Speaker 1: I've tried not to prepare really so we'll see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 3: It goes one of two ways. People either really think
Speaker 3: about it or they don't.
Speaker 1: I've gone like care from her.
Speaker 3: I think it's fine because I think it's all sort
Speaker 3: of a trigger anyway, you know, for a larger conversation
Speaker 3: about yeah, life and being here.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right. It made me think a lot.
Speaker 4: Hello, I'm mini driver. I've always loved Preust's questionnaire. It
Speaker 4: was originally in nineteenth century parlor game where players would
Speaker 4: ask each other thirty five questions aimed at revealing.
Speaker 2: The other player's true nature.
Speaker 4: In asking different people the same set of questions, you
Speaker 4: can make observations about which truths appear to be universal.
Speaker 4: And it made me wonder, what if these questions were
Speaker 4: just a jumping off point, what greater depths would be
Speaker 4: revealed if I asked these questions as conversation starters.
Speaker 2: So I adapted Prus's.
Speaker 4: Questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions that I
Speaker 4: personally think are pertinent to a person's story. They are
Speaker 4: when and where were you happiest? What is the quality
Speaker 4: you like least about yourself? What relationship real or fictionalized
Speaker 4: defines love for you? What question would you most like answered,
Speaker 4: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?
Speaker 4: What would be your last meal? And can you tell
Speaker 4: me something in your life that's grown out of a
Speaker 4: personal disaster? And I've gathered a group of really remarkable people,
Speaker 4: ones that I am honored and humbled to have had
Speaker 4: the chance to engage with. You may not hear their
Speaker 4: answers to all seven of these questions. We've whittled it
Speaker 4: down to which questions felt closest to their experience, or
Speaker 4: the most surprising, or created the most fertile ground to connect.
Speaker 5: My guest today is the multiple Grammy Award winning musician
Speaker 5: and songwriter Sean Colvin. I feel like Sean's song Sonny
Speaker 5: Came Home, which came out in nineteen ninety six, was
Speaker 5: the soundtrack to one of the most poignant parts of
Speaker 5: my life, and so it was probably poignant in yours too.
Speaker 5: I still find that song to be both beautiful and
Speaker 5: haunting for all kinds of reasons. She writes what I
Speaker 5: consider to be pure folk music and has a voice
Speaker 5: that is both transporting and full of wisdom. Rather like
Speaker 5: Sean herself, we had such a wonderful conversation bonding about
Speaker 5: swimming in great, big bodies of water and a shared
Speaker 5: love of Barton Springs, which is this amazing natural pool
Speaker 5: in Austin, Texas, where Sean lives.
Speaker 2: A few years ago she published.
Speaker 5: A really lovely memoir called Diamond in the Rath, and
Speaker 5: this year she is touring with Kebmo and her tour
Speaker 5: dates are available at Seancolvin music dot com.
Speaker 2: It's so funny.
Speaker 3: I've been doing pressed or something, and lots of these
Speaker 3: journalists have asked me, you know, I'd like to ask
Speaker 3: you my favorite question of your questions, and I have
Speaker 3: given the most useless answers. It really on the spot,
Speaker 3: like really not great answers.
Speaker 1: I don't believe you all.
Speaker 2: It really wasn't.
Speaker 3: I really regretted one of them. They asked me what relationship,
Speaker 3: real or fictionalized, defined love for me, and I said
Speaker 3: that it was I used to stand in the rain
Speaker 3: and watch Daniel da Lewis play soccer because he went
Speaker 3: to my school and he was older than me, much
Speaker 3: older than me. He used to come back and play
Speaker 3: in these old boy football matches, and I loved him
Speaker 3: so much, and he was related to my uncle who
Speaker 3: married my aunt, and so I felt like he was family.
Speaker 3: And what I really wanted to say was not Daniel
Speaker 3: da Lewis necessarily defines love for me, but the generosity
Speaker 3: and the kindness.
Speaker 2: That he showed me.
Speaker 3: He would always walk back to the changing rooms slowly,
Speaker 3: even if it was pounding rain. He would answer all
Speaker 3: of my questions. He had patience, he had kindness, had
Speaker 3: incredible energy and focus, and I felt like all those
Speaker 3: things are real definers of love and I've never forgotten it.
Speaker 3: But obviously the journalist is only going to write about
Speaker 3: I love Daniel Davis.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: It will be good publicity.
Speaker 2: You know what you do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you're going, Okay, Well, I'm going to ask
Speaker 3: you my first question, which is when and why were
Speaker 3: you happiest.
Speaker 6: I looked up the definition of the word happiness. I
Speaker 6: wanted kind of a prompt, and that helped me think
Speaker 6: about it more.
Speaker 1: I think safety is a big part of it.
Speaker 6: To feel safe is the very happy place, and to me,
Speaker 6: it comes down to music, playing music, writing music, hearing music,
Speaker 6: and water bodies of water. I grew up in South
Speaker 6: Dakota and my father, who was the most fun loving
Speaker 6: prankster ish, cool, goofy guy loved the water. And we
Speaker 6: had a late close to us called Lewis and Clark
Speaker 6: Lake in Yanked in South Dakota. And things weren't always
Speaker 6: great at home, but being in that lake, by that lake,
Speaker 6: on the boat, everything was okay. I felt a sense
Speaker 6: of contentment, belonging, happiness, joy and safety. And we slept
Speaker 6: all in this camper, all of us together, and there
Speaker 6: was a closeness and a safety there.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I was a kid who didn't like having the door
Speaker 6: shut to my room and darkness and being alone there,
Speaker 6: So that was wonderful too.
Speaker 2: And body's of water. Just do it for me?
Speaker 1: Swimming does it?
Speaker 6: Immersing myself in them, It's very important, not just looking
Speaker 6: at them. There's a beach in Positano, Italy that some
Speaker 6: of my ashes are going there, okay. And there's a
Speaker 6: naturally fed springs pool here in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 3: I know it bought in springs that is where Texas
Speaker 3: breeds through Boughton Springs.
Speaker 2: It seems to me it is.
Speaker 6: It's a miracle. It's a wonder of nature. I don't
Speaker 6: know any place like it that's in the middle of
Speaker 6: a city. I go there every morning. I go there
Speaker 6: every single morning. That's how I start my day.
Speaker 2: And I'm having.
Speaker 6: Ashes spread there too, but that's a secret because I'm
Speaker 6: sure it's against the law.
Speaker 3: Shania during the recent eclipse, my best friend in the world,
Speaker 3: Alexandra Valenti and Avid listener.
Speaker 2: Of this podcast. She'll be listening now, the photographer.
Speaker 1: Yes, she's taken my picture many.
Speaker 6: Okay, Yeah, she's wonderful.
Speaker 2: She used to live there. Okay, she does, she still
Speaker 2: lives still.
Speaker 3: We went out, we were in we were in the
Speaker 3: water up you know, there's that jetty where boats can
Speaker 3: refuel and there's a great kind of general store. We
Speaker 3: were past there and just between these two bridges and
Speaker 3: we were in the water with our glasses on for
Speaker 3: the eclipse.
Speaker 2: And it was.
Speaker 3: Honestly one of the most incredible moments of my life.
Speaker 2: I think I have it on my Instagram.
Speaker 3: I have the video which is just a lot of
Speaker 3: screaming as it goes to pitch black.
Speaker 2: Where you Well, I was here? Were you near the water?
Speaker 2: Will you?
Speaker 6: I was not. I was in my home. I was
Speaker 6: in my home and I just was sitting around, going, well,
Speaker 6: we'll see. I thought, well, it's going to be crowded
Speaker 6: out there, and I couldn't wait for it, but I
Speaker 6: didn't make a big social thing out of it.
Speaker 1: And it got a little dark and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, and then it's got pitch black and the screaming.
Speaker 2: I ran outside. The screaming started.
Speaker 6: All the street lights came on, and one of the
Speaker 6: I looked up. What happened to animals in the zoos
Speaker 6: when the eclipse happened. A lot of them herded together,
Speaker 6: which was interesting. But what I like the most was
Speaker 6: the ones who were nocturnal came out.
Speaker 2: Okay, time to get up, and the ones that.
Speaker 1: You know usually went to bed at night just started
Speaker 1: going to their beds.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: There was a huge amount of bird and butterfly activity
Speaker 3: out on the water.
Speaker 1: It was what happened.
Speaker 3: First of all, everything cleared, all of the birds and
Speaker 3: all of the butterflies. They all came sort of swarming
Speaker 3: across the water, and then they just disappeared into the
Speaker 3: trees and under the bridges. And then as the light
Speaker 3: was coming back, I assume in their beings they were
Speaker 3: thinking it was dawn, and so they were swooping and
Speaker 3: one of the guys on the boat. He was like,
Speaker 3: I think it's because this is what they do in
Speaker 3: the morning. They sort of swooped back was and forwards
Speaker 3: from underneath the bridges and out of the trees, like
Speaker 3: away from their nest and out into the day, and
Speaker 3: again the butterflies kind of swarmed back the other way.
Speaker 2: It was truly spiritual.
Speaker 1: Yea, what it's going to happen in another four hundred
Speaker 1: years or something?
Speaker 2: Is that the k is a long time?
Speaker 6: Were they singing like morning birds? Were they tweeting a lot?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They were.
Speaker 3: They absolutely were making a lot of noise. It was
Speaker 3: really magical, truly truly amazing. That makes a lot of
Speaker 3: sense if I lived in Arson and I would go
Speaker 3: to Barton Springs every single morning and swim, It's fantastic.
Speaker 3: What person place or experience most ultitude life.
Speaker 6: I really have to say the experience of getting so
Speaker 6: I was twenty seven, so I was very lucky, but
Speaker 6: I was miserable. As I like to say, I had
Speaker 6: my share. I mean, it's just that was my timeline.
Speaker 6: I didn't have to go till I was however old.
Speaker 6: I bottomed out and in New York City, and you know,
Speaker 6: you know, lecture everyone about addiction and alcoholism, but it's
Speaker 6: a disease, and I was very sick, and it's a
Speaker 6: very tough.
Speaker 2: Disease, you know.
Speaker 6: It's a disease of denial, and addiction is a rough one.
Speaker 6: It's an obsession of the mind, the craving of the body.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's fierce, and not everybody makes it. And
Speaker 6: for me, it was more than mornings after where I
Speaker 6: just felt suicidally depressed. And I remember one of the
Speaker 6: thoughts I had that really kind of made a difference
Speaker 6: in me having a revelatory moment that this had to stop.
Speaker 2: And it was ego driven.
Speaker 6: I thought to myself, you know, because in high school
Speaker 6: I was in all the musicals and debate team and
Speaker 6: speech team and duet acting.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of friends.
Speaker 6: I was the girl guitar, seemed to have a lot
Speaker 6: of potential, right and there was in New York. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I was doing music and suddenly I thought all my
Speaker 6: friends in high school are going to find out I'm
Speaker 6: a drunk.
Speaker 1: And that really got me. I really remember that.
Speaker 6: It was just kind of a come to Jesus about
Speaker 6: this is this is real?
Speaker 1: This is what's going on with you.
Speaker 6: So I got help, and I was so blessed and
Speaker 6: lucky because it took, and it doesn't with everyone. I
Speaker 6: just feel like I was really blessed with that. So
Speaker 6: it transformed my life. Was in a program that really
Speaker 6: kind of taught me how to live and introduced a
Speaker 6: spiritual overview to living. All the things that have happened
Speaker 6: to me since then, my dreams have come true. And
Speaker 6: I firmly believe that would not have happened had I
Speaker 6: not had a combination of some light shining on me
Speaker 6: and just the epiphany that just couldn't go on, and
Speaker 6: then I've found somewhere to take it.
Speaker 3: Have you found what you found through the program all
Speaker 3: through the people that you met or through that experience.
Speaker 3: Have you sort of handed that on to someone else?
Speaker 3: Like have you kind of continued that chain and like
Speaker 3: what you were given. Have you had the opportunity to
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Have that on?
Speaker 6: I mean, I've tried, and I've found that there's not
Speaker 6: much you can say true. All I can hope for
Speaker 6: is and I know this because of people that talk
Speaker 6: to me, because they know me, because of what I do.
Speaker 6: The other person, you're setting an example, not encouraging it,
Speaker 6: proselytizing you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's just through my actions effected.
Speaker 2: People the most.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's doing it because I remember once I was
Speaker 6: sober for a year or two, had a great friend
Speaker 6: who was a drummer, sweetest guy, great guy, terrible alcoholic,
Speaker 6: and I told him what had happened to me and
Speaker 6: he was like, oh man, I got to do that,
Speaker 6: I got to do that.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just so happy. I'm like, yay, he's going
Speaker 1: to come in.
Speaker 2: He died.
Speaker 6: He died before he came in. And that taught me
Speaker 6: a lot. It kind of taught me a lot, like
Speaker 6: you can't convince somebody except through your own experience and
Speaker 6: through their willingness to want to change, yeah and recover. Yeah,
Speaker 6: so that's the defining experience for sure. I don't know
Speaker 6: what i'd be doing right now. How old were you
Speaker 6: when you had your daughter?
Speaker 1: Forty two?
Speaker 2: Nice? Nice?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: How about you? I was thirty eight? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you know, they called it a geriatric pregnancy,
Speaker 3: which I thought was so unnecessary.
Speaker 2: They did. They did so sad like these labels. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he's magic.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they are magic. Does he have a good sense
Speaker 6: of humor? That's what he thinks. I loved the most
Speaker 6: about my kid. She's hysterical. Isn't that very absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Because I think kind, funny, clever. Those were sort of
Speaker 3: my benchmarks of what I sort of loving a person.
Speaker 3: I've always thrown that around and thought that everything can
Speaker 3: actually be distilled into those things.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 3: Can you tell me about something that has grown out
Speaker 3: of the personal disaster?
Speaker 2: Gray Heir? That is the truth, That is the literal truth.
Speaker 6: When I saw the word grown, I was like, oh, yeah, that.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of something else.
Speaker 6: Besides the kind of pivotal thing about giving up alcohol.
Speaker 2: Being a single mom?
Speaker 3: Was that difficult in the beginning because I was also
Speaker 3: a single mom, And while it was heavenly in a
Speaker 3: lot of respects, I love not having anybody telling me
Speaker 3: what to do.
Speaker 2: With vapor misers. No, no, no, no no no, I didn't.
Speaker 3: But there were definitely moments where I was like, holy cow,
Speaker 3: I am so alone in this. Yeah, she's meaning this
Speaker 3: little tiny baby he can't speak to me, And I
Speaker 3: remember thinking we were both growing out of this, not
Speaker 3: disastrous situation.
Speaker 2: But it was suddeny not easy.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's really applicable here. Yeah, single parenthood and realizing
Speaker 6: you're making all the decisions and a lot of them
Speaker 6: are fucking hard. You're responsible, and Calli's had her share
Speaker 6: of difficulties. You know, she wouldn't mind my saying that.
Speaker 6: And I had to make decisions. She can now, and
Speaker 6: thank god she's twenty six and she launched. But yeah,
Speaker 6: to be alone making every decision. And I feel like,
Speaker 6: as far as growing from that sort of disaster or
Speaker 6: very uncomfortable, challenging thing, I think the most creative job
Speaker 6: in the world is being a mother. Yeah, and anybody
Speaker 6: who's the mother, I.
Speaker 2: Wish I could sing like you. I wish I could
Speaker 2: be it.
Speaker 1: You're being creative, honey.
Speaker 2: Was it hard being on the road with a little child.
Speaker 6: Well, she came along for a while, and then when
Speaker 6: she started school, she stayed back with her dad and
Speaker 6: it just sucked, you.
Speaker 2: Know, for me to be away like that. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: must have been very hot.
Speaker 1: It was very hard, but I took a couple of
Speaker 1: years off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very hard.
Speaker 6: But she's amazing and our bond is ironclad, and it
Speaker 6: worked out.
Speaker 2: Oh, old Henry, he's fifteen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, has he gone into his cave yet?
Speaker 2: You know what, I think he's in the cave, and
Speaker 2: he's in the cave. He is, he in the cave.
Speaker 3: He's fighting the bar right now. He's fighting the bat
Speaker 3: in the cave. And I just keep handing him supplies.
Speaker 3: I heard they go into a cave.
Speaker 2: They really do.
Speaker 3: And I think it's really that initiation and that journey.
Speaker 3: It's very hard to sit by and watch and not
Speaker 3: want to make it easier. I got to say, I
Speaker 3: don't do a great job not interfering. I really tried.
Speaker 3: But it's agony watching someone being born into adulthood.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 6: And you know, your instincts to try to avoid controlling and.
Speaker 1: Advising and you know, like babying them through it are
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: I wish I could say my instincts had been better
Speaker 6: as far as that went.
Speaker 2: I came from a place.
Speaker 6: Where I was going to outdo my parents, you know
Speaker 6: the things that I didn't get. Man, she was going
Speaker 6: to get it in spades, and I overdid it. There's
Speaker 6: somebody told.
Speaker 1: Me the other day our generation overcorrected.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I actually think that's really true. I think
Speaker 3: that they were so hands off. Yeah, I think I definitely,
Speaker 3: to his detriment, sometimes been super prescriptive, like too prescriptive.
Speaker 3: But I don't know what we were talking about this
Speaker 3: last night, my sister and some friends. Oh you can
Speaker 3: just it's just the best you can do, right. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: And there's no handbook, you have no idea. You often
Speaker 3: don't realize the things you've handed on to your kids
Speaker 3: until they've been handed on.
Speaker 2: So all you can do is just keep talking about it.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: All you can do is keep talking about it, and
Speaker 1: it's hard to watch them struggle, and then you reach
Speaker 1: a point where you are over correcting. And somebody said,
Speaker 1: you've got to give them the dignity of learning.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good. I like that a lot.
Speaker 6: I do too, and my folks were on the other
Speaker 6: side of the spectrum. But I figured it out. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we all figured it out.
Speaker 2: So what is the quality that you like least about yourself?
Speaker 1: A few, but I'll try to focus on one.
Speaker 6: I did kind of an inventory of the things that
Speaker 6: I do that I really wasn't aware that I was doing,
Speaker 6: just to cope in life.
Speaker 1: I think we all have these things, and I gave
Speaker 1: them names.
Speaker 6: What I was going to say was the quality I
Speaker 6: like least in myself is I isolate. I enjoy time alone,
Speaker 6: but I isolate too much. I just do, and I'm
Speaker 6: trying to work on that. I'm just kind of a recluse,
Speaker 6: I guess. And I love texting with people and talking
Speaker 6: on the phone.
Speaker 2: But I just kind of stood put.
Speaker 1: But this other thing I was telling you about where
Speaker 1: I started to make a list of my coping mechanisms
Speaker 1: that aren't healthy, and I gave them names. And one
Speaker 1: was the contractor. So you know, you meet people.
Speaker 6: You fall in love, you have certain friends, whatever shaped
Speaker 6: you in your childhood, you make unconscious contracts with people you.
Speaker 2: Know you do, or at least I do.
Speaker 6: If you do do do, then you will get Weah.
Speaker 6: I just realized how full of manipulation I was, and
Speaker 6: how I would make these contracts rather than accepting the
Speaker 6: situation just as it is. Another one was the pontificator.
Speaker 6: I think I'm an expert in so many areas, and
Speaker 6: I give tons of advice. I just think I know it.
Speaker 6: You know, you asked me about mental health, music, fashion,
Speaker 6: you know, bring it up. So those are just two
Speaker 6: and the isolation. But you know, there's so many things
Speaker 6: to improve in myself is just becoming aware of what
Speaker 6: they are, which comes to you whenever it comes to you.
Speaker 3: What do you get out of isolating? Like, what are
Speaker 3: the benefits of it?
Speaker 6: That's a really good question. I guess I have social anxiety.
Speaker 6: I guess that's kind of that's really kind of it.
Speaker 2: Just more comfortable being by yourself.
Speaker 1: I like being by myself, but I can lonely with
Speaker 1: that in that isolation. So it's kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: edged sword, because for example, when I get up to
Speaker 1: go to the pool, I get up when it's very dark,
Speaker 1: and I get in the car and listen to the
Speaker 1: music I love and get a cup of coffee and
Speaker 1: sit in the parking lot in my car at the
Speaker 1: pool in the dark, and it's my favorite time.
Speaker 6: It's day.
Speaker 1: And then the dawn starts to break, and I wandered.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 6: Well, it's great, but then you know, the day goes
Speaker 6: on and I live alone. So I've realized that in
Speaker 6: my isolation there's something to do with pleasing people.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I drift away from.
Speaker 6: People that are very important to me, that I may
Speaker 6: have known from the past or worked with, but don't
Speaker 6: work with anymore. I tend to drift away from the
Speaker 6: people that understand me the most. It's something I'm looking at.
Speaker 6: So this isolation is some kind of protection in some way,
Speaker 6: and I think it's just perhaps some to some degree
Speaker 6: kind of low self esteem of being closed intimacy.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's really interesting to not just fill a
Speaker 3: space because it's empty, or maybe to reframe the notion
Speaker 3: of emptiness with space. I started doing that with things
Speaker 3: that were I guess problematic, and that was one of
Speaker 3: the words I would supplant. So emptiness, this feeling of emptiness,
Speaker 3: I have it a lot around my son being at
Speaker 3: boarding school and I don't get to see him every
Speaker 3: single day, and he is truly the great love of
Speaker 3: my life. And I started playing around with when I
Speaker 3: say empty, how that makes me feel. But if I
Speaker 3: say space, which feels something that I can share with
Speaker 3: someone else, something I could share with even him at a
Speaker 3: later day, or it's like it took my foot off
Speaker 3: the pedal of slamming into that wall.
Speaker 2: That just felt one way. Yeah, you reframed, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I wonder if like there's I feel like
Speaker 3: all this. Huxley talked a bit about it, wow, which
Speaker 3: is I'm totally paraphrasing this idea of if we don't
Speaker 3: follow along with social norms, that it's somehow wrong and
Speaker 3: that it's only not beneficial if we actively feel it
Speaker 3: hurting ourselves. But if it's just something that's different from
Speaker 3: the norm, maybe so be it.
Speaker 2: And there's an.
Speaker 3: Exploration of what that is that is pertinent to the
Speaker 3: human is doing it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there are expectations and rules as we grow up
Speaker 6: and we get kind.
Speaker 2: Of trapped by those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand what you're meaning.
Speaker 6: With my daughter being gone, I felt an emptiness And
Speaker 6: for me, filling up the space has been well the
Speaker 6: opportunity to kind of soul search and realize the things
Speaker 6: I've been sort of pushing under because I was so
Speaker 6: busy raising my daughter and how do I get to
Speaker 6: focus on myself now? You know, it's a great opportunity
Speaker 6: for me to look inward and reclaim hobbies, interests, more travel.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to kind of turn it on its.
Speaker 6: Ear, and, like you said, instead of feeling empty, recreating
Speaker 6: it into an idea of space where I get to thrive.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I started doing the things that felt good more than
Speaker 3: once a day. Do you know how you kind of
Speaker 3: feel if you have like an itinerary in your day,
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, you know, so I wake up
Speaker 3: and I get my coffee, and I go for a swim,
Speaker 3: and then I do this, and I do all these
Speaker 3: these things just singularly, right, And I started going, I'm
Speaker 3: going to swim three times a day.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go down to the beach and I'm
Speaker 2: swim oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: But are you in London.
Speaker 3: I am, and I go and swim, and we have
Speaker 3: these lighters, so we have these amazing ponds all over London.
Speaker 2: I work you did.
Speaker 1: I went to the Ladies pond last time I was
Speaker 1: in London.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I gotta find that water wherever I go.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. But it was interesting because I used
Speaker 3: to feel really sad. I come in from my surf
Speaker 3: or my swim in the morning, and these are in night,
Speaker 3: you know, moments that were difficult or hard. And I
Speaker 3: said that, going, God, you know, my happiest moment has happened.
Speaker 3: And I've just got the rest of the days stretching out.
Speaker 3: And eventually I went, well, fuck that, I'm going to
Speaker 3: go and do it again. I'm going to sit here
Speaker 3: and I don't know, I'll write or talk to someone,
Speaker 3: or I'll play some music, or i'll make some food
Speaker 3: or I'll do whatever, and then I'm going to go again.
Speaker 3: And I kept doing it until once was again enough.
Speaker 3: And I really liked that idea of the things that
Speaker 3: make us feel good doing it more than once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I totally relate to that.
Speaker 6: I even wrote something about it once, but I had
Speaker 6: to do with Texas Monthly and Austin and I talked
Speaker 6: about the ritual that I do in the morning, about
Speaker 6: going to the springs, get up, have the coffee at
Speaker 6: the dark, the music, and then on the way home
Speaker 6: stopping at juice Land and getting my favorite smoothie and
Speaker 6: talking to somebody on the phone and then and then
Speaker 6: the best part of my day. So, and you're right,
Speaker 6: and people have so just go swimming again. You know,
Speaker 6: that's that's a great song.
Speaker 3: Actually, that's a beautiful song, Go swimming again. What relationship,
Speaker 3: real or fictionalized, defines lovely?
Speaker 6: Well, it has to be my kid. Yeah, I know
Speaker 6: what you were saying about Daniel Day Lewis and the
Speaker 6: selfless and dear actions of another person and the gift
Speaker 6: of not being judged by someone and the gift of
Speaker 6: being accepted and understood.
Speaker 1: And treated well.
Speaker 6: But being a parent, first of all, you're responsible, you know,
Speaker 6: from our one And that was totally intimidating to me.
Speaker 6: I was like, someone's how have I taken on this job?
Speaker 2: And I think the.
Speaker 6: Only thing that keeps you going on some level is
Speaker 6: this bond that's kind of inexplicable. I mean, it's been
Speaker 6: a hard job, you know, it's not been easy, but
Speaker 6: it's she's the love of my life. It's been the
Speaker 6: most fulfilling job and it'll never be over. And I'm
Speaker 6: sure it's a very common answer, so it's hard to describe.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a hard one to look away from because
Speaker 3: it is like for me, it's the most defining relationship
Speaker 3: of my life, like without a shadow of a doubt,
Speaker 3: Like I can think of other ones, Like I said,
Speaker 3: I talked about Daniel da Liz, particularly because I rather
Speaker 3: talk about Henry all the time. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: let me, I'll talk about something else for a minute.
Speaker 3: But it is magical and is my greatest proof that
Speaker 3: there is something other than what we see here. The
Speaker 3: way that I feel about Henry and the connection that
Speaker 3: we have reminds me of this other place or this
Speaker 3: other time. But it's not like because I don't consciously
Speaker 3: remember it. But the feeling of connection to something out
Speaker 3: of this time and place is how I feel about him.
Speaker 2: And it's hard to put into words. It really is.
Speaker 1: It's deep.
Speaker 3: It is deep, and it makes me think about It's
Speaker 3: funny you said you were talking about the contractor and
Speaker 3: like these contracts, I wonder about those, the idea of
Speaker 3: soul contracts, and whether we are playing out these relationships
Speaker 3: in different forms because I don't know the feeling of
Speaker 3: connectivity it feels like it goes so much further than
Speaker 3: even beyond the extraordinary act of giving birth, which, as
Speaker 3: you'll know, is.
Speaker 2: You know, it's otherworldly.
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 2: It really is. I mean, just did you have music playing?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, did I have music playing? I sure did.
Speaker 3: I did have an amazing playlist, I really did. And
Speaker 3: there's this really beautiful devotional that rummed us sang. It
Speaker 3: was a live recording and it was on the playlist,
Speaker 3: and that happened to be as Henry was being born,
Speaker 3: but I didn't know that Henry was a boy. I'd
Speaker 3: been told I was having a girl, even though I
Speaker 3: didn't want to know. So when he came out, and
Speaker 3: I wanted love to be the first word that he heard.
Speaker 3: So as I'm listening to like Ram dass Is in
Speaker 3: Turning Love Lover, I'm like pushing h And then the
Speaker 3: baby comes out and my mom goes, oh my god,
Speaker 3: it's a boy, and I went.
Speaker 1: What the fuck?
Speaker 2: So the whole deeply.
Speaker 3: Spiritual entry from my kid was a bit it went
Speaker 3: a bit sideways, but.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, but it's sounds like really great. Well hopefully
Speaker 6: not when you give birth exactly, hopefully. That's just you know,
Speaker 6: did you have a playlist going?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 2: Did you have music? I did? I have a playlist.
Speaker 1: I had one song that I wanted played when it
Speaker 1: was imminent. Oh wow, yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 6: I was just concentrating on what needed to be done, and.
Speaker 2: I would you mind sharing? Would you do?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 2: No? And it's the song is.
Speaker 1: No, I don't mind sharing at all. And it's a little.
Speaker 6: Strange, but to me, it's a very transcendent spiritual song.
Speaker 6: It certainly is not necessarily positive and it's a little abstract,
Speaker 6: but it's proco hair and whiter shade of pale.
Speaker 2: No way, way. I was just just oh wow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: For me instantly, it's the movie with Nil and I,
Speaker 3: which is my son and my favorite movie.
Speaker 1: I love that movie.
Speaker 3: I'm not thinking of it in I'm not thinking of
Speaker 3: it in terms of somebody being born into this world,
Speaker 3: and like hearing that it is it's transcendent.
Speaker 2: It has transcendence in it that song, for sure, it does.
Speaker 6: And if you look at it lyrically, it's not necessarily
Speaker 6: the ideal thing for someone to be born to. But
Speaker 6: that's the thing. That's the thing about music. It transcends
Speaker 6: a lot of things. The words don't even have to
Speaker 6: necessarily make sense, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a stream of.
Speaker 1: Consciousness, bizarre, bizarre.
Speaker 6: Song, but it's just steep, and that's why it feels
Speaker 6: holy to me.
Speaker 2: You know, it just feelt holy to me. So yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what I did.
Speaker 3: I think that's also really beautiful to pay attention to
Speaker 3: the things that feel holy to us, Like I don't
Speaker 3: think we I think it's really cool to consciously do
Speaker 3: that and go whatever that is, whatever that sounds like
Speaker 3: or looks like this feels holy to me.
Speaker 2: That's really wild.
Speaker 3: I'm just thinking about as a kid listening to The
Speaker 3: Cocktail Twins, and you know, for the first like struggling
Speaker 3: for those first few months of listening, going why why
Speaker 3: don't I understand what she's saying? Like I can't what
Speaker 3: is she saying? And then my mom, rather casual, went,
Speaker 3: she's not saying anything. She's just making amazing sounds and
Speaker 3: she's intoning like it is whatever you want it to be.
Speaker 2: And I was like, ah, what do you mean? What
Speaker 2: does it mean?
Speaker 3: And she, my mother said a much more caustic version
Speaker 3: of like, stop looking for meaning in everything and just
Speaker 3: enjoy the way that it feels slash sounds. And I
Speaker 3: always think that way about music, particularly if there are
Speaker 3: lyrics that I don't particularly love, Like there's a there's
Speaker 3: a songwriter whose lyrics I don't love at all, but
Speaker 3: I love the music. I love the music so much.
Speaker 3: And my son and I genuinely have like changed the
Speaker 3: lyrics about four of this song. And do you like
Speaker 3: his singing? I love his voice, I love his music,
Speaker 3: and his lyrics are just they're just not good. They're
Speaker 3: just not good to me, and they invoke images that
Speaker 3: are like, really really rubbish. There's one about like, I'm
Speaker 3: not kidding, it's like a comestain on sheets in the
Speaker 3: middle of this beautiful song that's where he's referencing. And
Speaker 3: I was so horrified by this whole thing that I've
Speaker 3: had to like rewrite it. Like when we play that song,
Speaker 3: which may sound terrible, book.
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't sound fair.
Speaker 2: That's great to rewrite the.
Speaker 1: Lyrics and instead of just turn off the music. If
Speaker 1: you love the voice and you love the music itself.
Speaker 3: I know, and I think that sometimes there's a whole
Speaker 3: bigger feeling at play than what somebody meant in there.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you're reminded me of a funny story, if
Speaker 6: I may tell me.
Speaker 1: Well, I was dating this guy once who was an actor.
Speaker 2: Oh god, pol you.
Speaker 6: This was in New York and he hadn't reached any
Speaker 6: big success. He was a sweet guy, but yeah, maybe
Speaker 6: a little narcissist. But of course, like any actor wants
Speaker 6: to be a musician, and like any musician wants to
Speaker 6: be an actor, right, so here, this guy's really good
Speaker 6: actor and getting.
Speaker 1: Somewhere and doing well.
Speaker 2: But he's a songwriter too.
Speaker 6: He said, Oh, no, so he wanted me to listen
Speaker 6: to his cassette tape.
Speaker 1: That's how long ago it was. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, tell him what I thought so bad?
Speaker 6: And my favorite lyric that he had was he rhymed
Speaker 6: apocalypse with Picasso lips.
Speaker 2: Across?
Speaker 3: Is that not a horrible apocalypse with Picasso lips?
Speaker 6: Picasso lips? And my best friend, who's a writer.
Speaker 2: I said, what do I do? What do I say?
Speaker 2: You run?
Speaker 6: Well, you just find something that you do like, you know,
Speaker 6: and you just kind of go with that. And I said,
Speaker 6: he rhymed apocalypse with Picasso lips And my friend goes,
Speaker 6: what are you gonna do? So I don't know, but
Speaker 6: I think that's cool. You rewrote the lyrics because you
Speaker 6: love the old parts so much.
Speaker 3: The cool progression is so beautiful, The melody top line
Speaker 3: is beautiful, The whole thing's beautiful.
Speaker 2: It's just this really, it's like.
Speaker 3: Very young when he wrote these lyrics, like they feel
Speaker 3: like a sort of fifteen year old boy fantasy of
Speaker 3: that means judge, but obviously will.
Speaker 1: You get to like you?
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. Yeah, Oh, Sean, thank you
Speaker 3: so much, Thanks, thank you.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's my seventh Questions. I've made it. You
Speaker 2: did you made it? Thank you? Oh, thank you, Minnie.
Speaker 2: It was a pleasure. Great, It's a real pleasure. Thank
Speaker 2: you so much.
Speaker 4: Mini Questions is hosted and written by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 4: Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
Speaker 4: from Jennifer Bassett, Zoe Denkler, and Ali Perry.
Speaker 2: The theme music is also by Me and additional music
Speaker 2: by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 5: Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella,
Speaker 5: Anick oppenheim, A, Nick Muller and Annette wolf A w kPr,
Speaker 5: Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh Had tigg Adore.