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Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in Progress Whip Smarties.

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Speaker 1: Today we are joined by one of my writing crushes.

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Speaker 1: I'm so excited that she's here. I may have to

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Speaker 1: take a deep brother or two before we get into

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Speaker 1: this interview. Today's guest is none other than Glynnis McNichol.

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Speaker 1: She wrote the incredible memoir No One Tells You This

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Speaker 1: about turning forty, and as you know from many of

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Speaker 1: the stories I share, it's pretty fabulous. And her forthcoming

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Speaker 1: book called I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is absolutely unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: The book is about one woman's pursuit of pleasure in Paris.

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Speaker 1: She is determined to take pleasure in everything and everyone

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Speaker 1: that she encounters, most importantly, including her self. The book

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Speaker 1: is joyful, subversive, honestly singular. In it, Glennis really upends

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Speaker 1: all the assumptions that we have about women and age.

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Speaker 1: She says at one point, what no one prepares you

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Speaker 1: for as a woman is for everything to go right,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes it does. I cannot wait to talk to

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Speaker 1: her about her career as a journalist and a writer,

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Speaker 1: and about the books that she has written that I

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Speaker 1: just find to be the most inspiring battle cries for

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Speaker 1: a joyous life. Let's hear Glennis. Hello, Hi, Hi, how

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Speaker 1: are you.

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Speaker 2: I'm good? Thank you so much for doing this. It's

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Speaker 2: a fun thing.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm just so excited that you're here. I Before

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Speaker 1: we dive in, I have to say I was just

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Speaker 1: on a trip. I went to a really inspiring conference

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Speaker 1: I had to go to France for. And then my

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Speaker 1: partner's mentor had her birthday, turning fifty nine, just like

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Speaker 1: the most fabulous, amazing, inspiring woman, and we bopped to

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Speaker 1: like meet her and her family on this once in

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Speaker 1: a lifetime family trip they were taking for her birthday.

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Speaker 1: They were in Greece. I was like, wow, if this

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Speaker 1: is a sign for me of what's to come at

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Speaker 1: fifty nine, Like, sign me up. I'm so into this.

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Speaker 1: And we were sitting around talking and your New York

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Speaker 1: Times article had just had just come out, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, I am interviewing this time that she just

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Speaker 1: posted this up. But it is so amazing, and I like,

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Speaker 1: I literally sat by this beautiful pool, oh you know,

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Speaker 1: benefiting from the success of my older friend's life and

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Speaker 1: reading people quotes from your article.

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Speaker 2: Oh so good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was so fun.

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Speaker 2: I have to say that that article, I mean, going

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Speaker 2: viral the New York Times is its own sort of

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Speaker 2: intense experience. But so I woke up that morning and

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Speaker 2: I thought, well, this is going to be an interesting day.

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Speaker 2: You sort of brace for the comment section or people

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Speaker 2: who go and find your email and write to you.

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Speaker 2: And I have to say I was the most surprising

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Speaker 2: thing about that was, with one exception, all the feedback

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Speaker 2: was positive, Like it was why it was much different

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Speaker 2: than a couple of years ago when the feedback was

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Speaker 2: sort of very predictably angry. And but this I was like,

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Speaker 2: and you know a great deal of it for men too,

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Speaker 2: who are like I see myself in this, And I

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Speaker 2: just think that that is something that more people should

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Speaker 2: who are in charge of storymaking sho maybe take into consideration.

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Speaker 2: Is like the way stuff like that resonates and not

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Speaker 2: as a source of I'm so angry at you, Like

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Speaker 2: it was really interesting.

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Speaker 1: Well there's something it's both I think very inspiring and

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Speaker 1: very confronting to be mirrored by someone who's chosen to

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Speaker 1: be free. And I'm friends with this and credible non

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Speaker 1: binary artist and they talk a lot about how incredibly

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Speaker 1: overt queer expressions of freedom, yeah, confront people who feel

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Speaker 1: trapped in a binary yeah, and make them say, well,

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Speaker 1: who do you think you are to live this way?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: And it's the projection of the self hatred. It's the

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Speaker 1: projection of the way people make themselves feel small.

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Speaker 2: I also think that if you've spent your I think

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Speaker 2: about this in different scenarios, including the one you're referencing,

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Speaker 2: is that, like, if you've spent your whole life being

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Speaker 2: rewarded for living a certain way, and you've built your

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Speaker 2: self worth on these particular rituals because they were the

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Speaker 2: only ones available to you, and then suddenly the world

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Speaker 2: comes along and is like, actually, all of this is

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Speaker 2: constrictive and meaningless. I'm sympathetic to how destabilizing, not sympathetic

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Speaker 2: to rage that manifests and you know, violence in any way,

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Speaker 2: but I'm sympathetic to that sense of like everything's been

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Speaker 2: destabilized and I don't understand myself in this new way,

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Speaker 2: and that the most immediate reaction is I'm going to

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Speaker 2: be angry at you for making me have to think

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Speaker 2: about the fact that the decisions I have been rewarded

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Speaker 2: for by the entire culture for so long, You're suddenly

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Speaker 2: telling me you're meaningless. Like, I think, it's a lot,

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Speaker 2: that's a lot to deal with.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I particularly see that in the way we've

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Speaker 1: seen this backlash with men toward women about you know,

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Speaker 1: quote changing the rules around the way they're allowed to

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Speaker 1: speak to us. Oh, you can't take a joke, and

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Speaker 1: oh you're so serious, Oh yours those sensative and it's like, no,

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Speaker 1: we're just sick of being harassed and touched and killed

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Speaker 1: and yes.

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Speaker 2: So I imagine for like centuries, women were sick of

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Speaker 2: all of those things if they had no agency to

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Speaker 2: respond to it or not engage with it, and that

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Speaker 2: some of that age is like, oh, I'm choosing not

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Speaker 2: to be here because actually this is awful and I

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Speaker 2: have a better version. And then it's like, what do

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Speaker 2: you mean like that, that sense of that absence of control,

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Speaker 2: I think is rage inducing for a lot of pretty

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Speaker 2: awful people.

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Speaker 1: Well, and what I don't know if sympathize with is

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Speaker 1: the right word, but what I can see must be

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Speaker 1: difficult is if you because listen, we know that these systems,

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Speaker 1: they're certainly bad for us, as you know women sisgendered women,

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Speaker 1: they're very bad for queer people, and they're actually very

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Speaker 1: bad for cisgendered men too, right, like patriarchy hurts men,

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Speaker 1: And so I bet it is really hard to be like,

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Speaker 1: I've done this thing my whole life. I'm absolutely miserable.

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Speaker 1: I hate my fucking job. And everybody told me that

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Speaker 1: if I made enough money and got old enough, I

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Speaker 1: could fuck a hot twenty five year old, and now

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Speaker 1: you're telling me I can't. And I'm like, ah, I

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Speaker 1: wish that it wasn't that gross, but yeah, it must

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Speaker 1: be a bummer if you've hated your whole life and

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Speaker 1: now you've gotten to a point where the thing you

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Speaker 1: thought would be your reward you don't get to have.

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Speaker 1: Like maybe your reward should be something for you or

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Speaker 1: like a cookie and not a person. But we can

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Speaker 1: talk about that later, you know. I think to your point,

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Speaker 1: there has to be this willingness to inspect, no matter

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Speaker 1: our moral feelings about the feelings or reactions, we have

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Speaker 1: to expect inspect people's feelings and reactions to change, because

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Speaker 1: if we just yell about it, we can't create anything better.

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Speaker 1: And I think, coming totally full circle, that that's why

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Speaker 1: the article that you wrote, and that's why your book

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Speaker 1: I think they're resonating so intensely with people because you

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Speaker 1: are simply modeling personal freedom and joy and say you

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Speaker 1: could just change.

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Speaker 2: Your life too if you want, or here's one version

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Speaker 2: of what it's like a pleasurable life looks like that.

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Speaker 2: I see a lot of women in my life living,

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Speaker 2: and I don't see it reflected in culture. I think

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Speaker 2: a lot of what motivates my writing is this sense

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Speaker 2: of like being a lifelong reader and being so attracted

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Speaker 2: to these narratives and then reaching a point somewhere around

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Speaker 2: age forty where I sort of disappeared culturally and constantly

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Speaker 2: being made to feel sort of like not invisible in

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Speaker 2: a way, but then seeing around me so many people

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Speaker 2: living similar lives, and then never seeing that reflected in

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Speaker 2: the culture, and that that feels gas lady and enraging

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Speaker 2: and bad storytelling. And I'm like, why are we so

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Speaker 2: confronted with all of this nonsense? It's not serving anyone.

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Speaker 2: So I often think of like I'm observing my own

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Speaker 2: life and just being like, here's another way to be like, actually,

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Speaker 2: none of the stories have served me well, And here's

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Speaker 2: how I'm experiencing it, Because it's like witnessing almost in

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Speaker 2: a way where it's like, these are things that bring

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Speaker 2: women pleasure, these are things that bring me pleasure. I'm

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Speaker 2: not speak I can't speak for an entire gender, obviously,

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Speaker 2: but I'm like, these are things that bring me pleasure.

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Speaker 2: They were not the things that I expected or was

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Speaker 2: told should be pleasurable. And I have access to all

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Speaker 2: of these opportunities I was told were not going to

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Speaker 2: be available to me. And actually I feel more powerful

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Speaker 2: than I've ever felt, and the horizon feels more wide open.

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Speaker 2: And I just feel compelled to tell you about that

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Speaker 2: because no one else is and I see everyone so

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Speaker 2: many other people experiencing this, and it's a little crazy.

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Speaker 1: Making yes, and I feel the same. And I to

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Speaker 1: have gotten, you know, in my own way. I guess

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Speaker 1: you could say in the patriarchy, or you could just

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Speaker 1: say in like the pursuit of a life. You know,

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Speaker 1: I did everything I was supposed to do. I checked

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Speaker 1: all the boxes, I built the life, I did the thing.

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Speaker 1: And I looked around and I was like, I'm fucking miserable. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I don't think this is what it's supposed to be, right,

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Speaker 1: I don't think Sobbing at the kitchen table every night

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Speaker 1: and begging to be talked too, seen or in ltimately

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Speaker 1: considered is like the best and highest use of my time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like what is this? Or how you even want

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Speaker 2: to sign your time? Yeah, it's all but and then

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Speaker 2: you look at I think too, is that you Narratives

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Speaker 2: are so important because narratives impact are like legal structures, right,

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Speaker 2: Like when we prioritize marriage as a financial, legal way

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Speaker 2: to live, you are punished in ways outside of social,

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Speaker 2: socially and culturally for living outside of them. And it's

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Speaker 2: like it's enough to say I don't want to live

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Speaker 2: like this, but I do feel like we are compelled

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Speaker 2: to then say the different ways we're doing it, because

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Speaker 2: how else do you shift? Like the financial infrastructure of

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Speaker 2: America is in so many ways pegged to marriage, which

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Speaker 2: is why all these men, even the progressive ones, are

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Speaker 2: keep writing like the solution to these problems or that

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Speaker 2: women should get married more. That is literally like what

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Speaker 2: Nick Christoff keeps writing, And you're like, I'm pretty sure

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Speaker 2: there are other solutions. It's probably not it, right, this

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Speaker 2: is probably not it, but like there are other ways

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Speaker 2: to be, but you're financially punished for being outside of them.

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Speaker 2: And then you really think about who's providing the I

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Speaker 2: really think capitalism runs on like the labor of women.

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Speaker 2: I'm certainly not the first person to make that observation,

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Speaker 2: but when you really think of these structures that we're

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Speaker 2: all promised or be satisfying, there is a gas lady

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Speaker 2: element to it, because who is benefiting from us participating

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Speaker 2: in it. It's never us. It's never us. It's like

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Speaker 2: the entire economy of the country is benefiting from it.

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Speaker 2: And when you to think of it in those terms,

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Speaker 2: you're like, wait a second, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's so crazy. And then you understand how in the

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Speaker 1: modern era we live in, a Supreme Court justice in

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Speaker 1: the United States could write the terms, quote a domestic

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Speaker 1: supply of infants. Oh my god, when I know we're

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Speaker 1: turning a rule that texts our literal healthcare that make

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Speaker 1: sure we can live. And it's wild because you go, oh,

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Speaker 1: they need us to provide a workforce. They don't actually

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Speaker 1: care about our quality of life understood. And so you know,

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Speaker 1: my girlfriends and I have been talking about this, and

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Speaker 1: I do want to be clear, you know, for anybody

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Speaker 1: at home, because I realized when you start talking about this,

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Speaker 1: how we deserve to have other options. Some people who

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Speaker 1: like their traditional choice of option feel perhaps attacked. That's

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Speaker 1: not it. Like what was very illuminating for me was

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Speaker 1: looking at my life and the boxes I ticked, and

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Speaker 1: then the lives of my friends and their wonderful marriages,

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Speaker 1: and going, oh, one of these is not like the other,

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Speaker 1: Like this is not correct that I see that what

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Speaker 1: I admire in others is not what I have understood.

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Speaker 1: So to be clear, I'm a fan of any that

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Speaker 1: brings you joy, happiness, fulfillment, whether that's moving to Paris

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Speaker 1: in a pandemic, I can't wait to talk about the book,

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Speaker 1: or which, by the way, was my plan in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, the world shut down.

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Speaker 2: I was like, what the.

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Speaker 1: Or you know, marrying your high school sweetheart who's the

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Speaker 1: love of your life and being together for sixty five years,

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Speaker 1: like whatever it is, I want you just to be happy.

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Speaker 1: But I find you know now, I get kind of

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Speaker 1: excited because I've got a bunch of girlfriends that are like, well,

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Speaker 1: should all the friends just start marrying each other? Should

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Speaker 1: we build a commune? Should we like get a ranch

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Speaker 1: and build some cabins, Like it feels so fun to

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Speaker 1: say Oh, if this is the system, we could probably

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Speaker 1: subvert it for us.

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Speaker 2: RAINA. Cohen just did a great book on Front on

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Speaker 2: rethinking partnership around centralizing it around friendship versus romantic relationships,

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Speaker 2: and the degrees to which that would practically shift in

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Speaker 2: better ways the way we function in the world. I

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Speaker 2: do think it's it's useful to separate, Like I have

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Speaker 2: plenty of so called good marriages. I think the older

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Speaker 2: you get, the more you realize our definition of good

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Speaker 2: marriage is also misleading and that partnership is individual. And

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Speaker 2: I have plenty of friends in satisfying marriages, and it's

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Speaker 2: important to separate that from sort of how marriage is

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Speaker 2: structured within this country. It's the institution of marriage, and

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Speaker 2: think of them as two separate things. And I do

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Speaker 2: think women in particular have a very hard time experiencing

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Speaker 2: the stories of other women as as something someone else

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Speaker 2: is doing and not as a judgment on their own actions.

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Speaker 2: And I really think that that is the result of

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Speaker 2: most of the variety of stories we get about women's

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Speaker 2: lives directed at women come from women's magazines and are

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Speaker 2: rooted in by this it will fix you, there's something

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Speaker 2: wrong with you. Do this thing that this person did

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Speaker 2: and you will be better. And we really still struggle

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Speaker 2: to read anything by any woman, and our immediate reaction

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Speaker 2: is just, oh, well, I can't do that. And there's

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Speaker 2: still a sort of binary between married and not married,

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Speaker 2: and like one is a judgment on the other art

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Speaker 2: when in fact, like we are allied together. I am

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Speaker 2: a support system from many of my married friends and

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Speaker 2: they are a support system for me. And then midnight

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Speaker 2: you feel satisfied in your marriage with your partner, does

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Speaker 2: not negate that the institution of marriage is not you

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Speaker 2: are not benefiting from it necessarily, you know, in practical ways,

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Speaker 2: and being.

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Speaker 1: Able to separate out that critical thinking I think is

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Speaker 1: so important and can be the thing that saves us

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Speaker 1: from that reactionary judgment. Like I always call it the

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Speaker 1: Clinton cookie syndrome, Like in nineteen ninety two when Hillary

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Speaker 1: Clinton was literally trying to pass universal child healthcare to

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Speaker 1: take care of everyone's children's in America as the first

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Speaker 1: Lady of the United States, and people were like, well,

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Speaker 1: why are you doing that? And she said, well, what

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Speaker 1: am I supposed to do here? Big cookies? Like yeah,

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Speaker 1: I E I have this opportunity to advocate for every

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Speaker 1: mother in America and she got shot on for it,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh boy.

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Speaker 2: I remember that. I mean I think I was seventeen

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Speaker 2: or eighteen when that happened, and I was a Canadian,

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Speaker 2: so I was still in Canada at that point. I

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Speaker 2: remember that news story and actually thinking that Hillary was

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Speaker 2: in the wrong. It's very hard to like interesting, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I think in hindsight and certainly where we are now,

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Speaker 2: it's sometimes hard to emphasize like the degree that that

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Speaker 2: narrative was not that narrative, I know, was like shocking

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Speaker 2: to you know, feminists who were writing in the space,

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Speaker 2: not shocking, but that it was angering. But like as

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Speaker 2: a general cultural thing, I don't remember thinking how dare they?

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Speaker 2: I just remember thinking like, oh, yeah, you know, Hillary

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Speaker 2: is like not likable. That was my teenage response to that,

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Speaker 2: as like as a person who had a teenager would

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Speaker 2: have called him a feminist. So it's really I think

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Speaker 2: about Hillary a lot. I covered the two thousand and

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Speaker 2: eight campaign for Playboy magazine. Funny enough, but she was

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Speaker 2: She's of that generation similar to my mother, who like

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Speaker 2: every decade they had to be a different person, right,

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Speaker 2: Like they were rewarded in each decade for he embodying

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Speaker 2: a different idea of women. And so by the time

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Speaker 2: Hillary reached the place where she's running for president, it

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Speaker 2: sounded like she was a hypocrite or contradicting herself, when

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Speaker 2: in fact, you're just like, no, she's changing at she

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Speaker 2: was changing with the times as best she could. And

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Speaker 2: it's like, that's what makes me, I think, have more

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Speaker 2: empathy to when I hear from women, and it's generally

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Speaker 2: women who are a little older than me, and they're

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Speaker 2: just like, you know, there's I feel that anger, and

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Speaker 2: I think, I don't know, I didn't have to iterate

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Speaker 2: to the degree that you've had, and I wasn't. You know,

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Speaker 2: I recognize the rewards you get. So it's like I

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Speaker 2: do try and come to it with empathy. And also

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Speaker 2: I really I like so many of my married friends

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Speaker 2: are married to men who are good books, and that's great.

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Speaker 2: I benefit from them.

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Speaker 1: I absolutely love that one of my best friends, my

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Speaker 1: girlfriend Sky, is about to marry our friend Edwin and

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Speaker 1: he's such a great cook. And I'm always like, Hi, Mom,

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Speaker 1: h Dad, I'm coming over exactly exactly, cook for me,

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Speaker 1: make me mistake please.

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Speaker 2: Right, And I think that too gets lost to a

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Speaker 2: lot of narratives where you sort of see like the

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Speaker 2: single best friend who's like sort of sad and like

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Speaker 2: a little like Aunt Jackie and Roseanne, you know, like

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Speaker 2: a little incompetent, and I'm like, no, I'm fully caught.

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Speaker 2: Like it's a mutually beneficial arrangement, But we don't credit

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Speaker 2: women with competence who've made sort of decisions outside of

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Speaker 2: what is still considered a bit of the normal. Although

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Speaker 2: that is definitely shifting, it feels like it's shifting in

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Speaker 2: both ways simultaneously. It feels like it's shifting for progress

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Speaker 2: and at the same time the trad wife movement is

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Speaker 2: sort of like it's both happening at the same time.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's like we have you and we have that loser,

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Speaker 1: the kicker for the Chiefs going viral in like the

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Speaker 1: same two weeks. Yeah, I'm saying women have been lied

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Speaker 1: to because they want to have careers and pursue their

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Speaker 1: passion and have a life like and then you know,

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Speaker 1: you're out here going viral on the New York Times

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Speaker 1: talking about how the world told you you would become

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Speaker 1: invisible and you're more visible than ever. And my best

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Speaker 1: girlfriend and I my friend Hillary, we did our first

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Speaker 1: TV show together, and we talk about it so much

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Speaker 1: because when our show started, we were playing sixteen year

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Speaker 1: olds and the women who played our moms were our

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Speaker 1: age now, and they were treated as these very secondary characters,

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Speaker 1: and the focus was all on the kids and who

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Speaker 1: they were having sex with or losing your virginity to,

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Speaker 1: and what the drama was in high school. And we

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Speaker 1: always joke that, you know, for ten years we did

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Speaker 1: like but I love Him on TV, And now I'm

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Speaker 1: going I want to see a show about those momsy.

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Speaker 1: My life is more interesting than ever, more layered than ever.

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Speaker 1: My career is deeper and more exciting. I travel the

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Speaker 1: world as a speaker and an advocate. I am the

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Speaker 1: most myself i've and my friends are the most themselves

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Speaker 1: they've ever been. And my intimacy is the best it's

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Speaker 1: ever been, and my joy is the best it's ever been.

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Speaker 1: And like I thought turning thirty was amazing, I had

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Speaker 1: no idea how great everything was going to get when

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Speaker 1: I turned forty. I had no idea that I would

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Speaker 1: finally take the checklist the world gave me for myself

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Speaker 1: and rip it to pieces and say like what do

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Speaker 1: I want? Yeah, And I'm like, have we just been gaykeeping?

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Speaker 1: How great this is? So I'm so excited that you're

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Speaker 1: out here telling us.

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Speaker 2: It's so funny thing good. I'm glad I do it's

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Speaker 2: funny too, because I do think like when I look back,

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Speaker 2: I'm like, as a kid in the eighties, I had

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Speaker 2: when I think I mentioned that Nod Times off that

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Speaker 2: it's like I had Murphy Brown and Designing Women, and

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Speaker 2: they were all these incredible shows. And it's like, just

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Speaker 2: when we got to the point that we're talking about

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Speaker 2: right now, it sort of ended and hurls backwards. And

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Speaker 2: it does feel like every generation gets quite to this

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Speaker 2: point and then it disappears and so and then we

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Speaker 2: have to I was was talking to the writer Liz

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Speaker 2: Lens about this the other day, this sense of rage

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Speaker 2: where you're like, I'm not the Like we walk around

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Speaker 2: thinking this idea of like I'm the first. I don't

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Speaker 2: want to be the first of anything. It's very that's

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Speaker 2: lonely and and and I'm and I know better, but

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Speaker 2: it's like the rage of even having the space to

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Speaker 2: wonder if you're the first just speaks to like how

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Speaker 2: we've memory hold all of this progress and it's always

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Speaker 2: on like a weird restart button every twenty five to

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Speaker 2: thirty years, and it's like, yes, have we been gatekeeping this?

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Speaker 2: And you're like yeah, because what happens is we get

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Speaker 2: to this point like designing women for instance, or Murphy

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Speaker 2: Brown like the men to use the you know, sort

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Speaker 2: of parlance of younger people, like the men become minor

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Speaker 2: character energy, right, And I think that the rage we

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Speaker 2: saw from some corners towards Barbie of the treatment of Ken, who,

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Speaker 2: by the way, was you know, got the Oscar nomination

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Speaker 2: and the song and all that other stuff, so nearly

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Speaker 2: did fine, But like the rage against oh we've sidelined Ken,

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Speaker 2: is what happened when culturally we get to this point

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Speaker 2: where it's like, oh, this is fantastic. How come no

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Speaker 2: one told me? And then it's like a restart.

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Speaker 1: It's like, oh no, no, they're going to amass too

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Speaker 1: much power. Come back into the cave and let them

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Speaker 1: crawl out all over again. And I'm like, what what

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Speaker 1: is this? And by the way, I mean, I know

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Speaker 1: you know this, but I think about this a lot

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Speaker 1: that we know and I mean this is like this

408
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,159
Speaker 1: stat that has been burned into my brain is probably

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Speaker 1: twelve years old, so it's probably even more now. But

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Speaker 1: like if I snapped my fingers in poof America had

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Speaker 1: full pay equity, just pay equity for men and women

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Speaker 1: the GDP, And again this is a decade old stat

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Speaker 1: so I'm sure it's more would increase by twelve points.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like everyone would be richer. Yeah, Like it's

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Speaker 2: not even just.

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Speaker 1: Morally imperative or like, oh, you're such a liberal that

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Speaker 1: you want women to have all the it's like it

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Speaker 1: would be better for you too, sir.

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Speaker 2: So it's so weird to me.

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Speaker 1: It's like it's not just a moral thing, it's actually

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Speaker 1: like to the betterment of society, it's to the betterment

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Speaker 1: of the economy. It's like conservatives and liberals should all

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Speaker 1: agree on this.

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Speaker 2: And yet but it would level a power structure, right,

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Speaker 2: like it would when we look at who's in charge

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Speaker 2: sort of the state of the country is less shocking,

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Speaker 2: but like it would level the power structure in a

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Speaker 2: way that I think is terrifying to the people who

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Speaker 2: hold power. Is the truth, Like what if you had

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Speaker 2: to share the power? And I also think even if

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Speaker 2: we just had like universal being in countries where there's

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Speaker 2: socialized medicine and how that shifts how women are able

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Speaker 2: to behave, how everyone is able to behave is shocking.

434
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 2: I mean to the most punishing thing in this country

435
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 2: is the absence of health care. In my opinion, I

436
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:52,159
Speaker 2: think there's no conversation that can be extricated from that.

437
00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 2: And who is punished the most from absence of health care. It's,

438
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,680
Speaker 2: as we know, women, because we are in need of

439
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 2: it at a much younger age, way more complicated things.

440
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 2: And I don't know if you've reached this point, but

441
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:06,080
Speaker 2: I turned fifty at the end of the summer, and

442
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 2: in the last two years, if I go to the

443
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 2: doctor and I'm like this, I don't know, like is

444
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 2: this thing is? What's the source of this thing? Like

445
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 2: I can't sleep so well? Or like this this thing

446
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 2: is hurting, and the doctor will be like it might

447
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 2: just be your age, like maybe it's paramenopause, And I'm like,

448
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 2: how do you not know the answer to a symptom

449
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 2: like as an experience than half of the population for

450
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 2: all of time has gone through and it's really just

451
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,120
Speaker 2: like this nebulous like well mine, I'm thinking like oh

452
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 2: my god.

453
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, And now for our sponsors, well and This is

454
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:43,640
Speaker 1: what's really interesting, right to me, is when you start

455
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 1: to pull on the thread, you realize how long it is,

456
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: You realize it's all connected, you know, subjucation, economic restriction, healthcare,

457
00:24:51,119 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: all of it. And I'm sure there's people that are like,

458
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: oh my god, does everything have to be so political? Well, yes,

459
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: because everything is political. Everything is political. The politics is

460
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,360
Speaker 1: it's personal, it's how we live, it's where we live,

461
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:04,639
Speaker 1: it's the structures we live in. And if you'd like

462
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:06,880
Speaker 1: things to change, you should elect people who don't hate women.

463
00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 2: Also, I really think the people who are like, why

464
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 2: does everything have to be so political are never the

465
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 2: people who are suffering from the politics of the situation?

466
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:16,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, or they don't know they are yet.

467
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:20,320
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly precisely. But you're just and I look at

468
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 2: them and I'm like, you don't It doesn't have to

469
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 2: be political for you because you either, as you say,

470
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 2: don't know that you're suffering, or you're not suffering as

471
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 2: much as everyone else. It's sorry to interrupt. I'm always

472
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 2: when people say that, I'm like, that's just a sign

473
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:35,640
Speaker 2: to me that you are living in a different world.

474
00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 1: You're either privileged or not awake yet. And either way,

475
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: good luck to you. I like I am yes, yes, yes,

476
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm your personal like cheering section here.

477
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: What fascinates me about this? And I do feel like

478
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 1: you and I could talk you know, policy system, global

479
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:56,359
Speaker 1: structures all day, which I love. I can't wait to

480
00:25:56,480 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: someday have a meal with you.

481
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 2: It was just like this kind of st to be

482
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: greater over like some of Martinez, I.

483
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: Know, you need like a glass of wine and a

484
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: nice bola pasta. But the thing that amazes me about this,

485
00:26:08,280 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 1: and like one of the things that I love about

486
00:26:10,760 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 1: really smart women is that even us talking about how

487
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,359
Speaker 1: we'd love to be having this conversation over a meal

488
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:22,399
Speaker 1: is because there's actually pleasure in knowledge, and the root

489
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,320
Speaker 1: of this, even though these systems can feel overwhelming, the

490
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,640
Speaker 1: root of it is to know, to grow, to change,

491
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: which to me is all rooted in pleasure. And your

492
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: whole project is pleasure. The article is about realizing you

493
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: still have it and that you have more of it

494
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 1: than ever. The book you know, which I'm sitting here,

495
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: I'm like so excited. I'm like the book it always

496
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,160
Speaker 1: makes me feel so cool. It's full of dog ears

497
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: and notes like.

498
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 2: Oh, that's nice to hear. Thank you.

499
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: I want to know how from this place you know

500
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: you're in rewind a few years. You know, you're in

501
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: your mid forties, you're living in New York, everything shuts down,

502
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,919
Speaker 1: and then you say, get I'm going to Paris, Like,

503
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 1: can you walk us all through? I mean, I guess,

504
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: I guess for our listeners, maybe give them a little

505
00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:17,919
Speaker 1: overview of your work, because as you said, you know,

506
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: you're you're covering and writing, and you publish books and

507
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: you you write articles, and then I want to talk about,

508
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: like how we got to this, we got to the

509
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: naked cover because I know someone's at home listening being

510
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 1: like Sophyeah, I know you've read everything.

511
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 2: This person's ever written, but I haven't.

512
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,480
Speaker 1: Tell me more about her. So I should have done

513
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: that twenty nine minutes ago.

514
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,920
Speaker 2: But here we are, Yeah, exactly. I do find my

515
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 2: conversations these days. It's like we immediately are like not,

516
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, it's a lot. It

517
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 2: is an intense time to be in this on earth,

518
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 2: I guess, But in this contra I am a writer

519
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:01,040
Speaker 2: and Hawka and I did a big podcast, but I've

520
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 2: been a writer and a journalist for I guess twenty

521
00:28:03,720 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 2: years now. I started out in politics and sort of

522
00:28:05,480 --> 00:28:08,200
Speaker 2: moved to culture and then did a memoir about turning

523
00:28:08,240 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 2: forty and to write in a variety of things on

524
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 2: like New York City or culture. At this point you're like,

525
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 2: you take the assignment. And I did a big podcast

526
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 2: for iHeart the last two years on sort of reckoning

527
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 2: with Little House in the Prairie and Loura Engels Wilder,

528
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 2: which I was obsessed with as a kid, and we

529
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 2: got to go on a road trip, which is unusual

530
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 2: and fantastic. So when lockdown happened in March twenty twenty,

531
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 2: I live in this where I'm talking to you from

532
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 2: tiny studio apartment in Manhattan, and the whole city vacated

533
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 2: more or less, but I was alone in this apartment

534
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 2: for in this I was alone. Like it was a

535
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 2: very intense period of solitariness for like a little over

536
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 2: a year. You know, New York was very as La

537
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 2: was too restrictive. We really went into a strict lockdown.

538
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,680
Speaker 2: It was intense. So and I always say during that time,

539
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: all of us sort of got the most extreme version

540
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 2: of our life choices, Like friends of mine who were

541
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 2: married with kids, were like, I wouldn't sign up to

542
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 2: be this married and this much time with my children,

543
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 2: And I was like, wow, I am not like when

544
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 2: I said I'm happy, Like by myself, I was not

545
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 2: like solitary confinement for sixteen months. So it was, as

546
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 2: it was for everyone, really intense. But I really the

547
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 2: isolation of it and the lack of you know, just

548
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 2: as we said, this would be more fun if we're

549
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 2: in person, Like the lack of physical touch, the lack

550
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 2: of being responded to by another person or even smelling

551
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 2: another person, or just like that sense of community was overwhelming,

552
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 2: and it was really overwhelming. And by the end, I'm

553
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 2: not even sure I recognized how overwhelming it was because

554
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:51,960
Speaker 2: we all had sort of been there for such a

555
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 2: long time, and right after the vaccines rolled out in

556
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 2: sort of the spring early summer of twenty twenty one,

557
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: there was that brief period of time time where everyone

558
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 2: was like, and it's over and we can like emerge

559
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 2: from our houses and we can have fun again this summer.

560
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 2: And then sort of the delta variant rolled in and

561
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 2: everybody was like boiled again. But in that brief window,

562
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 2: I had spent summers past in Paris. I had a

563
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 2: friend group there and I had access to an apartment

564
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 2: to my email to the owner of the apartment, and

565
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: I just said, like random question, just on a whim,

566
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 2: is do you want could I take this for August?

567
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 2: Like do you want to leave? And he said I

568
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 2: think it could work. So I bought a plane ticket

569
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 2: in May, thinking like, who's to say, what's going to

570
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 2: happen in the next seven weeks, like you just I

571
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 2: was just like any We've been living in a shifting world,

572
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 2: so I'm just going to do it. And I got

573
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: on the plane at the it was July thirty first,

574
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 2: and just to sort of Delta was rolling in and

575
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 2: the plane took off and I was like, Okay, here

576
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 2: we go and I bye, exactly like I don't know

577
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:56,480
Speaker 2: what's going to happen. But at that point I was

578
00:30:56,520 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 2: like I can't. I can't do more of this, Like

579
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 2: the risk of leaving was outweighed by the risk of

580
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 2: even more time alone and sort of what it was

581
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 2: doing to my mental state. So I landed in Paris.

582
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 2: My friends were there. Paris was empty because it was

583
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 2: empty of tourists, and it was also August, so many

584
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 2: Parisians go the way for the month of August, and

585
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 2: I was not that empty because I like proceeded to

586
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 2: just hurl myself into like every pleasurable experience I could find.

587
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 2: I was like so much food, so much I mean

588
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: wine and cheese, and just so just so happy to

589
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 2: be with my friends and like just like not like

590
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 2: wanting to like it could not get enough of like

591
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 2: hugs or being touched or being together. And then you know,

592
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,120
Speaker 2: so much sex too, and so much like how quickly

593
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:48,960
Speaker 2: can I get my clothes off? And I think you

594
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 2: don't think. I mean, it was amazing, But those five

595
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:55,520
Speaker 2: weeks there was not like the rational intellectual part of

596
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 2: my brain had just shut off completely and I was

597
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 2: just like I wasn't thinking like I'm shocked all of

598
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: this is available to me necessarily. I was just thinking

599
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 2: like more, more, more and more, and it was really,

600
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 2: I mean, it was pleasurable. Uh it shifted. That was

601
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 2: sort of my doorway into so called middle age. I

602
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 2: was forty six turning forty seven that summer, and so

603
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 2: this is sort of how I entered these years, being like,

604
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 2: oh my god, everything I've been told about age is

605
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 2: a lie, Like I keep these twenty five year olds

606
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 2: just can't seem to get enough of me. And I

607
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 2: was not prepared for all of this, like youthfulness, and

608
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 2: so just the small moments that I'm not sure get

609
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 2: it as much weight in narratives as they deserve. Which

610
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 2: is the pure joy of sitting around a table with

611
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: people who know you and love you, and the joy

612
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 2: of just like the sensation of good food. And this

613
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:50,000
Speaker 2: was written before sort of the ozembic era was upon us,

614
00:32:50,040 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 2: which is I think shifted our conversations around food to

615
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 2: some degree, and like the joy of just like biking

616
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 2: and movement and all of these small things. And it

617
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 2: was really I had craved during the pandemic. I had friends,

618
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 2: not just friends, like people on Twitter who were like,

619
00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 2: I'm going to take this opportunity to read Tolstoi and

620
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:13,320
Speaker 2: were in peace, and I was like, I'm not. I

621
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 2: don't want to read any I don't want to read

622
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 2: Russian literature. I want to read about people having a

623
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 2: good time. And when I got back, I was like,

624
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 2: there's no good stories. As a person who is sort

625
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 2: of a memoist by nature, I was like, there's no

626
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 2: good stories about women enjoying themselves that aren't tied to

627
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 2: pursuit of partnership or pursuit of parenthood. Even though they

628
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,120
Speaker 2: exist in real life, they don't. They do not exist culturally.

629
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 2: And I was rereading my JOURNALM been kept journals since

630
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 2: I was a kid, rereading my journals a few months later,

631
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 2: and I was really enjoying rereading my own journals, and

632
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,320
Speaker 2: I thought, oh, and I had just read Deborah Levy's

633
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: The Cost of Living? Have you read that?

634
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 1: I'm actually halfway through it.

635
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:58,719
Speaker 2: Oh, I love. I mean, I think, like, yeah, all

636
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 2: three of her Living out of Our are incredible, but

637
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 2: that's my favorite. And then Annie or No had not

638
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:04,680
Speaker 2: won the No Bell yet, but I was familiar with

639
00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 2: her and even Rachel Cusk, and just like this sense

640
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:13,960
Speaker 2: of like a smaller book with a sort of maybe

641
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 2: not a narrative arc we recognize. And I said to

642
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 2: my agent, I think I want to do this. Well.

643
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 2: I really wanted to capture just I wanted to capture

644
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 2: that experience because I feel like, as you say in

645
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 2: Beauty and Pleasure is it's it's radical and transformative on

646
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,240
Speaker 2: a much larger scale. And I think that it's transformative

647
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 2: in ways that we generally only connect to protest or

648
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 2: rage and actually it is as transformative and as powerful,

649
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 2: and evidence to that is how we attach frivolity to

650
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 2: women's enjoyment, or how we try and diminish it as selfish.

651
00:34:53,680 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 2: It's actually extraordinarily I mean, as you like, powerful, And

652
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 2: so my goal with this book was really just to

653
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:07,279
Speaker 2: be like, this is what pleasure looks like for me

654
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:10,160
Speaker 2: at an age when I was promised that I would

655
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 2: have very little access to it, and this is how

656
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: powerful it allows me to feel. And also I recognize

657
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 2: that sort of on the scope of human history, the

658
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:25,440
Speaker 2: rarity and fortune of being able to access this and

659
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 2: have this agency is sort of a miracle. And the

660
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 2: current state of the world suggests that it might be

661
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 2: a temporary one, although I'm not a pessimist, so I mean,

662
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 2: I think it should go either way.

663
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: And now a word from our sponsors that I really

664
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: enjoy and I think you will too, But I think

665
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: the current state of the world speaks to perhaps the

666
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: better way to phrase it is offers proof of what

667
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: you're saying. Yes, we have more agency than ever, and

668
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: they are trying harder than ever to legislate it away.

669
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 1: They are so terrified of our power, of our fiscal power,

670
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: of our political power, of our enjoyment, of our choices,

671
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: and I I take the threat seriously, but I also

672
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 1: take great pleasure in knowing that that's true, in knowing

673
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:32,359
Speaker 1: how afraid of us they are. And I think if

674
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 1: our pleasure and power could be embraced, I think the

675
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: world could change. And I think it's why so many

676
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: people resonate with your work, because you are saying something. Yes,

677
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 1: it's unique to you, but you are saying something we

678
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 1: understand to be universally true as a concept. And I

679
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: think it rattles people when they realize that something in

680
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: them says, oh, this is true for me too. I

681
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,719
Speaker 1: might not be moving to Paris as a woman at

682
00:36:59,760 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 1: four forty six, mid pandemic, and you know, hooking up

683
00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:08,400
Speaker 1: with hot twenty six year old Parisian guys. But there's

684
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: something about this claiming your worst freedom and joy that

685
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: I understand. Did you know when you left that you

686
00:37:16,680 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: were on this journey to pursue radical enjoyment or did

687
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: you figure it out in real time as it was happening.

688
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: I think it was. I think it was after. Actually,

689
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 2: I think when I left it was an act of

690
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 2: like a combination of desperation and sort of frenzy of

691
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,720
Speaker 2: just like I really was just like get on the plane.

692
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,240
Speaker 2: I was not. I think it's sometimes hard to remember,

693
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: maybe not for everyone, but like the pandemic, if I

694
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 2: hadn't written it down, it's almost like when you experienced grief,

695
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,719
Speaker 2: like if you don't it rewires your brain in a way.

696
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 2: That's if you don't write down what's going on in

697
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 2: your brain at the moment, you don't remember it and

698
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 2: it's very hard to conjure it up again. But by

699
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 2: that in the pandemic, this idea of looking ahead felt

700
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 2: like our brains had been trained out of like looking

701
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 2: ahead for you know, the five year Plan or whatever

702
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,759
Speaker 2: it was. And so it wasn't a sense of like, oh,

703
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 2: I'm gonna it was. I was literally like the tickets here,

704
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 2: the plane is leaving, I'm getting on the plane. I

705
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 2: don't know what's gonna happen to me when I get

706
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 2: off the plane. It could be Paris shuts down, it

707
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 2: could be I have to come home, it could be

708
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 2: that I'm trapped there. I sort of was just like

709
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 2: I don't know, and I don't have the capacity to

710
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 2: think about it. And then when I was there, it

711
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 2: sort of was. It was like I thought just the

712
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,320
Speaker 2: act of movement and going there and seeing my friends

713
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 2: would just be more satisfying than I could possibly conceive of,

714
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 2: and it was. And then on day two I was like,

715
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 2: and now I want more of this. So every day

716
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 2: it was just until it like this ball was rolling

717
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:51,840
Speaker 2: and it was just I moved into this sort of

718
00:38:54,480 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess the Internet phrase for it is

719
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 2: abundance mindset, and the most basic way, I was just

720
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 2: literally like, oh my god, I can have everything. I

721
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:02,919
Speaker 2: was just like there was a day where I was like, wait,

722
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 2: literally so far, it's just it's like that Leonard line

723
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 2: from Leonard Cohen song, like why not ask for more?

724
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:11,279
Speaker 2: I was just like, why not this for more? So

725
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 2: far I keep getting more? And so it was literally

726
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:17,560
Speaker 2: just in like a kid, like like a deluge, and

727
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 2: I just wanted more and more and more. And so

728
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 2: when I finally came home came home, the world had

729
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 2: then sort of remember, we sort of locked down again

730
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 2: for the following months, but I was very much on

731
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 2: a high from it and very much it shifted my

732
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 2: way of thinking about things. And then as it began

733
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,120
Speaker 2: to sort of as I began to look back at

734
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 2: my journals. I began to sort of have a better

735
00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:47,359
Speaker 2: understanding of my own actions and the significance of them.

736
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 2: At the there's a moan in the book where the

737
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 2: middle time, I'm walking with a procession across Paris and

738
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:57,080
Speaker 2: there's like a there's no one else in the city.

739
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 2: But it was a Catholic holiday, and so there was

740
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 2: a procession of and then it was a day that

741
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 2: Kabul fell and there was terrible news, and I thought,

742
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: my God, like I'm sandwiched between these two versions of

743
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 2: being a woman right now that are so punishing, and

744
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 2: here I am walking alongside this procession and like, I'm

745
00:40:15,120 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 2: experiencing something fundamentally different that's so new and rare. And

746
00:40:18,600 --> 00:40:21,280
Speaker 2: that's sort of when I started rearranging my thinking around.

747
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 2: This was not just like a frenzied how quickly can

748
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 2: I take my clothes off, which it was, It was

749
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 2: also the significance of being able to do that and

750
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 2: against the backdrop of what was happening in the world.

751
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 2: But I really I didn't really start thinking about I

752
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 2: didn't really sort of have a grasp on things until

753
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 2: a little bit later. And when I say a little

754
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 2: bit later, I mean like six weeks, so it's not.

755
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 2: But I think the processing of that I was so

756
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 2: in the moment in a way we like to talk about, Oh,

757
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,479
Speaker 2: it's so great to be in the moment. I really

758
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:55,680
Speaker 2: was so in the moment, and part of that my

759
00:40:55,719 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 2: ability to be so was really just desperation that had

760
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: preceded my arriving.

761
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:03,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I understand that. I mean it sounds like

762
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: you were you know when when researchers talk about how

763
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: after an animal experiences trauma, it shakes, and how we

764
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: don't have that so we store all this trauma anxiety

765
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: in our body, like it sounds like you went to

766
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:19,120
Speaker 1: Paris to shake it, you know.

767
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:24,240
Speaker 2: Literally, yes, for sure, without even realizing to feel like truly,

768
00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 2: I look at my journals or I think of my thinking,

769
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 2: and I think, I just this was not a cognitive

770
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 2: thought of I'm not okay. It was really like the

771
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 2: door opened I ran through it. Yes, you know, like

772
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: that sense of I'm and I was so in action.

773
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 2: It was like a like a figure in action. Yes,

774
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 2: and I just ran. And I also, I think it's

775
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 2: hard to, you know, disentangle this whole conversation from the

776
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 2: fact I've been a writer for a very long time,

777
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 2: and my way of understanding the world is through that.

778
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 2: That's why I have journal all the time, like I

779
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:03,359
Speaker 2: put it on the page. So it was me sort

780
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 2: of coming back from this and trying to understand just

781
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 2: a total joy of this experience was how I started

782
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 2: to sort of work through it as as something I

783
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:15,400
Speaker 2: just wanted people to know as possible.

784
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.

785
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 2: That I didn't know that I'm out in like as

786
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 2: you say, when you're like, oh, this, you know that

787
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: sort of the rage of discovering, like why didn't I

788
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:27,799
Speaker 2: know all these other people were doing it? I just

789
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: felt like I'm angry that this is not a story

790
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,399
Speaker 2: that we all get to have, Like when you say,

791
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 2: like this has been gatekeeper, like the gatekeeper on this,

792
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:37,440
Speaker 2: I'm like, it does feel like that where you're like,

793
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,360
Speaker 2: I'm so angry that I didn't know this was available

794
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 2: to me. Who how dare you keep this information from me?

795
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 2: Like this is not like a specific thing that only

796
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:55,920
Speaker 2: I tapped into. This is like yeah, and not in

797
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 2: exact scenarios, but just generally when you talk to women

798
00:43:01,280 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 2: over the age of forty, so many women are like, God,

799
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,279
Speaker 2: I'm just having the best time the best to the

800
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 2: best time. Yeah, you know, which isn't to say our

801
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 2: lives are not complicated or with challenges, or with grief

802
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 2: or all the other things. But like the best time

803
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 2: and the fact that's a surprise sometimes it makes me angry.

804
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: It does for me too, and especially because you know,

805
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: if I learned anything last summer, you know, going through me,

806
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: me and a group of women in my life all

807
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 1: got divorced at the same time. And what I began

808
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: to understand about how courage is deeply contagious for us.

809
00:43:39,960 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 2: That's a great phrase of youse that that's a wonderful

810
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 2: that's a wonderful line.

811
00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: I'm working on an essay about it.

812
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, courage is contagious is both a wonderful dead line

813
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 2: and and something that you could put on it.

814
00:43:53,440 --> 00:43:58,359
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, and it for me, I realized that there

815
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: is there, really is, and has been generationally this idolization

816
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: of female martyrdom, sacrifice everything. She's so selfless. Oh so

817
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: she doesn't exist? Like what does that mean? Yeah, we

818
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,520
Speaker 1: don't talk about how men are selfless. We talk about

819
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:18,160
Speaker 1: how they're heroic or strong, or good dads or good

820
00:44:18,239 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 1: businessmen or whatever. And you know, I like Glennon writes

821
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: about it and untamed, And when I really started to

822
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: pull it that thread, like why are women expected to

823
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:37,160
Speaker 1: murder ourselves? It took me so long to stop turning

824
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 1: my back on myself to make sure other people were happy,

825
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 1: and I don't know, like I know that. I got

826
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: to a point where I was like, well, if I

827
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: do this for one more day, I'm going to die

828
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: and that's not an option. So I'm going to kick

829
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: the door open and then I'm going to run through it.

830
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: And my best friend was doing it, and I think

831
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:00,239
Speaker 1: I was so inspired because I was like, well, if

832
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: she can do it with a two and a half

833
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: year old, I can do it with no kids, you know.

834
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: And then other friends were going through it, some with kids,

835
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,160
Speaker 1: some without. And what I began to realize was the

836
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: more we were honest about how like this can't be

837
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: all that it is, the more we also all got

838
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:20,839
Speaker 1: honest about like, oh, I just really hit the point

839
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: where if I did it for one more day, I

840
00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: think I would have died. And I was like, is

841
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 1: this what we've been cultured to become? Women who'd rather

842
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: be dead than live in our houses? Like this? What

843
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: are we doing. And so when you talk about how

844
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: you're frustrated that these examples haven't been set your courage

845
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: is contagious. You're saying there is another way. And by

846
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 1: the way, again, it's not to say being partnered as

847
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 1: bad or being married is bad, Like I actually think

848
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 1: it's amazing, as long as you're not doing it to

849
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: check a box. You know, even subconsciously, do you have

850
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 1: freedom and pleasure in your life or not? And if

851
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: you have to pretzel yourself into a smaller version of

852
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: yourself so you're more palatable for someone else, I don't

853
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: think you do. And so it excites me when you

854
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:19,320
Speaker 1: talk about this, because, yeah, I'm sitting here going same,

855
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:21,959
Speaker 1: I'm having this experience. No one told me how great

856
00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: it would be. My best friend that I came up

857
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 1: on a TV show with that we started at twenty one.

858
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: We are forty one, and we're like, what the We

859
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: are cuter, hogher, having better sex, smarter, funnier, like everything

860
00:46:34,760 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 1: about us is better than it was when we were

861
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,239
Speaker 1: twenty one. Nobody told us, Yeah, Like I want more

862
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 1: Murphy Browns, I want more designing women, I want more

863
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 1: of us doing whatever. The twenty twenty four version of

864
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: Sex and the City in Paris is like.

865
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,359
Speaker 2: Let's go yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean even the fact

866
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:55,719
Speaker 2: that we so reference Sex in the City because we

867
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 2: have nothing else do we have nothing else? Like, it's

868
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 2: again so like people will be like eight prey it.

869
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 2: I'm like, both of these are fine comparisons, and they

870
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:05,720
Speaker 2: were wonderful in their own right, but they're both twenty

871
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:07,960
Speaker 2: five years old, and the fact that we're still returning

872
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:11,920
Speaker 2: to them, to me again is evidence of the absence

873
00:47:11,960 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 2: of like any storytellings to suggest to us that things

874
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:18,319
Speaker 2: might be. And even the new Sex and the City

875
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 2: is still like, you know, a little problematic in ways,

876
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:24,200
Speaker 2: but it's just like it's like we're still referencing these

877
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:27,200
Speaker 2: old examples because we haven't been like no one has

878
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 2: sort of opened the door to new examples. And then

879
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 2: I mean, we know who holds those you know, who

880
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 2: runs the doors? I think is yeah, but it is

881
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 2: it's so much more. I feel so much more powerful.

882
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 2: That's the thing too, I feel really powerful. Maybe that's

883
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 2: the terrifying thing to some people too. It's like I'm

884
00:47:47,120 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 2: not only am I just like, you know, I'm more

885
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 2: And it's funny to be like I'm more attractive because

886
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 2: I'm like the by the metrics we were raised with.

887
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,479
Speaker 2: Nothing looks the way it did when I was twenty five,

888
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 2: but like I am ten times more attractive. Everything is

889
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 2: more enjoyable, smarter, I'm a better friend. Like the sex

890
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:06,920
Speaker 2: is the better. Of course, the sex is better. I

891
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 2: don't know what twenty five having great sex, but like

892
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: that feels like a given. But I was just like,

893
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 2: it's like, as you say, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't

894
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 2: be the surprising. It shouldn't be the surprising to all

895
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:20,760
Speaker 2: of us.

896
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: Yes, but you know you said something in your book

897
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: and it really resonated with me. I was having a

898
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 1: conversation with one of my best friends around you know, Pride.

899
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: The really amazing thing for me was like, if you

900
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: give yourself permission to keep growing and be curious, the

901
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: older you get, the closer you get to yourself, and

902
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: the more myself I am, the better friend I can be,

903
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:50,240
Speaker 1: the more I can support my friends in becoming more themselves.

904
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:54,640
Speaker 1: And then I read this bit in your book, and

905
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: I hate to be like the person who reads you

906
00:48:58,440 --> 00:49:00,359
Speaker 1: to yourself, but I'm going to because if you people

907
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: at home need to hear it. But on page eighty

908
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,760
Speaker 1: eight in the book, you said something about building quality

909
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: friendships and later in life seems to fascinate, which has

910
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: always puzzled me. The older I get, the better I

911
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 1: know myself, the less distance I must travel to figure

912
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: out whether to include someone in my life. The closer

913
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: I am to me, the closer I am to other people.

914
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:28,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was like, that's it. Yeah, Yeah, I

915
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 2: do think, like it's fun to talk about the sex

916
00:49:32,320 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 2: and the cheese, but like, the friendships are my friendships

917
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,440
Speaker 2: are the most fundamental source of pleasure I have, and

918
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 2: they are fundamental as this book. And I do find

919
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,359
Speaker 2: sometimes that people who've been in long term relationships or

920
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 2: have kept their same friend groups since college. Because of this,

921
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 2: I'll say, how do you make friends in later life?

922
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 2: And I just think, oh my god, how do you

923
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:56,720
Speaker 2: not make friends in later life? Like I just feel

924
00:49:56,719 --> 00:50:00,680
Speaker 2: like the hurdle is so much lower for this exact reason.

925
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: Yes, because you're.

926
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 2: Like, I don't have to you. First of all, you

927
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,400
Speaker 2: recognize you recognize who's not a friend so quickly that

928
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 2: you don't find yourself in the situation. You could sometimes

929
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:14,480
Speaker 2: find your or I would sometimes find myself in my twenties,

930
00:50:14,520 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 2: which is like your year into a friendship and you're like,

931
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,240
Speaker 2: why doesn't this feel good? Like what if I Whereas

932
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:21,560
Speaker 2: now at this age, I'm sort of like, that's a

933
00:50:21,600 --> 00:50:24,759
Speaker 2: problem coming my way, this will not go any further.

934
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:28,280
Speaker 2: But contrast to that, and much more powerfully and importantly,

935
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:34,920
Speaker 2: is like I immediately have intimacy, emotional intimacy with people

936
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 2: because I have it with myself right like I don't

937
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 2: I know myself all the way through right now? And

938
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 2: when you when that, when you, I mean hopefully and

939
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 2: probably I think I do. And then ten years from now,

940
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 2: you know, we'll have another conversation, I'll be like, oh,

941
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 2: I thought that I had this at age. For you,

942
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 2: let me tell you what it's like. It's sixty my friends.

943
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 2: But it's like when you have it with yourself, it

944
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 2: sort of comes with a fearlessness where you're like that

945
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:02,160
Speaker 2: sense of oh, will they find this out about me?

946
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,320
Speaker 2: Or I feel insecure just disappears so entirely that you're like, yeah,

947
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 2: I don't. And when you talk about or not you

948
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:09,799
Speaker 2: in particular, but when we talk about sort of like

949
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 2: younger men being attracted to older women, that's at the

950
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:15,400
Speaker 2: core of it. It is the it's not just younger men,

951
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 2: it's younger women. It's like attracted to the sense of

952
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,360
Speaker 2: solidary with self. Yes, And you can be told that

953
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:26,160
Speaker 2: in your twenties and it doesn't resonate because there's nothing

954
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 2: in the culture to suggest to you that being comfortable

955
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,040
Speaker 2: with yourself is actually the way to be rewarded. But

956
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:32,000
Speaker 2: in real life it is just so great.

957
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: It's so cool. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.

958
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 1: Can I ask a question, because here's boring. I think

959
00:51:48,880 --> 00:51:51,799
Speaker 1: we are the real love story, like women and our

960
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: friendships and our intergenerational friendships, and the way we advocate

961
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,440
Speaker 1: for each other, the way we show up is activists,

962
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:03,000
Speaker 1: all of it. Yeah, And you know you've mentioned and

963
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: I would imagine so many people do want to focus

964
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,240
Speaker 1: on like the sex and the stories and the French

965
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: dating apps and whatever. That's all in the book. But

966
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:16,440
Speaker 1: is it As a woman as bold as you are,

967
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:18,719
Speaker 1: do you ever do you ever have a moment where

968
00:52:18,760 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 1: you go, like before you share some of that before,

969
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:24,879
Speaker 1: Because even earlier, when I was rattling off all the things,

970
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: I feel like nobody told me about how amazing my

971
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: forties were going to be. I was like, you know,

972
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:29,680
Speaker 1: I'm having the best sex of my life. And then

973
00:52:29,719 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I can't believe I

974
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:32,520
Speaker 1: just said that out loud. And then I was like,

975
00:52:32,640 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 1: I'm fucking forty one years old, Like, yeah, am I

976
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: supposed to be ashamed of that? I don't think so. No,

977
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: But I'm even now I'm like, I'm a little anxious

978
00:52:42,440 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: saying it to you. And so from this from your

979
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: vantage point, are you like, oh, I get nervous and

980
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: I just have to do it? Or did you at

981
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:53,400
Speaker 1: forty six did you light the nervousness on fire? Like

982
00:52:53,440 --> 00:52:54,680
Speaker 1: what do I have to look forward to?

983
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 2: I think you get more. I mean I start conversations

984
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 2: about paramenopause with complete strangers at this point. I'm like,

985
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:06,200
Speaker 2: so's your body doing this? Because I'm always like on

986
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:09,200
Speaker 2: a search for more information and like there's so little

987
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 2: of it. But in terms of sex, I quite at

988
00:53:12,360 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 2: this point. And to be clear, I make a living

989
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 2: off of writing about myself. But I literally start conversations

990
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,680
Speaker 2: about this with almost anyone like and if I sense it,

991
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:22,960
Speaker 2: they're uncomfortable with it. It's not sort of like in

992
00:53:22,960 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 2: an exhibitionist way. I'm not like, but if the conversation

993
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 2: goes that way. I'm very frank about it because it doesn't.

994
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:33,319
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't. I don't feel embarrassed about it.

995
00:53:33,360 --> 00:53:36,760
Speaker 2: I will say, though, like when I started writing this book,

996
00:53:38,239 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 2: I was in that first draft. You're like alone in

997
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 2: a room by yourself, and I thought, oh my god,

998
00:53:42,800 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 2: these sex scenes, Well, I know I just have to

999
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:47,080
Speaker 2: write them out now. But they don't have to go

1000
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:48,759
Speaker 2: in the book, right, Like I could just write it.

1001
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 2: There's no nobody has to see this. I can just

1002
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:53,439
Speaker 2: write it out and I do. It's not a live

1003
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 2: reading on that right, I'm not like sort of improvising it.

1004
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 2: But from that point to this point, what happens is

1005
00:53:59,680 --> 00:54:04,000
Speaker 2: like the right part of you starts to take over, hopefully,

1006
00:54:04,080 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 2: and you start seeing the whole story of a piece,

1007
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 2: and you want it to be the best version of

1008
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 2: the story possible. And the more revisions it goes through,

1009
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,680
Speaker 2: and the more eyes that are on it between your

1010
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,760
Speaker 2: editor and other readers, it's not like I feel distance

1011
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 2: from the story, but I begin to see it sort

1012
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:24,439
Speaker 2: of a little outside of it. But I will say

1013
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 2: I did. I recorded the audiobook for this, and I

1014
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:30,360
Speaker 2: went into the studio thinking, well, this is going to

1015
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 2: be interesting to read this. I really, I said to

1016
00:54:35,239 --> 00:54:37,480
Speaker 2: the director was a woman. She was delightful. I mean,

1017
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 2: she was amazing, and we both sort of laughed her

1018
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 2: way through the beginning of it. When we got to

1019
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:43,919
Speaker 2: the sex scenes, I was like, oh, this is fantastic.

1020
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 2: I want to be back in this Like this, I

1021
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 2: was like, I was enjoying my own pleasure in a

1022
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 2: very very amusing way. And then I got it and

1023
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:52,880
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I could have put in

1024
00:54:53,000 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 2: one or more two details that were probably good to like.

1025
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 2: I actually had that moment of like, no, because sucks

1026
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 2: should be enjoyable, like sex should be pleasurable, and I

1027
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 2: and I want people to enjoy sex. Everyone, like I

1028
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 2: wanted to be a pleasurable experience, and I just I'm

1029
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:17,759
Speaker 2: not like a sex therapist or like sex positive, but

1030
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,799
Speaker 2: it was just like, oh, I just want you to

1031
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:21,560
Speaker 2: know that I was having like what this good time

1032
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:26,520
Speaker 2: looked like, and also like sometimes it was less enjoyable

1033
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 2: or sometimes the enjoyable part wasn't actually the actual sex.

1034
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 2: It was you know that it was available to me

1035
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:34,160
Speaker 2: when I wanted. It's like there was all these different

1036
00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:38,680
Speaker 2: ways of approaching it, but no, So at this point

1037
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 2: I think I've overcome the hurdle that wouldn't have been

1038
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 2: true ten years ago. But in promoting a book where

1039
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:48,040
Speaker 2: there's a bear bum on the cover, I think I

1040
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:49,200
Speaker 2: had to just sort.

1041
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: Of had to figure it out.

1042
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 2: Muscle it through, and just be like I wrote it,

1043
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 2: I did it here.

1044
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,719
Speaker 1: I am here, I am Yeah. So interesting that you

1045
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,319
Speaker 1: can say ten years ago you might not have been

1046
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:06,719
Speaker 1: able to be so present in your story, and you are.

1047
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:09,719
Speaker 1: Because you've also talked about how you turn fifty at

1048
00:56:09,719 --> 00:56:12,040
Speaker 1: the end of the summer. Yeah, so you can look

1049
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: back at forty and then you're also looking forward at fifty.

1050
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 1: What what are you excited about? What are you looking

1051
00:56:18,440 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: forward to in the next decade now that you know

1052
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,200
Speaker 1: how amazing your forties were? Like, what do you think

1053
00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 1: is coming for you at fifty?

1054
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very I may have set this in the

1055
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 2: off ed and the reason I say might have because

1056
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:33,279
Speaker 2: I think I feel like I'm writing so many things

1057
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,720
Speaker 2: right now sometimes, but I think feeling that's good against

1058
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:42,160
Speaker 2: a backdrop of so much darkness essentially is a strange

1059
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 2: sort of thing to navigate. So I I in terms

1060
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 2: of me individually, I'm only excited to see how much

1061
00:56:52,320 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 2: better my writing gets, how much smarter my brain gets.

1062
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:59,360
Speaker 2: Like what else I'm like, what else is going to

1063
00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:01,360
Speaker 2: be available to me that I'm not prepared for? Like

1064
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:03,719
Speaker 2: I am approaching it with like sort of enormous sense

1065
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 2: of optimism and at the same time an awareness of

1066
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 2: like really, I'm like, like, what's the image I'm looking more,

1067
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:15,719
Speaker 2: almost like when you see a pig in med like

1068
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 2: just literally like leaning into it as far and immediately

1069
00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 2: as possible, with the sense of not just it will

1070
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 2: be available in the world, but like your health and

1071
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:27,800
Speaker 2: fifty the different you know, like it starts to become

1072
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 2: you start to have friends, and you know, both of

1073
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 2: my parents died in my forties, and that was a

1074
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 2: lot of caretaking. Like there's a lot of sort of

1075
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 2: an awareness of the mortality of your body. If as

1076
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 2: I have, you've generally experienced good health till the age

1077
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 2: of fifty, there's this sense of like, oh, mortality is present,

1078
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 2: and like it seeps it, it casts a different light

1079
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 2: on it. But I just feel powerful and like excited,

1080
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 2: and and this sense of like just what I said,

1081
00:57:57,840 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 2: like what else don't we know about? Like what else

1082
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 2: might becoming my way that could be like so much

1083
00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:04,600
Speaker 2: fun or so great or like that I'm not prepared

1084
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:08,200
Speaker 2: to experience. And then counterbalancing that with I do think

1085
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 2: a sense of responsibility of we are not in the

1086
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:18,200
Speaker 2: best moment, and how do I leverage both the platform

1087
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 2: but more almost like my individual sense of power in

1088
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 2: ways that are useful in yeah, holding a like I

1089
00:58:28,120 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 2: always think your job is like if you get through

1090
00:58:30,280 --> 00:58:31,960
Speaker 2: the doors, you got to hold that door. Figure out

1091
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:33,840
Speaker 2: a way to keep that door propped open for everyone

1092
00:58:33,920 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 2: coming behind. And so what does that look like in

1093
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:40,360
Speaker 2: the current state of world. I'm not sure I have

1094
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:42,400
Speaker 2: the answer, but that's sort of where my head is at.

1095
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:45,120
Speaker 1: I love that, I really think, especially for those of

1096
00:58:45,200 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 1: us who love to write, love journalism or train journalists.

1097
00:58:51,440 --> 00:58:56,080
Speaker 1: I think in times like this being sort of more

1098
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 1: embodied and happier than ever for me, at least, like

1099
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: you said, with this backdrop of things being so tense

1100
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: and traumatic and us being on the precipice of a

1101
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,240
Speaker 1: lot of really bad I go, Okay, if my capacity

1102
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: for the good has increased so much, I have to

1103
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: I have to hold myself accountable to have as much

1104
00:59:18,160 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 1: capacity for what isn't and and show up with my

1105
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 1: critical thinking and my linguistic ability and my passion for

1106
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:32,880
Speaker 1: us and figure out how to continue to hold both like, ye,

1107
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:34,360
Speaker 1: it's part of it's part of the job.

1108
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 2: I think like it is part of the job. And

1109
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 2: I think something like that, like there is resilience and joy, right,

1110
00:59:41,760 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 2: joy gives us resilience. The idea that suffering people who

1111
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 2: are suffering in various scenarios do not simultaneously experienced joy

1112
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:57,320
Speaker 2: is not true to the human condition, and so finding

1113
00:59:57,440 --> 01:00:02,360
Speaker 2: joy is destabilizing to power structures just as much as

1114
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 2: anything else. And it also is when you say courage

1115
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 2: is contagious, like there is a strength in joy and pleasure.

1116
01:00:10,200 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 1: That and it's the joy we're defending.

1117
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's not.

1118
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: We're not trying to get to an absence of suffering.

1119
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 1: We're trying to get to joy for everyone.

1120
01:00:19,560 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean yes, yeah, I think a little

1121
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,280
Speaker 2: less suffering. Yes, I mean it's.

1122
01:00:25,640 --> 01:00:27,200
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, of course we will.

1123
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:30,120
Speaker 2: Of course. And it's like, you can't fix the world either,

1124
01:00:30,240 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 2: And it's like, what is that in your small way

1125
01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 2: that you are capable of shifting and what strength can

1126
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 2: you not just partaken but in part, Like what is

1127
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:43,720
Speaker 2: the strength you can impart. And yeah, then also the

1128
01:00:43,760 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 2: sense of responsibility that comes with like we are people

1129
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:49,480
Speaker 2: in the world. And I really tried to There was

1130
01:00:49,480 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 2: a knee jerk reaction when I was writing a book

1131
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:52,960
Speaker 2: where I kept wanting to be like, here are all

1132
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 2: the things that I do that I want you to

1133
01:00:55,000 --> 01:00:56,960
Speaker 2: know about so that you know I deserve this pleasure.

1134
01:00:57,000 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 2: And I made myself take all of them out. I

1135
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 2: was like, I just a deserve pleasure for pleasure's sake.

1136
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 2: I'm not in here to justify what I'm doing. I'm

1137
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 2: telling you other stuff. But that doesn't mean that we

1138
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 2: are not all obligated by being present on the earth,

1139
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 2: to being responsible to our communities, whatever those communities happen

1140
01:01:14,480 --> 01:01:15,720
Speaker 2: to look like, small or large.

1141
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Does that does figuring out how

1142
01:01:19,800 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 1: to hold space for yourself and the world? Does that

1143
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:26,680
Speaker 1: maybe feel like you're work in progress right now or

1144
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: a little bit?

1145
01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:31,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's part of this is like I've

1146
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:34,160
Speaker 2: sort of sometimes remind myself on like you writing this

1147
01:01:34,280 --> 01:01:37,360
Speaker 2: all down is part of this product, like just because

1148
01:01:37,440 --> 01:01:39,480
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so funny how we internalize all this,

1149
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 2: but it's sort of honestly witnessing these things so that

1150
01:01:43,760 --> 01:01:48,240
Speaker 2: we have this like evidence of possibility. And then also

1151
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:56,800
Speaker 2: I think, particularly as like a white woman of some privilege,

1152
01:01:56,920 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 2: it's I always think that your responsibility is in every

1153
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 2: room you're in to ask who's not in the room

1154
01:02:01,200 --> 01:02:03,280
Speaker 2: and why they're not there like it. That can be

1155
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 2: in a little small room or a much larger room.

1156
01:02:05,840 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 2: But just moving through the world with awareness is a

1157
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 2: very basic way to operate that I try to, you know,

1158
01:02:14,640 --> 01:02:18,480
Speaker 2: hold to myself too at the same time. So, I mean,

1159
01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 2: I'm a writer and my writing is observational, and so

1160
01:02:22,200 --> 01:02:26,480
Speaker 2: where do I direct that talent next? And the most

1161
01:02:26,640 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 2: useful way, I guess is the question when I get

1162
01:02:31,360 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 2: to the other side of this at the end of

1163
01:02:33,160 --> 01:02:36,160
Speaker 2: the summer. Yeah, I love that.

1164
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, where And I love the ownership that comes in

1165
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:41,960
Speaker 1: that there's actually a claiming of pleasure in the language

1166
01:02:41,960 --> 01:02:43,920
Speaker 1: you chose. Where do I direct this talent?

1167
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:44,920
Speaker 2: Yeah?

1168
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: For you to own your worth and merit and self

1169
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:53,680
Speaker 1: and want to give of it is that's like a

1170
01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:56,080
Speaker 1: pretty cool both right there. No, we're not.

1171
01:02:56,160 --> 01:02:58,200
Speaker 2: Well. I'm glad because I feel like at this point,

1172
01:02:58,600 --> 01:03:00,680
Speaker 2: hopefully you know what you're good at and having and

1173
01:03:00,720 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 2: there's a difference between modesty and sort of self recrimination

1174
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:08,600
Speaker 2: or limiting and can be you know, I know, I

1175
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:10,920
Speaker 2: know where my strengths lie. It's like, how do I

1176
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 2: put them to use for all of us?

1177
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, thank you so so much for

1178
01:03:16,800 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: coming to two more hours. Thank you.

1179
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:23,680
Speaker 2: This was delightful. I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you.