Speaker 1: There's something about a fitted sheet. It feels personal, and
Speaker 1: it also felt just like bad design, and that nobody
Speaker 1: thought it through and that there are all kinds of
Speaker 1: ramifications that passed me off. I've looked up on the
Speaker 1: internet how to do it, and I get there's a way,
Speaker 1: but it's not really exactly how I would want it
Speaker 1: to be. It's not neat. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Many Questions, Season two. I've always loved Prust's question
Speaker 1: that it was originally a nineteenth century parlor game where
Speaker 1: players would ask each other thirty five questions aimed at
Speaker 1: revealing the other players true nature. It's just the scientific
Speaker 1: method really. In asking different people the same set of questions,
Speaker 1: you can make observations about which truths appeared to be universal.
Speaker 1: I love this discipline, and it made me wonder, what
Speaker 1: if these questions were just the jumping off point, what
Speaker 1: greater depths would be revealed if I asked these questions
Speaker 1: as conversation starters with thought leaders and trailblazers across all
Speaker 1: these different disciplines. So I adapted prus questionnaire and I
Speaker 1: wrote my own seven questions that I personally think a
Speaker 1: pertinent to a person's story, they are, when and where
Speaker 1: were you happiest? What is the quality you like least
Speaker 1: about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 1: What question would you most like answered? What person, place,
Speaker 1: or experience has shaped you the most? What would be
Speaker 1: your last meal? And can you tell me something in
Speaker 1: your life that's grown out of a personal disaster? And
Speaker 1: I've gathered a group of really remarkable people, ones that
Speaker 1: I am honored and humbled to have had the chance
Speaker 1: to engage with. You may not hear their answers to
Speaker 1: all seven of these questions. We've whittled it down to
Speaker 1: which questions felt closest to their experience, or the most surprising,
Speaker 1: or created the most fertile ground to connect. My guest
Speaker 1: today is actor Constance Will. Constance has starred in the
Speaker 1: Film's Crazy Rich, Asan's Hustlers, and the TV series Fresh
Speaker 1: off the Boat. She's been included in Time Magazine's list
Speaker 1: of the hundred most Influential people in the World, and
Speaker 1: she has just had a new book published. Her book,
Speaker 1: Making a Scene is a series of essays that delve
Speaker 1: into her memories of childhood, young love and heartbreak, and more.
Speaker 1: Devastatingly sexual assault and harassment. It was really interesting reading
Speaker 1: about her experience of life inside Hollywood, and her stories
Speaker 1: offer a behind the scenes look at being Asian American
Speaker 1: in the entertainment industry and the continuing evolution of her
Speaker 1: own identity and influence in the public eye. We bonded
Speaker 1: over a shared love of Marjorie Williams two book, The
Speaker 1: Velveteen Rabbit, and I really really enjoyed our conversation. What relationship,
Speaker 1: real or fictionalized, defines love for you? I write about
Speaker 1: this in my book. There is a chapter called real Love,
Speaker 1: and it's actually about my pet bunny rabbit. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that my pet bunny rabbit epitomizes real love,
Speaker 1: because I've had greater love affairs than the one with
Speaker 1: my pet. But in the end, I talked about a
Speaker 1: section in that children's book, The Velveteen Rabbit, Oh Yeah,
Speaker 1: where he talks about what is real and what is
Speaker 1: real love and it's not about how you're made. And
Speaker 1: the skin horse says something like, usually by the time
Speaker 1: you're real, all your hair has been loved off and
Speaker 1: your eyes have dropped down, and you're really shabby, and
Speaker 1: it hurts sometimes but it doesn't matter because by the
Speaker 1: time you're real, that kind of thing doesn't matter. And
Speaker 1: if somebody thinks that matters, then they just don't understand.
Speaker 1: That story, I think really epitomizes real love. Velveteen Rabbit.
Speaker 1: I think that was probably the first book that I
Speaker 1: cried with my mother about. It's beautiful. That's such a
Speaker 1: gentle choice of definition of love and of a book
Speaker 1: as well. It's funny the wisdom you find in a
Speaker 1: kid's book. I you don't think you would, but then
Speaker 1: there's just such moving wisdom, and Velveteen Rabbit it's a
Speaker 1: perfect example of that. I agree. It's beautiful and really sad.
Speaker 1: We read that along with this book called The Water Babies,
Speaker 1: which is another unfathomably English book that is super super sad.
Speaker 1: But you think it's a kid's book about kids who
Speaker 1: were like chimney sweeps. You know, in the Victorian era
Speaker 1: they would send little children because they were tiny and
Speaker 1: they could fit up the chimneys and they could clean
Speaker 1: them out. My god, there's a uniquely British sort of
Speaker 1: torture small children. Anyway, it's about one of these little
Speaker 1: chimney sweeps and how he comes down into the bedroom
Speaker 1: of this girl in the fancy house and becomes her friend.
Speaker 1: And it is about friendship and about love. But of course,
Speaker 1: because it's I guess it was written in like the
Speaker 1: nine twenties, Like the Child. He dies in the end,
Speaker 1: and I remember like closing the book and being like,
Speaker 1: you can't this can't be real, Like he can't actually,
Speaker 1: he can't actually die, And my mother was like, yes,
Speaker 1: he he did. Shall we watch Sesame Storie? But you
Speaker 1: know why, this is how children's books are deep, because
Speaker 1: it's like, these are real life things that happen that
Speaker 1: you know, children are going to have to understand. I mean,
Speaker 1: I got to read that book man now the water
Speaker 1: the Water Babies. It's called The Water Babies, and it's
Speaker 1: listen when I say that he dies, he does die,
Speaker 1: because I did a lot of reception to the book.
Speaker 1: But there's this whole world that he goes into underneath
Speaker 1: the water, and you realize that it's the death process, right,
Speaker 1: it's a metaphor. And he finds all these characters and
Speaker 1: all these people, and you realized that the writer was
Speaker 1: really trying to say that there is freedom and death
Speaker 1: from the kind of the poverty and oppression of the
Speaker 1: suffering of human experience. However, as a little child, it's
Speaker 1: pretty devastating. But also I don't know, it stayed with
Speaker 1: me my whole life in the same way. Those are
Speaker 1: the two books, The Velveteen Rabbit and the Water Babies,
Speaker 1: with the two books from my childhood that I will
Speaker 1: reread them and love them. And there's a reason why
Speaker 1: they're classics, because they're able to just hit that spot
Speaker 1: in your heart. Exactly. I'm gonna go and reread it's
Speaker 1: your bunny current. Yes, she's still downstairs right now. She's
Speaker 1: nine years old. Funny, does she go to set with you? Ever?
Speaker 1: She does? She she comes in my trailer almost every day.
Speaker 1: And her eye has also dropped out, just like the
Speaker 1: velveteen rabbit. She only has one eye didn't drop out.
Speaker 1: I had to remove it because she had like a
Speaker 1: cataract and like whatever. But it's funny, the parallel. It
Speaker 1: is funny the parallels in Chinese astrology. Are you a rabbit?
Speaker 1: I wish? No, I'm a dog? What are you? I'm
Speaker 1: a dog? Really? Oh, that's funny, so cool. But they
Speaker 1: get on really well with rabbits, Yes they do. And
Speaker 1: everybody loves a dog who doesn't love a dog. Bad people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: bad people don't like dogs. That's it. Sorry? Will you
Speaker 1: tell me where and when you were happiest? Probably right
Speaker 1: after I pooped out a baby. It is exactly like
Speaker 1: pooping out, isn't it. Nobody talks about that enough. The
Speaker 1: nurse I was like holding my leg as she was like,
Speaker 1: it's like you're taking a big poop. It's like she
Speaker 1: kept saying that as I was pushing did you I
Speaker 1: got so scared that that was what was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I was like, I just don't want to pooh on
Speaker 1: the doctor. I don't want to do that whole thing.
Speaker 1: I accepted that it was going to happen because they
Speaker 1: because everybody told me, like, you know what, it's going
Speaker 1: to happen. So and I don't know if it happened obviously,
Speaker 1: because like you know, I had never darl and like,
Speaker 1: they're not going to tell you that. The doctor is
Speaker 1: not going to be like by the way, you ship
Speaker 1: right in front of me, you ship the bed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I also shot a baby, man, like, come on,
Speaker 1: not shot, but terrible. But I pushed out a baby.
Speaker 1: Definitely my happiest moment because in the aftermath of oh
Speaker 1: my god, I got it out mixed in with oh,
Speaker 1: I have my dear little baby, yeah, who you've been
Speaker 1: waiting to me for like nine months. And she was
Speaker 1: so like not that babies can see when they're first born,
Speaker 1: but she was so like in wonder of the world
Speaker 1: and like taking it in and like it was just
Speaker 1: the most beautiful thing to see and to hold her
Speaker 1: against your skin and like to see that face, this
Speaker 1: person you've been carrying inside you. I mean, it's there's
Speaker 1: it's truly the happiest ever. It is right they told
Speaker 1: me I was having a girl. The doctor had told
Speaker 1: me the wrong thing. I wasn't surprised. I wanted love
Speaker 1: to be the first word that she heard when she
Speaker 1: came out. So as I was like having the baby
Speaker 1: and pushing, I was like, and I pushed the baby
Speaker 1: and it's a boy. And my mother goes, oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: it's a boy. And I went, what the that's amazing.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing my son heard. But
Speaker 1: it is it's remarkable like that. It's certainly these little aliens.
Speaker 1: But isn't that that the perfect encapsulation of life sometimes
Speaker 1: is love? And what the fuck, I mean together and
Speaker 1: also happiness. I was just talking to my friend Fern today.
Speaker 1: We are so obsessed with the idea that happiness is
Speaker 1: not an adjunct to all the other ships. It's the
Speaker 1: bit that saves us, but it's often the kind of
Speaker 1: corridor through all the stuff that doesn't work out. The
Speaker 1: idea of that being untainted, that love being untainted by
Speaker 1: what the funk is ridiculous. Their part in parcel. They
Speaker 1: don't exist without each other and probably symbiotic and wouldn't
Speaker 1: exist without the other one. Yeah, it's like light doesn't
Speaker 1: exist without dark. Dark doesn't as well light. You gotta
Speaker 1: find gratitude for both things. How does that happen? Though?
Speaker 1: I feel like in this day and age they wouldn't
Speaker 1: see on the ultrasound like, oh no, actually we're wrong,
Speaker 1: this isn't it, Like that's crazy. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: with all the love in the world. And I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna name check him because I love him and
Speaker 1: he's still delivering babies. But he was like the gaff
Speaker 1: doctor of all time, Like he told more people like
Speaker 1: the gender when they didn't want to know the thing
Speaker 1: with the thing, there was a whole lot of kind
Speaker 1: of Mr Magooism around my beautiful o G. So he
Speaker 1: told me I was having a girl, and then I
Speaker 1: burst into tears because I don't want to know. And
Speaker 1: so then he wrote on my chart never mentioned the
Speaker 1: gender again. So then all the other ultra sounds they
Speaker 1: could see, but he completely forgotten that he said it
Speaker 1: was a girl, they could see that it was a boy,
Speaker 1: and nobody said anything ever again until I had the baby.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. What question would you most like answered?
Speaker 1: How a full defended sheet? I don't know me you
Speaker 1: can have that because I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1: I've looked up on the internet how to do it,
Speaker 1: and I guess there's a way, but it's not really
Speaker 1: exactly how I would want it to be, Like it's
Speaker 1: not neat. I agree with you. And also I don't
Speaker 1: accept the imperfection, like I think we all spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time trying to accommodate imperfection, and we're told
Speaker 1: that everything is imperfect, which is completely accurate. There's something
Speaker 1: about a fitted sheet. It feels personal, and it also
Speaker 1: feels just like bad design and that nobody thought it
Speaker 1: through and that there are all kinds of ramifications that
Speaker 1: passed me off. Yeah, that's one, that's the practical one.
Speaker 1: You know. There's an ex lover of mine who had
Speaker 1: a very long love it there off and on for
Speaker 1: over a decade. I write about him in my book
Speaker 1: and the final time we broke up because any times,
Speaker 1: you know, he said he didn't want to commit because
Speaker 1: he was trying to protect himself from being hurt. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if that worked out for him, if he
Speaker 1: suffered over it, because I I don't nestally have a
Speaker 1: feeling that you can't ever protect yourself from pain without
Speaker 1: blocking yourself from love. So I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: he still does suffer over it. So the pain protection
Speaker 1: plan didn't work. So if it didn't work, then why
Speaker 1: not just choose love if pain is going to happen anyway,
Speaker 1: because at least then you have both. But I truly
Speaker 1: wonder because I don't know, because I I don't talk
Speaker 1: to him anymore, and not because we're on bad terms,
Speaker 1: we're not, but because it was just like you know,
Speaker 1: when you have a connection with somebody that's so deep
Speaker 1: that even talking to them resparks this thing that you
Speaker 1: can't you know, it's not gonna work out. Because we
Speaker 1: tried a million times, so it's just like, all right,
Speaker 1: this is my kryptonite. So maybe let's just like not.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'll always love him and Cary love
Speaker 1: for him and want nothing but happiness for him. So
Speaker 1: I do genuinely wonder if he ever suffered over it,
Speaker 1: if his pain protection plan worked or not. I wonder. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like I wonder in the absence of vulnerability,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think you can get the
Speaker 1: full experience of anything without a certain level of vulnerability.
Speaker 1: I really don't. Yeah, I would say that in my
Speaker 1: tennis lessons, all the way through to love and shopping,
Speaker 1: there has to be a level of revealing the soft underbelly.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you have to. It's like the light
Speaker 1: the dark. Like we said earlier, one doesn't exist without
Speaker 1: the others. So you have to accept both in order
Speaker 1: to have the full experience. But I think I use
Speaker 1: he didn't think so, so you know, so I wonder.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I had that with a dude. I
Speaker 1: had that with a dude, And it's so funny it
Speaker 1: came around and like literally eighteen years later of him
Speaker 1: coming and saying, this is why that happened, and he
Speaker 1: didn't end up with someone that he loved. He ended
Speaker 1: up with somebody who could accommodate the way in which
Speaker 1: he wanted to live his life. And he was like,
Speaker 1: I never wanted to be in love with you, because
Speaker 1: if I was in love with you, I know I
Speaker 1: would have hurt you because it was all this other
Speaker 1: stuff that I couldn't do. I couldn't let it in.
Speaker 1: But there was something about the acknowledging that was satisfying,
Speaker 1: you know, and me and this guy he did do
Speaker 1: that also ten years later after our first breakup, and
Speaker 1: so then I was like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 1: finally the time. And I thought he had changed, but
Speaker 1: he had changed enough that he could understand that, but
Speaker 1: fears and ego eventually crept in and he wasn't able
Speaker 1: to sustain it. But I'm proud of myself because, you know,
Speaker 1: I basically like let him break my heart three times
Speaker 1: over the course of fifteen years, every time thinking something
Speaker 1: would change. But I guess it didn't. I guess history
Speaker 1: repeats itself, which is why I'm not talking to him
Speaker 1: ever again, because well, let's not repeat more history, right, well,
Speaker 1: and you never run into him, no, no, he lives
Speaker 1: in New York, first of all, and you know we
Speaker 1: run in very different circles. Great, I think that whole
Speaker 1: definition of insanity of like doing the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over again and expect sometimes you have to just
Speaker 1: admit that with people. But it's hard because you always
Speaker 1: think you want to be able to accommodate change and
Speaker 1: growth and the idea that that is possible, but I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: sometimes it isn't. And also, like I could believe that
Speaker 1: he's changed without having to be there to witness it.
Speaker 1: I could think about, like, oh, you know what, that's
Speaker 1: why the answer to your question is I wonder if
Speaker 1: that's worked out for him, because I know that he
Speaker 1: was working on things and I do wish nothing but
Speaker 1: the best for him. But I could still hold faith
Speaker 1: that his life is going to work out in a
Speaker 1: beautiful way without having to be the one who's around
Speaker 1: when it works out that way, because that's part of
Speaker 1: my ability to change too, right to not engage in
Speaker 1: that again? Yeah, yeah, what quality do you like at
Speaker 1: least about yourself? I could be a little impatient with
Speaker 1: people or just in general with tasks, you know, And
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, like asking your boyfriend to take out
Speaker 1: the garbage. That's the thing that that should be done
Speaker 1: when it's asked for, not three days later, when more
Speaker 1: garbage is piled up, and then he's like, oh, but
Speaker 1: I did take it out, and I'm like, yes, three
Speaker 1: days after I asked you. You know, these very common
Speaker 1: domestic squabbles. But yeah, sort of like to do list
Speaker 1: type of things that should seem very ordinary. I get
Speaker 1: impatient when they're procrastinated. Can I ask you, because I
Speaker 1: know that you come from a lot of women in
Speaker 1: your family? Yes, do you have four sisters or three?
Speaker 1: Your one of four? I'm one of four, so four
Speaker 1: girls in my family. So is everybody very different or
Speaker 1: is that something that came from your family of Listen,
Speaker 1: there ain't time. There's too many kids. There's too much
Speaker 1: stuff to be done, and if I ask you to
Speaker 1: do something, you better do it right. Then. I feel
Speaker 1: like half and half. I feel like two of us
Speaker 1: are kind of impatient with tasks and the other two
Speaker 1: are much more relaxed about it. I guess you have
Speaker 1: to have someone to be impatient with. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: two pairs of us. So it's like my older two
Speaker 1: sisters are only a year apart, and myself and my
Speaker 1: younger sister are only two years apart, and there's a
Speaker 1: big gap in the middle. So I feel like each
Speaker 1: pair balances each other out. So in the older pair,
Speaker 1: there's somebody who's more on task and somebody who's more relaxed,
Speaker 1: and then the younger pair, like I'm the extrovert, my
Speaker 1: little sister is the introvert. We kind of balanced each
Speaker 1: other out, is how it worked. That's really cool. I
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, me and my sister sometimes we switch roles.
Speaker 1: That's the weird thing. Sometimes I'll be the taskmaster and
Speaker 1: she'll be the supplicant, and then we flip. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think I drive insane. What would be your last meal? Oh?
Speaker 1: Probably Japanese chicken curry. It's like a comfort food for me,
Speaker 1: and my mom used to make that. Like I just
Speaker 1: even thinking about how she would be, like browning the
Speaker 1: onions in the skillet before making it. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's so good. Does she teach you how to cook? No,
Speaker 1: you don't cook. I don't cook. She taught me a
Speaker 1: little bit of a little bit. I take it back,
Speaker 1: she tried to teach me how to cook. I didn't
Speaker 1: pay attention. Did she teach your younger sister? No, My
Speaker 1: younger sister is probably the same as me. My older
Speaker 1: two sisters are much better cooks, and I think she
Speaker 1: probably taught them better. I feel like the older kids
Speaker 1: they have a more thorough experience with everything, right, because
Speaker 1: by the younger kids, the parents are like fuck it,
Speaker 1: I get on with it. I'm exhausted. Yeah, like do
Speaker 1: whatever you want? You care? Yeah, exactly. It's funny. My
Speaker 1: son is becoming a better cook. Now. How old is
Speaker 1: he was fourteen yesterday? Oh my god, yeah, it's bananas.
Speaker 1: Has gone by so fast that I know. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: You don't feel you just don't feel any older. I
Speaker 1: don't feel any older. I don't feel any different. I
Speaker 1: don't feel any different than I was when I was
Speaker 1: twenty six. I mean, thank god, I am very different,
Speaker 1: but I don't feel any different at all from the
Speaker 1: day that I had him. And it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 1: In the new sneakers that I gave him, he is
Speaker 1: now taller than me. Oh my god, it's amazing. It's crazy,
Speaker 1: Like I'm they're still going do you remember when we did?
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, I totally remember that. It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Now burgers and I'm like, oh, I suppose so. And
Speaker 1: now he takes my hand across the street. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: like I'm a little old lady. It's the nicest thing
Speaker 1: I have to say. How beautiful he's fantastic. How old
Speaker 1: is your daughter? She just turned to My god, she's
Speaker 1: a baby, but oh my god. It's so fun though,
Speaker 1: just watching her become a person, to go from this
Speaker 1: little nugget to like, the other day, I gave her
Speaker 1: my almost empty Lacroix plan because as if I give
Speaker 1: her a full one, she'll just dump the whole thing out.
Speaker 1: And she she like took it and trying to simp
Speaker 1: from it. Then she goes nothing there. You know, this
Speaker 1: is a two year old, you know, like she still
Speaker 1: goes in the corner to announce that she's pooping, you know,
Speaker 1: like in her diaper. Oh my god, I love it.
Speaker 1: I know, it's really fun. Nothing there. You can't fool me.
Speaker 1: There's nothing nothing here, nothing in this scan. I know.
Speaker 1: They do go from being these like little drunk blobes
Speaker 1: totally just sort of teaching, and then suddenly they turn
Speaker 1: around and they're like and they also remember they're getting
Speaker 1: the measure of us. That's sort of watching and observing
Speaker 1: and going like, I know this person is going to
Speaker 1: give me absolutely everything. How can I manipulate the rest
Speaker 1: out of them? Yeah, they're clever, They're clever and smart,
Speaker 1: and we made them. Yeah, and it's our own fault.
Speaker 1: In your life. Can you tell me about something that
Speaker 1: has grown out of a personal disaster? Um? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioning my book a lot, but because
Speaker 1: my book is very formative for me, and there's a
Speaker 1: chapter in which I talk about a thing that happened
Speaker 1: to me in eighth grade that I could never get
Speaker 1: over the pain of. And I've had objectively worse things
Speaker 1: happened to me in my life. It was just basically
Speaker 1: teacher accusing me of not really writing my term paper
Speaker 1: and like plasiarizing. But it's something that like I just
Speaker 1: could never get over, from when I'm twelve to now
Speaker 1: when I'm forty, still can't get over. But in the
Speaker 1: process of writing it, I took the time to think
Speaker 1: about how it also helped me in a way that's
Speaker 1: so obvious right that I can't believe it took me,
Speaker 1: you know, almost thirty years to realize because you know,
Speaker 1: she thought I plas your eyes. She didn't have any
Speaker 1: proof because I didn't plas your eyes. So what she
Speaker 1: did was she went to all my other teachers and
Speaker 1: made them say to my face, like, don't believe you're
Speaker 1: good enough to have written it. And that was her proof,
Speaker 1: I know, to make me cry even talking about it now,
Speaker 1: because it was like, because you can't find the proof,
Speaker 1: you know, you're going to make all the teachers say
Speaker 1: to my face, you're not good enough. But the only
Speaker 1: teacher who believed that I was good enough to have
Speaker 1: written it was my drama teacher. And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, how did it take me thirty years to
Speaker 1: realize that the only teacher and I didn't used to
Speaker 1: want to be an actress who believed in me was
Speaker 1: my drama teacher and I ended up becoming an actress.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, it's crazy to think about, but
Speaker 1: that's like basificly something that has stuck with me, and
Speaker 1: I didn't realize for thirty years how it has shaped
Speaker 1: me and helped me in a way that I really
Speaker 1: appreciate because I was just focusing on the pain of
Speaker 1: it so much. I'm really sorry that happened. Oh it's okay. No,
Speaker 1: it's the worst. It's the word to be accused of
Speaker 1: something that you didn't do, and to not be able
Speaker 1: to put that down. That eighth grade teacher and my
Speaker 1: drama teacher, Mr. Frazell, who believed in me, that really
Speaker 1: altered my life. Did you talk to your drama teacher
Speaker 1: about that whole thing? He unfortunately passed away. I looked
Speaker 1: back for him when I was writing it, and I
Speaker 1: realized and he passed away. I think you like a
Speaker 1: heart attack a while ago. So that made me very sad.
Speaker 1: But the teacher who accused me, I did not when
Speaker 1: I wrote it. But I did reach out to her
Speaker 1: ten years after it happened, when I was in college
Speaker 1: and going through a lot of therapy because it's still
Speaker 1: within my heart, and I called the into years trying
Speaker 1: to prove to her. I was like, hey, remember me
Speaker 1: in eighth grade. I really wrote that and it was
Speaker 1: wrong of you to do that to a kid, like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I tried to give her a piece
Speaker 1: of my mind. It didn't work. Writing me essay was
Speaker 1: much more healing. Yeah, I bet I'm glad that you
Speaker 1: did that. Yeah, And I wish that Mr. Frazell was
Speaker 1: still alive for me to thank him, but by the
Speaker 1: time I wrote that and realized that he had passed away. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: It's amazingly gifts. I mean, I hope everybody has a
Speaker 1: teacher like that. I don't think everybody does, but I
Speaker 1: certainly had a couple. It's so meaningful. It stays with you,
Speaker 1: like whatever it is they gave you, or they defended
Speaker 1: for you or they helped shape, stays with you for
Speaker 1: you whole entire life, the whole life. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: writing your book enormously cathartic because there you are, actually
Speaker 1: like to write a book like, it's quite something, I think,
Speaker 1: to tell your stories to open up. Did that feel
Speaker 1: like it answered some of that in a larger way
Speaker 1: for yourself? Yeah, because I might have told that story
Speaker 1: million times in therapy. The telling of it versus the
Speaker 1: putting it down in language makes you think about it
Speaker 1: in a different way, and it actually makes it kind
Speaker 1: of more real. It's funny because it's like, sometimes it
Speaker 1: feels like physical wounds feel more real than emotional wounds
Speaker 1: because you have the scar to prove it right, But
Speaker 1: emotional wounds have just as much of an effect on you,
Speaker 1: and it's almost feels like putting it down in written
Speaker 1: language is like the physical proof that it happened to you.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why it was healing, because it
Speaker 1: opens the wound into like the physical area, so you like, oh,
Speaker 1: see it, this is a thing that happens. Now that
Speaker 1: I've put it in language, I can help give it
Speaker 1: the time and carrot needs to heal. And so it was. Yes,
Speaker 1: talk is great. I've been a therapy for like decades
Speaker 1: and I love it, but writing it down in language
Speaker 1: is something that is definitely very underrated. And with healing,
Speaker 1: talking is more cathartic. Writing was more healing. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a really good way of putting it. Talking is cathartic.
Speaker 1: Writing is healing. Yes, exactly. I was told to journal.
Speaker 1: It's hard. I was told to journal so often and
Speaker 1: it's so hard to do it. But it was actually
Speaker 1: easy to then go. You know, it's not the journaling.
Speaker 1: I need to write these hard stories like I need
Speaker 1: to or I want to try, And I think exactly
Speaker 1: what you're saying, you need a structure to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: isn't it interesting that rather than it like calcifying as
Speaker 1: you say it, like I love the idea of words
Speaker 1: of scar tissue of proof of emotional trauma, even with
Speaker 1: a small tea or a big tea. Constance, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I so appreciate your time. It's great talking
Speaker 1: to you. It really is fantastic. Thank you. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that you can enjoy more of Constance's stories in her
Speaker 1: new book, Making a Scene Out Now. Mini Questions is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by Me Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman,
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