WEBVTT - Cold People 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.960 Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio. In 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:11.600 between visits, I saw my father all around New York. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:14.680 I saw him sitting in a movie theater, the exact 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.000 curve of his neck to jaw to cheekbone. I saw 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.200 him as I ran along the Hudson River in winter, 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.239 sitting on a bench looking at the dock boats, and 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.759 on my subway, revived the work, walking away on the 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:30.440 platform through the crowd, thin men, olive skinned, fine fingered, 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:35.000 slim wristed, double bearded, who at certain angles looked just 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.040 like him. Each time I had to get closer to 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.240 check my heart in my throat, even though I knew 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.320 it could not possibly be him, because he was sick 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:47.800 in bed in California. Before this, during years in which 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.640 we hardly spoke, I had seen his picture everywhere. Seeing 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.640 the pictures gave me a strange thing. The feeling was 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.320 familiar to catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.840 across the room and thinking it was someone else, and 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.480 then realizing it was my own faith Darry was peering 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.520 up for magazines and newspapers and screens in whatever city 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.160 I was in. That is my father, and no one 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:14.679 knows it, but it's true. That's Lisa Brennan Jobs, reading 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.679 from her first memoir, Small Fry. Lisa's story is both 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.959 about having a secret and being a secret. What's your 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.120 life like when your father, the father who initially did 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.560 not believe you were his, The father who only reluctantly 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:33.720 claimed you after he was forced to take a fraternity test, 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.400 The father who kept you at arm's length all your life, 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.200 is one of the most famous, powerful, and wealthiest men 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.000 in the world. Here's just a bit more from Lisa 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.800 before we dive into our conversation. I have a secret, 0:01:48.880 --> 0:01:51.640 I said to my new friends at school. I whispered 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.520 it so they would see I was reluctant to mention it. 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:58.200 The key I felt was to underplay. My father is 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.200 Steve Jobs. Who is that? One asked, He's famous? I said, 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:05.920 he invented the personal computer. He lives in a mansion 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.799 and drives a Porsche convertible. He buys a new one 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:12.120 every time I gets a scratch. The story had a 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.480 film of unreality to it, as I said it, even 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.960 to my own ears. I hadn't hung out with him 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:20.120 that much, only a few skates and visits. I didn't 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:22.200 have the clothes or the bike. Someone with a father 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.280 like this would have. My last name was different from his. 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.280 He even named a computer after me. I said to them, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.680 what computer. A girl named Elizabeth asked the Lisa. I said, 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.600 a computer called the Lisa. She said, I never heard 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.679 of it. It was ahead of its time. I used 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.960 my mother's phrase, although I wasn't sure why it was ahead. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:47.959 He visited the personal computer later. But you can't tell 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:50.600 anyone because if someone finds out, I could get kidnapped. 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:53.240 I brought it up when I felt I needed to, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:55.800 waiting as long as I could, and then letting it 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.240 burst forth. I don't remember feeling at a disadvantage with 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.680 my friends who had others, only that there was at 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:06.320 my fingertips another magical identity, an extra thing that started 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.960 to itch and tangle when I felt small, and it 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.560 was like a pressure building inside me. And then I 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:15.600 had to find a way to say it. She had 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.400 to find a way to say it. Isn't that what 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.760 this show is all about? So many of us are 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.600 trying to find a way to say it. Whatever it is, 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:38.280 this thing that wasn't allowed to be spoken. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:42.119 and this is family secrets. The secrets that are kept 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.880 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:52.920 secrets we keep from ourselves. So I missed it a lot. Actually, 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:58.360 the air in California and northern California knows of disks. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.480 They're towering and there's silvery, and they have these size 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.720 in half moon knees that dangle down and shiver in 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:12.120 the wind. And they have these beautiful kind of button 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:17.480 shaped seeds that plunk on those ceilings and fall on 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.599 the roads, and they are kind of silvery too, and perfumed. 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:24.159 My mother was saying that they're not native to the 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.960 area and that their roots systems are really shallow, so 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.640 they can fall over. She said this when I was younger, 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.960 and I I held onto this idea, and I remember 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:36.680 when we would drive to the beach, which was up 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.760 this curvy road all the way over the hills and 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.760 then down to the Pacific Ocean. There was a line 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.640 of eucalyptus trees, and every time we would have to 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.440 go through that long tree lined road, I would hold 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.800 my breath with terror that these trees would fall down 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.200 on us. And then many years later said, oh, no, sweetheart, 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:01.120 no trees falling very slowly, but anyway, the air smelled 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:06.719 the people lift and danger. The earliest home I think 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:09.479 I remember was this place as the sort of the 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.200 batch house of the house in Memmo Park and no 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:14.919 are remember being in a shower with my mother and 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.240 she was the hot water and the cold water were 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.360 coming on. We were alternating them for some reason, and 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.480 she was yelling like closed poors, open pours, and I 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.720 was yelling it with her, and I think there was 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.200 a curtain, and then we would go outside. At that 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.200 house there was theater. The house was small that there 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.359 was quite the garden because the main house was surrounded 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.760 by land. This house is a kind of house on 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:40.400 spilt on a hill that was really falling apart a 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.640 little bit, the one with the trellis roses, and there 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:44.479 was ivy on one side where I would go and 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.360 play beside the big oak tree on my own. Or 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.599 was the boy who lived there with his mother also 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.720 we were renting a room. And now that house has 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:56.240 been all fixed up. It looks really nice because that 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.320 doesn't look anymore like it's going to fall down the 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.480 hill or like the wood is old. It looks like 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.919 a shiny, polished version of its old self when we 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.239 lived in a bunch of houses. I think I've removed 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:11.960 searching times before I was seven, but by the time 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:17.600 I was seven. What was it like to move thirteen 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:19.919 times in the first seven years of your life? I 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.520 mean both what was it like then? And like, how 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.599 do you think about that now? It's hard to know 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.320 what it was like then. I remember my mother being 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.760 very sad. I think maybe she was probably depressed and 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:33.359 probably just completely overwhelmed with our money less circumstances, and 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.000 how she would kind of sit in one of these 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.200 rooms in the dark, and I would feel embarrassed because 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.520 in this one's house that we're moving into, it was 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:43.680 our own house. We were the ones who had our 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:47.360 name on the lease, and I remember the des fiction, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.840 oh my god, we're moving into a place that's just ours. 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.359 And I also remember noticing that we really didn't have 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.680 any furniture. So I had these moments of feeling a 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.520 distance from my own circumstances and of irthing them, maybe 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.000 because I've been to other people's houses. We lived at 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.000 one place over the summer that was full of furniture. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:09.720 We stub led it from somewhere too was away, and 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.720 they had a television, and I remember watching Jethany Street 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.040 and they had so much furniture that right now, the 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.320 way I imagine it was the kind of a hoarder's paradise, 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:19.280 but in fact it might have just been a very well, 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.160 normally furnished house. You know. It wasn't necessarily something I 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.880 was looking at anthropologically, because it was my life and 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.760 I was so young I didn't really know any different. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.480 And yet there were ploys when I remember thinking, oh, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.000 that's different than what might be normal. And I think 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.160 that children will take these moments that are mysterious and 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.160 sort of box them up for later. And I think 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.160 that because I think during the process of writing a 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:48.240 memoir it was it was an unboxing. In other words, 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.000 the stories that I would remember, we're the ones that 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:53.840 where things happened that does not make sense to me 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.120 at the time, and that is why I had wrapped 0:07:56.160 --> 0:08:00.960 them up and saved them for all that time. One 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:03.880 of these boxed up moments happens in a car after 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:05.880 Lisa and her mom have taken a road trip to 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.000 Harbor Hot Springs and everything that can possibly go wrong does. 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.960 Her mother gets lost, the car breaks down. They're hungry, tired, 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.160 and completely without resources, and her mother just loses it, 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:24.960 completely loses it, and essentially has a nervous collapse right 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:26.960 there in the car in front of her four year 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.280 old daughter, in what must have been a frightening combination 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:35.360 of terror and rage. There's this moment where you write, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.280 at the height of her hopelessness and noise, that felt 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:40.679 a calm presence near us, even though I knew we 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.679 were alone in the water. We held the car jerking, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.600 some benevolent presence that cared for us but could not interfere. 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.520 Maybe sitting in the back seat, can you say more 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.719 about that benevolent presence and whether that's something that kind 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.040 of accompanied you at other times. You were very young 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.240 when you had that thought, right, I think it was 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:02.560 for And I talked to my mother about that later 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:05.840 after I had written it. I was mentioning this moment 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.800 you talked about in the car driving back from this 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.800 little sort of break we took, driving back to our home. 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.640 Oh my god, you know, we don't have money, we 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.720 don't have to support There's a sense of shame in 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:22.880 society for her role, and she feels as very acute way. 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:27.040 She is a married woman with an illegitimate child, and 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:28.679 she's thought that she would ever have thought of me 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.400 in that way. But Reagan is talking about, well, her 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.280 mother is and single mothers, and my father is saying 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:40.320 that she essentially slept with lots of people, and she 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.240 she hadn't and then it wasn't his kid, and you know, 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:45.160 it's just shame upon Shane. And she had had her 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:48.640 own test things in her childhood. And so she she's 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.640 screaming kind of at the universe, but I'm there. And 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.520 she said later when I asked her about it, that 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.040 she she's had other moments like that before that on, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.200 but that at that moment she realized, oh, and he's 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.719 just going to remember this later. You know, there was 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:10.880 I was past the veil where memories disappear, and oh god, 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.560 I remember being terrified, and I remember if I didn't 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.719 keep a hold of myself, I might not realize how 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.920 weird certain things were. And I wanted certain things to 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:23.040 be weird because I didn't want them to be my life. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.280 And that's another kind of disassociatures other presence in the car, 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:33.280 I guess the psychological model has named this phenomenon, which 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.880 is in a moment of extreme stress, the t sect 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:42.440 and becomes too our calmness finds another ground or something 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:47.240 like that is dissociation as defense. Right. I felt when 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.440 I was writing the book, like, oh my god, that's 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.800 the purpose of this book. In a certain way. I 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:55.439 get to go back and keep myself company. I get 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.160 to go back as a steady hand as someone is 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:02.480 to some degree made it out fine to all the 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:06.520 difficult times of my childhood when I didn't know if 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.679 we would make it out fine. And I can't influence anything, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:12.640 but I get it's gonna sit in the backseat and 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:17.440 be this presence. Describe your mother to me. My mother 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:22.400 is humanist. I think if she's not creative, if she's 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:27.880 not expressing herself artistically, even in one day, she feels 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.000 disconnected from herself and becomes depressed. She decided when I 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.599 was born that she was going to become she was 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.240 going to be a mother and an artist, that she 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.959 was going to do them both, and she's pursued that 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:48.160 fairly intensely. She is very beautiful. I think she's really blunt. 0:11:48.320 --> 0:11:52.600 She's really honest. She will tell the truth without thinking 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.120 of the consequences, because the truth is the only important 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.160 thing to her. Was that also true for you, you 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.000 were a child. There was a kind of like she 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.920 wasn't going to soften it so much for a child. 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:08.719 She was gonna And I don't mean it's in a 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.599 kind of crying in the car way, like that was 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.640 an art extraordinary circumstance. But I mean she would get 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:16.760 mary mad at me. For example, if I talked about 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.160 good guys and bad guys, which I see now children 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.080 doing all the time. It must have always been interposed childhood. 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.840 But if I would talk about good guys, she'd get furious. 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.959 This was useful to Lisa later, this talk of good 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.040 guys and bad guys. Her mom also talked about not 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.440 looking at things in black and white, but there were 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:39.560 many shades, many colors, also useful later. She was young. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.959 She was so young. She was younger than everyone else's mother. 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:46.760 She was more beautiful, she was more fun, I think 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.280 in certain ways. But we would go and get coffee, 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.800 we would take walks and would go to hike. And 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.480 how old was she when she had you? She was 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:58.280 twenty three. She has a quality where she will sometimes 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:01.480 bite the hand that sees her. This feels like part 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:06.240 of this honesty, but I'm not sure if it always is, 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.000 and that quality was frustrating to me when I was 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:14.080 a kid. I would have rather lied to make things 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.160 comfortable for us, and that was not the way she operated. 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:23.880 Tell me your first memory of hearing about your father. 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.200 So at some point, I guess we came back from 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:31.440 Tahoe when I was four, and apparently he picked us 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.040 up in this porsche. I sat on my mother's lap, 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:37.599 those were the days, right in the frost seats, and 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.760 we drove to his He just bought this mansion and 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:43.800 wood side, and he bought it for the land and 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:49.719 had these big, old, beautiful, huge oak trees, and he 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.840 said the house was shipped and they had an elevator, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.000 and I discovered it, or I felt I discovered it 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.360 and had an organ room start of going up and 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.760 down the elevator and I'm playing the organ. I mean, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.040 organs is a church organ, so there's like rooms full 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.559 of pipes. At some point you gave me an apricot 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:07.400 from the orchard, and it was just like the best 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:09.680 thing I've ever had. And then I think we didn't 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:11.920 really start to get to know each other again. When 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:13.880 I was seven or eight, and I remember going back 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.400 to that mansion with him alone where I knew there 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.600 was an elevator and there was a church organ and 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.800 I knew that he didn't love that. I was fascinated 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.280 bordering on a set with those things. There was a 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.240 lot of silence. I think in retrospect he was very awkward, 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.280 and I think extraordinary and sort of groups and then 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:41.120 sometimes maybe much quieter one on one. Also, he was 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.320 getting to know his daughter for the first time, which 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.360 I can only imagine for somebody who maybe he wasn't 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.400 even particularly good with kids, who maybe felt ashamed he 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:53.920 hadn't been there earlier. And also we don't realize that 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.080 kids that kids can be a little scary when you're 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:57.880 an adult, when you don't know how to talk with 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.320 them and they don't respond the way adults do to reything. 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.480 Someone told me that the charms that worked on everyone 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.840 else didn't necessarily worked on me. And so then what 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:10.000 did he have. I've never seen someone dressed so well. 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.000 I remember that, and I wouldn't have been able to 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:14.200 put it in those words as a kid. And it 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.800 wasn't like he wore anything particularly fancy, but at that 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:19.160 point he was, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.240 so his sweaters. They weren't particularly fancy or anything, but 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:26.320 they were like a league different than anything I'd seen. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.360 Is like he'd be wearing ripped up jeans. But then 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.920 there'd be something about his shoes. You know, with our clothes, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:33.920 we wear them a bunch, washed a bunch, and they'd 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:37.240 get worn, the colors would fade, and maybe they'd be 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.120 a little tattered, and they they'd be a little wrinkly 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.520 from folding. And I think probably with his they were 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.560 in the drawer and maybe worn only a few times, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.880 and they were crisp. But I remember that some puzzlement 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:51.960 about the way that he looked in the smells, the 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:56.920 smells of new clothes, and then finding it comforting because 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.440 it was almost like he was an emissary from another world, 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.480 a world that smells different. Maybe that smells European, right, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:09.400 These clothes were probably perfumed, the package spent over. He 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:14.520 drove fast, not particularly well. The fat his car was rumbly. 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.720 All of the machines around him Nate noises that I 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.200 that were new to me. Again, they were probably your apacist. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:24.560 There was a feeling of of magic when he was 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.320 around who they was special. He would come by oh, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.360 your guy's coming by, you know, um, maybe we would 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:34.280 go for a skate. And he sort of walked in 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.320 this way where he seemed to fall forward and then 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:40.040 bounce up and fall forward. And I remember that, and 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.920 his hair was so dark, and even now just describing it, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.480 just this feeling of love welling up at me right now, 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.960 even just like, oh, this one, this is the one 0:16:51.160 --> 0:16:55.200 that I got, and how wonderful he is because he 0:16:55.440 --> 0:17:00.040 was had a certain sweetness to him, and I I 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:01.920 want to say charmed, but I don't think that doesn't 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:03.800 justice because it went all the way to the core. 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.080 We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:21.160 Lisa inhabits a world of contrasts that she feels into 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.920 its rather than comprehends. This is the way it is 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:29.360 in childhood, even in our teenage years. We don't yet 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.840 have the tools will develop later to be able to 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.320 think through, analyze, understand, so we're left with what we 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.960 sense and feel in our bodies. And what Lisa felt 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.080 was the difference between the way her mother and her 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:47.240 father moved through the world. Her mother's life was pinched 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:52.760 and closed, anxious, pressed, defined by limitation, and her father, 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.040 though He didn't live or act like a typical rich person. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.240 He wore jeans and T shirts, lived in a crumbling mansion. 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.199 He moved through the world with a sense of possibility 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:07.480 and openness. How old were you when he suggested that 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.880 you come live with him? My moment, I was having 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:16.640 horrible fights. I think that she kind of had a crisis. 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.760 I mean understandably, I think in the sense that she 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.000 had been raising me alone with for a large part, 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.720 very very limited support, and then I started kind of 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:31.320 taking off in a certain way. I was in a 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.560 great school, I was doing really well. All I wanted 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:37.520 to do was study, and she was kind of the 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:43.920 the support staff she was made and this probably cast 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.000 her back to having always been the maid. And her 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.879 life was spluttering. She was breaking up with her boyfriend 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.120 of many years, and I think just everything was really 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:56.439 hard for her at that moment, and so we were 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.440 getting into horrible fights. And also I was like a 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.920 kind of, you know, a little bit shitty in the 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.399 sense that I didn't want to do the dishes. I 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:06.359 wanted to do my homework and I have, of course, 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.480 it's fair to help your parents with the dishes. I 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:10.960 think it was also like she would kind of naked, 0:19:11.040 --> 0:19:13.440 as miserable as it could be, because she was in rage. 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:15.280 And that's why I didn't want to do the dishes 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.600 with her, like I didn't want to participate in this, 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.000 in this anymore. And she was getting worse, and I 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.600 felt I was getting better. And then also to my father, 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.520 who had turned his back on me when I was 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.120 little and then had increasingly become a part of my life, 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.280 I was now someone he could be proud of. Right, 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.600 I was doing really well in school, I was. I 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:39.800 know that soundsinical. I think in some ways it was 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.240 like I've gotten all shined up to the point where 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.879 he'd own me. I don't know that's terrible, but he 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.520 probably didn't necessarily want to take me any Just about 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.399 to have a baby, he has a new, very new wife. 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:55.119 Um he says he's moved to Palaso a few blocks away. 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:57.320 Later I asked him why, and he said, to be 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.600 close to me. He offered to have me move with him. 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.800 But it wasn't an offer that was necessarily full of joy. 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.080 It was almost a full of necessity. Was it? His 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.000 rules though, that that you not see your mother for 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:11.680 six months if you moved in with him, or where 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:14.000 did that come from. Was it protective of you because 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:15.760 things were so rough with your mother, or was it 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:20.879 controlling or or something else. He's just someone who doesn't 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:24.600 know what he's necessarily doing in the emotional sphere. Is 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.440 trying to help me in some ways to try and 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:29.440 stay from what has become a terrible environment with my mother, 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:34.240 and doesn't know how to love very easily when he 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.840 doesn't have any control. And I think, if I move 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:40.960 over to his house two blocks away from my mother, 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:43.960 and then I'm just still going over to my mother's 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:46.240 house all this time, and perhaps she's yelling at me, 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.040 who knows what he's thinking. I mean, if I put 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.560 it terribly towards him, if I'm seeing my mother all 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:53.480 the time, he has no way of making sure I'm okay. 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:55.840 And so that's that's what he invented, and then the 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.720 rules around that. I think we're six months. I remember 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.679 that kind of vaguely. It was a horrible crime, as 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.639 you could imagine. I remember a certain relief, like a 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.000 few I get to not see my mother, but I'm 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:11.159 not at fault for it, you know, So, so in 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.639 the beginning it was just relief, like I get to 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.880 move away, and it's my father's fault that I don't 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.560 have to see my mother, you know, because I'm so 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.680 angry with her, I'm so tired and spice and so 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:25.639 I'm this sort of moratorium on contact is a relief 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:28.160 for me. I mean, there would have been a million 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:30.160 ways to do it better, like we we all probably 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.080 should have gone to see a therapist. But I don't 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.800 think my father really believed in seeing a therapist, because 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.479 you know, obviously people who don't believe in therapists usually 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.560 there's something lurking under their right. But yeah, that was 0:21:42.600 --> 0:21:45.040 a real thoughts job. I think telling me that they 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.200 can't see their mother for takes months. We needed some 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:53.120 real help, not some superficial kind of band aid regulated 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.800 controlling help. We needed real help. And I think he 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:00.600 was part of the problem of why we had ended 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:04.639 up there, why my mother was in such trouble, and 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:10.080 he took on some of solving that problem. He was 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:12.920 paying for my school, he was paying for my therapist, 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:15.280 going to a great school. I had a great therapist, 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.359 But he didn't really take it off and I both 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:24.120 understand it and I was sad about it. Yeah, yeah, 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.159 that makes a lot of sense. There's a part of 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.640 what you write about once you're there, you know, once 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.320