WEBVTT - Jia Tolentino 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.320 Even before I read your book, I always go and 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:06.520 look at the author picture. I laughed so hardly. In 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.799 the back of your author picture, you saw Markey Jesus. Okay, 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.880 I don't know. Yeah, I painted him myself, I'll say. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:14.920 And one of those like you know, those places where 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:16.799 you can drink wine and paint, and just like in 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.520 the strip, there's one in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, and 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.600 I just didhammered and painted Monkey Jesus. And it's I 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.720 think about Cecilia Himenez. I think that the woman who 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.520 just google aka Homo and see that there was this 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:34.040 sort of I feel like it was from the thirties. 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.199 It was like this picture by Elias Martinez and this 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.280 very lovely custodian of a church did it did a 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.400 terrible restoration, restoration and it looks he looks. I hope 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.479 it looks like Monkey Jesus now. But it's places that 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:57.639 humans have ever done. Just it's so good, so brilliant. Hello, 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.800 I'm Mini driver, I'm welcome to many questions. I've always 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.559 loved Pru's questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.120 game meant to reveal an individual's true nature, but with 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.400 so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.399 on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.160 and adapted What I think are seven of the most 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:22.760 important questions you could ever ask someone. They are when 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.400 and where were you happiest? What is the quality you 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:31.720 like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:35.640 love for you? What question would you most like answered, 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.399 What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most? 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:45.360 What would be your last meal? And can you tell 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.080 me something in your life that has grown out of 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.360 a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:54.960 we begin to see what makes us similar and what 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:59.480 makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.720 people who I am honored and humbled to have had 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.720 a chance to engage with. My guest today is author 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.520 and journalist Gia Talentino. Gia wrote a New York Times 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.600 best selling book of essays called Trick Mirror, which is 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.960 this sharp, critically dexterous examination of how we exist in 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:24.720 this particular societal prism. She is a stark, deep, hilariously 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.520 funny voice of her millennial generation. She grew up in 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.520 a Houston megachurch that was so enormous they called it 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.320 the repentagon. I was fascinated as to how a person 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.040 who has been relentlessly administered a certain set of moral 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.200 and religious ideas breaks free from it. It turns out 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:48.320 Gia is a world builder from her own questioning and imagination. 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.079 She is so not precious about all the things she knows, 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.840 and is fantastically positive about all the different lives it 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.040 seems she has lived. She is a vivid her, a 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.680 tick woman of fast interests, and it was an enormous 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:07.840 pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to her. So 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.680 we have been digging into the Britney Spears saga for 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.600 the last like six months, and it's such you know, 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.720 I'm sure you saw the news about the hearing, devastating. 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.360 It was traumatic listening to her testimony. I had a 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.960 baby during the pandemic, and it's it's really kind of 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.880 this early reinforced, you know, the way she was treated. 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.040 She had two children within thirteen months. She was pounded 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.200 everywhere she went. Like if I had been dogged by 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.480 fifty men shouting things at me to get a response, 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:34.720 and I was carrying a crying baby, I probably would 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.120 have gotten in my car, put the baby on my lap, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:38.840 and driven away. You know, I would have hit the 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.760 man with the umbrella, not the car. You know, Yes, 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.560 it happened to me. I mean it happened repeatedly when 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:47.960 Henry was tiny, but particularly an airport when Henry was 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.880 three months old, and it was a female paparazzi, which 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.000 I think made it so much worse. And the things 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.120 that they were saying to try and elicit a response, 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.520 and the flashes were making the baby jolt. I can't 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:03.720 imagine that. I'm not saying that there is any real 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:08.200 equivalency between myself and Brittney Spears, but in that instance 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.240 of knowing the insanity as a new mother, feeling attacked 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.400 and hunted absolutely Like now, I'm like, I'm trying to 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:15.960 imagine what I would have been like to have to 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:17.760 you know, she got pregnant two and a half months 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.160 after giving birth, right, yeah, I mean I the pandemic 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.680 kind of afforded a surprisingly lovely postpartum experience that I 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.600 wasn't expecting because you know, it was a cocoon. But 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:28.000 if there had been a camera on me for even 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:30.680 one second, I would have looked like I was certifiable. Like, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.160 it's just you're unraveled for so long, but there is 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:37.560 no latitude. There is no latitude given to women right 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.960 for this moment after It's extraordinary. Mean, I don't know 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:44.320 why I'm surprised, given that there's so much less latitude 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.080 given to women in general for childbirth and mothering and 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.760 taking care of children and maternity leaves and paternity leaves. Yeah, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.880 it's shocking. And only if you've experienced that roller coaster 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:58.919 of hormones that happens after was that you do need 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.520 a gentleman, ironman like you had. Yeah, And even in 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.440 a gentle environment, it's still hard, Yeah, because there's a 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.640 calibration that you have to take care of this tiny 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:12.560 creature and make sure nothing happens to it and feed 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.920 it and take care of yourself. But also that you're 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.200 your life is completely and utterly changed. But isn't it 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.080 interesting like that women become these totems to further this 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:27.120 sort of systemic abuse. I was watching an old episode 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.280 of Sex in the City, which you know, I happen 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:31.599 to love. I just watched it for the first time. 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.920 It's like eating cotton candy, Like I enjoy it, but 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.239 I was watching an episode and a young girl who's 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.200 saying that she's saving herself for marriage, and Sarah Jessica 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.440 Parker's character says, you know, well, what do you consider sex? 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.760 And the girl went, well, I didn't Lewinsky him or anything. 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.560 When I think about the abuse that a young woman 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:56.600 like Monica Lewinsky withstood through, what was a savage takedown 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.920 and what should have been a takedown of a different person, 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.920 of a different person than yet there she was. We've 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.760 literally had the scarlet letter placed on us in all 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.480 these different forms for time immemorial, and our idea of 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.159 equality is different from that of men. This is why, 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.080 because it is so oddly perverse, because it is in 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.240 every area, even in something is sweet confection as sex 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:20.480 in the city, there is this blatant acknowledgement that this 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:24.240 woman is apparently a whore or did something that you know, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.240 she was only accountable for right the extent to which Brittany, 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.159 But I think kind of all women in the public 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.359 eye inevitably end up experiencing sort of projection of cultural 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.400 fears and desires that in Brittany's case, I think, really 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.159 composed the entire structure from life. I mean, I've been 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.840 thinking about it so much. I'm sure you have. I mean, 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.640 I'm sure you have. Gosh, Oh, I could talk to 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.200 you all day. We get to talk her an hour. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.760 My first question is when and where were you happiest. 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:55.960 One thing that I have realized I had a baby 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.080 during the pandemic, which was a real sort of reintroduction 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:01.800 to the control bowling forces of sort of hormones and 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.800 chemicals within one's body and psychological state. I write about 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:07.360 it in an essay in my book where I talk 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:09.960 about the feeling of ecstasy. One of the things that 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:14.440 I feel luckiest about in this life is that temperamentally, 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.720 I've been blessed with pretty sunny mental weather. I find 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.400 a feeling of sort of ecstatic joy. When I was 0:07:20.440 --> 0:07:23.440 a child, I felt it constantly, you know, just riding 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:25.760 my bike with the son at a certain angle, or 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:28.520 jumping into a pool, or having a day with nothing 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:30.280 to do but reading, or seeing all my friends at 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.080 the playground or ice skating in a circle in the rank, 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.640 seeing my family at dinner. I was constantly full, like 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:38.560 brimming with this sort of ecstatic happiness. I would feel 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.200 it listening to music playing in someone's car. I felt 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.600 it when I was out dancing, I felt when I 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.320 was eating a really good bite of food. I found 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.960 this feeling of just kind of an unfettered happiness. And 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:51.200 it's been interesting sort of seeing that in my baby, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.760 who's now ten months old. I'm really just going right 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.560 in there. I recently, um like, stopped breastfeeding my child, 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:00.360 and for about a month, you know, it com leatly 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.680 changed the chemical composition of my brain and the ability 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.800 to access joy was completely removed from me. And I 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:14.240 realized how much of that quality of having happiness, you know, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.400 right at hand, anytime the light was a certain way 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:18.080 or a song would hit a certain note. You know 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.080 how arbitrary that was, and how lucky I was to 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.480 have that feel so so common and so right under 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.560 the texture of my everyday experience. But you know, I 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.960 would say, like peak happiness. You know, for me, isn't 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.920 it like as an adult, like dancing at four in 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:37.800 the morning with my friends, being caught in a rainstorm, 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.959 Like doing acid and looking at a tree, you know, petting, 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.319 like walking with my dog by myself in the park 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:45.760 in New York City. You know that that's it for me. 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.679 I so feel all those things. Do you think that 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:53.600 it's a frequency, that there are certain conditions or chemicals 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.319 that one can use to access that frequency of happiness? 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.480 Because when I read that essay X to see in 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.719 Trick Mara, I was so brilliant because I remembered that 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.480 that when I was a kid, drugs would take me 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:10.360 to that place. Now surfing takes me to that place. 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.360 Being with my son takes me to that place. Being 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.559 out in the desert, meditating takes me to that place, 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.000 which makes me think that that place is always there, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.599 it's just how we find our way into it. Do 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.520 you think that it's a frequency? I tend to act 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:27.679 as if that is what it is and try to 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.560 do the things that turned me into that frequency. I mean, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.880 I think you know the things that you're describing surfing, 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:35.320 being with your son, being in the middle of the desert, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.800 and meditating, these are things that you know, you get 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.400 like a sort of like almost instinctively kind of a 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.160 pre verbal almost just physically and existentially in tune, right, 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:46.760 And there's like a light that comes from that sensation. 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:48.720 And I think it is a frequency. And I think 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.760 that you know that was that historically has been my 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.959 attraction to psychedelics or you know, like like drugs you 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.559 you ow music, I mean music, like we'll take you 0:09:57.640 --> 0:09:59.880 to the same because there are enough instances when you 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.120 it has taken me to the same place that the 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.480 music plus the ecstasy would have taken. Right when I 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.920 was pregnant and couldn't do drugs, I was like, man, 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.959 I need to feel when I was playing. You know, 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:13.559 I remember this morning. It was the middle of the pandemic. 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.400 I remember one night driving through like kind of an 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:17.840 empty New York City on the way to a doctor's 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.520 appointment or something, and I was like, I need to 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.199 feel it. And I turned on a song, like a 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.079 particular song and waited to feel it, and you know, 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.000 I felt the flicker. You know it's but then, you know, 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.599 I realized how how lucky to have been able to 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:32.679 access the frequency. And I think that's where you say 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:36.400 having a sunny, a sunny experience of mental health, if 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.599 it was so easy, like if everyone could just do it, 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.040 everyone exactly, And I mean, isn't that what the what 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.199 what antidepressants or what certain drugs are supposed to do, 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.800 which is to help you potentially access or at least 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.640 put you in a place where you are more more 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.200 open to it. But we're so chemically bound. I mean, 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.880 you say stopping breastfeeding. I had exactly the same experience. 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:00.679 But because you've been flooded with oxytse, and you have 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:06.000 been flooded with the happiest, most loving, divine connected hormone 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.959 in existence. For me, it makes testosterone look like a 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:15.720 kind of wet salami sandwich, like it's it's so divine, 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.160 it is so divinely experienced and feels like it is 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:23.080 divinely given that when you take that away, no wonder 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:27.160 you feel bereft. I'm glad to hear that you experiment 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.360 with your ways into that. In fact, when I was 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.559 talking about your book Trick Mirror with a couple of 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:36.079 girlfriends who really experienced depression, they said that reading the 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.280 essay on ecstasy, it gave such a vantage point of 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.000 how there are may be other ways in that they 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.120 don't let themselves. They so identify themselves as depressed people 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:52.400 that allowing that experiential stuff might help them find a 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.320 different pathway in was super helpful. You know, you're talking 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.079 about a frequency that you you have to kind of 0:11:57.120 --> 0:12:02.120 actively put yourself within the band. For um, it's you know, 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.239 they do. There's so much stuff on sort of psychedelic 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.199 therapy and sort of you know, like and even like 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.559 end of life UM therapy, you know, M D M 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.319 A therapy absolutely, and I and I really do think 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.160 that there's something I mean that was it has served 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:19.840 that purpose. You know. I'm wary of doing this too 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:22.840 much or relying on it solely, but you know, there's 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.320 something to be said for reminding yourself that this frequency 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:28.800 is available to you, you know, and sometimes you might 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.240 have to use an artificial means to access it, and 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:32.760 maybe you wouldn't want to do that all the time, 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.439 but it has served that purpose for me, is reminding 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.959 like I am capable of feeling just unbelievably grateful to 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:58.120 be alive. You know, that's amazing. That's amazing. Okay, So 0:12:58.679 --> 0:13:02.640 what relations and ship, real fictionalized defines love for you? 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:04.760 This is such a good question and it made me 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.400 reconfront all of the answers that occurred in my mind. 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.640 None of them were romantic, and this is something that 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:14.920 I haven't yet figured out about myself. But I know, like, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.120 on the one hand, I I have been so drawn 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.720 to really traditional almost stereotypical route. You know, I've been 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:29.800 in basically, I've been in monogamous relationships almost unbroken since 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:34.400 I was sixteen. You know, I'm drawn to just to 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:37.360 like traditional notions of romantic love, and yet I find 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.640 it incredibly uninteresting. And I haven't really squared. I'm not 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.599 that interested in love stories, you know, I'm not. I 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.160 can't those like sweeping love stories and film and and 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.920 you know in books and literature, I'm not. I'm not 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.880 drawn to them. I don't find them interesting. Even in 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:58.479 in music, I find the drama of sort of attraction 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.800 much more interesting, and songs about love and and so 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.280 when I and I don't know, I still haven't figured 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.640 out what that is because in my actions, that's it's 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.559 it's been a primary thing that I care about and 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.240 structure my life around. But I think my experience of 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.800 love is almost it's so and this is something that 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.240 I feel lucky about it. It's so kind of familiar 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.960 and natural that it's almost boring. Which isn't to say 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:26.200 that I find love in my daily life boring, but 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.920 as a concept anyway, So when I thought about this question, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.640 you know, the things I think that what I really 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:36.440 that what defines love for me our relationships structured around care. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.640 I think I thought about like this was another thing 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.280 that I thought about having a baby in the pandemic, 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:44.840 was sort of like, this is what love is. The 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:50.640 extraordinary lengths that people go to in circumstances around the 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.960 world that are often phenomenally difficult in ways that I 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.720 can you know, hardly speak to or imagine what people 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.080 do on every day basis to take care of the 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:04.400 people in their family and the people that they love. 0:15:05.000 --> 0:15:07.360 I think that I think of that, that caretaking and 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.720 devotion that to me is what love is, and on 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.160 a really sort of every day and maybe that is 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.400 why maybe that does connect to the way I think 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:19.480 of romantic love as this sort of almost mundane thing. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.200 Is that love to me is, like I think about, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:26.280 what defines love for me is a sort of everyday 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.000 commitment or something like that, and not romantically, and in 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.240 terms of an everyday commitment to taking care of and 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.600 watching out for and safeguarding you know, the well being 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:41.520 of a parent, a child, a partner, a friend, right 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.040 hopefully you know, often strangers too. I think I think 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.520 of just this every day, these everyday actions. When I 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.360 was young I remember my first this is so funny. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:55.680 I just remember this when I was maybe an elementary school. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:58.080 One morning, I woke up sobbing because I had had 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:03.520 this dream about a bicycle, a bicycle in an empty 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:08.680 playground that nobody had, like that was just there and 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.560 nobody had picked it up, nobody had claimed it. And 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.520 I woke up sobbing, like thinking, like, someone has to 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.560 take care of this bicycle. And I think, and that 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.560 to me was one of the first I think that 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.920 was an early understanding of what love is. And I 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:28.040 think I had another sort of shocking realization of of that. 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.400 I remember, you know, back to the breastfeeding thing, but 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.360 you know, I mean it is kind of I remember, 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:37.040 it's huge and I and I think that's really the 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.280 experience that you know, people say like motherhood will change 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:41.720 you or whatever, and I think, really it was the 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.920 sort of hormonal tsunami that came breastfeeding that made me understand. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.920 I remember, like day three back from the hospital, when 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.800 my milk came in, I could feel in my body 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.960 just this this existential desire to to take care and 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:00.360 like the responsibility and the desire and the sweetness and 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.439 the like monstrosity of needing and wanting to take care 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.200 of somebody for as long as they live. Basically, yeah, 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:09.520 that's such a beautiful That is such a beautiful way 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.760 of putting it. It is overwhelming, which love is right, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.360 but also every day right, it's it's every single day, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.960 which dovetails into also the letting. I've talked about this 0:17:20.080 --> 0:17:22.760 a bit, but what no one ever seemed to talk 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:24.960 about with motherhood is that the very act of giving 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:26.960 birth is the thing that you will have to do 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.360 most with your child, which is to let go of them. 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.399 And it is this this constant process. How do you 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.840 want to continue to give something everything when you also 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:40.560 have to continually be letting them go in order to 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.960 have the experience that they came here to have, which 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:52.240 it's Do you have any advice for me? Um? Yes, 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.680 I do? I do? My God, what would my advice be? 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.080 Keep it in your heart that but I think you 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.080 already do, just from having read your book, But that 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:08.080 notion that nothing is guaranteed, and that every single moment 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:11.520 is leading up to this moment where you really, you 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.320 really do completely let them go to be free. But 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.239 you must always underwrite that. So it's kind of being 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:20.960 very being very strict with yourself about what your job 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.640 as custodian is and how much they are serving your 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.200 needs and insecurities as opposed to you dealing with that ship, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.080 and then really underwriting the person that they are becoming. 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.119 So it's just paying attention to who they are. I 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.520 really have tried not to shove my sweet Henry into 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:43.080 any box, and as a result, very young, he has 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.560 been self determining. And that's not you know, oh the kids, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.040 Oh you know, I'm just gonna let my kid flingers 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.040 po across the room because I want them to be 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.639 free to be him. It's not that. It's about really 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.119 really feeling and seeing whether interest lies and encouraging that 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.240 and not hammering the stuff that we think they should learn, 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:08.840 because they're going to learn that if you're if you're 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:10.960 kind and loving and you keep letting them go, because 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.919 no one tells you to teach yourself to let your 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.320 child go. But it's really the number one thing as 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.240 a as a mother that I've learned. It's hard, but 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.159 it's the best possible thing because I think it's what 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.920 brings them, It's what will always bring them back. Yeah, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:25.960 it will always keep them connected. To you is knowing 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.959 that they're free to fly, and they're like homing pigeons. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.840 I've just come home. I'm going to hang onto this 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:33.840 and remember it. And I and I think for me, 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.960 there was something that I felt thankful for in the 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.600 way that pregnancy and childbirth was in itself sort of 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.880 physically instructive, how it physically reinforced the sort of existential 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:46.680 and practical thing that you would have to do later 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.920 write that you could never like you had to understand 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.760 that nothing was ever guaranteed, that nothing is ever certain. 0:19:53.400 --> 0:19:55.280 And yeah, I found that to be like a useful 0:19:55.280 --> 0:20:01.160 existential lesson about the world's And I mean, it really 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:08.120 is what person, place, or experience most altered your life. 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:13.080 I grew up in an extremely conservative religious community in Texas, 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:18.840 going mostly on scholarship to a very very ultra Christian 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:21.600 school attached to one of the biggest mega churches in 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:26.440 the country. And I have realized increasingly I wouldn't say 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.000 that I'm a straightforward product of that environment, but it 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.480 was the entirety of my world from age four to sixteen, 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:36.520 let's say. And without that experience, I think I would 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.840 be significantly different. I lost religion, I would say maybe 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:43.560 high school. You know, my politics veered very far left 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:44.879 as soon as I got to college. I mean, you know, 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:47.000 I grew up I never met a liberal person, I 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.359 never met a feminist. I never met anyone that was 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.200 pro choice. It was very, very kind of a homogeneous 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:57.160 in every way. It was a white, very rich environment. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.399 But I think what that did to me was at 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:03.680 a fundamental level, and I think this has served me 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.240 in writing and in thinking. I think it it made 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.359 me understand the default state of life as one in 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:14.240 which nobody would necessarily agree with you, and that was okay. 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.920 Your opinion did not have to be validated by the 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:20.240 people around you. It gave me a sort of quasi 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.760 lonely but like a true sort of independence within my 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.480 own brain. It also gave me, I think, an understanding 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.000 of political and sort of cultural views that I think 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:35.320 I technically find really imporrant. But growing up with only 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.359 people who believe these things made me understand how a 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.719 view that I find apporran might manifest on the intimate, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.120 everyday level to somebody who holds it. And I think 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.760 that a lot of my progressive politics came from growing 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:53.399 up in the church and not understanding why you know, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:55.359 this Bible that I was having to read every single 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:57.280 day of my life for years, it seemed to me 0:21:57.400 --> 0:21:59.879 to be this very clearly kind of like socialist and 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.320 aggressive thing that was interpreted in ways that were the 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.280 opposite sort of economic policies that were harsh and individualistic, 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.119 and my kind of confusion and anger about all of 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.280 that ended up shaping my politics into what they are now. 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:15.879 And then abidingly the last thing I'm left with, the 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:20.720