Speaker 1: One thing that would evaporate really quickly would be what
Speaker 1: does not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Woof gone?
Speaker 1: Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
Speaker 1: causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
Speaker 1: have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2: This is it's okay that you're not okay? And I'm
Speaker 2: your host, Megan Divine. This week, how do we live
Speaker 2: in a world that's at least half terrible? If you
Speaker 2: recognize that line, you know the special treat we have
Speaker 2: in store. My guest is poet Maggie Smith. Maggie is
Speaker 2: the author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful and
Speaker 2: the poem from which my opening line comes Good Bones.
Speaker 2: Today on the show, we're talking about writing and marriage
Speaker 2: and divorce and why you did not need whatever has
Speaker 2: happened to you in order to become who you're meant
Speaker 2: to be, Settle in friends. All of that and more
Speaker 2: coming up right after this first break. Before we get started,
Speaker 2: one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
Speaker 2: relational territory in our time here together, this show is
Speaker 2: not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental
Speaker 2: health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Speaker 2: Hey friends, I met Maggie Smith the same way millions
Speaker 2: of other people did through her poem Good Bones. Now
Speaker 2: you probably know this poem, but if you need a
Speaker 2: reminder or a refresher, it begins Life is short. Though
Speaker 2: I keep this from my children. Life is short, and
Speaker 2: I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill advised ways,
Speaker 2: A thousand deliciously ill advised ways I keep from my children.
Speaker 2: The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's
Speaker 2: a conservative estimate. Though I keep this from my children.
Speaker 2: I bet you recognize that just from the opening lines.
Speaker 2: Right in this episode, you're going to learn the backstory
Speaker 2: to that poem, good Bones, and why, as Maggie says,
Speaker 2: it's a barometer of the grief in the world, a
Speaker 2: sign that something terrible has happened, like when that poem
Speaker 2: goes viral again. And how weird it is to have
Speaker 2: professional success based largely on something that broke your heart.
Speaker 2: Maggie and I also discuss her new book, You Could
Speaker 2: Make This Place Beautiful, which details the dissolution of her
Speaker 2: marriage and the creation are really like the resurrection of
Speaker 2: herself as a writer. We get into so many things
Speaker 2: in this conversation that made my writer heart deliriously happy.
Speaker 2: I was a fan of Maggie Smith before this conversation,
Speaker 2: and she means so much more to me having had
Speaker 2: this chance to connect. So I hope you love this
Speaker 2: episode and love Maggie. Be sure to let me know
Speaker 2: what you think. And speaking of letting me know what
Speaker 2: you think, please leave a review of the show wherever
Speaker 2: you get podcasts. I haven't seen any new reviews lately,
Speaker 2: and that is one great way to tell me how
Speaker 2: this season's guests are affecting you. All Right, on with
Speaker 2: the show with the stellar Maggie Smith. Okay, So I
Speaker 2: have been following you on social media and reading your
Speaker 2: books and using lines of yours as starting places for
Speaker 2: my own writing and also when I teach writing. So
Speaker 2: I feel like I've known you for a long time,
Speaker 2: even though we just met. So I'm just this is
Speaker 2: my way of saying, I'm ridiculously happy to be here
Speaker 2: with you today.
Speaker 3: Ah same.
Speaker 2: I want to address something right off the bat because
Speaker 2: it is one of my absolute favorite things about you.
Speaker 2: I feel like ninety nine percent of memoir writing is
Speaker 2: like finding beauty inside terrible times.
Speaker 3: Like I grew so much as a person.
Speaker 2: It was difficult, but I love it and I hate
Speaker 2: that stuff. I kind of knew this before I started
Speaker 2: reading You could make this Place beautiful, But I as
Speaker 2: I was reading it in a coffee shop, I actually
Speaker 2: yelled various things, various variations of like Amon's sister Yea,
Speaker 2: absolutely out loud so many times in crowded coffee shops.
Speaker 2: When you write your personal story, it does not have
Speaker 2: to be about being worth it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we have a sort of cultural obsession
Speaker 1: with before and after, like like the before and after
Speaker 1: photo of the made over kitchen, the before and after
Speaker 1: images of the haircut, the before and after really of anything,
Speaker 1: and same with same with storytelling. Right, It's like before
Speaker 1: I was this, and then I figured it all out,
Speaker 1: and after I was this. And so I feel like
Speaker 1: the traditional narrative expectation of a memoir that that you
Speaker 1: write out of a painful crisis in your life would
Speaker 1: be like I was a caterpillar and then I wrote
Speaker 1: this book and figured myself out, and then I emerged
Speaker 1: at the end of the book Butterfly. But I am
Speaker 1: still a caterpillar. I am just a more fully realized,
Speaker 1: more self aware, more whole and boundaried caterpillar.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the most popular memes on my own social
Speaker 2: is like this picture of a chrysalis and it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, standing outside the chrysalis shouting you're a butterfly
Speaker 2: does not hasten anything. It just pisses off the goo
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because it's actually liquefied and so yeah, so
Speaker 1: maybe I'm actually just the goo at this point. But
Speaker 1: I do think we put a lot of pressure on
Speaker 1: ourselves to metabolize experience in a way that makes us
Speaker 1: quote better, as if just surviving it is not enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's that second half of the sentence of you
Speaker 2: needed this because who you were before this happened wasn't
Speaker 2: good enough.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, you needed this. That is just that's really something,
Speaker 1: isn't it. I Mean I write about in the book
Speaker 1: the sort of idea of material, and I have had
Speaker 1: this said to me. I have friends who have written
Speaker 1: about pretty traumatic things who have had this said to them,
Speaker 1: which is, at least you got a book out of it,
Speaker 1: or at least this experience wasn't wasted on someone who
Speaker 1: isn't a writer, an artist, a filmmaker. You know, whatever
Speaker 1: you do that you make things from your experience. And
Speaker 1: I've been thinking a lot about that and how well
Speaker 1: meaning I think that statement is, but also how offensive.
Speaker 3: I find that offensive.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about it recently and thinking, actually,
Speaker 1: I don't think of myself as I didn't get a
Speaker 1: book out of my life imploding. I made a book
Speaker 1: out of my life imploding. And it's a very just
Speaker 1: pretty subtle verb shift there, but it feels a whole
Speaker 1: lot like a verb shift I find helpful, which is,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, my life imploded. Now I have to reimagine it.
Speaker 1: I have to rebuild it, as opposed to oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: my life imploded. Now I get to reimagine it. I
Speaker 1: get to do something different, not that I wanted to,
Speaker 1: but sometimes reframing it that way from myself is helpful.
Speaker 1: If I see the like little hidden gifts inside the disaster,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make the disaster worth it necessarily, you know, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I needed this. I certainly didn't need
Speaker 1: it as writing material. I could have written a book
Speaker 1: about anything.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: My kids didn't need this. None of us needed this.
Speaker 1: We are not better or stronger because of it, not
Speaker 1: in any way that makes it worth it.
Speaker 2: No, this need to put a value, judgment, a transactional
Speaker 2: value on what you do with what happens, right, Like,
Speaker 2: I love that you wrote what did I not get
Speaker 2: to write? Because this was what was mine to write.
Speaker 2: I love that Like literally the night of my partner's funeral,
Speaker 2: more than one person came up to me and said,
Speaker 2: this is going to make you such a better therapist.
Speaker 2: You're going to get to write. And also like I'm.
Speaker 1: Angry on your behalf.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you. So I got the like because
Speaker 2: I was a writer before he died, and because I
Speaker 2: was a therapist before he died, like those twin things
Speaker 2: of this is going to make you so much better.
Speaker 2: You're going to be such a gift to the world.
Speaker 2: And I feel like you know this is this is
Speaker 2: related territory that you write so evocatively and so beautifully.
Speaker 2: But what did you not get to write? Because this
Speaker 2: was yours to write? And I just like, I love
Speaker 2: that so much. You also said you mentioned your kids
Speaker 2: in here, and you said I would rather they not
Speaker 2: learn to be so resilient. I would rather they learn
Speaker 2: more about security and safety and be a little less resilient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want resilient children. If resilience is what
Speaker 1: we call it when we put kids through things, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, because of the laws in this country
Speaker 1: refuse to protect them adequately, and then we're supposed to
Speaker 1: pat ourselves on the back because our kids are so
Speaker 1: strong out of just sheer necessity.
Speaker 3: That's not a gift.
Speaker 2: I mean that resilience and it's not like that resilience
Speaker 2: narrative is like what we push on everybody who is
Speaker 2: experiencing something they should not be experiencing. But instead of
Speaker 2: looking at that, I mean, right now, I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: the black maternal health crisis, right and like how much
Speaker 2: we raise black women for being resilient instead of dealing
Speaker 2: with the fact that our systems put them in harm's
Speaker 2: way for which they need to become more resilient so
Speaker 2: it doesn't crush them. Like this whole resilience thing. I
Speaker 2: was talking with a guest earlier this season about what
Speaker 2: we applaud as resilience is actually the imprint of trauma.
Speaker 3: Oh that's real.
Speaker 1: Actually, my daughter said, you know when and she's fourteen,
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, when people say kids are
Speaker 1: old souls, it's because they've experienced trauma and I thought
Speaker 1: that's right, Like when you have to grow up fast,
Speaker 1: it's not a compliment that you can talk like an
Speaker 1: adult or function like an adult. It's not a compliment
Speaker 1: if you are eight and helping to raise your three
Speaker 1: younger siblings because this country has no real support, especially
Speaker 1: for single parents, but for working people period. Like, that's
Speaker 1: not that's not a gift, that that's trauma.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder what would be different if we framed
Speaker 2: it as that, Like how many words of support or
Speaker 2: platitudes or condolences, Like how many of those phrases would
Speaker 2: just evaporate if we understood that what we are celebrating
Speaker 2: the things you create because this happened to you. What
Speaker 2: a gift was hidden in that pain? Like if we
Speaker 2: understood the mechanism that was actually happening, Like so so
Speaker 2: much of our our ideas, our vocabulary around caring for
Speaker 2: each other would disappear in favor of something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one thing that would evaporate really quickly would be
Speaker 1: what does.
Speaker 3: Not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Woof gone?
Speaker 1: Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
Speaker 1: causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
Speaker 1: have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right about that, So that whole
Speaker 2: we get impacted by the things that happen to us,
Speaker 2: right like that which does not kill you makes you
Speaker 2: stronger is such biological, relational, mental, emotional trash. But there's
Speaker 2: a section in your book, and I'm totally going to
Speaker 2: bring this back around, but there's a section in your
Speaker 2: book about your miscarriage, and I think that section encapsulated
Speaker 2: such a gorgeous example of what you just said about
Speaker 2: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. You talk about,
Speaker 2: you know, being pregnant with your son, having lived through
Speaker 2: two miscarriages previously, you can't un know what you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it completely colored my experience of being pregnant with
Speaker 1: him because the entire time I just thought, at any minute,
Speaker 1: this is going to end. It just gave me, and
Speaker 1: it gave me not the kind of joyous, expectant, happy
Speaker 1: pregnant experience I had with my daughter. It was a
Speaker 1: very anxiety filled, cortisol soaked pregnancy experience because I just
Speaker 1: kept waiting for the other shoe to drop until the
Speaker 1: very very end.
Speaker 3: And that changes you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we get changed by the things we experience, And
Speaker 2: I think in this culture, we don't think we should
Speaker 2: get changed by the things we experience unless the only
Speaker 2: the only change that's acceptable is like stronger, bigger, better
Speaker 2: than right, like this whole positive trajectory, which is just
Speaker 2: not what life is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, trauma does not give you a glow up.
Speaker 1: That's that's the takeaway the tld R.
Speaker 3: Trauma does not give anyone.
Speaker 2: A glow up. I love that. That's perfect. I feel
Speaker 2: like that should be tattooed somewhere or like. That is
Speaker 2: a motivational that's a motivational thank you. That is a
Speaker 2: motivational poster that I could get behind. Trauma does not
Speaker 2: give you a glow up.
Speaker 3: You feel free. I gift that to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if the lemons to the lemons to
Speaker 1: lemonade thing. You know, when I wrote keep Moving, someone
Speaker 1: really in a well meaning complimentary way, said, wow, you
Speaker 1: really took those lemons and made lemonade. And then I
Speaker 1: think she said and then added m F vodka to it,
Speaker 1: And I.
Speaker 3: Laughed because I knew what she meant.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I knew what she meant, Like she's she
Speaker 1: meant you took straw and spun it into gold. You
Speaker 1: took something terrible and made it into something that helped
Speaker 1: you and your kids during a possible time. And yes,
Speaker 1: I mean that is true, like there's there's no lie there.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely true. But the other thing that is
Speaker 1: true is that I didn't want that lemonade.
Speaker 3: I could have had some other drink.
Speaker 2: Right, we go back to that what did you not
Speaker 2: get to live? Because this is what you had to
Speaker 2: live and the fact that you are a writer like
Speaker 2: writers have to write. Yeah, right, Like, this is how
Speaker 2: we understand the world. This is how we metabolize what happens.
Speaker 2: This is how we understand things. So it's not that
Speaker 2: you get to write this because of what you lived.
Speaker 2: It's that I am living this and words are how
Speaker 2: I know to consume it or to be in it.
Speaker 2: I'm speaking of words like I like word a phase
Speaker 2: right there? But yeah, does that feel accurate?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't often know what I think or
Speaker 1: feel clearly until I've written it down and then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Somehow my processing really works through
Speaker 1: my right hand and my pen onto paper, which makes
Speaker 1: this a challenge. Right, I have I'm thinking on the
Speaker 1: fly here, I'm I'm not writing, but yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't often know how I feel about something. And
Speaker 1: for me, this particular book felt like a large armoire
Speaker 1: parked in front of a doorway. And it's not so
Speaker 1: much that I wanted to write this book. It was
Speaker 1: the book I had to write so I could write
Speaker 1: other books, almost like a clearing, you know, like I
Speaker 1: had to move this giant piece of furniture away from
Speaker 1: the doorway so I could go through it. And I
Speaker 1: don't think I could have. I could have just busy
Speaker 1: myself with other things while living the experiences that I
Speaker 1: write about in this book without processing them on paper.
Speaker 2: One of those things that I super love about you
Speaker 2: is where I started write, like your work is not
Speaker 2: the typical transformation narrative right where I learned some lessons
Speaker 2: I grew as a person. Everything's good now I can
Speaker 2: look back and say thank you to it and be
Speaker 2: grateful for like all of that stuff, the power in
Speaker 2: your work, in your stories, in the ways that you
Speaker 2: speak about your life. For me, one of the one
Speaker 2: of the big things is that you don't make lemonade
Speaker 2: is that you're able to traverse that both and yes
Speaker 2: and territory that people try to rush out of so quickly,
Speaker 2: or insist that we rush out of so quickly, Like
Speaker 2: that both of these things can be true. That I
Speaker 2: am so thankful for my family, for the person I am,
Speaker 2: for the words that I say, and none of this
Speaker 2: is awesome, Like this isn't anything that I wanted. We
Speaker 2: just spent a whole bunch of time talking about, Like
Speaker 2: this is not a transformation story. This is not a
Speaker 2: thank you letter to my pain for teaching me who
Speaker 2: I really wanted to be. Like all of this stuff,
Speaker 2: And at the very same time, there's something very cool
Speaker 2: about seeing the impact of your words and your story
Speaker 2: and the way that you tell it, seeing the impact
Speaker 2: on the world. So I want to take a scene
Speaker 2: from your new book, if I might, where you describe
Speaker 2: watching a character on Madame Secretary read your poem good Bones.
Speaker 2: I know you know what I'm talking about here, But
Speaker 2: you knew your poem would be in there, but you
Speaker 2: didn't know how or where. But what you expected was
Speaker 2: really different from what happened. Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: This is my favorite scene in the whole book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought, because Good Bones traveled really via internet, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was something that went viral online, So
Speaker 1: all I knew was that it.
Speaker 3: Was going to be in the episode.
Speaker 1: I had no idea who would say it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know how it would appear. And I think part of
Speaker 1: me expected, first of all, a woman to be sharing it,
Speaker 1: because it is a poem spoken by a mother's speaker.
Speaker 1: And I also expected it to be read off of
Speaker 1: a phone or a computer screen, like oh, here, look
Speaker 1: at this tweet or here's something that is someone sent
Speaker 1: me on Facebook. And so in the scene, a male character,
Speaker 1: the chief of staff, opens his wallet and pulls out
Speaker 1: this piece of paper and at that time, I think
Speaker 1: I'm watching it, and I'd had a little champagne. At
Speaker 1: that point, I think I'm watching it, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: is this Wait? Is this the scene? Every time someone moves,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, is this it?
Speaker 3: Is this it? And he pulls this piece of.
Speaker 1: Paper out of his wallet and unfolds it and says
Speaker 1: something like, you know, this reminds me of this poem
Speaker 1: by Maggie Smith called good Bones, and he reads the
Speaker 1: poem from this piece of paper from his wallet, and it,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just balked. I just absolutely cried, because
Speaker 1: first of all, it was a man, which I did
Speaker 1: not see coming. Second of all, it was something that
Speaker 1: was not living on a screen. It was something he'd
Speaker 1: thought to print and cut small and carry with him,
Speaker 1: you know, like a little talisman, the way I carry
Speaker 1: things that mean, you know, like a little note from
Speaker 1: my son, or an acorn he might find, or something
Speaker 1: that was so unexpected and so touching to me. I'm
Speaker 1: still not over it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Like there is an intensity there of like
Speaker 2: knowing that your words, like this little pocket of your
Speaker 2: life is carried around so intimately, like that your words
Speaker 2: make survival for someone. Can we talk about that, because man,
Speaker 2: it's intense.
Speaker 3: It is intense.
Speaker 1: I have such a strange relationship with that poem.
Speaker 3: In general.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a disaster barometer, kind of a grief barometer.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 1: It's like the grief bat signal on the Internet, where
Speaker 1: if my social media mentions ramp up really high, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance something bad has happened in the world
Speaker 1: because people are sharing my work as it's sort of
Speaker 1: like a sense of community or solace or comfort or
Speaker 1: hope or here we are again, particularly if it's that poem.
Speaker 1: And so for years, every time people shared that, I
Speaker 1: would get this sort of pit in my stomach and
Speaker 1: immediately go to some news network to find out what
Speaker 1: it happened. Whereas if I had written a poem that
Speaker 1: was celebrated and shared widely when babies were born or
Speaker 1: people got married, or you know, it would have given
Speaker 1: me a different feeling when I saw it being shared widely.
Speaker 1: But when a piece of work that you've made is shared,
Speaker 1: you know, after every school shooting, it's hard to be
Speaker 1: happy about expanding your readership via your own nation's refusal
Speaker 1: to enact gun control, for example. And then now for
Speaker 1: people who have read the memoir, you know that palm
Speaker 1: also had an impact on my marriage because my career
Speaker 1: sort of like overnight, my readership just became much wider,
Speaker 1: and I was asked to travel and do more things
Speaker 1: in a really unexpected way, not in the way that
Speaker 1: you would be able to plan for tenure, or plan
Speaker 1: for a promotion, or you know, even plan for a
Speaker 1: second child. You know, there are things that we can
Speaker 1: plan for in our lives when we know a big
Speaker 1: che is coming, and a poem going viral overnight is
Speaker 1: not one of them. And the growing pains from that
Speaker 1: had a big impact on my life. So I've had
Speaker 1: a weird relationship with that poem for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I guess my hope with the memoir is that
Speaker 1: there might be people because the title you could Make
Speaker 1: This Place Beautiful is from the poem, there might be
Speaker 1: people who find the poem via this book and have
Speaker 1: a completely different relationship with it that has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with grief in that way. In some ways, titling
Speaker 1: the book the line from that poem was a kind
Speaker 1: of reclamation for me because I am proud of the poem.
Speaker 1: It's just a hard thing to sort of have traveling
Speaker 1: in the world with my name on it. Given why it.
Speaker 2: Travels, I had not thought of that.
Speaker 3: It's a blessing.
Speaker 1: I do understand that people are sharing it because it
Speaker 1: gives them a sense of hope and comfort.
Speaker 3: So there's that.
Speaker 1: I do get that, But it is still hard, particularly
Speaker 1: to have your I mean, success feels like a strange word,
Speaker 1: but to sort of like it's like our having a
Speaker 1: hit radio song, right to have your hit radio song
Speaker 1: be taps, you know, something that is shared because of
Speaker 1: shared collective grief.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's it's interesting because like you just articulated
Speaker 2: that in a way that through my whole career I
Speaker 2: haven't quite put into words like how weird it is
Speaker 2: to have such professional success, because that success means that
Speaker 2: people are in pain right when they reach for your words,
Speaker 2: because the worst has happened. Yes, you know, one of
Speaker 2: the things that that I will say sometimes to people
Speaker 2: is I hope you never need me, right, because if
Speaker 2: this work is settling into your heart, it's because your
Speaker 2: your heart has need. Yeah, you see you're seeking it,
Speaker 2: and it's it's a very it is a very strange profession.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really weird.
Speaker 2: And glorious and wonderful because we know that unsurvivable things happen.
Speaker 2: We know that people get sick, and this country will
Speaker 2: always value guns over children, and we we just we
Speaker 2: know all of this stuff and if there is something
Speaker 2: that we can offer that lays down beside that, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh I like the way you put that. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're welcome.
Speaker 2: We do weird work.
Speaker 1: I know, And I mean in my case, its and
Speaker 1: and largely unwittingly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine is on purpose. Yours was not on purpose,
Speaker 2: not at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, just you know, Hey, I'm a mom in Ohio.
Speaker 1: I wrote a poem thinking about what it is to
Speaker 1: bring kids into a world that, in my words, is
Speaker 1: at least half terrible in a concern And how do
Speaker 1: I And that's the conservative estimate and getting you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes more conservative by the day, and what is that like?
Speaker 1: And really not speaking for anyone other than me, And
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm very unwitting that it has had the
Speaker 1: life that it's had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, before we get back to my conversation with Maggie Smith,
Speaker 2: I want to talk with you about writing, specifically writing
Speaker 2: from something that broke your heart the way Maggie and
Speaker 2: I have been discussing. Over the last eight years, more
Speaker 2: than fifteen thousand people have used the writing prompts in
Speaker 2: my Writing Your Grief course to explore not just their
Speaker 2: grief but also their identities, their beliefs, their relationships with themselves. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm definitely biased because I created it, but I do
Speaker 2: truly believe that this thirty day course will help you
Speaker 2: inhabit your grief in a new way. It's not going
Speaker 2: to fix anything, but writing does make things different. This
Speaker 2: self guided Writing your Grief course is always available wherever
Speaker 2: you are, whenever you're ready, whenever you're actually not ready,
Speaker 2: but you want to explore things anyway, check it out,
Speaker 2: Visit refugegrief dot com backslash WYG. That's WYG the initials
Speaker 2: for Writing your Grief, or just check the link in
Speaker 2: the show notes. All right, back to my conversation with
Speaker 2: the stellar Maggie Smith. It's interesting that you said, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a mom out here in the Midwest talking about
Speaker 2: something very intimate. And one of the things about writing
Speaker 2: intimate things on the public stage is that people think
Speaker 2: they know you because you've written these pieces. I remember
Speaker 2: Cheryl straight saying when Wild came out that people thought
Speaker 2: they knew her because of what she wrote in that book,
Speaker 2: like they thought they were friends. So we write these
Speaker 2: intimate things, but we are not intimates. It's a strange thing,
Speaker 2: right have you found that, like while you while you're
Speaker 2: becoming more and more visible, that like, oh.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, my friends call me now the divorce Whisperer, and.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you it's to a whole lane of T shirts.
Speaker 1: I know, like where's my lifetime show? Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: have to say, it doesn't feel like a burden. It
Speaker 1: really kind of feels like a gift. And do I
Speaker 1: respond always no, but I do respond a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: people will slide into my dms with stories or saying
Speaker 1: this released you know, this was, this book was my
Speaker 1: divorce bible, or I give this book to everyone going
Speaker 1: through the thing, or my situation is so much like
Speaker 1: yours and I feel so seen, or my situation is
Speaker 1: so different from yours, but the emotions you expressed are
Speaker 1: so like mine, and I feel so seen. And to me,
Speaker 1: that really is a gift. It doesn't feel like a
Speaker 1: burden because what I go to books for, and music, frankly,
Speaker 1: and art and film is to sort of interpret my experience,
Speaker 1: to sort of translate my own life vis a vis
Speaker 1: these other people's made things. And so if people are
Speaker 1: able to do that through my made things, it just
Speaker 1: makes me feel like I'm part of some strange cycle
Speaker 1: of experience, metabolize make, experience, metabolize make, and.
Speaker 3: I'm taking in things all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, there are books that have saved me. There
Speaker 1: are records that have saved me. I don't always slide
Speaker 1: into people's dms, but I definitely have a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there that their work has meant something critical
Speaker 1: to me has just sort of floated down into my
Speaker 1: hands at just the right time. So to be that
Speaker 1: for someone else when I know what it feels like
Speaker 1: to be the receiver of that gift is like really humbling.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, even after all of the years of doing
Speaker 2: this work and all of the dms and all of
Speaker 2: the comments, Like my assistant knows to save the really
Speaker 2: like the really good ones or something that we haven't
Speaker 2: seen before and collects them and sends them to me,
Speaker 2: because there's just there is something about that knowing that
Speaker 2: something I said or something I created is a life
Speaker 2: raft for somebody else right now, matter like it mattered,
Speaker 2: it changed something, it made something survivable, It set off
Speaker 2: some chain of thoughts like that. You know, It's like
Speaker 2: the great ping pong game of life, life with multiple
Speaker 2: balls in a never ending arena right like there, We're
Speaker 2: always impacting each other and picking up things and carrying them,
Speaker 2: knowing how impacted I've been just what you just said
Speaker 2: like that, Knowing how impact I've been by other people's words,
Speaker 2: and how much the right sentence can arrive and change
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, it's everything.
Speaker 1: I have a post it note that I can see
Speaker 1: from my desk that's on my wall or on my
Speaker 1: office window. So what's beautiful about it is that I
Speaker 1: can see, like scene behind it, and it's my neighbor's
Speaker 1: magnolia trees. But it's realca let everything happened to you.
Speaker 1: Beauty and terror just keep going. No feeling is final.
Speaker 1: It lives on my window. It's lived there for years.
Speaker 1: I see it every day and it means something to me,
Speaker 1: and it means something different to me every day, because
Speaker 1: some days are beauty days and some days are terror days,
Speaker 1: and some days toggle you know, but just yeah, I
Speaker 1: carry words around me, you know, with me like a
Speaker 1: talisman all the time. So to think that somebody might
Speaker 1: carry mine, what a gift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is amazing. I love that there's a
Speaker 2: social media post you did. You shared that somebody has
Speaker 2: your words tattooed on their arm, and I feel like
Speaker 2: I feel like there's like a rite of passage for
Speaker 2: rat authors there. Like the first time you see your
Speaker 2: work tattooed on somebody else's body, it's like, what just
Speaker 2: happened here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, book tour has been wild. I've seen like three
Speaker 1: so far in the past ten days, and that is
Speaker 1: wild for me. I mean just absolutely wild to have
Speaker 1: someone come up into your signing line with your book
Speaker 1: title on their arm, as someone whose arms are covered
Speaker 1: in tattoos, but not the words of other people. I
Speaker 1: know the amount of thinking that goes into and weighing.
Speaker 1: You know, a post it note on the wind there
Speaker 1: was one thing, but uh ink on the skin is
Speaker 1: something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I love that real Quo quote too, and I'm not
Speaker 2: even gonna dissect it because there's so many different ways
Speaker 2: we could go with that, but it makes me think of,
Speaker 2: you know, no feeling as final. It also points to
Speaker 2: there is a foundational bedrock of self that is experiencing
Speaker 2: all the things that is unchanging. And something that I
Speaker 2: love in this book is like finding yourself is the
Speaker 2: through line, not finding yourself, not the act of finding yourself,
Speaker 2: but that you, yourself are the through line through all
Speaker 2: parts of your life.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's honestly, as someone who was not a therapist,
Speaker 1: I find writing like this. I'm often asked questions, particularly
Speaker 1: by journalists, like what advice do you have for people
Speaker 1: going through hard times? And I'm always like, I don't
Speaker 1: feel qualified. I am not a social worker, i am
Speaker 1: not a therapist. I'm a poet. I'm not sure you
Speaker 1: want the advice of a poet on these large life matters.
Speaker 1: But for me, the thing I tell my friends or
Speaker 1: people who reach out to me or slide into my
Speaker 1: DMS and they're saying they're going through it, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It might be divorce or pregnancy, loss
Speaker 1: or lost job or you know, whatever the thing is.
Speaker 1: My biggest impulse is always to think, like you you
Speaker 1: predated whatever this trouble is. And you are talking to
Speaker 1: me from maybe inside it or maybe just on the
Speaker 1: other side of it, but like, you predated this thing.
Speaker 1: Like imagine the history book timeline. There's a dot for
Speaker 1: you that is the beginning of the timeline in your life,
Speaker 1: and you're you're going to outlast whatever this is, you know,
Speaker 1: and it is that continuity of self.
Speaker 2: It's continuity and it's not stop feeling so many things
Speaker 2: about what's happening right now, because you survived this and
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? Like it's not no,
Speaker 2: you don't feel never the feelings. Yeah, you never use that.
Speaker 2: You never use any of your work, but you never
Speaker 2: use that you predated this experience. You never use that
Speaker 2: as a like bypassing gloss over. I remember, I remember,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, poor people. One of Matt's uncles took
Speaker 2: me out to breakfast about maybe two months after he died,
Speaker 2: and we're sitting there at breakfast like I'm still a
Speaker 2: complete wreck. And his partner at the time they're both therapists, right,
Speaker 2: And his partner at the time looks at me and says,
Speaker 2: what did you want to be when you were a kid?
Speaker 2: What did you want to grow up to be? With
Speaker 2: that like therapist head tilt? And I was like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: and she was like.
Speaker 3: Maybe tad tilt.
Speaker 2: Maybe you get to be something now, wow that you
Speaker 2: didn't get to be before. So who were you before
Speaker 2: you met Matt? Because I bet that person would like
Speaker 2: a chance to live. And I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: So when I hear people other than you, people other
Speaker 2: than you, talk about things like yourself predated this experience,
Speaker 2: like you are not talking about the noneness of what
Speaker 2: you're experiencing right now, Like you don't say that as
Speaker 2: a way to get over this, but no, Like it's
Speaker 2: not a bypass, it's not a bypass. I read that
Speaker 2: I hear you as an excavation, Like I'm talking a
Speaker 2: lot about myself here, which tells you how much your
Speaker 2: work affects me and intersects with me. But like when
Speaker 2: my partner died. I was completely obliterated, completely obliterated, and
Speaker 2: it took a couple of years for the core parts
Speaker 2: of me to resurface. And I just remember being so
Speaker 2: thankful that that core self survived. I have no idea
Speaker 2: how it did, but it did, and being so thankful
Speaker 2: for that and so thankful for that through line of self.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we talk enough about the sort
Speaker 1: of identity hit or at least sort of identity shift
Speaker 1: that loss inevitably, whatever kind of loss it is, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's pregnancy loss or in my case, the loss
Speaker 1: of my marriage, but certainly any kind of loss, like
Speaker 1: because one of the questions is like, well, who am
Speaker 1: I now without this? Who am I now without this person?
Speaker 1: Who am I now?
Speaker 3: What now?
Speaker 1: Right? Because what you also lose is not the person.
Speaker 1: What you lose is the future that you had imagined
Speaker 1: having poof.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the gifts of writing through the worst, I think,
Speaker 1: is the sort of gift to being able to contextualize.
Speaker 3: In a way.
Speaker 1: You go to a country in Europe and then you
Speaker 1: come back and you look at a map and you think, oh,
Speaker 1: I was that close to all these other places. I
Speaker 1: had no idea where I was in relation to anywhere else,
Speaker 1: And the act of sort of writing over years of
Speaker 1: your life and thinking about things in this sort of
Speaker 1: big picture way, in some way, I think, is an
Speaker 1: invitation to think about how the different pieces of us
Speaker 1: are interconnected.
Speaker 3: I was really.
Speaker 1: Thinking about the mother piece of me, and the partner
Speaker 1: piece of me, and the writer piece of me, but
Speaker 1: also others like who was I as a daughter? Who
Speaker 1: am I as a daughter? Who what kind of friend
Speaker 1: am I? And also how are all of these things interconnected?
Speaker 1: I'm only one person? How do I integrate better? Maybe
Speaker 1: going forward and sort of compartmentalize less.
Speaker 2: M Yeah, like this continual process of excavation and assessment
Speaker 2: is the wrong word because it sounds really cerebral, but
Speaker 2: I don't know what to work the.
Speaker 3: Right word, you know.
Speaker 1: I was talking to someone the other day and she said,
Speaker 1: I think memoir in particular has two essential components, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, no, there's a recipe I was
Speaker 1: not aware of before writing mine.
Speaker 2: Damn.
Speaker 3: Here I am thinking.
Speaker 1: It's like when it's like when you make cookies and
Speaker 1: they're like every cookie has two essential ingredients, and you're
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking, I hope these cookies have those two ingredients.
Speaker 3: And she said.
Speaker 1: Self assessment and societal interrogation.
Speaker 3: Ooh, And I said, oh good, I have both.
Speaker 2: You do.
Speaker 3: On accident again.
Speaker 1: All the best things happen when you don't know you're
Speaker 1: doing it well.
Speaker 2: With those two requirements, I'm writing memoir all the time,
Speaker 2: So that's good without actually writing one.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: I love this for me because we can't assess ourselves
Speaker 1: outside of our conditioning, outside of what we're culturally rewarded for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those two things actually do travel together, and I think
Speaker 1: to get honest about our lives, we have to look
Speaker 1: at both. Nobody exists in isolation.
Speaker 2: And writing this way, speaking this way, talking about this stuff,
Speaker 2: like refusing that transformation tell all narrative thing in a
Speaker 2: meta sort of way, like that is a social confrontation,
Speaker 2: a social whatever that is because we're allowing we're allowing
Speaker 2: other people to access their own questions about what are
Speaker 2: the constructs that I grew up with? Do I have
Speaker 2: to transform from this loss? Am I allowed to be
Speaker 2: both things?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And am I allowed to ask these questions? And
Speaker 2: I feel like the are you always listening to you?
Speaker 2: On a Kate Bowler's show, and I love her. Isn't
Speaker 2: she the best?
Speaker 3: It's the best?
Speaker 2: Fricking love her three seasons into this podcast and her
Speaker 2: episode is still our most listened to. I just adore her.
Speaker 2: But anyway, she I can't remember which one of you
Speaker 2: said it, but something like there are years that ask
Speaker 2: questions and years that answer oh yes, Hirston right, And
Speaker 2: you were like, and then there are years that keep
Speaker 2: questioning and won't stop questioning or whatever you said, and
Speaker 2: I was just like that, this isn't this work that
Speaker 2: we do of taking intimate personal experiences and showing our
Speaker 2: hand in our way, right, like putting your hand into
Speaker 2: your pocket, coming out with something and showing it to
Speaker 2: me in its best form. It encourages people to ask
Speaker 2: questions about their own lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it should be permission giving. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I think I think.
Speaker 1: For me, the the best writing, the best art for
Speaker 1: me is permission giving, whether in content or inform. Right,
Speaker 1: something about the way that someone has disclosed something to
Speaker 1: me or described something to me, or built something for
Speaker 1: me to move around inside of gives me permission either
Speaker 1: to make my own thing however I see fit like, oh,
Speaker 1: they took some risks now, I guess I can take
Speaker 1: some risks too, or to just say the thing I
Speaker 1: didn't think could be said. I read so many books
Speaker 1: preparing to write this one, in which usually a woman
Speaker 1: said something about her life and herself that I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if she could say that, I can certainly say what
Speaker 1: I want to say, you know, and just talk back
Speaker 1: to the fear.
Speaker 2: You might know this one who said this one? That's
Speaker 2: something like what would happen of one woman to the
Speaker 2: whole truth about her life? The world would break open.
Speaker 2: I just butchered it.
Speaker 3: But do you know that, No, I've heard it. I
Speaker 3: don't know who said it.
Speaker 2: I'll look it up and make sure it's in the
Speaker 2: show notes.
Speaker 1: But it's such a when you look it up, when
Speaker 1: you say, and then Maggie remembered and put that in
Speaker 1: the show notes.
Speaker 2: Yes, just lie totally. I'll totally. I'll totally lie about it.
Speaker 2: Or I remembered I quoted it correctly.
Speaker 1: I cited both of those quote correctly quoted and attributed.
Speaker 2: We really did. We did proper citation and props and respect.
Speaker 2: We totally did. But it is that it is this
Speaker 2: like I remember reading or receiving that line. You know,
Speaker 2: thirty years ago when I was a young undergrad, right,
Speaker 2: and like, what would happen if you told the whole
Speaker 2: truth about your life? Or in what you just one
Speaker 2: exactly I was just going to say, like one sentence
Speaker 2: of the truth, what would happen? And that is so
Speaker 2: much in your work, that permission giving on so many
Speaker 2: different levels, and we could seriously talk forever, but I
Speaker 2: want to get into our very last question for today,
Speaker 2: for our time together. Knowing what you know and living
Speaker 2: what you've lived, and knowing that there is a whole
Speaker 2: life that we don't get to live because of the
Speaker 2: lives that we have. Throwing that in there, what does
Speaker 2: hope look like for you today?
Speaker 1: Taking responsibility for my own life, that's what hope looks
Speaker 1: like to me. I'm making better decisions for myself. I'm
Speaker 1: asking better, harder questions of myself. And one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things for me, I think for years, I know
Speaker 1: for years I made a lot of decisions based on
Speaker 1: fear and even what I would call like lowercase f fear,
Speaker 1: you know, like what if they don't like me, what
Speaker 1: if they judge me? Just silliness. Really, what I see
Speaker 1: now in my mid forties is silliness. Really trying now
Speaker 1: to make decisions from that core of what do I want?
Speaker 1: What do I visualize for my life? What do I
Speaker 1: want for my kids? How can I help get us there?
Speaker 1: And if the fear voice starts to speak up, as
Speaker 1: it often does, it gets so loud, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: know why, of all the little voices inside me, the
Speaker 1: fear voice is the loudest. Such a yammorer. I'm just
Speaker 1: really doing my best to talk back in action, you know,
Speaker 1: to talk back in action.
Speaker 2: I love that your working definition of hope right now
Speaker 2: is fully within your power. Right. It has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with whether the world is beautiful in this moment
Speaker 2: or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot I don't have control over. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to leave. I don't want to sort
Speaker 1: of conflate hope with any sense of luck.
Speaker 3: That makes me nervous.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to think about what can I do
Speaker 1: that is in my own power. Joy Harjoe has written
Speaker 1: about writing as a form of sovereignty, and.
Speaker 3: I just sit with that.
Speaker 1: I guess need to look on your face, just sitting
Speaker 1: with that, like, I want to think more about sovereignty
Speaker 1: and less about chance. What decisions can I make for myself,
Speaker 1: taking responsibility for myself and my own happiness.
Speaker 2: Sovereignty and agency, man, I that is what hope is
Speaker 2: for me these days, is like what yeah, yeah, sovereignty
Speaker 2: is where it is at all? Right, I am going
Speaker 2: to carry around what you just said in my own pocket,
Speaker 2: probably not printed because I don't know where my printer is,
Speaker 2: but written out and stuck in my pocket. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to be I'm going to be carrying your words
Speaker 2: around with me in my pocket, and they're also in
Speaker 2: my bag and on the night stand.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to be carrying this conversation around with me.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 2: I am so glad. Okay, we are going to link
Speaker 2: to all of your books in the show notes, but
Speaker 2: could you let people know where to find you and
Speaker 2: anything else you would like them to know.
Speaker 1: I am findable as Maggie Smith poet on the Internet,
Speaker 1: which I lovingly call al Gore's Internet.
Speaker 2: There's a subtweet for those of you who know what
Speaker 2: she's talking.
Speaker 1: About, So yes, to not get confused with the Dame. Right,
Speaker 1: I get a fair amount of Downton Abby and Harry
Speaker 1: Potter fan mail that I do not deserve. So I'm
Speaker 1: Maggie Smith Poet on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Maggie Smithpoet
Speaker 1: dot com on the Internet. I'm on substack at for
Speaker 1: dear life. That is, that is my substack. It is
Speaker 1: how I hold on in this world for dear life,
Speaker 1: and also how I like to think of myself as
Speaker 1: living for this dear life. And yeah, that's pretty much
Speaker 1: how I can be located.
Speaker 2: Excellent, all right, we will link to all of that
Speaker 2: stuff in the show notes. Maggie, I'm so glad to
Speaker 2: have you here in this world and in my life.
Speaker 1: So glad.
Speaker 2: Okay, friends, stay tuned for your questions to carry with you.
Speaker 2: We will be right back after this break in which
Speaker 2: I go weep a little bit with happiness at this conversation.
Speaker 2: Be right back each week. I leave you with some
Speaker 2: questions to carry with you until we meet again. You
Speaker 2: know what, My favorite part of this conversation was the
Speaker 2: part where Maggie and I talked about what it's like
Speaker 2: to know that people are carrying your words around with
Speaker 2: them like a talisman, something grounding and nourishing in the
Speaker 2: face of whatever impossible thing you're living. Maggie and I
Speaker 2: have this sort of random, obscure thing in common. We've
Speaker 2: both received photos of people who had our words tattooed
Speaker 2: on their bodies. Like Maggie was telling me how she's
Speaker 2: received a lot of tattoos where people have like had
Speaker 2: you could make this place beautiful tattooed on their flesh.
Speaker 2: It's just it's really powerful to connect with someone whose
Speaker 2: words have been used in that way. It just felt
Speaker 2: really special to me. All of this conversation felt special
Speaker 2: to me. I was telling Maggie that reading her work
Speaker 2: lit up a desire in me to write more and
Speaker 2: to say more, which is a creative spark that's felt
Speaker 2: kind of dormant in me for a long time. That
Speaker 2: felt really hopeful. How about you, friends, what stuck with
Speaker 2: you from this conversation. Everybody's gonna take something different from
Speaker 2: the show, but I do hope you found something to
Speaker 2: hold on to. If you want to tell me how
Speaker 2: today's show felt for you, or you have thoughts on
Speaker 2: what we covered, let me know. Tag at Refuge and
Speaker 2: Grief on all the social platforms so I can hear
Speaker 2: how this conversation affected you. And please remember to leave
Speaker 2: a review. The season's guests are truly next level, and
Speaker 2: reviews are a good way to let me know how
Speaker 2: these guests are affecting you. Follow the show at It's
Speaker 2: Okay Pod on TikTok and refuge Grief everywhere else to
Speaker 2: see video clips from the show, and use the hashtag
Speaker 2: It's Okay pod on all the platforms, so not only
Speaker 2: I can finde you, but others can too. None of
Speaker 2: us are entirely okay, and it's time we started talking
Speaker 2: about that together, right, It's okay that you're not okay.
Speaker 2: You're in good company. That's it for this week. Everybody,
Speaker 2: remember to subscribe to the show, share it with the
Speaker 2: people you know. Coming up next week, Rachel cargol I
Speaker 2: tell you this season's guests are stellar. Follow the show
Speaker 2: on your favorite platforms so you do not miss an episode.
Speaker 2: Want more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As
Speaker 2: my dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief
Speaker 2: that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about
Speaker 2: all that without accidentally grief, gasolating somebody or gaslighting yourself.
Speaker 2: That's an important skill for everybody. Get help to have
Speaker 2: those conversations with trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book,
Speaker 2: It's Okay that You're Not Okay. Plus the Guided Journal
Speaker 2: for Grief at Megandivine dot Co. It's Okay that You're
Speaker 2: Not Okay. The podcast is written and produced by me
Speaker 2: Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Fozzio, with logistical and social media support from Micah,
Speaker 2: Post production and editing by the ever patient Houston Tilly.
Speaker 2: And next week we have a new intern to announce,
Speaker 2: So if you are one of those people who listens
Speaker 2: all the way to the closing credits yay, you're the
Speaker 2: first to know that we have a new addition to
Speaker 2: our team. As always, music provided by Wave Crush and
Speaker 2: background noise provided by these sounds of summer break happening
Speaker 2: in my neighborhood