WEBVTT - I Dug it Up 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.680 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio Deep in the Woods. 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:12.240 Deep in the Woods, it was ringing real good, ten 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.840 inches down, ten inches down with a solid sound. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:25.000 That's Nashville based singer, songwriter and memoirist Witthill Wits is 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.680 a story of love, loss, tenacity, redemption, and the way 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:33.319 secrets seep from one generation to the next without our 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.600 knowing how or why, until the lights finally blink on 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:40.400 and we see what had been hiding in the shadows. 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.519 And while finally knowing doesn't fix everything, it's a hell 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:47.240 of a start bay. 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:54.800 But you know the one no cod that dog. 0:00:54.320 --> 0:01:10.640 I'm Danny Shapiro and this is family Secrets, the secrets 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.080 that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.680 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.960 I was born in Manhattan in nineteen fifty eight, so 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:30.120 the landscape was vertical. A lot of tall buildings and 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.480 small buildings and hard edges, lots of brick and stone 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:39.080 and cement and marble stairs and metal, and lots of 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:45.200 noise buses and trucks and honking and screeching of brakes. 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:47.920 I was born in Mount Sinai, and they brought me 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:53.400 home to this microscopic one bedroom apartment. It's the third floor. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:56.120 The building was on the corner of First Avenue and 0:01:56.200 --> 0:02:00.640 fifty second Street. My dad moved out, and I was yelling, well, 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.560 very young, like it's unclear, no one alive remembers when 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.680 he moved out, so it was either maybe two or 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.120 four something like that. So I have no memories of 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:13.920 my parents together, and so I grew up as an 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:18.120 only child. My parents were both from the South. My 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:23.480 mother was born in rural Mississippi, very poor family farmers. 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:28.160 She picked cotton as a child, and my mother had 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.440 two sisters, younger sisters, and little by little they moved 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.560 to Columbus, Mississippi, which was an upgrade from the totally 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.560 rural setting that she was born into, and then got 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.680 to go to public school. And she was very, very bright, 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.640 but also kind of a tortured child. She felt very different, 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.160 like she had been dropped into an environment that she 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:57.960 was not sated for. She had great goals and aspirations. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.960 I remember her telling me once that she was in 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.320 the outhouse, back in the farmhouse that they first lived in, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.480 and she picked up a copy of a magazine that 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.840 they used for other purposes and she saw an article 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:18.480 about New York City and delicatessens and decided that that's 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.720 where she was going to end up. And she just 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.040 kind of zeroed on that. And she was very bright 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:30.280 and got a scholarship to what was then called Mississippi 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.239 State College for Women. No one had ever said, Marian, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.560 you should go to a college, but she got a 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:42.280 scholarship and graduated with a degree in speech I think 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.840 it was, but also did a lot of theater. And 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.880 the minute she got out of there, she headed north 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:57.200 and ended up at a summer stock in Massachusetts where 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.600 she met my dad, and he likewise was from the South, 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:06.760 well from Appalachia. He was the son of Armenian immigrants 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:11.160 who had come to this country to escape the genocide. 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:17.000 My grandfather opened a saloene called the Sanitary Lunch, and 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:21.000 my father was their first son. Then they had twin boys, 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:25.039 one of whom died young. And at that point my 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:33.240 father's mother disappeared. She was always a troubled woman, according 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.240 to what little my father remembers of her. 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.000 How old was your father when she disappeared? 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.000 I think he was twelve or thirteen, and his little 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.000 brother was more like eight. My father grew up in 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:50.240 cold country with miners in the saline at night and 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:56.360 my grandfather selling moonshine and speaking Armenian upstairs in the 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.640 little apartment that they lived in and English the rest 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.440 of the time. My dad, like my mom, was very smart, 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.960 kind of different from everyone else, and was encouraged by 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:10.720 a teacher to really go for it. He went to 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.960 college at Concord College, got a theater degree, and started 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.320 getting a master's degree, but ended up going to the 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.479 same summer stock in Plymouth, Massachusetts that my mother went 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:27.080 to in nineteen fifty four, and the die was cast. 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.680 I cannot get any information from my dad about how 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:35.680 that happened or what smarked their relationship. But when the 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.720 summer was over, they moved to New York City and 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:44.599 got an apartment together and married, and very very quickly 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.880 they were a couple. I think they probably got married 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:50.800 because there was a cheap apartment that they found out 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.320 about and they took it. So they married in nineteen 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.800 fifty five, and it was three years before I was born. 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.800 And you have no memory of the three of you 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:06.880 together as a family before your father moved out. 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:12.600 No, it's hard to say because even though I would 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.120 imagine things were a bit tempestuous at the time of 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.600 the break. They really pulled it together and were quite 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.479 civil with each other Throughout the rest of my upbringing. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.719 My father moved very close just down the block. My 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:29.680 mother could lean out her window and look to the right, 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:31.720 and my father could lean out his window and look 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.000 to the left, and I could walk between their buildings, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.240 and so they really kept up appearances and were quite 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.000 civil with each other, which was great, and so we 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.200 did things together. Sometimes there were times we all vacationed 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:51.800 at the same house. Some family friends lived across the 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.880 hall from my mother. Their names were Tom and Margaret Knight, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.360 and they became my godparents, and I thought of them 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.040 as another set of parents. They were a childless couple, 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.920 older than my parents, and just the best people, and 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.680 I loved them so much, and they were very invested 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:13.520 in me, and I ended up thinking of my parents 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.440 and Tom and Margaret as being the four legs of 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.160 my table in my mind, and that's how I saw them, 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:23.400 that they were these four people that supported me and 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:28.200 I loved to distraction. And Tom and Margaret had a house, 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.600 a little tiny cottage on Cape Cod, and when I 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.160 was three years old, I started going there, sometimes just 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.800 with Tom and Margaret, sometimes with my mother, sometimes with 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:41.080 my father, sometimes all of us together. Was very progressive 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.200 considering what happened later. My life with my parents very 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.680 much revolved around theater, but also any kind of creativity. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:54.400 It was quite clear to me from early on I 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:59.560 would be some kind of performing artist. It was destined. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.440 And I say that from their perspective, and you know, 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:06.400 happily I was interested in that. How much of that 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:10.360 was because I sensed their investment in me, but there 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.040 certainly was a lot in me that responded to that. 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.640 It was very comfortable on stages. They brought me on 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.280 stages all the time. One of my earliest pictures of 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:21.360 me is on a stage with some actors I don't 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.800 even know who they were. And I loved it, you know. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:30.280 I loved the idea of theater and plays and music 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.680 and dance. I always had music lessons and dance lessons 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:39.760 growing up, and you know, I'm happy about that, of course, 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:45.480 and my mother in particular was extremely invested in that. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.440 For me, I look back on it and it just 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.840 seems kind of golden and just so cool. How I 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.400 was encouraged to do anything. If I didn't want to 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.040 go to school because I wanted to write a short 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.520 story about an avocado, I could stay home and do that. 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:02.520 She didn't care, and you know, I'd finished the story 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:04.360 in like fifteen minutes and watch TV the rest of 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.800 the day and nobody would know. And the same with 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:11.600 my dad. They were just very encouraging of my interests. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:17.280 That said, things in the apartment with my mom were 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:22.360 I mean, this is a hackneyed word, but complicated. I 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.800 mean she was a very anxious person. She was moody. 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.440 How much she drank, I'm not sure, but there were 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:33.560 many trips to the liquor store and she could turn 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:37.599 on a dime. There could be you know, bluebirds and 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:42.079 rainbows one minute, and then just coldness and an abuse. 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.320 She was physically really abusive to me at times in 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.000 ways that it's really difficult for me to even describe. 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:58.000 And it was incredibly scarring, emotionally scarring and confusing because 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.600 this was somebody I loved. I just felt so accepted by. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.640 And so I remember going off to college and telling 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.720 my roommate and my friends at college all my mom 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.760 and I are so close, it's like we're one person. 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:15.920 In two bodies, and I thought that was great, and 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:17.800 I thought they'd be jealous of me or something, and 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.040 everybody just looked at me and like I was there 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:22.480 was something wrong, which, of course there was something very 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:23.040 wrong with that. 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.000 It's one of the things that comes up again and 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:29.959 again on this show. And you know when we talk 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:35.840 about secrecy and family, is that as children, whatever our 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.400 reality is in our family just seems like it must 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.520 be the reality, you know, and that surely everybody's family 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:44.920 is like this, So right. 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:49.040 Yes, when I'd go and visit my friends that had 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.280 both parents at home and they'd all sit around the 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.680 dinner table together and read stories while the kids ate, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:59.439 and my eyes were wide open, it was like, Wow, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.160 this is this thing happens. And I never was jealous. 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:07.400 It just was so different early on. I mean, there 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.720 were times when it was just so fun and I 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.160 felt like we were buddies in the apartment, but I 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.920 was lift alone a lot. When she finally realized she 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.440 could leave me alone in the apartment, she did and 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.440 it didn't bother me. I mean, we were just on 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.320 top of each other all the time in that tiny space. 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:25.720 I mean we shared a one bedroom and I remember 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.240 I spent a lot of time looking out the windows. 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:31.400 And if I looked out the living room window, it 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:33.520 was on to First Avenue, and I could just watch 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.240 this river of cars going by, and I would stare 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.040 at it just for hours. It was like watching the 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.760 sun on distant mountains or something like that. It was 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.320 always changed, and it was always fascinating to me, the 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:50.920 movement and the fact that it always flowed in one direction. 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.800 And if I went and looked out my bedroom window, 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.600 I looked out onto fifty second Street, and it was 0:11:56.679 --> 0:12:00.000 quieter there, but not much. And there was a building 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.840 across the street, kind of a large, much nicer building 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:06.520 than ours, with many, many windows, and I could stare 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.360 in those windows at night and just watch all kinds 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.760 of things happen, which was very instructive to me growing 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:17.079 up and fascinating. And I remember I did, I said 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:22.000 this thing where I would write notes and I would 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.000 say I am very happy, I am a very happy child, 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.920 and I would crumple them up and throw them out 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.200 the window, and then watch to see if anyone would 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:34.160 pick them up. And I look at that now, and 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.240 I think, what was I doing? Was I trying to 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.760 be rescued and I didn't even realize it. Basically, what 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:43.040 I was doing was littering. Nobody ever picked it up, 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:46.040 not one time. And I did that at the bank too. 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.760 If I went in a bank, I would find a 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:52.520 deposit slip at the bottom of the stack of deposit 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.480 slips and write how happy I was on the deposit 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:58.320 slip and slip it in for somebody to read, which 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.199 was I don't understand that. 0:13:00.640 --> 0:13:05.199 Do you think that you were trying to convince yourself 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:07.080 so that you were a happy childhood? What do you 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:08.240 think your motivation was. 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.360 I think subconsciously it was probably a bit of a 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.560 message in a bottle kind of thing. But I do 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.559 say looking back that all the window gazing was I 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.360 really saw myself as Rapunzel and like the princess in 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.800 a tower. The only thing I didn't have was the 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.640 braid because my mother kept my hair chopped really short. 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.679 I begged her for long hair. I had a long 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.760 haired wig that I wear around the house because I 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:37.040 wanted long hair so badly. She had long hair, but 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.559 I couldn't, and she would just chop it off with scissors. 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.400 And throughout my childhood till I was probably about ten 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.760 until I really laid it down the lawn said, I'm 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:50.679 growing my hair out and it's just what it is. 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.439 Until then I had just this very strange chopped haircut. 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:55.520 Why do you think she did that? 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.559 I don't know. I've never understood why she did that. 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:02.439 It looked terrible, I mean, look ridiculous. 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:11.560 In pictures, Witt has taken on the role of the observer, 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:16.960 as only children often do. She watches and listens. She 0:14:17.000 --> 0:14:19.680 continues to look out her windows and into the windows 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.680 of others, and when her mom leaves her home alone, 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.320 in many ways, things are better, more calm. After all, 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.160 Witt never knows which version of her mother she's going 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:35.440 to get, so in her mom's absence, Wit does her 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.600 best to connect with herself and with the world. She 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.360 gazes out at the traffic on the street below and 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:45.560 tosses notes to the sidewalk. She blasts the stereo and 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:47.440 dances in the living room as hard and as long 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.960 as she wants. She creates a whole world for herself 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:55.760 alone in that apartment. Outside the apartment, she has a 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.840 world too. She's just gotten accepted to the High School 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:00.520 for Performing Arts. 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.000 Oh my god, when I got into that school. My 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:10.040 mother was just over the moon. Everything was going according 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:13.520 to plan. I was a drama student that I was 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:19.960 also dancing, and midway through my time at Performing Arts, 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.600 I wanted to switch to the dance department, and my 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:25.880 mother was all for it. She wanted me to be 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.480 a dancer more than anything. I don't know what that 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.640 was about. The fact that I wanted to switch majors 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:33.600 and be a dance major was huge for my mom, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.840 and the school said that I could not do that, 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.000 that I would not get a degree from the High 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.560 School for Performing Arts if I switched majors. And you 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:47.440 would think that the school had sent me to Siberia 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.440 for the amount of rage that instilled in her. 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:57.240 When Wit finishes high school as a drama major, Alas 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.680 she leaves for college to study dance. She spends her 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.440 first two years at the State University of New York 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.040 and then transfers to the University of Michigan in ann Arbor. 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:14.400 Wit flourishes there, excelling academically and creatively. She meets a guy. 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:20.000 He's a dancer and carpenter, an enticing combination. They begin dating, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:22.800 and after graduation they moved to New York City together 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:27.560 with all the changes, their relationship becomes rocky, but they're 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:33.080 in it. Then Wit becomes unexpectedly pregnant. She thinks back 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.800 on how her mother had always made it very almost 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:40.000 abundantly clear to her that women had abortion rights, but 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.720 Wit doesn't want an abortion. She wants to have the child. 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.520 It wasn't an ideal relationship, but I felt like we 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.120 could make it work. I had heard from my dad 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:59.400 and probably from Tom and Margaret, how distressed my mother 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:04.239 was when she she got pregnant with me, and I 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:08.520 know that she threatened suicide. My father had to physically 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:13.119 restrain her from throwing herself down the stairs of our 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:18.200 apartment building. And I also know that she starved herself. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.119 She told me that her doctor said, don't gain too 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.080 much weight, and so she took that to me to 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.679 not eat. And they say that by the time I 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:35.359 was born, she was skin and bones, and I was fine, 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:37.280 you know. I took what I needed and was a 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:41.000 healthy baby, a small but healthy baby. And that was 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:45.560 a clue that became really apparent in later years that 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:47.840 there was a connection between what happened when she was 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.960 pregnant and what happened when I got pregnant. 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:55.320 When were you told that this was the case and 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.239 this was the way that your mother was when she 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:58.720 was pregnant with you. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.000 That's one of those things where you just kind of 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.480 always knew it and you don't remember who told you 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.040 were how so it was just part of legend. Ha 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.840 ha Marion tried to throw herself down the stairs, ha ha, 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:16.200 and oh she was so skinny, as sort of family lore, 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:20.040 but it was not presented in this within hushed tones. 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:24.560 It was just part of family legend. 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:31.359 That's so interesting because you'd think that that could be 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:37.679 pretty traumatizing for a child or a teenager, you know, 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.160 a young person to hear about the way their mother 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:44.840 felt about being pregnant with them. That you know that 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.320 it wouldn't be like, oh, presented with you know, some 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.080 sense of lightness and hilarity around it. 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.520 A year or so, right, And in my memory, that's 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.320 how it was presented, And I don't remember taking it personally. 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.280 I was like, yeah, she's a little weird. Whatever, I'm here, 0:19:00.280 --> 0:19:06.080 Woo woo, everything's great, We'll be right back. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:28.360 It's September fourteenth, nineteen eighty, the day of what wit 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:32.440 now calls the Telling the day she tells her mother 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.639 the news of her pregnancy. It's a beautiful day. And 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:40.159 Wit takes the train up Lexington Avenue and walks the 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:43.720 same blocks she's walked thousands of times from the subway 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.359 station to the apartment she grew up in with her mom. 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.320 But despite the familiar steps, a sense of foreboding weighs 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:51.760 her down. 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.200 And I told her I was pregnant, and it hung 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.240 there in the space, and all the cars and the 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.240 trucks are zooming by, and the whole world is completely 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:08.440 unconcerned about what's going on in here. And I remember 0:20:08.520 --> 0:20:11.000 she was standing over by the window of the doorway 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.080 to the kitchen and she just turned to me and 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:20.720 she said, get it taken care of. And I knew 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.040 what she meant, and I said, no, or, we're not 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.639 going to do that. I don't want to. It's going 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.880 to be fine. We're going to get married and we're 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.680 going to move to Cape Cod. And we had already 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:37.840 planned to move to Cape Cod and renovate this old theater, 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.280 and that plan was in the works and we were 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:42.679 so excited about it, and so I said, that's what 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:44.440 we're going to do. And it's going to be fine, 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.520 don't worry. We're going to get married. And she said 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:50.760 you're going to be barefoot and pregnant on cape cod. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.200 I said, no, I'm not. It's going to be fine, 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:56.800 you know. And it was just like talking to a 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:03.800 snarling dog. It was terrifying. She was like a frozen human. 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.400 And then she said, then there can be nothing more 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:13.879 between us. And I don't remember anything after that, I 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:18.200 guess I grabbed my bag and went to the door 0:21:18.359 --> 0:21:22.280 and went downstairs, and I walked to second Avenue, and 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.840 then I walked to the third avenue and then I 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:27.800 turned right and I went down in the subway and 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.480 went back to Soho and I remember calling my aunt. 0:21:32.640 --> 0:21:37.280 My mother had these two magnificent sisters who I just loved. 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.360 And I called my aunt Celia, and I was crying 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.159 and saying, you know, telling her what had happened. And 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:47.160 my aunt Celia said, oh, honey, you know, of course 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.520 she's shocked right now, but she'll be fine. She'll get 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:51.440 over it and it's going to be fine. And I 0:21:51.480 --> 0:21:55.280 really took that to heart, and it wasn't fine. It 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:56.600 was never fine after that. 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.639 Perhaps she just needs some space, Wit thinks, and thankfully 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:07.399 that space is filled with the support and love from others. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:12.000 WIT's dad is over the moon, optimistic as he's always been. 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.760 Tom and Margaret are thrilled too, So hard as it is, 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:20.439 Wit doesn't reach out to her mom, she lets it rest. 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.760 Some weeks later, one of WIT's medical bills of twenty 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:28.080 dollars is routed to her mom's apartment, as her mom 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.240 still has Wit on her insurance plan. Soon after, Wit 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:36.680 receives a frosty note from her mom with the bill attached, saying, 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:38.840 if this is the way things are going to go, 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.600 you're going to have to pay your own bills. Wit 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:46.120 is struck by her mom's tone, but of course she'll 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:49.159 take care of the bills. Not a problem, and yet 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:54.280 the problem. The big problem persists. In the fall, Wit 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.120 and her boyfriend designed to get married, despite the fact 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:01.159 that their relationship is still unsteady, a small affair just 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.040 friends her dad, Tom and Margaret and her future mother 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.440 in law. After the wedding, the two moved to Cape 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.879 cod to the same town where Tom and Margaret had 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:11.639 their summer house. 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:17.280 It's the place that I loved, This town called South Yarmouth. 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:22.399 We rented this little old house on Main streets from 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:25.000 the eighteen hundred said it was just beautiful. I love 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:29.120 old things and old houses, and it had those shiny, 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:33.399 wide pine floors. And he sold the loft, you know, 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:36.560 he sold the fixtures, took the loft, and he moved 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.920 up a couple of months after me, and we just 0:23:39.960 --> 0:23:43.560 sort of settled in. In May of that year, I 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:48.840 had this baby in the house with my husband and 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.080 a college friend who took the train in from Boston. 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:57.639 And it was fantastic. It was magical, and you know it. 0:23:57.760 --> 0:24:03.960 Through this entire gestation period, I wrote to my mom constantly. 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:07.080 I thought, I'm just going to keep writing and pretend 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.439 everything's okay. She's got to wonder how I'm doing. I 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:14.119 wrote all these little, chatty little letters about oh, and 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:15.520 then we went to the movies, and then we went 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:18.040 for a walk on the beach. And the baby's growing 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:19.840 and I can feel her kicking. You know, all the 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:24.199 stuff that you would write to a mother, and I 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.600 just sent them out into the world. And sometimes I'd say, 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:29.800 you know, I don't even know if you're reading these letters. 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.000 If with a tree falls in the forest, does anyone 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:36.119 hear it? And you know, ha ha, And just keeping 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:40.000 it light and talking about how I felt and how 0:24:40.080 --> 0:24:42.480 much I missed her and that maybe we could work 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:49.120 it out, and so many letters and she never answered them. 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:53.879 It's so interesting with the parallel between throwing those notes 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:56.600 saying I am happy out your window as a kid 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:57.720 into the void. 0:24:58.400 --> 0:25:04.960 Yes, you're so right. I never thought what about dad. 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:07.840 After the baby is born, the new family of three 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:11.679 moves back to Michigan, where WIT's husband goes to graduate school, 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:16.960 and Wit falls absolutely in love with motherhood. She's living 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.200 a rich and fulfilling life that combines being a mom, 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:24.560 the very thing her own mother abhorred was eventually returning 0:25:24.560 --> 0:25:28.600 to dance, teaching classes and founding her own dance company. 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:32.359 She's actively making up for the loss she's experienced with 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:36.919 her mother, adapting to a new life without her. In 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:40.800 nineteen eighty six, she has another child, a boy named Sam, 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:43.240