Speaker 1: In the early morning hours of July two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: I woke up. I knew something was wrong, something had broken.
Speaker 1: I was thirty six weeks pregnant, and I woke up.
Speaker 1: I woke up a few hours later. I was flat
Speaker 1: on my back under tungsten lighting as a team of
Speaker 1: eight people cross checked each other as if preparing to
Speaker 1: take flight, noting the time, confirming my name and age.
Speaker 1: And then my daughter was cut out of me and
Speaker 1: whisked to a table, a crowd of busy hands working
Speaker 1: over her. You'd think it would be hard to read
Speaker 1: someone's face if it were obscured by a medical mask,
Speaker 1: but it's not. The eyes tell you everything you need
Speaker 1: to know. The nurses eyes, the doctor's eyes, the an
Speaker 1: enthusiologists eyes, the technicians. They all told me something was
Speaker 1: very wrong, maybe even broken. This is the stuff of life,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host, Julie Douglas. In this episode, we
Speaker 1: take a hard look at what it is to be broken.
Speaker 1: My daughter was hypoxic. The umbilical cord had nearly strangled
Speaker 1: the life out of her. She had what the neurologist
Speaker 1: called a significant insult to her brain. And though I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know it until later she had sustained a serious
Speaker 1: hearing loss. I was devastated. I felt like I had
Speaker 1: failed her, like my body had broken her. It was
Speaker 1: like being inside of a nightmare you couldn't wake from. Yeah.
Speaker 1: For many nights after she was born, I dreamed she
Speaker 1: was in my arms and then gone. I would wake frantic,
Speaker 1: tearing the pillows and sheets of the bed, looking for her,
Speaker 1: calling out to her, until I saw her sleeping peacefully
Speaker 1: in the bassinet. I was awake, and I was broken.
Speaker 1: Since then, I've come to understand that we are all
Speaker 1: broken in one way or another, and that most human
Speaker 1: made things are too. Our ideas are broken, our systems
Speaker 1: are broken, our governments, and in this way, the personal
Speaker 1: is the political. No matter what perspective we're coming from,
Speaker 1: we can all agree that the United States is broken.
Speaker 1: But we've been here before. Time. It would seem it's
Speaker 1: circular guide in our newsroom has been an attempt said,
Speaker 1: perhaps you know now on the light for President's or
Speaker 1: to be desimental to your safe is to continue this market.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that this is an unlawful astamy. You have
Speaker 1: to disperse your heartest at disperse go home. I'll go
Speaker 1: to you a church this march will not content. Well,
Speaker 1: come on seng Man, Uncle Samy to health again, godham
Speaker 1: self and it's terrible jam down nd N. Now, so
Speaker 1: we're start a third highest medal in the country. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything. I gotta silver Star, Purple Hearts, Army
Speaker 1: Conversation Medal, eight Air Metal, National Defense and the rest
Speaker 1: of this garbage. It doesn't mean a face. And that
Speaker 1: we are living in a time when political fault lines
Speaker 1: are fracturing. Society is now very apparent. Inauguration, NDR, you
Speaker 1: can hear the what do you want to do in
Speaker 1: the back round? Another thing, all that for all of
Speaker 1: that exists, all of that opposition. Donald J. Trump is
Speaker 1: now president at the United States. Can you explain your
Speaker 1: emotions to me, citizens of America, explain your emotions to
Speaker 1: There's just no way there's like just snow to build,
Speaker 1: no way to even comprehend with this means like this
Speaker 1: very for me, This earl moment is like like within
Speaker 1: a cell. It's like in the world the dark and
Speaker 1: the light are so tight right now at this moment,
Speaker 1: it's we will face there's so much potential, will get
Speaker 1: the job done for beauty and for devastated, and this
Speaker 1: is one moment. It's so much incomprehensible that they can
Speaker 1: exist right now, so and we are grateful, so good
Speaker 1: to explore this fracture. Podcast host Holly Fry, producer Noel Brown,
Speaker 1: and myself packed up our things and headed to d
Speaker 1: C on the day of President Trump's inauguration to attend
Speaker 1: the Women's March. The next day, the sun was just
Speaker 1: starting to set and the streets were nearly empty. But
Speaker 1: the closer we got to the White House, the more
Speaker 1: we saw signs like dump Trump and crowds of people thickening.
Speaker 1: We turned onto f Street and were met with a
Speaker 1: wave of smoke. Got away from the don't breath ahead,
Speaker 1: a crush of people gathered around an overturned newspaper box,
Speaker 1: It's metal frame warping under the fire it was engulfed in.
Speaker 1: Nearby police in full riot gear kept their shields up,
Speaker 1: and just one block from the smoke a National Guard
Speaker 1: and hovering helicopters. The streets were again empty. Occasionally couples
Speaker 1: dressed in ballgowns and tuxedos emerged from their hotels to
Speaker 1: attend inauguration festivities. This is where we met Dan. He
Speaker 1: was holding a U. S flag, his young son standing
Speaker 1: protectively nearby, riding the flag when it neared the ground.
Speaker 1: We're here because this is probably the greatest president in
Speaker 1: our lifetime, where you're celebrated, and because my daughter had
Speaker 1: the privilege march in the break. Earlier we met Shine,
Speaker 1: she was selling buttons with sentiments like not my president
Speaker 1: in the world. The people why you will or might
Speaker 1: be lace? They have mace gowns them with something that's
Speaker 1: maceca tie were I Shine and Dan's moods were very different.
Speaker 1: W if you're wig because we're gonna return to the
Speaker 1: constitutional status where people can work to be free, where
Speaker 1: they can work for merit, where they can work for
Speaker 1: their future. And I honestly believe we're in the rising
Speaker 1: tide that will lift all boats if you let it.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like that they I don't know what
Speaker 1: everybody's feeling, but I feel like there's a certain move.
Speaker 1: It's like you get in an uncomfortable situation and you
Speaker 1: have to your force to either accept that situation or
Speaker 1: you can you can't. It's like if you have broken legs,
Speaker 1: you can't walk, but you eventually realize, Okay, my legs
Speaker 1: are being repaired right now. I'm in a healing process.
Speaker 1: We asked Dan about empathy about people who are marginalized,
Speaker 1: for whom the playing fields aren't leveled. Most of us
Speaker 1: see individuals as individuals, but we see groups as pushing
Speaker 1: us back. I will take care of any individual of
Speaker 1: any nature, any religion, any any sexual orientation as an
Speaker 1: individual with truly, with with love. I don't feel that difference.
Speaker 1: Any one of you guys needed something, I would do
Speaker 1: it right now. I don't know who you are, I would,
Speaker 1: I would do what I can to help you. But
Speaker 1: you also have to understand that nobody has a requirement
Speaker 1: to be nice to anybody. We want to help people
Speaker 1: be nice, but you're not entitled to that. You have
Speaker 1: to make that happen. And I feel there's at least
Speaker 1: as much racism against as a white person these days
Speaker 1: in terms of looking at skin color and reacting. Whereas
Speaker 1: I'm searching when I see other people for a commonality,
Speaker 1: I want to I want to find that threat, and
Speaker 1: as soon as I find that thread, it's all good.
Speaker 1: And if you talk to anybody who's felt that way
Speaker 1: about some people, it's all to seek out the other people.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of conflict on the day of
Speaker 1: the inoperation between attendees and protesters, but Seine made a
Speaker 1: conscious choice where I saw anger, I gave a hug
Speaker 1: um and just sort of like, we could do this.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm ready to move forward. I don't have
Speaker 1: no choice. I can't go back, I can't stand here.
Speaker 1: I choose to go fullard. Everybody's just gotta be responsive
Speaker 1: to the situation, move forward and take it for what
Speaker 1: it is worth and watch it back. So we're there
Speaker 1: any commonalities for Dan anything he could agree with? Well,
Speaker 1: that's hard, hard question answer, Um, what do you like? Okay?
Speaker 1: I I walked up to a protester who commented on
Speaker 1: my hat right away. As right after the tear guests
Speaker 1: went off at the beat up in the Starbucks, where
Speaker 1: most millennials hang out more than anybody the rest of us.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they picked Starbucks to damage, but
Speaker 1: there was dear gas, there was glass, and right afterwards,
Speaker 1: young man about said don't go in there unless you
Speaker 1: want to get tear gassed. And I asked him, I said,
Speaker 1: what what, What's what's the issue? And he says healthcare.
Speaker 1: And that's when I come up with I realized. I said,
Speaker 1: but you know the government doesn't give you healthcare. People
Speaker 1: get healthcare and he said, well, we wanted for free.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, good luck with that. He said, well,
Speaker 1: we're fighting hard for that. Go to work and fight hard.
Speaker 1: So I don't agree with what the demands that I've
Speaker 1: been hearing. I haven't heard demands in the post election
Speaker 1: cycle that I can agree with, and that's unfortunate. But
Speaker 1: I'm searching for that. Maybe you could give me a
Speaker 1: point of view that you think might cross the aisle
Speaker 1: about anything, anything you've heard today that you think somebody
Speaker 1: you say you identified. I want to be empathetic with
Speaker 1: that challenge. I mean, honestly, from what I have heard
Speaker 1: from people who are quote unquote liberals is that they're
Speaker 1: actually just seeing this as an opportunity to try to
Speaker 1: band together. So he is the president. We do need
Speaker 1: to move forward, So where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Like your legs are broken, now, you know it's a
Speaker 1: healing process. They're animal, So what you do is inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Speaker 1: Your friend who is a reiki from Woodstock, New York,
Speaker 1: who is you know, very and he's taught me things.
Speaker 1: He's taught me as an orth beat, as many things
Speaker 1: that I use in my daily life, breathing for instance, Okay,
Speaker 1: wonderful thought we can share that we can grow with that. Um.
Speaker 1: He's praying for peace, but he's afraid of what Donald
Speaker 1: Trump would mean as far as that's concerned. And I said,
Speaker 1: I'm praying for the for peace too, but in the
Speaker 1: opportunities allow us to live our lives. And I say,
Speaker 1: what if, just maybe your prayers are answered in a
Speaker 1: way you didn't expect me. And I think that we
Speaker 1: have a chance for the future. For Dan, everything up
Speaker 1: until this part has been broken, and there's a promise
Speaker 1: of making his worldview whole. For Shine, she's just beginning
Speaker 1: to see the fractures. You might think that these two
Speaker 1: perspectives are like fragments from a broken bowl, never to
Speaker 1: be returned to the whole again. But it turns out
Speaker 1: that something can be broken and fixed at the same time,
Speaker 1: and in the process made stronger. A lump of clay
Speaker 1: on a spinning wheel changes shape. It rises up as
Speaker 1: the potter intervenes with her hands, and by degrees the
Speaker 1: form of a bowl emerges. It's then fired glazed, refired,
Speaker 1: and finally the bowl is the illusion of symmetry perfection.
Speaker 1: The bull falls, hits the ground, cracks open. Kintsugi is
Speaker 1: the Japanese art of broken pottery, the philosophy of which
Speaker 1: tells us that a shattered bull isn't broken, but simply scattered.
Speaker 1: It's true potential only now revealed. The shards are fused
Speaker 1: together with gold, and the cracks clow like gilded veins.
Speaker 1: In a Japanese parable, it is said that the bowl
Speaker 1: has become more beautiful for having been broken. The true
Speaker 1: life of the bull began the moment it fell. We
Speaker 1: know this story, albeit in a different form. We call
Speaker 1: it the Fall, and in it Adam and Eve live
Speaker 1: in Paradise, place where everything is perfect and nothing happens.
Speaker 1: In Rebecca soln It's book Hope in the Dark, she
Speaker 1: writes that quote, Paradise does not require of us courage, selflessness, creativity, passion.
Speaker 1: She notes that quote some imaginative Christian heretics worshiped Eve
Speaker 1: for having liberated us from Paradise the myth of the
Speaker 1: fortunate Fall. The heretics recognized that before the fall, we
Speaker 1: were not yet fully human. In Paradise, Adam and Eve
Speaker 1: need not wrestle with morality, creation, with society, with mortality.
Speaker 1: They only realize their own humanity and the struggle and
Speaker 1: imperfect world invites. In the early morning hours of July fifteen,
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, I knew something was wrong, something
Speaker 1: had broken. I was thirty six weeks pregnant, and I
Speaker 1: woke up. I wasn't sure exactly what was wrong, but
Speaker 1: I silently pled to my unborn daughter to hold on
Speaker 1: to live. I swear, I said that life is beautiful.
Speaker 1: I swear it's worth it. I woke up later in
Speaker 1: the operating room, with hands working over her tiny body.
Speaker 1: My daughter finally took her first breath. Today, I look
Speaker 1: at her, and I see a kind of kintsugi at work,
Speaker 1: the mosaic of people and systems that stitched together her existence.
Speaker 1: And I see these same forces at work and binding
Speaker 1: us all together, because life truly begins once we realize
Speaker 1: it's broken. In Season two of the Stuff of Life,
Speaker 1: the personal is the political, and we follow the cracks
Speaker 1: in it all, starting with anger and hate, and then
Speaker 1: the miracle of empty and compassion and wiring us all
Speaker 1: together in this great, big, broken world of ours. Sometimes
Speaker 1: anger is an entirely appropriate response to mistreatment, and it's
Speaker 1: our own anger is a signal to our felt that
Speaker 1: we need to take better care of ourselves. The sup
Speaker 1: of Life is written and executive produced by me and
Speaker 1: Julie Douglas and co produced by Noel Brown. Interviews in
Speaker 1: this episode were conducted by Noel Brown and Holly Fry.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Noel Brown. This episode also featured
Speaker 1: music by Tristan McNeil and Dylan Fagan, and editorial oversight
Speaker 1: is provided by contributing producer Dylan Fagan and Head of
Speaker 1: production Jerry Rowland. We'd like to hear from you. We'd
Speaker 1: like to hear your stories and your thoughts and you
Speaker 1: can share them with us on our total free calling
Speaker 1: number that's one eight four four hs W stuff