six
Speaker 1: years later, I'm a very different human being. Not only
Speaker 1: am I now a single mom and I'm single mom
Speaker 1: traveling and I've got between you know, that beautiful babysitting
Speaker 1: company called Angel, Yeah, I another one you yes, and
Speaker 1: grandparents or friends or my family, my sister, Between all
Speaker 1: of these people and not to mention my beautiful, beautiful
Speaker 1: family and friends who who you know. It takes a village,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. And it's the village that are helping raise
Speaker 1: my children. I never felt that they were without or
Speaker 1: I was without because I wasn't with their respective fathers.
Speaker 1: Things happened and I just couldn't. Relationships and raising children
Speaker 1: were just not something that a partnership we saw eye
Speaker 1: to eye, and you know, strangely enough, before children, the
Speaker 1: thought of them and I always said I'd never get
Speaker 1: married because looking at my parents, it's like shit, you
Speaker 1: guys should get it together. And I just didn't have
Speaker 1: great role models or a good example on how to
Speaker 1: do that right. And I just thought, well, maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm not built for it, and I think I know
Speaker 1: how to raise my kids and am I a good mother.
Speaker 1: My son and I really really had it out about that.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, you you should have married that guy.
Speaker 1: You're stuffed up big time, mum. And I said, we
Speaker 1: can lower our voices now and not yell at each
Speaker 1: other because I'm on the same page as you. I agree,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, I agree that I'm not you know,
Speaker 1: let's come to terms with or be on the same
Speaker 1: page about the fact that I'm not a perfect human
Speaker 1: being and I have stuffed up majorly along the way,
Speaker 1: but we've still got each other. I've come out the
Speaker 1: other end, or I've woken up every day just knowing
Speaker 1: that I've still got you and your sister, that I
Speaker 1: will always be someone's mother, and I've always got you
Speaker 1: two to love. And it's what got me up every
Speaker 1: day and moved on to the next thing.
Speaker 2: Always so back to that point of the dark place
Speaker 2: after that when you're trying to picture the sunny day.
Speaker 1: They are a big part of it, right, big part
Speaker 1: of it. They're faces. And now my grandson, my little
Speaker 1: grandson Mondna his face. I mean, do you know I
Speaker 1: don't sit there on TikTok looking at all the funny videos.
Speaker 1: I just rewind all of the photographs and the videos
Speaker 1: that my son sends me through. Do you know it's
Speaker 1: love on a next level. It's what I hear. It's
Speaker 1: it really is like people say, you like your children,
Speaker 1: but you love your grandchildren good A little bit they
Speaker 1: true there, I think, is it.
Speaker 2: Because mea obviously who baba me?
Speaker 1: Is MIA's business.
Speaker 2: But she's recently become a grandmother, and she says, it's
Speaker 2: just all the joy and not the stress of parenting.
Speaker 3: So it's like the love that you have for your kids.
Speaker 1: But then you also.
Speaker 2: Don't have to do all of the things. I can
Speaker 2: take full responsibility for them. So it feels like it's
Speaker 2: like lift it is it is.
Speaker 1: Having said that, though it's just your kind of you
Speaker 1: do want to steal a I want to steal more
Speaker 1: cuddles than I can because we live in different states, right,
Speaker 1: I don't have to go through the pregnancies, gosh, and
Speaker 1: they were two very difficult ones for me personally. I
Speaker 1: look at the parents and go, yeah, I can, I
Speaker 1: can give the baby back, and there's all of that,
Speaker 1: but you do stress a little bit about the decisions
Speaker 1: that they make. Just quietly, you just you just don't.
Speaker 1: It would never turn out as a great conversation because
Speaker 1: you have to learn to bite your tongue. You do
Speaker 1: have to learn to bite your tongue. And I'm not
Speaker 1: a bite your tongue person, but along comes your children
Speaker 1: as first time parents, and you've got to learn to
Speaker 1: decide what you're going to bring up or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or just make sure that your ears are big and
Speaker 1: waving around and waiting to hear anything that they that
Speaker 1: they come to you with, because if you know, all
Speaker 1: I can do is go, I've got two kids, and
Speaker 1: I did it on my own, and I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of advice for both of you, if and when
Speaker 1: you want to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if and when you want to, And I'm sure
Speaker 2: they will want it up next when your kids are
Speaker 2: grown and they look back at how your choices affected
Speaker 2: them and they want to tell you all about that.
Speaker 2: How do you have that conversation and is it helpful
Speaker 2: and healing or is it a bit like pressing on
Speaker 2: an old bruise that's after the break. That's a big thing.
Speaker 2: When you were just saying that your son and you
Speaker 2: had a conversation about you know, that period of time
Speaker 2: and like whether or not you were a good mother
Speaker 2: and whether or not you made the right calls. That's
Speaker 2: a tough conversation.
Speaker 1: To have with your kids. Right. It wasn't a conversation.
Speaker 1: It was pretty much a yelling match. It was a
Speaker 1: screaming match. I remember that. And he'd never had it
Speaker 1: out with me as an adult as well ever as
Speaker 1: a kid both, so it's like it was going to
Speaker 1: come it was a thing that was coming. And there
Speaker 1: were several points that he wanted to up and leave,
Speaker 1: and eye would go, no, you're not. I'm giving you
Speaker 1: permission all of it. Just put it. I want you
Speaker 1: to everything that you hate about the decisions that I've
Speaker 1: made in your life, you know, because it is your life.
Speaker 1: And once that happened, it just became it went from
Speaker 1: a raw to a beautiful little hum.
Speaker 2: But you must have That's those kind of conversations they
Speaker 2: you know, as you say, the raw turned into a hum.
Speaker 2: But did you feel bruised or did you feel well?
Speaker 2: I'm glad now I know, Like you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm glad now I know. But also I think I'd
Speaker 1: always given him permission to tell me. I always the
Speaker 1: permission was always there. I just the needed to be
Speaker 1: a moment for it to cross over and for him
Speaker 1: to get to that point where right, and the fact
Speaker 1: that he was yelling and it was emotion, it's built up,
Speaker 1: it's his whole life where I'm looking at here, I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this him metamorphosizing, and I'm going he needs
Speaker 1: and I was looking at him and I say, you
Speaker 1: need to let it out. Tell me. I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: going to disagree with anything that you've got to say,
Speaker 1: because how whatever those decisions were, you had to deal
Speaker 1: with that in your life, with the people that I
Speaker 1: put you in your world, with some things that he
Speaker 1: told me. It was they were really hard to swallow,
Speaker 1: but I was ready for it at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's incredible, Yeah, because a lot of families never ever
Speaker 2: ever all these things.
Speaker 1: Well, I've got one of each, right, I've got a
Speaker 1: boy and a girl, but I've also got a black
Speaker 1: one and a white one. And you know so and
Speaker 1: their parents, so their fathers are from completely two different worlds.
Speaker 1: My girl's father is a Caucasian white man, Australian, you know,
Speaker 1: sixth generation, and Quiam's father is Torrestrate Islander, same as
Speaker 1: my background. You know, We've got the same values, same everything.
Speaker 1: And her world is a completely different world that she
Speaker 1: juggles every day. You know, he gets treated like a
Speaker 1: black man when he was growing up. Oh you're a
Speaker 1: black kid. You're running around and you must be a
Speaker 1: naughty little black fellow. Both in modeling agencies and she
Speaker 1: got more work and he got mum. But you know,
Speaker 1: they were happy to take them along, but they looked
Speaker 1: very different, and you know, we were in a very
Speaker 1: different editorial world now, like it's very different we see
Speaker 1: in advertising, isn't it. We are representing the truer, you know,
Speaker 1: landscape of Australia than what it was when I was
Speaker 1: raising my kids, because I'd get I'd walk down, you know,
Speaker 1: the streets of Newtown where we lived, and people would go, oh,
Speaker 1: she must be the old pair or the nanny, because
Speaker 1: they'd look at them and look at her and look
Speaker 1: at him, and they would be Their relationship to me
Speaker 1: would be clearly like, oh, she's the mum. But that's strange.
Speaker 1: They look like a very you know, an odd bunch
Speaker 1: of people walking down the streets and the odd bunch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it must be a particular thing for a mother too,
Speaker 2: As you were just telling me about that, about raising
Speaker 2: your two kids in the world treating them so differently. Gosh,
Speaker 2: how as the parent do you relate to that, because
Speaker 2: you know, you're obviously bringing all your culture and your
Speaker 2: own experience to that, Like, it must be strange not
Speaker 2: for that to be.
Speaker 1: What does that conversation look like? What do those what
Speaker 1: are the dialogues? What are the words in your household
Speaker 1: when you're talking to your children about relating to the
Speaker 1: world around them, Well, it was important to ask themselves
Speaker 1: how they relate to each other first. How they relate
Speaker 1: to each other is how they relate to the world
Speaker 1: outside of them, and keeping that dialogue very open. And
Speaker 1: because I'm not he wasn't raised with a man showing
Speaker 1: him the road or the ropes or whatever. It was
Speaker 1: very hard. That part of it was always really hard
Speaker 1: to juggle because in our culture, a man goes through
Speaker 1: his own initiations into the world to become a man,
Speaker 1: stages in the world, marks on his life that will
Speaker 1: show him progressively as he is being acknowledged and validated
Speaker 1: to become a man. There are those things that happen
Speaker 1: in our society as tryst rd Islanders. But she's just
Speaker 1: you know, she looks like the run of the mill
Speaker 1: Australian kid, and you know she doesn't have to go
Speaker 1: through the same prejudices as what he does. But I
Speaker 1: made sure that his coming of age ceremonies always happened,
Speaker 1: and that his father, you know, as much of his
Speaker 1: drag and him along, they happened. I made sure that
Speaker 1: they happened. And again with the help of the village
Speaker 1: that we're helping me raise my children.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about the village and
Speaker 2: that and culture and family and how that helps at
Speaker 2: the dark moments like those, the days you're talking about
Speaker 2: after the divorce, when you're like, what the hell does
Speaker 2: my life look like now?
Speaker 1: My family look like? Now? How does that help? How
Speaker 1: does it work? My friends? When it came my family,
Speaker 1: I'll call them my family because that's exactly who they are,
Speaker 1: and it's a really large lgbtque family. And because I've
Speaker 1: only got one sister who lives in Sydney, the other
Speaker 1: one in Newcastle, and then the rest of the family
Speaker 1: are in Queensland and the Torres Strait. Sometimes it's really
Speaker 1: hard because I look at myself and it's really hard
Speaker 1: to see somebody that you care so much about going
Speaker 1: through something in their life because you don't know what
Speaker 1: to say, You don't know how to first of all,
Speaker 1: if you find the question, are you okay to actually
Speaker 1: sit there and then listen to what they're going to
Speaker 1: tell you and find a way to process it? And
Speaker 1: I think for most of us we don't know how
Speaker 1: to process it because we don't know how to help
Speaker 1: them fix that situation when often, more often than not,
Speaker 1: it's just about sitting there and being with somebody, even
Speaker 1: if it's in silence, Like I am there for my mother,
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not about having conversations, it's her knowing
Speaker 1: that you're there, just sitting there with her physical process. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times I would think, God, they're
Speaker 1: just fair with the friends. Everybody just wants to be
Speaker 1: around for the laughter and the smiles and the happy
Speaker 1: times and the joy, happy, joy, joy, but nobody really
Speaker 1: wants to talk about the pain that you're going through.
Speaker 1: I understand it now. I understand it now because my
Speaker 1: son is in the process of building his village and
Speaker 1: I am a part of it. I'm a matriarch, so
Speaker 1: I've got a very different role to play in what
Speaker 1: that looks like. But now I'm seeing what his village
Speaker 1: looks like, and now how he's choosing those people that
Speaker 1: are going to be around to help him through those
Speaker 1: not so sunny days. That's not up to me. But
Speaker 1: the people that I chose to be around are people
Speaker 1: that I've made godfather for my daughter, and you know
Speaker 1: they have or godmother for my daughter, and being there
Speaker 1: as really important people that my son calls uncles and
Speaker 1: aunts and he calls them grandma and grandpa. They did
Speaker 1: what they did, and I'm very grateful to the village.
Speaker 1: I'm very very great to them because they could. They
Speaker 1: only did what they thought they could, you know, as
Speaker 1: far as they could. You can only ask so much
Speaker 1: of someone. Really, then beyond that, it's like, I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1: I'm happy. I'm grateful. At the time, it's like where
Speaker 1: is everybody? They've left me standing here holding the babies.
Speaker 1: But it's not that simple, it really isn't it. Really,
Speaker 1: it's not cut and dry, and you do find I
Speaker 1: did find places that where I could just but mostly
Speaker 1: it was with my children at home. Really yeah.
Speaker 2: Really, It's interesting because I think for a lot of
Speaker 2: women when they go through a divorce and their children
Speaker 2: are small, that loneliness is quite common. Like there's sudden
Speaker 2: thing of like where has everybody gone, particularly if you
Speaker 2: had a social But the strength, the strange.
Speaker 1: Thing is that they're there. Yeah, they're there.
Speaker 2: I like that advice about you know, just being like
Speaker 2: just being there because it is hard when you've got
Speaker 2: your people who you love going through really difficult things
Speaker 2: and you don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: Yes, but also as some who's going through it, don't
Speaker 1: feel like you always have to just be talking about
Speaker 1: that every time you see somebody, and you know, we're
Speaker 1: so encouraged to just talk about it. You know, you
Speaker 1: just get it off your chest. D da da da.
Speaker 1: I think there are other ways to talk about it
Speaker 1: and get it off your chest other than it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what that way is is different for everybody. It might
Speaker 1: be going to the gym and punching the crap out
Speaker 1: of a punching bag, and it could be different for everyone.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I think you have to shut the noise down,
Speaker 1: and that means stop talking about it. Listen to the
Speaker 1: noise in your head. Let it be. It'll actually go
Speaker 1: from a boisterous cacophony down to something that's just a
Speaker 1: beautiful hum It really does. And don't feel like you
Speaker 1: have to talk about it to everyone because everyone's scared.
Speaker 1: Everybody's scared that they can't help you because they love
Speaker 1: you so much. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I remember reading an interview with you not long after
Speaker 2: the divorce. Why you said, I'm done, I'm done with love?
Speaker 2: You said, did you silly?
Speaker 1: Go?
Speaker 2: I mean, who knows whether you really said it?
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: They may have made, they may have embellished. No, I'm
Speaker 2: thinking again about people listening to this who may be
Speaker 2: like I am. Here's something I see sometimes is with
Speaker 2: people in my world they're like, that's it, never ever, ever,
Speaker 2: And then maybe after a year or so, they're like.
Speaker 3: Hm, things are like things are coming back together, like.
Speaker 2: Did you did you think I'm done after the devastation
Speaker 2: of that situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no embellishments. I think it's sometimes context. They
Speaker 1: take what you say and then put the context in
Speaker 1: their own context to create the story. I will have
Speaker 1: to say sorry, I'm just I get emotional talking about
Speaker 1: all of it. For me, the emotions of getting in
Speaker 1: touch with emotions again was something that I felt I
Speaker 1: could that is, that is the part of love that
Speaker 1: I can I can wait. I'm going to put the
Speaker 1: pause button on on the fields as they call it
Speaker 1: these days. What I crave and what if you're if
Speaker 1: any woman's honest is the physical love? Yeah, the physical
Speaker 1: side of it, the touching, the eyeballs, the words, you know,
Speaker 1: it's those sorts of immediate you know, the smells and
Speaker 1: all of that. It's those sorts of powerful things. The
Speaker 1: physical sides of things that I think you miss immediately
Speaker 1: that's not there anymore, the cuddles, but the emotional stuff
Speaker 1: I wasn't ready to be invested in in right away.
Speaker 1: Love though. Love is where it is where you place it.
Speaker 1: I placed love in my children, and because I know
Speaker 1: how that will be not just reciprocated, but reciprocated immediately
Speaker 1: and tenfold compared to what you think you've just lost.
Speaker 1: You think you've just lost something, but that can be
Speaker 1: replaced in a lot of things. You can find love
Speaker 1: in a lot of places. You can find love in
Speaker 1: just simple passions. And what is your passion? Find it immediately,
Speaker 1: come out here and look for it. It's not a person.
Speaker 1: It could be a thing, and it could be an activity.
Speaker 1: It could it's it's everywhere as long as you're looking
Speaker 1: for it, to not just be invested in one thing.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, it does make sense for you.
Speaker 2: I wanted to obviously talk about music. Is that does
Speaker 2: that help you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Gotcha?
Speaker 2: I was going to say, because it's obviously it was
Speaker 2: there before. Obviously, it's what your world has been. Is
Speaker 2: it one of the things that helped you at your
Speaker 2: lowest or not? Does it feel like pressure.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well no, I mean it depends the management
Speaker 1: that I was in before I changed. There was always
Speaker 1: pressure to be something right now, and in not necessarily
Speaker 1: the ways that I wanted to, because see, music is
Speaker 1: so connected to my core that it just did not
Speaker 1: feel right to be getting the end, to be getting
Speaker 1: something that's the result for a very pure monetary reason.
Speaker 1: The remuneration part of it is just it was just
Speaker 1: driving me insane and in fact away from something that
Speaker 1: I love, that is like my passion. You know. I
Speaker 1: always think about, you know, that weird ball that's got
Speaker 1: this electricity inside of it and you put your hand
Speaker 1: and you can see it.
Speaker 2: And it goes yeah, yeah, yeah, you put your hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just wasn't doing music. Wasn't doing that for
Speaker 1: me under that relationship, under that marriage, you know, and
Speaker 1: that was a seventeen year marriage that I needed. I
Speaker 1: didn't know, I didn't know what it was going to
Speaker 1: look like beyond on the other side of that in
Speaker 1: a different way, but I just didn't want it to
Speaker 1: be that anymore where it was just driven monetarily for
Speaker 1: you know, for all of these reasons, that just sucked
Speaker 1: the total love out of the room. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do music like that.
Speaker 2: That's a fine line, right is that with your I
Speaker 2: mean art sounds like a hatty word, but it's true.
Speaker 2: When your art pays the bills, it's hard to be
Speaker 2: to marry those things when this is pulling the love
Speaker 2: of it away. Yeah, And there must have been pressure
Speaker 2: for you. You know, you're a single mom. You've got
Speaker 2: to make a living like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that was the pressures, wasn't it, As is
Speaker 1: the roof over the head and the food on the table,
Speaker 1: education and everything that comes with, you know, giving them
Speaker 1: the extra curriculars as well, providing for them in every
Speaker 1: single sense of the word. Especially as a single mom.
Speaker 1: You've got to you've got to put it out there,
Speaker 1: har Yeah, to form, to create that the world that's
Speaker 1: going to bounce back to them in ways that you
Speaker 1: want them to be rewarded by. And I found that
Speaker 1: it changed me in that my responses to say emails
Speaker 1: would stop, my answering or returning answering the phone or
Speaker 1: returning phone calls would stop. So it was affecting my
Speaker 1: business relationships. Every writing I was hiding, hiding from something
Speaker 1: I didn't want. But but it was It's like, well,
Speaker 1: It took a long time to realize that that's what
Speaker 1: it was, because, like, hey, it's music, haven't I got
Speaker 1: the best job in the world. I'm making money from
Speaker 1: something that I love. It's my passion. It can very
Speaker 1: very quickly, and if you're not aware of it becomes
Speaker 1: something that you didn't always want it to be. And
Speaker 1: with creating the type of music that I want to create,
Speaker 1: which is the current shell that I live in with
Speaker 1: the right types of me feelings inside. With that, it
Speaker 1: just again, I've just reconnected with that. You know, that
Speaker 1: buzzy twenty two year old that signed a record deal
Speaker 1: back when I was twenty one, back in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 1: ninety ninety two, and I've rediscovered her. But I'm an
Speaker 1: older person now and I've had all of this stuff
Speaker 1: happen in the world, and with raising kids along the way,
Speaker 1: and relationships and a divorce. My god, it would have
Speaker 1: thought I had a divorce in there as well, and
Speaker 1: it all adds to the wonderful It's Yea flavors the
Speaker 1: music in quite a different way, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: This album I was reading that, I was listening to
Speaker 2: the single today It's Beautiful. I was reading that it's
Speaker 2: taken you to different places Papua New Guinea, New Zealand.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: For the influences and the sounds of it, you clearly
Speaker 2: still have like the adventurer, like a passion there for this,
Speaker 2: Like you clearly still you're like, I'm not done. I'm
Speaker 2: not just taking an easy road.
Speaker 3: Like is that true? You've still got the fire burning.
Speaker 1: I've still got the fire burning. Definitely. You get the
Speaker 1: right people, you get in contact with the right team
Speaker 1: of people. I feel like I'm in the right team
Speaker 1: of people right now, working with mostly women, which I
Speaker 1: haven't done in my life before. I've really been in
Speaker 1: that world that people describe as a male dominated industry.
Speaker 1: I feel like that that's where I put a stop
Speaker 1: to that and decide that, you know, there are women
Speaker 1: doing a lot more in this field than ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever before. And I know that because I judge for
Speaker 1: the Australian Women's Music Awards and just seeing the women,
Speaker 1: the vastness of women and what they've done in their
Speaker 1: careers over the last thirty years is incredible. And maybe
Speaker 1: that was the secret too, is just placing women as
Speaker 1: part of my team to make that because you know,
Speaker 1: women know how to repair very quickly, and we decision
Speaker 1: make It's innate, It's instinctive, isn't it that a survival
Speaker 1: is like you know where to go to It's not
Speaker 1: too far to know how to pick yourself up and
Speaker 1: move right along. So that's how I've found where my
Speaker 1: music feels the best at the moment because it's got
Speaker 1: the right team, mostly women. But then I've got to
Speaker 1: sort of now shine a light to the producer that's
Speaker 1: done that I've worked with for this album. David Bridy
Speaker 1: is from a band called Not Drowning Waving, and his
Speaker 1: work goes way back to when he was in his
Speaker 1: early to mid twenties and the like minded people that
Speaker 1: were in the band with him getting a job in
Speaker 1: Rabawel in Papua New Guinea, falling in love with the
Speaker 1: place and the people so much that he now speaks
Speaker 1: the language fluently and has worked with a lot of
Speaker 1: Melanesian musicians, and I'm from a Melanesian culture and so
Speaker 1: having his sensitivity and sensibilities about our cultures because they
Speaker 1: are different. You know, Solomon's to public and inst Torrestraate Islanders.
Speaker 1: I did revisit him way back with the last management.
Speaker 1: He said, it's not We're never ever going to make
Speaker 1: another Stylin' Up. It was going to be a reissue
Speaker 1: or a reimagining of Stylin Up, the first album. He said,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't reproduce a first album, not that
Speaker 1: as iconic as it is and was the first of
Speaker 1: its kind from an artist that was being introduced to
Speaker 1: the world with a Melanesian background, who's female. You're the first,
Speaker 1: You've opened the door for the rest to come along.
Speaker 1: We can't make another, not the way that you want to.
Speaker 1: So that saddened me, and I knew instantly that that
Speaker 1: there was something wrong in my style and in my
Speaker 1: direction of the way I wanted to create music. So
Speaker 1: I sat with that for a long time, and then
Speaker 1: the pandemic happened, and so too did the end of
Speaker 1: my management at the time, and it was time to
Speaker 1: revisit that conversation with David and say to him, but
Speaker 1: you know what, as well, David, I'm not just shedding
Speaker 1: my management, but I'm shedding also this really dark relationship
Speaker 1: with alcohol as well. And in order to do where
Speaker 1: I want to go, I've got to get rid of
Speaker 1: all of that. So he was like yeah, I really
Speaker 1: respect that. And if you're ready to go in that direction,
Speaker 1: just give us a buzz and we'll do it. We
Speaker 1: caught up on life and what had happened since that
Speaker 1: first album till that very moment, and he took on
Speaker 1: this idea of waku, which is something that women make.
Speaker 1: Women make mats. We make them out of coconut leaves.
Speaker 1: And my mother taught us how to prepare the coconut leaves,
Speaker 1: drying them out and then wrapping them in these circles
Speaker 1: and then leaving them out in the sun to dry
Speaker 1: from that process of the tree to the process, and
Speaker 1: then making them mat itself out of pandanus leaves, coconut
Speaker 1: leaves and this wild read that grows on Sideby Island
Speaker 1: where my mum was born. He took the idea of
Speaker 1: weaving the songs that my grandfather had composed and the
Speaker 1: story of my life, and we came up with this
Speaker 1: beautiful concept of weaving all of these stories together. And
Speaker 1: the music just came naturally, because it's if you're talking
Speaker 1: from your soul, your heart, it's music, it's melodies, it's
Speaker 1: floating around and this might sound trite, but was it healing?
Speaker 1: This is my healing album. Addiction is so hard. Like
Speaker 1: people have addictions, it's okay, And no one talks about
Speaker 1: those addictions publicly in my family at least, well yeah,
Speaker 1: or in my SOAC.
Speaker 2: I wonder if we're getting any better at talking about
Speaker 2: it or if it still comes with a lot of shame,
Speaker 2: which it shouldn't have.
Speaker 1: Well for me, it comes with addiction. For me, it
Speaker 1: comes with a lot of shame, it really does. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be dealing with it to my grave, you know,
Speaker 1: And not that I have any plans on getting out
Speaker 1: of my life anytime soon, but you know, I guess
Speaker 1: it was the end of my last management when it
Speaker 1: was brought up. You've got to be dealing with your
Speaker 1: addiction and actually somebody mentioning it and you going, I know,
Speaker 1: and then you actually dealing with it. Are so different
Speaker 1: components of dealing with addiction. My choice of addiction has
Speaker 1: changed throughout my life. But whatever that is, whatever the
Speaker 1: reason for getting to a place where you feel like
Speaker 1: you need to do something very bad to your body
Speaker 1: and your soul and your mind, working that out and
Speaker 1: why you actually like, what is the reason that you're
Speaker 1: running away from is the big thing isn't. It's the
Speaker 1: big question, what is what is making you do? So? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think I have. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: through the process of using my music to help me
Speaker 1: answer what that is for me, you know, And you
Speaker 1: can hear my voice now it's changed because it is
Speaker 1: I'm living it. I'm still living the process of putting
Speaker 1: finding out how to heal myself through music.
Speaker 2: Now, how do you continue to be heard in an
Speaker 2: industry that's committed to keeping the mic away from mid women?
Speaker 2: I ask Christine next, at a time when so many
Speaker 2: of us have so much to say, how do you
Speaker 2: find the strength to speak up when everybody's telling you
Speaker 2: that they might rather listen to someone you know, younger?
Speaker 2: That's coming up next. The music industry isn't all that
Speaker 2: kind either to women getting older as well. They have
Speaker 2: a mind of bringing all your wisdom with you.
Speaker 1: And you know, if if I if I can say
Speaker 1: it and be honest, yeah, it's you know, it's not
Speaker 1: kind because it's just not made for old women, is it.
Speaker 1: It's a whole other If music's about making is about
Speaker 1: becoming as famous as famous as possible and making shit
Speaker 1: tons of money, then the older you get. It's definitely
Speaker 1: not designed for older women like that, unless you had
Speaker 1: a crazy, crazy successful youth and then it just follows
Speaker 1: you as you reinvent yourself and then you know, become
Speaker 1: this money machine. It's that would be easy, but it's
Speaker 1: just really hard to get the same recognition as an
Speaker 1: older musician than what you got when you're in your
Speaker 1: twenties or when you were younger than being in your mids.
Speaker 3: I reckon, that's say.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a mirror to the way that a
Speaker 2: lot of women's stories go, which is that as you
Speaker 2: get older, people are like looking away a bit like
Speaker 2: what has she got to offer?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: Actually, we're at the time in our life when we
Speaker 2: have the most to offer, because listening to you tell
Speaker 2: your story today and knowing all the depth you know,
Speaker 2: all the things you obviously behind that, and the depth
Speaker 2: of culture and experience, like, how could you not have
Speaker 2: interesting things to be saying and see putting into the
Speaker 2: world rather than if you were twenty Again, we do
Speaker 2: not to say you weren't interesting when you were twenty Christie.
Speaker 1: And it was only in Sting because no one had
Speaker 1: heard of the Torres Straight Islands. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say that I'm obviously interesting because I can sing,
Speaker 1: and it's like, where did you come from? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: where have we unearthed you from? It was only interesting
Speaker 1: because people hadn't heard of where I'd come from, and
Speaker 1: it was just new. It just wasn't wasn't seen before
Speaker 1: I read. I read and look at I read magazine articles,
Speaker 1: I read all of that stuff that I did when
Speaker 1: I was younger, like, and I cannot believe that. I yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bloody shut up, you idiot. Oh god, what
Speaker 1: what the heck? Why did I say that?
Speaker 2: Or oh?
Speaker 1: They blew the context out of that one. It's like,
Speaker 1: I cannot stand things that came out of my mouth
Speaker 1: when I was younger.
Speaker 2: I like, what.
Speaker 1: Just different, just things. It's like, oh, that's so silly.
Speaker 1: It was so twenty three. Oh god, you know, just
Speaker 1: like the younger woman.
Speaker 2: Again, that's that's like all of us, but all of
Speaker 2: us don't have it in magazines.
Speaker 1: I can. I've got I've got evidence of how I
Speaker 1: used to say. But one thing never changed my love
Speaker 1: was the fact that I always I'm culture first, very
Speaker 1: proud of my my heritage, very proud. And this album
Speaker 1: is that right? Oh but I must see, music makes
Speaker 1: me get emotional.
Speaker 3: My kids make me get I wanted to.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna, I promise, I'm going to stop making you
Speaker 2: get emotional in a minute.
Speaker 3: But I do.
Speaker 1: You're saying that like it's a bad thing.
Speaker 3: This is You're right, I should really be I shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I'm in a really happy place. I'm in
Speaker 1: a good place. I don't I don't obviously talk about
Speaker 1: my addiction a lot. So if that's the very thing
Speaker 1: that's made me emotional, remember we are here talking about
Speaker 1: my music as well, and I'm so so happy about
Speaker 1: my music. But as David Bradley says to me, Annud,
Speaker 1: this album was never meant to be until now. M
Speaker 1: it's my best music because it's my life. It's got
Speaker 1: my life experiences.
Speaker 2: But so when you listen to it as you should be,
Speaker 2: menopause is ship.
Speaker 1: Menopause is shit because you know, people say about your
Speaker 1: hormans and everything, but just oh my god, I've just
Speaker 1: got I've always got like a bag of tears that
Speaker 1: I have to pack when I get to virgin and quantas.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like they say, how many you know,
Speaker 1: how many kilos have you got in your bag. It's like,
Speaker 1: can I also count the bags tears that come along
Speaker 1: with me?
Speaker 2: You're so right, like you just so teary, emotional post
Speaker 2: of the surface.
Speaker 1: I one relate to that.
Speaker 2: But what I was asking you is when you were
Speaker 2: just saying that and that this album is you and
Speaker 2: it's your culture and it's this is the moment. Does
Speaker 2: it make so when I asked you at the very
Speaker 2: beginning of this, are you a midwoman who is in
Speaker 2: her power and proud? Do you feel it when you
Speaker 2: think of that?
Speaker 1: Because that, I mean, oh gosh, I am woman. Hear
Speaker 1: me raw? You know? Is such It sums everything up
Speaker 1: for this stage in my life, Like I don't care
Speaker 1: what I look like. I don't care what I'm wearing,
Speaker 1: and I don't givet flying epps if anybody doesn't like
Speaker 1: what I've got to say. I don't care about saying
Speaker 1: that I'm a bloody addict. I don't I'm not apologizing.
Speaker 1: I'm not apologetic. I have got no sorries and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to defend myself anymore. This is the music
Speaker 1: that I was meant to record ten years ago. But
Speaker 1: as David Brady said, you know this is the music
Speaker 1: that you were supposed to be making now, because now
Speaker 1: is the time that you're already not your audience, not
Speaker 1: the world, but you.
Speaker 2: There's one more thing I want to ask you about
Speaker 2: music that also ties back to where we started this,
Speaker 2: which was talking about your kids and your family. Your
Speaker 2: daughter is a singer too, right, Oh? Yes, and you
Speaker 2: sing with her, right will you?
Speaker 1: Well? Hang on, she sings with me? Oh that's y.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's just get that order of the hierarchy. She
Speaker 4: sings with you, of course, she'd love that though, you
Speaker 4: sing with your daughter, don't you.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't mean it like that. I meant exactly
Speaker 2: the way that you correct she sings with you?
Speaker 1: Is that a joy? Oh? My gosh?
Speaker 3: And did she?
Speaker 1: And she got of course. So it's the obvious answer
Speaker 1: is she's joyful. It's a joy. But this she is,
Speaker 1: she's like a little manager. She's like a little she
Speaker 1: is a tutor force. She's a little pocket rocket. So
Speaker 1: she didn't get the annu height in the family. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying many accounts that I'm a hom a
Speaker 1: tall person, but she is. She's she's larger than life.
Speaker 1: And that's what I feel like she was trying to
Speaker 1: tell me she's this person who just she has this
Speaker 1: knowing beyond what young people her age should know. And
Speaker 1: she sings like an angel, but she doesn't sound like me,
Speaker 1: but we but yet we do compliment each other. People
Speaker 1: say you sound like your mom, and it's like, oh god, no,
Speaker 1: you should slap those people when they say that she
Speaker 1: sounds like herself. She sounds like herself, but she's also
Speaker 1: this impressive being and that wonderful part of motherhood that
Speaker 1: makes me feel like, gosh, you really did do well
Speaker 1: with that one.
Speaker 2: You know you were saying before that the work you
Speaker 2: were doing that you didn't feel connected to. Is it
Speaker 2: really nerve wracking pushing something out there that you are
Speaker 2: really connected to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we talked about pressure before and I'd live.
Speaker 1: I said, I didn't feel that pressure, but it is
Speaker 1: nerve wracking. And I've always said because I've had two
Speaker 1: years to, you know, work on you know, if people
Speaker 1: don't aren't attracted to the album and don't take it
Speaker 1: just you know, don't don't feel so personal about It's
Speaker 1: hard not to because it's your child, it is, but
Speaker 1: you know, if they don't, it's I've got to go
Speaker 1: back to why did I make this album? What have
Speaker 1: I been through to get to this point? And am
Speaker 1: I proud of it? Regardless? Fuck? Yeah, that was so great.
Speaker 3: I feel like I want to give you a hug.
Speaker 3: Is that appropriate or not?
Speaker 1: No, it's appropriate.
Speaker 2: Well I told you that was unexpected. I can't leave
Speaker 2: that conversation or leave Mid without telling you to listen
Speaker 2: to Christine our news new album. If you want to
Speaker 2: hear what it sounds like for a woman to return
Speaker 2: to her soul after years of battling with all kinds
Speaker 2: of bullshit, it's for you.
Speaker 1: Coming back my weaving.
Speaker 2: It's called Wakou mineral a Minila. And if you want
Speaker 2: to support a woman who's been told she's probably a
Speaker 2: bit too old for all this pop music stuff despite
Speaker 2: being at the napsolo top of her game, then it's
Speaker 2: for you. And if you just want to listen to
Speaker 2: exceptionally beautiful music deeply connected to culture, it's for you.
Speaker 1: And now that I've stopped.
Speaker 2: Telling you how to live your life, I want to
Speaker 2: thank you and Christine of course, and all the MID
Speaker 2: women and one man who've come on to share their
Speaker 2: stories on the season one of this podcast. It's meant
Speaker 2: everything to me as we've pushed this new little podcast
Speaker 2: boat out into the open ocean. So please, if you
Speaker 2: love this conversation, go find MID in your feed and
Speaker 2: scroll back and listen to Julie Goodwin talk about mental health.
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Thorn talk about bodies, Catherine May talk
Speaker 2: about burnout, Jackie Bailey talk about grief. Listen to all
Speaker 2: of them, and if you love them and they mean
Speaker 2: something to you and they helped you, then share. And
Speaker 2: we will be back with Mid season two in just
Speaker 2: a few weeks. Look out for us in your feeds
Speaker 2: in early August. I can't wait to bring it to you.
Speaker 2: Keep sending in the feedback to me. You can DM
Speaker 2: me on Instagram. You can jump onto the mid by
Speaker 2: my Mom and Mia Paige and tell me what you
Speaker 2: think of the show and what you think we should
Speaker 2: be talking about. I also just want to send out
Speaker 2: an enormous thank you to our excellent producer, to Elysabizaz,
Speaker 2: to all of the Mom and Mia podcast and editorial team,
Speaker 2: and of course to you again for listening to MID.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be happier that you're here.
Speaker 2: Follow us, tell us what you think, and we'll see
Speaker 2: you in a couple of weeks