1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:12,240 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio High 2 00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:15,920 Speaker 1: Family Secrets Listeners, It's Danny. We're hard at work on 3 00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:19,439 Speaker 1: a fourth season of Family Secrets, which will return in October. 4 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:21,920 Speaker 1: In the meantime, I hope you're checking out my new 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,760 Speaker 1: daily podcast, The Way We Live Now. We're all pretty 6 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:28,080 Speaker 1: burnt out on the news, and The Way We Live 7 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:30,920 Speaker 1: Now is my attempt to bring us all together in 8 00:00:30,920 --> 00:00:34,360 Speaker 1: a way that feels comforting and helpful. But now a 9 00:00:34,440 --> 00:00:37,479 Speaker 1: whole other thing. I'm excited to share with you another 10 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:41,040 Speaker 1: of the Family Secrets conversations that I recorded live this 11 00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:45,440 Speaker 1: past winter, this one with rock legend Liz Fair. Liz 12 00:00:45,479 --> 00:00:47,760 Speaker 1: and I appeared together at the Fine Arts Theater in 13 00:00:47,840 --> 00:00:52,400 Speaker 1: Los Angeles to talk about creativity, self expression, the burning 14 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:56,200 Speaker 1: need to tell the truth of what happened, and of course, secrets. 15 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:12,080 Speaker 1: I hope you love our conversation as much as I did. Ye. Hey, 16 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:16,200 Speaker 1: everyone is so great to be here in l a 17 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:21,520 Speaker 1: um at Writer's Box with Liz Fair. It's really one 18 00:01:21,560 --> 00:01:23,880 Speaker 1: of those moments of sort of like, wait, what happened 19 00:01:26,560 --> 00:01:33,039 Speaker 1: color rock star? Under a rock star? So listen. I 20 00:01:33,080 --> 00:01:39,560 Speaker 1: have a lot of really interesting intersections that I had 21 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:42,160 Speaker 1: no idea that we had until I read Horror Stories. 22 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:45,960 Speaker 1: It's a book that I think is, among many other things, 23 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:52,000 Speaker 1: about identity, and it plays with time because you think 24 00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:57,320 Speaker 1: about time, and it strikes me, even though I only 25 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,720 Speaker 1: really know you through your work and of brief conversation 26 00:02:01,800 --> 00:02:06,320 Speaker 1: and backstage, it feels like you, UM have a similar 27 00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:11,959 Speaker 1: preoccupation or obsession with with time as as I do. 28 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:15,600 Speaker 1: And so I guess I'm wondering if we could begin 29 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:21,840 Speaker 1: with what makes a rock star want to write a memoir? 30 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:25,760 Speaker 1: Because this is not this isn't like a memoir, like 31 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:29,600 Speaker 1: hire a ghostwriter and write a memoir, or you know, 32 00:02:29,639 --> 00:02:32,800 Speaker 1: you had other things to do. And it's a beautifully written, 33 00:02:32,919 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 1: really soulful, really powerful book that I would urge you 34 00:02:37,760 --> 00:02:40,560 Speaker 1: all to read. I loved it, and it feels like 35 00:02:40,600 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 1: it was a long time in the pressure building to 36 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:49,160 Speaker 1: write it. That's what it felt like to me. That's interesting. UM, 37 00:02:49,280 --> 00:02:53,160 Speaker 1: thank you, those are very big compliments. Thank you. M. 38 00:02:54,160 --> 00:02:59,040 Speaker 1: The memories that I chose to share surprise a lot 39 00:02:59,040 --> 00:03:02,280 Speaker 1: of people because it isn't about trashing a hotel room 40 00:03:02,639 --> 00:03:06,840 Speaker 1: or meeting famous people or no puking backstage. It's it's 41 00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:10,120 Speaker 1: about a little of that is there, you know, somebody 42 00:03:10,280 --> 00:03:15,359 Speaker 1: somebody else puking. I was, actually, I don't want to 43 00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:20,839 Speaker 1: use the word inspired. I was catapulted into action by 44 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:24,320 Speaker 1: what was happening in our political climate. Um that may 45 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:29,160 Speaker 1: seem not intuitive to make that leap, but I found myself, 46 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 1: as I was watching what was happening to our country, 47 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:38,560 Speaker 1: ever more drawn to what fundamentally mattered to me in life, 48 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:45,160 Speaker 1: what my baseline for decency, goodness, honesty. It pulled me 49 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:49,040 Speaker 1: into a place of having to plant a flag for 50 00:03:49,160 --> 00:03:52,080 Speaker 1: what I believed in and maybe fight in the only 51 00:03:52,080 --> 00:03:57,200 Speaker 1: way I could to. Uh well, I was. As I 52 00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,240 Speaker 1: was telling you backstage, I also found myself judge jing 53 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:04,720 Speaker 1: a lot. I was not a judge e person until 54 00:04:04,760 --> 00:04:09,680 Speaker 1: this happened, and I found myself outraged and horrified by 55 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:14,880 Speaker 1: what I was seeing, and that both you know when 56 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:19,680 Speaker 1: something just crystallizes and you just truly feel like it's 57 00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:22,760 Speaker 1: important to say what you think life is about and 58 00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:25,400 Speaker 1: what matters and what our baseline for how we should 59 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:28,760 Speaker 1: behave is. But at the same time, what happened was 60 00:04:28,839 --> 00:04:32,120 Speaker 1: then I turned that back on myself and I thought, 61 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:35,880 Speaker 1: how would you be judged? You know, what what would 62 00:04:36,200 --> 00:04:39,080 Speaker 1: people say if they were judging you. So a lot 63 00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:43,320 Speaker 1: of my book is about personal stories that you didn't 64 00:04:43,320 --> 00:04:46,039 Speaker 1: ask for and you don't need to know. But that 65 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:48,560 Speaker 1: would be sort of what if I were going to 66 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:52,200 Speaker 1: leave the planet, I would want to leave behind, about 67 00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:55,279 Speaker 1: everything that I had learned and experienced in life, and 68 00:04:55,600 --> 00:04:58,560 Speaker 1: what I would want to say that mattered. As you're speaking, 69 00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:01,479 Speaker 1: I'm thinking about there's a course that I teach once 70 00:05:01,520 --> 00:05:04,120 Speaker 1: a year on the East Coast, and and the the 71 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:08,400 Speaker 1: title of it is the Stories We Carry m hm. 72 00:05:08,880 --> 00:05:14,039 Speaker 1: And these feel like the stories that you were carrying, 73 00:05:14,680 --> 00:05:16,919 Speaker 1: which is I guess why I said that. It feels like, 74 00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:20,040 Speaker 1: in a way, it was a long time building up, 75 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:23,000 Speaker 1: even though it wasn't something that you were necessarily ever 76 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,520 Speaker 1: thinking about turning into a book. It began early in 77 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:30,400 Speaker 1: the book. You write that you were carrying around toxic 78 00:05:30,560 --> 00:05:37,240 Speaker 1: shards of souls I've casually shattered. And I found that 79 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:42,600 Speaker 1: so hauntingly beautiful, because we all do that, whether or 80 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:46,080 Speaker 1: not we're actually conscious that we're doing that or not. 81 00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:50,200 Speaker 1: We carry around these shards. They live inside of us. 82 00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:52,800 Speaker 1: Anyone here I can say this because I'm in l A. 83 00:05:52,800 --> 00:05:58,440 Speaker 1: Anyone here with a yoga practice, um right knows that 84 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:02,480 Speaker 1: you know, when you sort of enter the sphere of 85 00:06:02,640 --> 00:06:05,240 Speaker 1: you know, the body in a certain way. Those stories, 86 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:10,600 Speaker 1: those shards, those toxic shards, those people, um, they exist, 87 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:15,080 Speaker 1: you know, they never really go away. And you brought 88 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:22,280 Speaker 1: them forth in this book and UM named them. Um 89 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:26,240 Speaker 1: there's um. You know, early in the book, there's a 90 00:06:26,320 --> 00:06:28,800 Speaker 1: girl in the bathroom that when you were in college, 91 00:06:29,120 --> 00:06:31,320 Speaker 1: you and your friends just I mean she was this 92 00:06:31,360 --> 00:06:34,360 Speaker 1: girl was in terrible shape and you she'd been drinking. 93 00:06:34,480 --> 00:06:41,279 Speaker 1: She'd been drinking, and she was in trouble. And it's 94 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:46,640 Speaker 1: like these these quote unquote type like small moments walking 95 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,920 Speaker 1: out of a bathroom and not doing anything to help, 96 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,760 Speaker 1: like just not knowing what to do, and then staying, 97 00:06:54,520 --> 00:06:57,719 Speaker 1: you know, with the the haunted nous and the shame 98 00:06:57,839 --> 00:07:00,919 Speaker 1: and the feeling of like should done something, and what 99 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:03,839 Speaker 1: happened to that girl? Like that, that girl then lives 100 00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:06,400 Speaker 1: inside of you because of what you did or didn't do, 101 00:07:07,160 --> 00:07:09,080 Speaker 1: you know, when she judges me. I mean that that 102 00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:11,240 Speaker 1: was a circumstance in which there was a lot of 103 00:07:11,280 --> 00:07:15,480 Speaker 1: people ignoring her and that pressure that you feel to 104 00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:17,960 Speaker 1: go along with whatever is happening. It was a freshman 105 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:20,760 Speaker 1: in college and I was so nervous everywhere I went 106 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,520 Speaker 1: that I had learned to put up a front of 107 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:26,760 Speaker 1: not looking nervous and looking like I knew what I 108 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:31,400 Speaker 1: was doing. So I had numbed myself out. And yet 109 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:35,480 Speaker 1: this one casual encounter stayed with me my whole life 110 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:40,440 Speaker 1: and changed how involved I become when I see that 111 00:07:40,560 --> 00:07:45,480 Speaker 1: something needs to be done. So it also becomes a lesson, right, 112 00:07:45,640 --> 00:07:49,640 Speaker 1: like you know, sort of metabolizing that. So there's a 113 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:54,720 Speaker 1: very moving passage about this elderly dog that it was 114 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:57,720 Speaker 1: a neighbor of yours who it was. It was a 115 00:07:57,760 --> 00:08:00,320 Speaker 1: neighbor of the woman who cut my hair up on 116 00:08:00,400 --> 00:08:03,440 Speaker 1: Mulholland Drive, and she said, oh, if you're thinking of 117 00:08:03,480 --> 00:08:07,760 Speaker 1: adopting a dog, there's one that this famous comedian doesn't 118 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:11,040 Speaker 1: want anymore. And the dog was just alone, was left alone. 119 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,600 Speaker 1: Was basically just someone coming in defeated, right. I mean, 120 00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:17,000 Speaker 1: I can't speak to exactly what was going on, but yeah, 121 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:21,160 Speaker 1: it was for all intents and purposes, abandoned the sweet 122 00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:25,760 Speaker 1: Newfoundland that I looked at. And my house couldn't accommodate it. 123 00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:27,640 Speaker 1: There were too many stairs, it was too old. But 124 00:08:27,720 --> 00:08:30,320 Speaker 1: like I went like three times and just talked to 125 00:08:30,440 --> 00:08:33,240 Speaker 1: it on the balcony, which sounds really sweet, but like 126 00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:37,880 Speaker 1: the real crux came when like a year later and 127 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:40,360 Speaker 1: then I had asked everyone, like, where can Newfunland's go? 128 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:43,199 Speaker 1: Does anyone want this? And I had given a fair 129 00:08:43,240 --> 00:08:46,199 Speaker 1: shot and then gone on tour and gone on with 130 00:08:46,240 --> 00:08:49,920 Speaker 1: my life. And later on someone had said, oh, I 131 00:08:50,080 --> 00:08:52,840 Speaker 1: heard about some farm for new fees or something that 132 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 1: could help the dog. And again I failed myself and 133 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,120 Speaker 1: I didn't follow up with that. And again when you 134 00:08:59,160 --> 00:09:03,400 Speaker 1: said time, they're so present to me. All the things 135 00:09:03,440 --> 00:09:05,400 Speaker 1: that have happened to me are still so present, and 136 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:09,000 Speaker 1: it's how I write songs. It's all the unsaid, undone, 137 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:15,360 Speaker 1: un forgiven things that just became part of me. So 138 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:21,199 Speaker 1: time really didn't pass. If anything, these past memories grew 139 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:25,880 Speaker 1: in importance the longer time went on. I feel like 140 00:09:25,920 --> 00:09:29,200 Speaker 1: with your book too, that sense that when the truth 141 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:34,520 Speaker 1: came out did flattened time. Time just everything that you'd 142 00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:39,040 Speaker 1: experienced became one present moment. Well, it's so interesting, and 143 00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:42,640 Speaker 1: I wonder whether it's like this in the songwriting. I 144 00:09:42,800 --> 00:09:46,600 Speaker 1: know it's like this in prose writing and writing and 145 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:52,199 Speaker 1: writing um memoir and and also in writing literary fiction. Um. 146 00:09:52,280 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 1: Literature is I think, really the only form that can 147 00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:04,320 Speaker 1: play with time with the greatest effectiveness. UM. I even 148 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:07,679 Speaker 1: feel film. I never feel when I'm watching film and 149 00:10:07,720 --> 00:10:10,760 Speaker 1: that's being done. I'm always aware that it's being done. 150 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:17,600 Speaker 1: Whereas in UM, when we read, we can feel the 151 00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:21,319 Speaker 1: way that memory moves. We can, um, you know that 152 00:10:21,480 --> 00:10:25,880 Speaker 1: that flattening that you're describing, or the collapsing, the collapsing 153 00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:30,079 Speaker 1: of the present in the past. I mean when I 154 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:35,199 Speaker 1: made the discovery, uh, four years ago. Um, it's almost 155 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:37,840 Speaker 1: four years ago now that my dad hadn't been my 156 00:10:37,880 --> 00:10:43,360 Speaker 1: biological father, something I had never known. Actually I should 157 00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:46,280 Speaker 1: say I had never thought. Um. I think there's a 158 00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:50,560 Speaker 1: phrase in Inheritance which is the unthought known. UM, A 159 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:53,040 Speaker 1: phrase that I come back to again and again and again, 160 00:10:53,120 --> 00:10:59,760 Speaker 1: because UM, it's a psychoanalytic phrase that that means what 161 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:03,280 Speaker 1: we absolutely do know, what we know in our bones, 162 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:07,240 Speaker 1: what we feel, um, you know deep. But when we 163 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:09,360 Speaker 1: when we think about what a gut instinct is, it's 164 00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:12,560 Speaker 1: that kind of knowledge, but it's too dangerous to think, 165 00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:16,520 Speaker 1: so we just don't go there. UM. I think I 166 00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:19,280 Speaker 1: was living in that state. Actually my whole entire life 167 00:11:19,679 --> 00:11:22,840 Speaker 1: but then to be in midlife and to make this discovery, 168 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:31,240 Speaker 1: I had to re remember, rethink, re understand everything about 169 00:11:31,840 --> 00:11:35,120 Speaker 1: what had come before. May I share what you said 170 00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:38,680 Speaker 1: up in the dressing room. Was it Andrea who asked 171 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:41,160 Speaker 1: you or said what's your next project? And you said, 172 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:44,160 Speaker 1: I'm not sure because I feel like I've been digging 173 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:47,440 Speaker 1: for this story my whole life. And think of how 174 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:51,240 Speaker 1: much you've done sort of looking for that what was 175 00:11:51,280 --> 00:11:53,720 Speaker 1: an unthought, no unthought known? But I think you know. 176 00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:58,280 Speaker 1: One of the intersections between us and a really interesting 177 00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:03,559 Speaker 1: question for us to explore is what makes an artist 178 00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:06,240 Speaker 1: an artist? Right? Like there's a moment in your book 179 00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:11,040 Speaker 1: where a friend of yours, Um, so you're adopted. A 180 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:14,000 Speaker 1: friend of yours says to you, do you think if 181 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:18,480 Speaker 1: you hadn't been adopted, um, you would have been an artist? 182 00:12:19,760 --> 00:12:23,559 Speaker 1: And I mean, it's an impossible question to answer. It's 183 00:12:23,559 --> 00:12:26,560 Speaker 1: like saying if I were a different you know person, 184 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:29,040 Speaker 1: really if I I mean, you you change one thing 185 00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:32,679 Speaker 1: and everything changes, or you change um. But but there's 186 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:38,360 Speaker 1: something about your being an observer, which was something that 187 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,520 Speaker 1: I was very aware of reading you that from the 188 00:12:41,559 --> 00:12:47,679 Speaker 1: time you were small, you were always observing and in 189 00:12:47,800 --> 00:12:49,840 Speaker 1: order to observe. I mean, one of the things I've 190 00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:54,440 Speaker 1: often thought about is writers are outsiders. Um. I don't 191 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:59,720 Speaker 1: think you can be an insider and write about anything 192 00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:03,520 Speaker 1: from the inside if you're the if you're an insider, 193 00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:06,960 Speaker 1: because you don't have you don't have any perspective on it. 194 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:11,480 Speaker 1: You don't have that anthropological view, and so you you 195 00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:15,440 Speaker 1: were always seeing the world from that place of this 196 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:21,119 Speaker 1: slight removed the slight distance, and you know, it's impossible 197 00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:24,040 Speaker 1: to know exactly what created that or what caused that, 198 00:13:24,080 --> 00:13:27,400 Speaker 1: but what what would you say to your friend in 199 00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:31,480 Speaker 1: that regard or as anything about that? It makes perfect sense. 200 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,960 Speaker 1: I think that a lot of the freedom that I 201 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:37,240 Speaker 1: feel as an artist to do what my mother would 202 00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:42,280 Speaker 1: consider very outrageous and completely inappropriate things is because there's 203 00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:45,080 Speaker 1: there's I have one foot out the door always, I 204 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:47,880 Speaker 1: have one foot in another state. That could be anything 205 00:13:48,040 --> 00:13:51,560 Speaker 1: I could, I could have come from any kind of people, 206 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:56,680 Speaker 1: And so that gives me a freedom to both search 207 00:13:57,200 --> 00:14:00,679 Speaker 1: for who I am, sort of like a I guess, 208 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:04,640 Speaker 1: permission to search for who I am, but also gives 209 00:14:04,679 --> 00:14:08,040 Speaker 1: me that, like you said, that remove from being internal, 210 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:11,880 Speaker 1: like I was definitely raised by a tight knit family, 211 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:14,840 Speaker 1: but there was one foot that was still outside of 212 00:14:14,880 --> 00:14:17,920 Speaker 1: that looking back on it and looking back on my 213 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:22,400 Speaker 1: place in it. And there's that insecurity, which I think 214 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:26,640 Speaker 1: you went through so vividly, and it was just beautiful 215 00:14:26,680 --> 00:14:29,920 Speaker 1: your description of that, like who am I now? And 216 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:33,520 Speaker 1: that feeling like the floor has just dropped out from 217 00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:36,360 Speaker 1: under you. And I just had that in a slow, 218 00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:39,880 Speaker 1: low grade way the whole time, like I was always 219 00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:42,480 Speaker 1: here and I was committed, and I belonged to my family, 220 00:14:42,560 --> 00:14:46,680 Speaker 1: but not totally. And I think that is the artist 221 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:53,000 Speaker 1: side of me, that did stand outside myself, did look 222 00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:58,880 Speaker 1: for the I love it. I'm sorry. The unknown thought 223 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:02,440 Speaker 1: or the unthought O there's unsought known is what I'm 224 00:15:02,440 --> 00:15:06,680 Speaker 1: always searching for myself. There's also this great this this 225 00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 1: great term that I came across when I was just 226 00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:14,640 Speaker 1: madly researching and trying to understand, you know, whatever I 227 00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:18,880 Speaker 1: possibly could about this new knowledge. And it was a 228 00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:24,920 Speaker 1: term from adoption literature, and it's genealogical bewilderment, and I 229 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:28,760 Speaker 1: mean it's it's it's it's so poetic and beautiful and powerful, 230 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:31,440 Speaker 1: and I mean one of the things that's come up 231 00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:34,680 Speaker 1: a lot for me in the years since Inheritance came out. 232 00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:37,640 Speaker 1: Is right around the time that it came out, or 233 00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:42,800 Speaker 1: even before, I would have mostly adoptive parents come up 234 00:15:42,840 --> 00:15:46,040 Speaker 1: to me who hadn't read the book yet, or maybe 235 00:15:47,200 --> 00:15:50,200 Speaker 1: if they had, were reading it through a certain lens. 236 00:15:50,400 --> 00:15:53,120 Speaker 1: And what they thought that I was saying, or what 237 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:55,960 Speaker 1: they thought I was going to say, was that nature 238 00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:03,440 Speaker 1: matters exclusively. And I remember the first time I had 239 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:07,800 Speaker 1: this conversation. It was with a writer standing by a 240 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,200 Speaker 1: pool at a writer's conference, the kind of pool where 241 00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:12,920 Speaker 1: somebody always falls in every year at this writer's conference 242 00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:17,920 Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. And he he's gay, and he's a dad, 243 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 1: and he and his husband have three adopted kids, and 244 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:23,720 Speaker 1: he was kind of a little bit confrontational on the 245 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: subject of nurture and nature. And I said to him, 246 00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:31,800 Speaker 1: do your kids know they're adopted? And he said, of course. 247 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:35,200 Speaker 1: And I said have they always known? Yes, of course, 248 00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:38,400 Speaker 1: they've always known you ever since they you know, we 249 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:43,840 Speaker 1: were sentient beings. I said, so, okay, So their identities 250 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:48,720 Speaker 1: are formed around something that is true about themselves. What's 251 00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,880 Speaker 1: true about themselves is that they know that they're adopted. 252 00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:57,800 Speaker 1: They know that, um, there is a reason for that 253 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:03,080 Speaker 1: genealogical bewilderment as they grow up, maybe not looking, you know, 254 00:17:03,200 --> 00:17:07,800 Speaker 1: like their family because there isn't a biological connection, or 255 00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:11,199 Speaker 1: feeling a little bit other or different because there is 256 00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:18,240 Speaker 1: otherness and difference and genealogical bewilderment, the sense of it's 257 00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:22,240 Speaker 1: a wide open world, this question of where I come 258 00:17:22,320 --> 00:17:27,639 Speaker 1: from biologically and the difference. And this took me a 259 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:30,080 Speaker 1: while and some deep thinking to do. But the difference, 260 00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:32,520 Speaker 1: I mean, if our identities are formed by the stories 261 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:35,520 Speaker 1: that were told from the time were very small, then 262 00:17:35,640 --> 00:17:38,440 Speaker 1: that story, the adoption story is you're adopted, and that's 263 00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:43,760 Speaker 1: really it's complicated, but it's a different story from being 264 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:49,760 Speaker 1: from the truth of identity being withheld. So what happened 265 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:55,800 Speaker 1: with me is that my parents, for reasons that made 266 00:17:55,800 --> 00:17:58,480 Speaker 1: a lot of sense in the place and time that 267 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,679 Speaker 1: they raised me, we're never going to tell me. I 268 00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:04,680 Speaker 1: was never going to know this. They were going to 269 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:06,560 Speaker 1: go to the grave with this, which they both did, 270 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:09,119 Speaker 1: and I was never going to know, and no one 271 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:11,239 Speaker 1: would ever be the wiser. And what we don't know 272 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:17,840 Speaker 1: doesn't hurt us, right, Yeah, So my sense of identity 273 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:21,680 Speaker 1: as a child, um, was based on something that was false, 274 00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:24,760 Speaker 1: and so the image I have for it is almost 275 00:18:24,880 --> 00:18:29,200 Speaker 1: like something being wrapped around um, like a husk being 276 00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:32,800 Speaker 1: wrapped around something that isn't solid on the inside, because 277 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:36,520 Speaker 1: there was something that wasn't true. And I think, you know, 278 00:18:37,240 --> 00:18:42,080 Speaker 1: I mean, I started this podcast Family Secrets because there 279 00:18:42,200 --> 00:18:47,639 Speaker 1: is so much secrecy in our society and our culture 280 00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,240 Speaker 1: in so many different ways. And we're in this moment 281 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:53,280 Speaker 1: now and you're a part of that where it's coming out. 282 00:18:53,960 --> 00:18:57,520 Speaker 1: And whether it's the Me Too movement or it's the 283 00:18:57,560 --> 00:19:00,720 Speaker 1: fact that DNA testing has made all all of these 284 00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:04,560 Speaker 1: kinds of secrets absolutely impossible to keep any more, this 285 00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:08,080 Speaker 1: is what's happening. We'll be back in a moment with 286 00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:18,280 Speaker 1: more Family Secrets. I think fighting the shame of being 287 00:19:18,400 --> 00:19:21,359 Speaker 1: human is something that I've crusaded on for a while 288 00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:24,680 Speaker 1: that you know, there's so much in our society that 289 00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:29,800 Speaker 1: is stuck around this idea of let's let's not say it. 290 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:32,160 Speaker 1: I know that my parents didn't always tell me what 291 00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:34,200 Speaker 1: was going on, and that that always caused me a 292 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:39,440 Speaker 1: lot of cognitive dissonance. And the shame is so much 293 00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,960 Speaker 1: more destructive than the truth a lot of times because 294 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:46,520 Speaker 1: like you said, you're wrapping a husk or you're building 295 00:19:46,600 --> 00:19:51,000 Speaker 1: scar tissue around a vacuum. So there's no way to 296 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:54,560 Speaker 1: resolve it. It's never going to heal. Yeah, I mean 297 00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:57,640 Speaker 1: just because it isn't spoken doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 298 00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,560 Speaker 1: In fact, it's not being spoken creates a kind of 299 00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,040 Speaker 1: I mean, I think of my parents and myself now, 300 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:06,880 Speaker 1: and I'll never be able to have these conversations with them. 301 00:20:07,240 --> 00:20:12,640 Speaker 1: But the air in our house was thick with this. Um. 302 00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:16,160 Speaker 1: And as a writer, I mean I inheritances my tense book. 303 00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:22,320 Speaker 1: All of my my novels were about family secrets. Um. 304 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:25,040 Speaker 1: They were about the corrosive power of family secrets in 305 00:20:25,080 --> 00:20:28,320 Speaker 1: one way or another. Um. If you had asked me 306 00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:31,080 Speaker 1: to explain why this was my theme, Uh, you know, 307 00:20:31,119 --> 00:20:34,280 Speaker 1: I had this kind of pithy thing that I that 308 00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:35,960 Speaker 1: I have to say about theme, which is that it 309 00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: is just a fancy literary term for obsession. And we 310 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,199 Speaker 1: don't and we don't choose what obsesses us. And you know, 311 00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:44,360 Speaker 1: writers don't like to look under the hood too much 312 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:46,720 Speaker 1: about what's really going on. It's like, you know, that's 313 00:20:46,720 --> 00:20:48,800 Speaker 1: where the magic happens. You want to mess with that. 314 00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:52,760 Speaker 1: So I just kind of bopped along with family secrets 315 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:55,159 Speaker 1: being my theme. And then I started writing memoirs and 316 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:58,400 Speaker 1: I was a novelist. Why was I writing memoirs? And 317 00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:00,560 Speaker 1: that's where I think the digging, you know that I 318 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:03,479 Speaker 1: was talking to Andrew upstairs. I think that's where it began. 319 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:08,000 Speaker 1: Was just this sense of there's something, there's something there, 320 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:11,440 Speaker 1: and you are receiving feedback that there was another nous 321 00:21:11,480 --> 00:21:14,080 Speaker 1: about you. You were receiving feedback all the way along 322 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,200 Speaker 1: the line that that hinted. I felt maybe it's the 323 00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:19,359 Speaker 1: way you wrote it, but it felt like no. I was. 324 00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,920 Speaker 1: I was absolutely constantly receiving the feedback was you don't 325 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:27,800 Speaker 1: look Jewish. There's no way you're Jewish? You know? Now? 326 00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:31,240 Speaker 1: Is is Shapiro your husband's name? Uh? You know, just 327 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:36,080 Speaker 1: but constantly, I mean really like every day, um. And 328 00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:39,840 Speaker 1: yet that's feedback. But if you're kind of entrenched in 329 00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:45,119 Speaker 1: a desire to, in a need to not know, you 330 00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:51,680 Speaker 1: can ignore that feedback and contort yourself around not knowing. 331 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:53,760 Speaker 1: I mean, what would happen to me when somebody would 332 00:21:53,760 --> 00:21:58,160 Speaker 1: say to me, as they did every day every day, 333 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:00,080 Speaker 1: you know, you don't look Jewish? I would say a 334 00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:05,359 Speaker 1: raised kosher, you know, observant family, went to yeshiva, spoke 335 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:10,160 Speaker 1: fluent Hebrew, two sinks, two dishwashers, you know, like recite 336 00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:15,040 Speaker 1: my you know, my, my, my Jewish cred. Yeah, like 337 00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:17,720 Speaker 1: sort of basically getting in people's faces about it, like 338 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:20,880 Speaker 1: what's what's your problem? Like this is what Jewish looks like, 339 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,480 Speaker 1: why can't you go there? Yeah? I mean really a 340 00:22:24,520 --> 00:22:27,040 Speaker 1: little bit like I mean it would I found it 341 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:31,920 Speaker 1: like it offended me, um, but it was true. And 342 00:22:32,080 --> 00:22:34,840 Speaker 1: what people were saying when they were looking at me 343 00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:37,199 Speaker 1: and saying that was something that they saw because they 344 00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:40,480 Speaker 1: had no skin in the game. And so that's that's feedback, 345 00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:43,879 Speaker 1: I wonder. And I don't remember if you touched on 346 00:22:43,920 --> 00:22:47,080 Speaker 1: this in your book what your mother was processing when 347 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,760 Speaker 1: these comments were happening. So let's go back to that too, 348 00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,120 Speaker 1: Is that too, No, not at all. Let's go back 349 00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:57,119 Speaker 1: to the unfought known, because I think that there's a 350 00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:01,840 Speaker 1: way in which when we are told that something really 351 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,920 Speaker 1: is a secret and can never be revealed, like air tight, 352 00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,840 Speaker 1: which I think my parents. You know, back in the 353 00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:16,320 Speaker 1: early days of reproductive medicine, there was a lot of euphemism. 354 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,680 Speaker 1: There were there was an outright deceit in a way. 355 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:23,919 Speaker 1: So I believe that by the time my parents were 356 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:29,560 Speaker 1: um bringing home a baby, they had my mother more 357 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:34,200 Speaker 1: than my father, had pretty much decided that it had 358 00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:36,879 Speaker 1: never happened. You're gonna build that house right on the 359 00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:42,399 Speaker 1: foot of the denial. That's right, that's right, And that 360 00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:48,160 Speaker 1: becomes a kind of UM. It's like a kernel of 361 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,080 Speaker 1: something that's true, that's somewhere lodged way deep, deep, deep 362 00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:56,920 Speaker 1: deep in the psyche, but is not going to UM. 363 00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,080 Speaker 1: It's not going to emerge with a kind of clarity. 364 00:23:59,119 --> 00:24:02,920 Speaker 1: It's gonna leak go all over everything. UM. And that's 365 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,680 Speaker 1: how I think of it, as like there was this 366 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:09,600 Speaker 1: like toxic leakage that was always there. Which is interesting 367 00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,240 Speaker 1: because my mother I always got the sense that said, 368 00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:14,680 Speaker 1: over and over again, if you ever want to find 369 00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,680 Speaker 1: your biological parents. You know, her brother was a lawyer's 370 00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,040 Speaker 1: or attorney, so she said, you know, we'll go through Mark. 371 00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,880 Speaker 1: But there was I could tell that that was not 372 00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:30,000 Speaker 1: something she really wanted per se to happen. There was 373 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:34,720 Speaker 1: this sense because ultimately we are our parents children, it 374 00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:36,879 Speaker 1: doesn't matter where we come from. I mean, when I 375 00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,400 Speaker 1: was little, I used to imagine the way I processed 376 00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,959 Speaker 1: being adopted was I would make up stories, like I 377 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,280 Speaker 1: thought we lived in Cincinnati when I was very young, 378 00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:50,240 Speaker 1: and then we'd have these huge thunderstorms, and in my mind, 379 00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:52,800 Speaker 1: I thought those were my parents coming to check up 380 00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:56,480 Speaker 1: on me. So I'd like, I don't know why I 381 00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:58,159 Speaker 1: did that, but that's one of the things that I 382 00:24:58,200 --> 00:25:02,760 Speaker 1: thought of. And then recently, I have a god's sister. 383 00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:08,840 Speaker 1: My parents chose godparents for me who had adopted their 384 00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,320 Speaker 1: child from the same adoption agency. So I sort of 385 00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,320 Speaker 1: had to go that way to find out what my 386 00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:18,720 Speaker 1: adoption agency was. And then when I looked googled it online. 387 00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,000 Speaker 1: Then it turned out to be established in eighteen eighteen, 388 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:27,119 Speaker 1: and it was originally called the New Haven Orphan Asylum. 389 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:33,080 Speaker 1: And there's this campus with these big brick walls and everything, 390 00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:35,920 Speaker 1: and it just it started this whole other identity. Now 391 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,840 Speaker 1: I'm like this gothic tragic figure in my mind, you know. Like, 392 00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,040 Speaker 1: but that's how you can transmute, Like my identity can 393 00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,119 Speaker 1: shift depending on what the details are, and each new 394 00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:54,920 Speaker 1: item is really not really relevant. I'm still my affectations 395 00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:58,560 Speaker 1: are my mother's, you know, my father's temper. It's all there. 396 00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:05,240 Speaker 1: I am my parents child immutably. But that identity question, 397 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:09,280 Speaker 1: which is so fascinating. I had freedom and you weren't 398 00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:13,800 Speaker 1: given a choice until you discovered what that was. And 399 00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:16,760 Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about that, like, did you 400 00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,800 Speaker 1: feel that it was sort of betraying your parents? Too? 401 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,000 Speaker 1: Question it so much? Well, I would be. I would 402 00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,920 Speaker 1: begin by saying, I found out accidentally, right like I wasn't. 403 00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,720 Speaker 1: I wasn't going in search of I think that there's 404 00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,880 Speaker 1: something here and I'm gonna go find it. I recreationally 405 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,560 Speaker 1: took a DNA test because my husband was taking one. 406 00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,520 Speaker 1: So it began with sort of this accident I could 407 00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,520 Speaker 1: so easily has spent my whole life never knowing. I 408 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:50,520 Speaker 1: had a couple of moments where I felt that I 409 00:26:50,560 --> 00:26:55,400 Speaker 1: was betraying my father, and one was when I met 410 00:26:55,440 --> 00:27:00,760 Speaker 1: my biological father. Um, I felt almost like all my 411 00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,080 Speaker 1: my father died when I was twenty three, and all 412 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,760 Speaker 1: my life, UM, I have carried him with me. I 413 00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:10,679 Speaker 1: feel his presence. Um, you know, an irony because for 414 00:27:10,720 --> 00:27:12,960 Speaker 1: the for the people who were thinking that I was 415 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,920 Speaker 1: saying nature is all that matters. My mother was someone 416 00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,600 Speaker 1: who I did not feel close to, and she is 417 00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:24,280 Speaker 1: my biological parent. I checked. I made an elderly cousin 418 00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:29,000 Speaker 1: actually go do a DNA test because I was so baffled. 419 00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:31,760 Speaker 1: I trying to piece it all together. But she was. 420 00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,520 Speaker 1: And my father, who was not, as it turns out, 421 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,560 Speaker 1: my biological parents, is the person who was most formative 422 00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:41,000 Speaker 1: of me, who had a profound kind of soul connection 423 00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,239 Speaker 1: with and I would feel his presence. And when I 424 00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,359 Speaker 1: first found out that he hadn't been my biological father, 425 00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,439 Speaker 1: I briefly lost it. And I think I lost it 426 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,920 Speaker 1: because of course it's coming from me and that chain 427 00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:01,080 Speaker 1: had somehow been broken. I lost, Yes, I had lost 428 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,159 Speaker 1: him again. I was grieving him again, and I was 429 00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:06,240 Speaker 1: wondering what he had known and all of that. So 430 00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:10,240 Speaker 1: when I met my biological father, I had this feeling 431 00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:12,679 Speaker 1: of you know, we have magical thinking about the people 432 00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,760 Speaker 1: who um have passed, who we love, and I think 433 00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,560 Speaker 1: many of us do. And my magical thinking was that 434 00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,320 Speaker 1: my father could see what was going on in my life, 435 00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:26,200 Speaker 1: because when he died, I was a mess. It was complete, 436 00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:29,600 Speaker 1: total mess, and he that's his last you know, that 437 00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:31,919 Speaker 1: would have been his last kind of memory or knowledge 438 00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:33,840 Speaker 1: of me. And then I grew up and I kind 439 00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:35,600 Speaker 1: of made something of myself, and I had had this 440 00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:38,360 Speaker 1: idea that he could see that. But if he could 441 00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:40,920 Speaker 1: see that, then he could also see everything else. You 442 00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,160 Speaker 1: can't like have magical thinking in one way. So I 443 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:45,400 Speaker 1: was like, he could see that, then he can also 444 00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,120 Speaker 1: see that I'm marching into this restaurant in Teenack Teenack, 445 00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:51,640 Speaker 1: New Jersey and meeting the man who was the sperm donor, 446 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,480 Speaker 1: like the secret, the thing that he never wanted anyone 447 00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:57,760 Speaker 1: to ever know. So that there was that, and then 448 00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,920 Speaker 1: the and the other piece. I was upstairs signing books, 449 00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,520 Speaker 1: and there's a picture of my dad and me, the joyous, 450 00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:11,040 Speaker 1: beautiful father daughter picture and the young father in that picture. 451 00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,320 Speaker 1: If he could have you know, talked about collapsing time right, 452 00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:18,560 Speaker 1: if he could have imagined a future where that picture 453 00:29:18,560 --> 00:29:21,400 Speaker 1: would be on the cover of a best selling you 454 00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:26,000 Speaker 1: know book, and his his thing that he held as 455 00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,360 Speaker 1: so private and secret, would be in the world. I 456 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,960 Speaker 1: thought about this a lot, because some people make these 457 00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:34,840 Speaker 1: discoveries and their parents are still living. Um. I thought 458 00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:36,760 Speaker 1: a lot about what that would be if my parents 459 00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,600 Speaker 1: were still living. I know one thing, there would be 460 00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,520 Speaker 1: no book. I wouldn't have written this book with my 461 00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:47,040 Speaker 1: father living um and my mother. Maybe because I was 462 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:48,640 Speaker 1: I tended to be more willing to throw her under 463 00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:53,480 Speaker 1: the bus. I just did. I did because our our 464 00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:57,160 Speaker 1: lives together were so um. Yeah, but I want to 465 00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:58,880 Speaker 1: I want to go. I want to vote for you do. 466 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,080 Speaker 1: I just want to say something. When you said that upstairs, 467 00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:03,640 Speaker 1: what I thought was before I even cracked her book, 468 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,080 Speaker 1: my first thought was how much he looked like your 469 00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:09,959 Speaker 1: father in that picture. That's exactly what my read was, 470 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,240 Speaker 1: which is so funny because that's just your joy and 471 00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:14,719 Speaker 1: your glee and the connection that you have with him. 472 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:16,760 Speaker 1: So I just wanted to say, and that's it though, 473 00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,240 Speaker 1: And that's you know what I mean. I I now 474 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,719 Speaker 1: feel like I come from three people, you know, not 475 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,840 Speaker 1: many people can say that particular thing, right, and and 476 00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:29,520 Speaker 1: and I think that I wonder if that's true for 477 00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,840 Speaker 1: you as well. You come from you come from four people? 478 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,000 Speaker 1: And I sometimes think, you know, even if I could 479 00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,760 Speaker 1: find my mother, I probably couldn't find my father. I've 480 00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:42,840 Speaker 1: made up so many stories about what their deal was. 481 00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:45,960 Speaker 1: It's almost like like adoption porn, you come up with 482 00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:51,840 Speaker 1: Like twenty one birthday, I came slinking downstairs, waiting to 483 00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:54,360 Speaker 1: find out that, you know, like my trust fund that 484 00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:56,640 Speaker 1: was supposed to be there, just like sat at breakfast 485 00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,000 Speaker 1: and I stared at my mom for a while and 486 00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,200 Speaker 1: she's like, and I'm like, you know what she did? 487 00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:07,080 Speaker 1: This is such a jerky move. So I said, well, 488 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:09,360 Speaker 1: I just wondered, you know, I'm I'm twenty one. I 489 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,840 Speaker 1: thought maybe there would be something that you would want 490 00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,160 Speaker 1: to tell me. And she looked at me. She just 491 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,920 Speaker 1: sat back and she said, if there were, what would 492 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,000 Speaker 1: you do with it? And so like it prolonged. I'm like, 493 00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,520 Speaker 1: it's just like a test, you know, but length there wasn't. 494 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:30,120 Speaker 1: So so I want you to read a passage um 495 00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:34,360 Speaker 1: that particularly. I thought it was really powerful from your 496 00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,720 Speaker 1: book about what we're talking about here. So I guess 497 00:31:37,720 --> 00:31:40,719 Speaker 1: we're talking about my adoption. I never know how much 498 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,800 Speaker 1: importance to give it. Is it a minor detail in 499 00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,160 Speaker 1: my biography or does it define me? When I look 500 00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,720 Speaker 1: at old family photographs, do they really pertain to me? 501 00:31:51,280 --> 00:31:56,520 Speaker 1: Are those my ancestors? Or am I playing at nostalgia. 502 00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,360 Speaker 1: However much I wish to belong to any one person 503 00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:04,520 Speaker 1: or group, that urge is almost always counteracted by an 504 00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,560 Speaker 1: awareness of being different, as though there's a barrier around me. 505 00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:12,440 Speaker 1: Thin is a layer of ice on an eyelash that 506 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:17,600 Speaker 1: prevents full integration. I keep people at arms length and 507 00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:21,080 Speaker 1: in their separate categories, even those with whom I have 508 00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:26,000 Speaker 1: long term, committed relationships. I remember when my father sent 509 00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,240 Speaker 1: me the original copy of my birth certificate for the 510 00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,320 Speaker 1: purpose of gathering passport paperwork, or because I'd lost my 511 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 1: driver's license. I want to add yet again, um it 512 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,280 Speaker 1: arrived in a Manila envelope. When I held the yellow 513 00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,400 Speaker 1: document in my hands and looked at the time and 514 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:49,160 Speaker 1: date punched out on an old school typewriter, I burst 515 00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:54,280 Speaker 1: into tears. I was It was overwhelming to touch the 516 00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:58,160 Speaker 1: last artifact that connected me to a mother I never knew, 517 00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,360 Speaker 1: a young woman for whom, whatever reason, couldn't raise me. 518 00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,640 Speaker 1: I saw a vulnerable infant changing hands, and I wept 519 00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:11,320 Speaker 1: for the agonizing decisions of everyone involved, for the snap 520 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:16,560 Speaker 1: shot of a fleeting moment of wholeness before I carried 521 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:19,880 Speaker 1: in my heart this broken piece of glass, which I've 522 00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:23,760 Speaker 1: been careful not to disturb lest it cut me. I 523 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:27,640 Speaker 1: cried because I recognized a feeling I must have once had, 524 00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,560 Speaker 1: but could no longer summon, No matter how quietly I sat, 525 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:35,719 Speaker 1: or how happy I was. It makes for great art, 526 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:44,440 Speaker 1: though I'll say that we'll be back in a moment. 527 00:33:50,520 --> 00:33:53,080 Speaker 1: I was thinking again of the collapsing of time as 528 00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:57,880 Speaker 1: you read that. Everything about that was right there in 529 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:03,320 Speaker 1: that yellow birth certificate. Injibly, I saw her, I saw her, 530 00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:06,920 Speaker 1: for a brief moment, the real her, the young woman, 531 00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,279 Speaker 1: and I was a mother at that point, I should say, 532 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:14,839 Speaker 1: so it hit home very deeply. My My family says 533 00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:18,240 Speaker 1: that I held my son too closely when he was born, 534 00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,520 Speaker 1: but I had this overwhelming need not to let him 535 00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:27,200 Speaker 1: feel that separation which I must have experienced because I was, 536 00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:30,600 Speaker 1: I guess two weeks old when I they had me 537 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,319 Speaker 1: in the hospital. I guess for two weeks and for 538 00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,640 Speaker 1: a newborns as a mother, I can look back on 539 00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,680 Speaker 1: that and think that's an unthinkably long time, you know. 540 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:43,560 Speaker 1: And so I just wherever I could put him, I 541 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:48,520 Speaker 1: couldn't put him down. I think early motherhood and motherhood 542 00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:57,719 Speaker 1: parenthood perhaps in general, makes you evaluate or compare. But 543 00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,239 Speaker 1: you know that line about it makes for good art. Okay, 544 00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:03,319 Speaker 1: I'm sure I had a happier life. I'm sure that 545 00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:08,480 Speaker 1: this was like this was someone who wasn't ready to, 546 00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,520 Speaker 1: and there would have been I'm sure it was a 547 00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:17,160 Speaker 1: selfless thing, but the sacrifice would still be extreme. It 548 00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:19,200 Speaker 1: would still be incredibly hard to give up a child 549 00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,760 Speaker 1: and she's out there somewhere knowing that I'm out there somewhere, 550 00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:27,120 Speaker 1: and that's that's a tough thing. Oh that's really interesting, actually, 551 00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:29,800 Speaker 1: I mean, so you think that's one of the reasons 552 00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:33,040 Speaker 1: I've never actually sought out my biological parent. One of 553 00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,120 Speaker 1: them is just that I have enough to deal with 554 00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:41,520 Speaker 1: it the holidays. I can't handle anymore. Really, But um, 555 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,200 Speaker 1: just this, this, this like it could be something she 556 00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,960 Speaker 1: never told another person, And I was very aware of 557 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,000 Speaker 1: that reading your book, thinking about that from that point 558 00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:54,960 Speaker 1: of view, and that's just a sense I had. You know, 559 00:35:55,800 --> 00:36:00,560 Speaker 1: it's really probably not even fifty fifty that she would 560 00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:05,000 Speaker 1: want to have to own that. It's interesting too, because 561 00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,120 Speaker 1: as long as you don't search, or you know, I 562 00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,319 Speaker 1: have that desire, it remains a mystery that are are 563 00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:17,200 Speaker 1: ye well, And as long as it remains a mystery, um, 564 00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:21,919 Speaker 1: there's there's so much nuance and so much possibility. Even 565 00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:27,680 Speaker 1: the trust fund, Well, what did you do with it? 566 00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:33,000 Speaker 1: If you had it? Those seconds were like, Um, you 567 00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:36,400 Speaker 1: said something really um beautiful when we were talking on 568 00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:41,240 Speaker 1: the phone yesterday, UM about you? You equated it to music. 569 00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,360 Speaker 1: Do you remember what you said? It was about um, 570 00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,600 Speaker 1: like one note versus accord? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it's 571 00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,480 Speaker 1: it's there's what was it in the context of the turn? 572 00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:55,080 Speaker 1: Remember it was in the context of knowledge, you know, 573 00:36:55,120 --> 00:37:00,480 Speaker 1: like like to to know. Well, anytime there's an hiphany 574 00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:05,920 Speaker 1: anytime you get any kind of insight into whatever it 575 00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:09,560 Speaker 1: is you're searching for. And I'm a big proponent of complexity. 576 00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,080 Speaker 1: I think that as uh as a species, we need 577 00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,239 Speaker 1: to come to terms with things being complex. I think 578 00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:20,160 Speaker 1: we're really living in systems, overlapping and layering systems, and 579 00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:22,120 Speaker 1: I don't think we think like that. I think we 580 00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:26,479 Speaker 1: still think in binary terms right wrong, black, white, good, bad, 581 00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,120 Speaker 1: all these kind of oversimplifications of what's really going on. 582 00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,120 Speaker 1: And for me, when you gain some kind of insight 583 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,760 Speaker 1: on on your identity on the take, for example, having 584 00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,799 Speaker 1: empathy for my parents and what the adoption would have 585 00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,200 Speaker 1: been for them, and how fragile that sense of what 586 00:37:44,239 --> 00:37:47,080 Speaker 1: if she leaves us, what if she doesn't like us, 587 00:37:47,160 --> 00:37:48,759 Speaker 1: or what if we're doing the wrong thing or what 588 00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:53,560 Speaker 1: is her nature. But any kind of deeper insight, it 589 00:37:53,640 --> 00:37:57,240 Speaker 1: goes from being a fact to being a chord of knowledge. 590 00:37:57,560 --> 00:38:00,120 Speaker 1: There's the low part of it, there's the middle a 591 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,759 Speaker 1: part of it, there's the high, keening, yearning part of it. 592 00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:09,120 Speaker 1: There's just a complex, deeper knowing, which I'm a junkie for. 593 00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:11,719 Speaker 1: Like that. That's what I'm in the game for in 594 00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,960 Speaker 1: anything I do in my life, is to have that 595 00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:20,719 Speaker 1: expansion of a fact into a truth. Yeah, there's something right, 596 00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:23,000 Speaker 1: I'm gonna see if I can find it. Right. At 597 00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:27,319 Speaker 1: the very very very end of your book, you write, Um, 598 00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:33,239 Speaker 1: horror stories is music not data. The haunting melodies I 599 00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,719 Speaker 1: hear over and over again in my head, and I 600 00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:42,080 Speaker 1: loved that. Um, just that language of music, not data, 601 00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:46,759 Speaker 1: because what's data? I mean data is just think of 602 00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,759 Speaker 1: how often you live in data? Though we all do. 603 00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:53,680 Speaker 1: We take it's it's a difference between knowing what it 604 00:38:53,719 --> 00:38:56,040 Speaker 1: would be like to be stranded at sea and actually 605 00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:01,880 Speaker 1: being stranded at see like a real truthful understanding, And 606 00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,759 Speaker 1: no matter how much you try to have the understanding 607 00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:08,320 Speaker 1: and you think of yourself as a deep and thoughtful person, 608 00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:12,120 Speaker 1: there's no substitute for actual knowing. And I think your 609 00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:16,239 Speaker 1: book is such a beautiful portrait of the journey from 610 00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:21,880 Speaker 1: data to knowing and what was data can be false too, 611 00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:27,560 Speaker 1: that's true. So I mean I spent my life creating 612 00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:35,600 Speaker 1: narratives to make sense of what I thought I knew, 613 00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:37,600 Speaker 1: Like what I was trying to make sense of. My 614 00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:43,040 Speaker 1: father was sad because my mother was angry because you know, 615 00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:48,000 Speaker 1: we were the family system that we were, you know, 616 00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,560 Speaker 1: because and I would write about it. I mean, when 617 00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,319 Speaker 1: I go back and I look at my earlier work, 618 00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,960 Speaker 1: it's all there, Um that those you know, those that struggle. 619 00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:00,880 Speaker 1: I was. I was trying so hard to make sense 620 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,359 Speaker 1: of something that didn't make sense. And the way that 621 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:08,000 Speaker 1: we do that is we tell stories. That's how we 622 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,160 Speaker 1: just human beings from the time that we were cave 623 00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,000 Speaker 1: people scratching hieroglyphics on you know, on on on cave walls, 624 00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,040 Speaker 1: that's what that's what we were doing. And um, that 625 00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:21,920 Speaker 1: was my attempt. And one of the sort of stunning 626 00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:25,719 Speaker 1: things to me, and especially in the early months as 627 00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,560 Speaker 1: I was trying to understand and sort of put put 628 00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,719 Speaker 1: things back together again, was that I was, you know, like, 629 00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,319 Speaker 1: was all that wrong? You know? And what I came 630 00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:39,239 Speaker 1: to realize, is it wasn't wrong. It just wasn't the 631 00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,200 Speaker 1: whole truth, you know, it was a piece of the truth. 632 00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:45,799 Speaker 1: It was true that my parents were unhappily married. It 633 00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:47,480 Speaker 1: was true that they were older. It was true that 634 00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:49,279 Speaker 1: I was their only child. It was true that they 635 00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:55,680 Speaker 1: had conflicts in their religious beliefs, you know, with each other. Um, 636 00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:58,160 Speaker 1: you know. It was true that I was this very fair, 637 00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,399 Speaker 1: blonde child that didn't look you know people. All these 638 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,600 Speaker 1: things were true, but they weren't the chord. They were 639 00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:10,680 Speaker 1: data points. And and I think to go back to 640 00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:14,200 Speaker 1: like if you know your friend's question, if if you 641 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:18,200 Speaker 1: hadn't been adopted, would you have become an artist? Those 642 00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:22,239 Speaker 1: are um, you know, whatever, those whatever, those pieces are, 643 00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:27,720 Speaker 1: they are what create the obsession, create, you know, the 644 00:41:27,719 --> 00:41:31,920 Speaker 1: the searching, the you know, the artist. As you know, 645 00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:34,840 Speaker 1: there's something that I can't figure out, that I can't 646 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,000 Speaker 1: get to, and the only way that I can get 647 00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,680 Speaker 1: to it is by following the line of words or 648 00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,360 Speaker 1: by you know, writing a song. Um. That is that's 649 00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:48,719 Speaker 1: that's the way that you know, And that's why I 650 00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:51,520 Speaker 1: love the idea of a chord. Isn't that how we know? 651 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,160 Speaker 1: You know, whatever we think of as God, isn't that 652 00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,000 Speaker 1: how we know? Love? Isn't that how we know? Like 653 00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,160 Speaker 1: it isn't data, it is. It's a board and we 654 00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:05,719 Speaker 1: all have to right our way toward faith and belief 655 00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:11,239 Speaker 1: in something that is intangible. And I love that. I 656 00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:15,400 Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, and it becomes the past. It becomes 657 00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,400 Speaker 1: you know, the way through a lifetime, you know, a 658 00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,480 Speaker 1: lifetime of of making work, of making art. You know. 659 00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:24,759 Speaker 1: I've I've been thinking about one of the reasons why 660 00:42:24,800 --> 00:42:27,840 Speaker 1: I have no idea what's next is because I don't 661 00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,640 Speaker 1: ever want to imitate myself. I don't ever want I want. 662 00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,480 Speaker 1: I mean, I I'm a seeker and I'm a I'm 663 00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:38,000 Speaker 1: a searcher, and I actually think I do think for 664 00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:43,400 Speaker 1: myself that these unanswered questions that I could not apprehend 665 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,480 Speaker 1: or touch is what made me an artist. I mean, 666 00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:50,040 Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad that I had the capacity, the ability, 667 00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,200 Speaker 1: the gift, whatever you wanna call it, to be able 668 00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,239 Speaker 1: to actually actualize it and do it. But that's searching, 669 00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:58,839 Speaker 1: not I say to my students sometimes, you know, if 670 00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,319 Speaker 1: you went outside right and you just you know, did 671 00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:03,560 Speaker 1: man on the street interviews with people, and you know, 672 00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,839 Speaker 1: you sir, do you do you ponder your internal life 673 00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,399 Speaker 1: all the time? Is this something that you think about? 674 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:11,920 Speaker 1: Do you lie awake at night and consider, you know, 675 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,800 Speaker 1: you're you're you know? And a lot of people say, 676 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:17,160 Speaker 1: I feel like it's a Woody Allen movie that I'm describing. 677 00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,600 Speaker 1: But a lot of people would say, no, I just 678 00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:21,400 Speaker 1: you know, it's like those that couple in the Woody 679 00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,040 Speaker 1: Allen movie, the you know, I'm just shallow and he's 680 00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:29,000 Speaker 1: handsome and we're good whatever that, But it's not not 681 00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:34,480 Speaker 1: everybody actually walks around with the need to express in 682 00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:39,160 Speaker 1: that way. I can't argue with that. So so let's 683 00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:40,600 Speaker 1: go back to I mean, you said it was the 684 00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:45,239 Speaker 1: political climate, and that makes sense to me, But why 685 00:43:45,239 --> 00:43:50,720 Speaker 1: why a memoir? Why not pour it into song? Well, hilariously, 686 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:54,319 Speaker 1: my manager is sitting right there, and he was part 687 00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,640 Speaker 1: of the impetus because he was I was on tour 688 00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:03,839 Speaker 1: with the Smashing Pumpkins and this is during the must 689 00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:07,440 Speaker 1: have been I guess I'm about to do your voice 690 00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:10,400 Speaker 1: right in front of you right now, But um, Prince 691 00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:12,959 Speaker 1: had just passed away. It was the day Prince died, 692 00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:14,839 Speaker 1: and I was playing a show that night and we 693 00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:18,239 Speaker 1: were having a conversation about something else, but then it 694 00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:21,440 Speaker 1: all became about Prince and we had lost Bowie and 695 00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,720 Speaker 1: that had affected me very profoundly. And he goes, He's like, Liz, 696 00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:29,880 Speaker 1: you know, you don't know how much time you've got. 697 00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:32,640 Speaker 1: You know, you could be gone tomorrow. You don't you 698 00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:36,279 Speaker 1: have no idea, And like is this is this? Like 699 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,200 Speaker 1: are you making the work that you would want to 700 00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:40,960 Speaker 1: make if it's the last thing you ever did? And 701 00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,759 Speaker 1: it stopped me because no, I thought I had like 702 00:44:46,440 --> 00:44:53,440 Speaker 1: dozens of chances left, And it just completely changed my 703 00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,520 Speaker 1: outlook and I thought I had better be making the 704 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:02,000 Speaker 1: work to the best my ability that I would be 705 00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,799 Speaker 1: okay leaving. But like, what did I have to say? 706 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,799 Speaker 1: What did I What had I learned in my you know, 707 00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:11,200 Speaker 1: almost fifty years at that point, Like what had I learned? 708 00:45:11,239 --> 00:45:14,400 Speaker 1: What did I have to give back to my son, 709 00:45:15,000 --> 00:45:19,240 Speaker 1: to other young women and just two people in general? 710 00:45:19,280 --> 00:45:21,520 Speaker 1: Like did I have something to give? Did I have 711 00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:23,719 Speaker 1: something that I could you know, make the world a 712 00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,480 Speaker 1: better place than you found it? And I didn't have much, 713 00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,080 Speaker 1: but I had my own experience and my own insights, 714 00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,000 Speaker 1: and I had the ability to go from a place 715 00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:36,680 Speaker 1: where the public perceives me as higher, you know, like, oh, 716 00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:39,319 Speaker 1: your life must be better, and to be able to 717 00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,600 Speaker 1: just open it up and be like nope, see like 718 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,359 Speaker 1: exactly as pathetic as we all are. And I had 719 00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,200 Speaker 1: the ability to do that. And I did had the ability, 720 00:45:49,280 --> 00:45:53,759 Speaker 1: thank god, from songwriting two turn it into a sort 721 00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,799 Speaker 1: of a small take those painful things like a grain 722 00:45:56,840 --> 00:45:58,799 Speaker 1: of sand and a noyster, sorry to use a very 723 00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:04,799 Speaker 1: tired metaphor, and make it into a beautiful jewel that 724 00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,719 Speaker 1: people can read and say like, yeah, I've felt that, 725 00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,719 Speaker 1: or you know, there's one story about me going through 726 00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,359 Speaker 1: a breakup and going I was. I felt like such 727 00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:15,680 Speaker 1: a raw nerve. It was such a bad breakup. He'd 728 00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:18,719 Speaker 1: had a baby with another woman behind my back, and 729 00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,040 Speaker 1: I found out about it after the child was already born, 730 00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,920 Speaker 1: and he'd been asking me to marry him. He'd wanted 731 00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:30,719 Speaker 1: for us to become pregnant, and I was so devastated 732 00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,800 Speaker 1: that going to Trader Joe's was like a huge outing 733 00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:37,000 Speaker 1: for me, and it took like all my and I 734 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:38,600 Speaker 1: felt like everyone was looking at I felt like I 735 00:46:38,640 --> 00:46:41,560 Speaker 1: had like a loser like across my face, you know, 736 00:46:42,080 --> 00:46:45,040 Speaker 1: and it was so hard pushing I can still feel 737 00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:48,839 Speaker 1: pushing that cart in there, having overdressed, you know what 738 00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,680 Speaker 1: I mean? Like, so I had the ability to give 739 00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:54,080 Speaker 1: that to people, and that's what I chose to do. 740 00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,799 Speaker 1: That's what I felt like I wanted to do with 741 00:46:56,840 --> 00:46:59,960 Speaker 1: the pain in my life was make it both funny, 742 00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,040 Speaker 1: make it okay at the end, and just say like 743 00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:07,680 Speaker 1: it's all of us. You also do something really with 744 00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:12,279 Speaker 1: the those shards, you know, those those toxic shards of 745 00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,880 Speaker 1: those memories of UM, the people uh that you felt 746 00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,880 Speaker 1: that you had failed in one way or another, of 747 00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:25,200 Speaker 1: UM honoring honoring them in a way, you know, like 748 00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,840 Speaker 1: when when you said that, your manager said to you, 749 00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,800 Speaker 1: if if you know, if if you have limited amount 750 00:47:30,840 --> 00:47:32,840 Speaker 1: of time left, what what do you want to leave behind. 751 00:47:33,239 --> 00:47:36,799 Speaker 1: It's almost like settling a debt. There's kind of an 752 00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:40,360 Speaker 1: existential debt that feels like it's being settled here. UM. 753 00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,239 Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with whether these people would 754 00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:44,160 Speaker 1: ever read these portraits and go with like, you know, 755 00:47:44,480 --> 00:47:46,560 Speaker 1: I was I was that person, I was that girl. 756 00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:54,120 Speaker 1: It's it's UM a kind of UM way of making 757 00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,319 Speaker 1: something whole, yeah, trying, yeah, trying to make something that 758 00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:00,239 Speaker 1: can't quite be made a whole. But it to be 759 00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:02,640 Speaker 1: made beautiful is the way I looked at it. Yeah. 760 00:48:21,760 --> 00:48:24,080 Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I 761 00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,239 Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to 762 00:48:27,280 --> 00:48:28,080 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.