WEBVTT - Over and Over Again: Illustrator Aubrey Hirsch on the Power of Storytelling 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.160 For me, I find it really helpful. And that's a 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:04.560 huge part of where most of what I write comes 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:07.440 from is from a place of anger. You know, I'll 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.800 get upset about something and then I'll say I need 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:13.800 to like write about it. Like a lot of the time, 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.400 what I'll be thinking is why isn't everyone screaming about 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.480 this all the time? And then I wonder if it's 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.360 because maybe people don't know, And so then I feel 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:25.880 like it's my responsibility to try to make something that 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.840 people will look at and then come and join me in, 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:32.080 you know, please join me in the scream fest. Yes, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:38.920 this is here After, and I'm your host, Megan Divine, 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.479 author of the best selling book It's Okay that You're 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:46.360 Not Okay. This week on Hereafter, writer and illustrator Aubrey 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:50.640 Hirsch joins us to talk about well, a lot of things. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.120 She joins us to talk about anger and trauma and 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:58.240 gender it's like the greatest modern hits of outrage on 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.880 today's show. But mostly she joins us to talk about art, 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.280 specifically the ways that storytelling helps us band together and 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.880 work towards the world we all want. This is a 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.119 good one. Friends. Coming up right after this first break 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.759 before we get started, one quick note. While we cover 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.679 a lot of emotional relational territory in each and every episode, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.679 this show is not a substitute for skilled support with 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:33.320 a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.479 to your work. And one more note hereafter with Megan. 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:41.160 Divine is currently on break between seasons. We'll be back 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:42.959 before you know it with a whole new season with 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:48.040 even more incredible guests. In the meantime, here's one of 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:56.000 our most loved episodes we'll season. So. I first consciously 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.520 encountered Aubrey Hirsch's work in her essay on surviving gun 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.800 violence that was in Roxane Gay's newsletter The Audacity. I 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.080 say consciously because I'd seen Aubrey's work before, and I 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:10.560 bet you have to. From her comics on reproductive rights 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.680 to her essays on breastfeeding in public, Aubrey's work distills 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:19.799 complex issues down to a few emotionally powerful frames. As 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.160 you'll hear her say in this conversation, using the medium 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.320 of comics allows her to bring social issues to life 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.520 in a way that feels more immediate, more visceral, and 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.400 honestly more human than news stories or sound bites or 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.320 statistics can usually do. Aubrey Hirsch is the author of 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.320 Why We Never Talk About Sugar, a collection of short stories, 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.880 and This will be his Legacy, a flash fiction chatbook. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.320 Her stories and essays and comics have appeared widely in 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.840 print and online in places like American Short Fiction, Vox Time, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.840 The New York Times, The Rumpus, and in the New 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.680 York Times best selling anthology Not That Bad. In today's 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.799 episode of Hereafter, we talk outrage about the state of 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.000 the world and the powers of activism and storytelling to 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.560 help bind us together in the service of the world 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:14.519 we actually want. Aubrey, welcome to the show. I'm so 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.640 glad to have you here. So I saw your gun 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:23.560 Violent Survivor essay and basically stalked you after that because honestly, 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.600 people know that I will I will cry at least 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:28.840 once in every episode. But like that essay was the 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:32.320 first time I saw my experience of being a trauma 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:39.080 survivor reflected, like the way that surviving something life threatening 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.680 and terrifying, the way that that lives in a person 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.480 out in the world. So thank you for that. You're 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.640 so welcome, Thank you for having me, And what a 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:50.000 nice thing to say. Thank you. It really means a 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.520 wat to me. That was a very very challenging essay 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.040 to write, and I have heard from many people who 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.520 have said something similar, and it just it feels so good, 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.640 you know, after you work so hard on something, to 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.720 hear that it means something, even to one person, really 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:08.760 just makes it worth it. So thank you. You're welcome. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.160 You have worked everywhere, including one comment called Medicine's Women 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.840 Problem about being ignored and misdiagnosed for years with significant 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:21.160 health issues. You've covered reproductive restrictions and misogyny and harassment 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.760 and the me too movements. So so much of your 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:28.119 work has this unifying theme of telling the truth about 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.960 really shitty things, really difficult things. In a lot of ways, 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.120 your work is really also about telling the truth about 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.039 things as a way to I'm totally editorializing here, but 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.200 like to upset the social order, right, like to kick 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:41.840 things over and to start talking about things that we 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.160 really need to be talking about. So you're an illustrator 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.280 and obviously a fantastic writer, But what is it about 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:53.120 that combination of narrative and imagery, specifically for talking about 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.279 these kinds of issues. What does illustration let you do that, 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.320 Maybe writing alone doesn't. Yeah, it's such a good question. 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.960 This is something that I kind of discovered as I 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.320 was working my way into comics, is that I think 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.880 comics are a fantastic medium for discussing difficult things. I 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:11.960 think part of it is sort of like I like 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:14.880 to call it, like the spoonful of sugar effect, where 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.559 if you're writing about something that's really difficult and maybe heavy, 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.120 maybe challenging, but there are pictures to look at, it 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:25.120 can feel like a bit more accessible. It can offer 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:27.760 people kind of a way into it. You see a comic, 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.159 you recognize a visual form. You know this is not 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.520 going to take a ton of your time. You're not 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:34.320 going to have to sit with this for too long. 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.760 And also you know there's things to look at. What 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.320 comics allows me to do when I'm talking about social issues, 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.400 especially is to take statistics and kind of like bring 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.840 them to life because within the piece you can have 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.360 like infographics, and it's just it's sometimes it's more impactful 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.919 to see what one fifth looks like than to just 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:57.640 read that number, or you know, read one fifth, but 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.720 rather like to see it in a pie chart, to 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.000 see it in a graph, I think just gives people 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.719 a different way to access the material, and it can 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.400 make things like that hit harder. We're such visual creatures, right, 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:12.440 Like that is the way that we get a lot 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.320 of our information. Like, you can pack a lot more 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.560 information into an image than you can in words, right, 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.359 And there's an immediacy to that. And I think also 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.000 like that immediacy is how we feel things, especially the 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.040 topics that you usually talk about. I think that's right. 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.960 And also, you know, people will see something it'll resonate 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.159 with them. And I think because of things like Instagram, 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.880 because of how text messaging works, we're so likely to 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.960 be sharing pictures with each other that it's a lot 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.200 easier for people to send like a panel of a 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.200 comic than they would, say, like a paragraph from a 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.000 news story. And then you know, it just helps more 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.520 people get their eyes on in can raise awareness about 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.360 like a whole slew of problems in the world. Yeah, 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:57.920 nobody's going to read a whole paragraph, right, It's not 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.200 shareable from a graphic perspective. And it's also like the 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:07.160 full catastrophe is just it's so overwhelming, the sheer amount 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.920 of atrocities and things to be outraged about and things 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.160 to talk about like that. Overwhelm is so intense and 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.520 no one's going to read all of that stuff, but 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:20.600 you make a comic and it opens different doors. Yeah, 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.960 I think that's right for me. I find it really helpful. 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.080 And that's a huge part of where most of what 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.040 I write comes from is from a place of anger. 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.440 You know, I'll get upset about something, and then I'll say, 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.800 I need to like write about it. Like a lot 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:37.560 of the time, what I'll be thinking is, why isn't 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:42.080 everyone screaming about this all the time? And then I 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.160 wonder if it's because maybe people don't know, And so 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.680 then I feel like it's my responsibility to try to 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.360 make something that people will look at and then come 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.320 and join me in, you know, please join me in 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.520 the scream fest. Yes. Yeah. And then when I know 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.440 I'm onto something is when during the process of rees searching, 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.880 I become more angry, you know, like I thought I 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.480 understood the scope of the problem, but in fact I 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:09.360 did not. It's a lot worse than I thought. And 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.800 then that's really that's a powerful moment for me and 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.160 my process is when I get when I start getting 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.120 more angry then it makes me more excited about the 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.360 thing that I'm working on, and it really does kind 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.840 of help neutralize my terrible feelings when I can feel 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.320 like I'm doing something. Tell me more about that relationship 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.320 between rage and creation and that last element that you 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.160 just put in there, that it actually makes you feel 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:39.560 less overwhelmed by the terrible things tapping into that. I 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:42.040 think you said anger and I said rage, but I 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.360 mean either one. I'm going to go with rage. It's 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:47.360 you know, we're at a moment in the world right now, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.840 especially with all of the attacks on reproductive rights that 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.840 are that are going on, where I find myself often 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.520 like sitting around thinking what are we going to do? 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:02.280 And I feel very helpless. And I don't want to 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:06.920 feel like that because I know that to be fucked 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.760 is a spectrum and we can be more fucked than 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:14.559 we are now or less fucked. It's not a buyinary 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.560 and I want us to move in the right direction 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:20.440 and I want to be a part of that movement. 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.280 But then on the other hand, you know, I'll read 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.040 a new story about a woman who is right now, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.719 you know, bleeding in a hospital in Texas because they 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:34.640 won't terminate her very dangerous pregnancy, and that makes me 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.040 feel awful because even if we can move in the 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:38.960 right direction, it's not going to help her. You know, 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.000 it's too late for her. And every day it's too 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:45.760 late for somebody new whose life is being seriously damaged 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.040 or ruined by these terrible attacks on our freedoms. And 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.280 I think there are moments when I find that really paralyzing, 0:09:56.080 --> 0:10:00.240 and there are moments where I think, Wow, what am 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.880 I doing? You know, I'm like making my dumb comics. 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:05.320 I'm like drawing my little pictures, and it all feels 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:09.480 very useless. But then the only way out is through. 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.640 There's nothing to do but to do the work. And 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:13.320 then when I sit down and I do it, I 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:16.000 almost always feel better, you know, just by the process 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.120 of making something. Getting people to feel angry with me 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:24.600 makes me feel less alone, less helpless, makes me feel like, Okay, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.880 there's a whole team of us. We're all going to 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.800 do it, you know, we're all trying. And then hearing 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.560 from people who say this thing meant something to me, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.280 or I sent this to my partner, I sent this 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.000 to my mother, I sent this to my uncle, you know, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:44.240 I put this on Facebook, it makes me feel better, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.800 you know, like it makes me feel like at least 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:48.800 I'm doing something. And it's not going to help that 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.640 person that's in Texas right now, but maybe it will 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.400 help somebody think a different way. Maybe it will help 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.680 fire somebody up to vote who wasn't going to, or 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:02.080 reach out and do some campaigning, or donate to an 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:04.840 abortion fund, you know, or whatever the thing is that's 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:07.160 going to help us get out of this mess. That 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:11.880 maybe it will do something, And that's my hope. Yes, yeah, 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.480 And I love the sort of unifying force of rage. 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:18.520 That's something that you write about a lot about how 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:24.079 historically and currently kind of always like women's anger is 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:27.320 not okay, right, Telling the truth about these things is 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.040 not okay. Showing anger is not okay. What's one of 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:33.200 the things that pisses me off the most about everything 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:35.600 that's happening is that we aren't supposed to be angry 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.960 about it. And we also don't recognize all of this 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:42.679 as loss as a grief issue, right, that there is 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:47.320 grief and loss and anger involved in so much of 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:51.079 everything that's been unfolding. Always, I mean, I don't want 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:53.440 to whitewatch things and be like it used to be better. 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.320 Well not for everybody, but you know, especially these last 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:00.920 several years and just the explosion ofice and violence and 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:06.520 backpedaling of basic human rights. The ways that loss, grief, anger, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.200 and gender all come together as something that's really a 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.120 thread through a lot of your work. Yeah, and the 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.079 connections there is something I've been thinking a lot about too, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:21.200 especially like with anger, because women, we get socialized to 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.199 de escalate. That's our job, you know, in the face 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.880 of anger, in the face of outrage, we're there to 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.760 put the brakes on that and like slow things down 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:35.120 and calm things down. And I think it does us 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:39.320 a disservice because anger, as much as we're taught to 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.760 repress it, ignore it, that it's negative, that it's somehow bad, 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.280 it's there for a reason. You know, it's there because 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.360 if something's gone wrong, you need to get angry before 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:53.080 you can address injustice. And the fact that women get 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.560 socialized to suppress their anger is part I think of 0:12:56.559 --> 0:13:00.440 the reason why so much injustice can be done to us, 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.920 because you know, everybody tells us, you know, be quiet, 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:08.640 calm down, don't be hysterical, and we hear that all 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.800 of our lives it's impossible not to internalize it on 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:15.640 some level. So what we've got is storytelling and rage 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.439 and banding together and for me, you know, really tapping 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.719 into not only the anger, but the loss and the 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.280 compassion in there. And compassion is such a word that 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.520 gets screwed around with so much, and I think it 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.079 also gets weaponized, like have some compassion and understanding for 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.360 over here and the other like no wrong use of 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:43.160 the word etymological badness. I wish that the people who 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:48.960 are creating so much arbitrary suffering would understand the suffering. Yeah, 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:54.040 I mean that empathy gap is like the biggest source 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.760 of injustice in this country. You know that the fact 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.960 that so many you know, Republican can be against gay 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:04.959 marriage until their kid is gay and then all of 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.480 a sudden, you know, it doesn't require empathy because it 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.360 directly affects them and it changes their tune. If there 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:14.160 was a way that we could make this directly affect 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.280 every single person, I don't think we would have a problem. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.400 But yeah, if you can't have empathy for other things 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.520 that you know aren't directly affecting you, but are directly 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.680 affecting other people, it's very difficult to have conversations with 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.960 people like that. Yeah, you're purposely shutting down your relatedness 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.400 to others, your ability to see yourself in other people's experience. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.160 And honestly, I mean we do that because we're afraid 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.200 of those feelings. Right. I don't want to know what 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.880 it's like to be this person because then I have 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.840 to feel that, right, you know, for me, everything comes 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.960 back to our aversion to feeling and our aversion to grief, right, Like, 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:56.400 we don't want to see the people we care about suffer, right, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.360 And that includes refusing to see the suffering of others 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.400 because that would tap us into our own humanity, and 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.120 those emotions are too big for us to really take 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.200 in and really handle. Very generous perspective, Yeah, some days 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.600 I get to be generous while also holding white hot 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:14.720 rage in the other hand, you know, And it's just 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.320 for me, this is part of rage. Right. It's like 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:23.080 we have so demonized emotion and we're so afraid of 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.200 emotion and feeling with each other. There are real world 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.520 consequences for a refusal to acknowledge the frailty of being 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:36.400 alive and how things can change in an instant, in 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:41.000 less and until we get better at allowing the tenderness 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.280 of being human. Nothing is really going to change because 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:47.880 we refuse to feel with each other, and because we 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:53.080 squash down anger and grief and loss, we can't access 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:57.080 that ability to feel with each other and make laws 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.040 and communities that are actually human centered and kind. And 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.840 you know, you said it much more succinctly and much 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.080 better than I just rambled through. But until we can 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:07.680 feel with each other, we're not going to have the 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:13.400 kind of just connected society that some of us dream of. 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:35.320 It's really beautiful. Actually, yeah, you're listening to Hereafter with me, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.320 Megan Divine and this week's guest illustrator Aubrey Hirsch. As 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:42.680 we rejoin this conversation, Aubrey and I are discussing her 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.680 essay on Surviving gun violence. Now we're going to link 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:47.920 to that essay in the show notes so you can 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.760 read it, and please, really really do go read it. 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:54.440 I wasn't exaggerating at the top of the show when 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.040 I said it was the first time I saw my 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:01.800 own experience reflected in somebody else's story. There's something I 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.119 don't know, just amazingly powerful about the way Aubrey describes 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.240 the ways that trauma and memory live in your body 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.840 and mind. So let's get back to our conversation. But 0:17:11.880 --> 0:17:13.720 I did just want to remind you to go read 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:17.720 that essay once you're finished listening to the show. Your 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:22.480 gun violence survivor essay isn't illustrated. Is there a difference 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.680 for you between the things you typically create and illustrate 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:30.439 and that particular piece. Yeah, it's interesting because so I 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.080 write a monthly comic for Rosan Gay's newsletter, The Audacity, 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.439 And when I sat down to write that piece, I 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.320 intended to make it comic, and I thought, you know, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.359 maybe I will try to make a comic about my 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.919 experience with PTSD. So I sat down and I started 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.359 to do my script, which is usually how I start 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:53.000 with just the text, and usually I I overwrite it 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.239 and then pare it down. But I was like, what 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.800 would have been twelve panels in? And I felt like 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:04.199 I wasn't even anywhere near anything that I wanted to say. 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.679 And the more I thought on it, the more I 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.320 felt like this was going to need to be much 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.960 longer than a comic. You know, the text I could 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.879 put into a comic. So I texted directs and and 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:17.880 said what if instead of a comic, I didn't say 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:20.119 star and she was like, great, I love it, go 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.960 for it. And so then I sat down to try 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.760 to write it. And it was a tough piece to 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.600 write because there was a lot that I wanted to 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.080 say and a lot that I wanted to get across. 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.959 That was really difficult for me to do. But I 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.159 think I needed that the room. I don't think I 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.280 could have done that in a much more compressed space. 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.520 I tried, but I couldn't. You have to follow where 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.080 the story wants to go, right, And one of the 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.640 things about telling the truth about trauma and about violence 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.119 is that we always try to shrink those stories. I 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:57.879 want people to go read it, so obviously I'm going 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.159 to link the wrap out of it everywhere. But the 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.439 repetition in that piece is one of the things that 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:09.800 makes it so powerful, Right that each iteration comes with 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.280 a slightly larger lens, right, And that is the way 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.000 that trauma lives in the body. That was the last 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:17.919 Thank you for saying that, because that was really the 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.040 last piece of the puzzle to fall into place for me. 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.200 I wrote like five full drafts of that essay top 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.200 to bottom, and every time I wrote it, I was like, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:28.720 this is just not it's not doing the thing I 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.200 wanted to do, until I started focusing on the paragraph 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.359 where I talk about how the experience of trauma is 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:41.159 actually quite boring and why that is is because you 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.280 have to keep doing the same thing over and over 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.840 and over again. And then as I was trying to 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.320 work that into language, I thought, Okay, this is what 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.320 I need to do. I need to make the essay 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.240 do the thing and just you're just gonna hear me 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.639 say it over and over and over again, and here's 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.760 what's happened, and then hoping that the time that you 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.919 spend with me in the essay gives you a little 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:07.959 bit of a glimpse of like what it's like to 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:12.120 be in the head of a trauma survivor Yeah, the 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:16.160 repetition of that both as like a creative writing device 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:21.040 and making the reader feel it. And this is something 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.159 that we really don't talk about, not just in gun violence, 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:28.600 but in the way that life altering, life changing loss 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.159 of whatever sort lives in you. And it honestly, it 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:37.040 really is boring, so boring, it really really is, And 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:42.920 it's this engine that just keeps chugging. Yeah, it's just exhausting. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.399 It's boring, and it wears you out, you know, it 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.520 wears you out. It wears out you know, whenever anytime 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:52.960 I have to say to my partner, like, can I 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.359 talk to you again about the time I was health 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.480 hostage at a point, I feel I'm myself. I'm so 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.120 annoyed with me, you know, and he's great, but I 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.360 feel bored and annoyed because I know he knows he's 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.600 heard the story before. But like, the telling is the cure. 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.720 You know, you have to do it. You have to 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.000 get in there with it when your body tells you 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.560 that it's time, and so you're going to drag in 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:19.560 whoever it is, you know, your therapist, your partner, your 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:22.800 best friend, your roommate, whoever is the person who's going 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:24.320 to be there for you in those moments, and then 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:26.879 you know you're dragging them into the boringness of it 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:31.879 all too. I love this. I think we're kind of 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.520 precious about trauma, right, Like you can't call it boring, 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.280 you can't laugh about it, Like it is this very 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:42.119 serious thing, and it's such a serious thing that you 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:43.760 have to be able to tell the truth about it. 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:48.119 And part of the truth is it's repetitive. The reach 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:52.960 of trauma is very long, very long. Yeah, And you know, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:57.800 after a time, there's nothing creative about it. There's nothing 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:01.280 generative about it. There's nothing that's entered hating about it. 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.280 It's just about the work, you know, and it working 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:08.159 on your trauma, surviving your trauma, processing your trauma, healing. 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:13.160 It just becomes like brushing your teeth. It's boring, but 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:15.080 you have to do it. You know, you have to 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.240 do it all the time because your teeth are going 0:22:17.280 --> 0:22:19.800 to grow new plaque, you know. And the same thing 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:21.680 with your brain. Your brain is still going to tell 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.199 your body something's wrong. You've got to keep doing it 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:26.520 over and over again, even when it's not interesting or 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.919 exciting or new anymore. Yeah. And the relationship with the 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.760 story also changes, right as you change, and new experiences 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:38.119 come in and your new outrages come into it. One 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.240 of the big pieces of that essay is how all 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:43.240 of this stuff, I mean, you and I just spent 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.080 a while talking about feeling with each other, and a 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.040 lot of that essay is about every new act of 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:52.760 gun violence that hits the headlines brings you back to 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:55.600 I know what that feeling is. I don't know that 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.719 person's experience because I'm not them and I'm not in 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.359 that same thing. I know what after feels like. Yeah, 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.920 I know what after feels like. You know, every time 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:09.320