Katherine May Katherine May

Raynor Winn on losing everything and finding home

 
Image of the author Raynor Winn, whose books include The Salt Path, The Wild Silence and Landlines
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Raynor Winn on losing everything and finding home

———
Author Raynor Winn talks to Katherine May about the losing her home when her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and finding new life from having nothing

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Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    So, this is a special episode of the Wintering Sessions. We are re-airing the episode, one the first episodes I recorded with Raynor Winn, but just in time for the release of her new book Landlines, which is coming out on the 15th of September, Ray, tell us about your new book.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well, it's about a very, very long walk. It starts really in the winter of 2021. And we were all in lockdown and the final lockdown. And ...

    Katherine May:

    You hope the final lockdown.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well of that moment, it was the final lockdown. It to been a really difficult winter because Moth my husband, who suffers from a neurodegenerative disease, as I've talked about before, needs to walk quite a lot as often as possible, and to keep really physically active, to keep on top of his condition. But lockdown meant that we were really confined to our area. We couldn't walk farther than around the loch, a couple of miles, and that was it really, and it wasn't enough. And his health was deteriorating really, really quickly to the point where he actually was starting to think that the final stages of that illness was starting to kick in and he was heading towards a point of really no return. And he'd almost given up hope really, but after we'd ... Yeah, we'd fought so hard and for so long to keep on top of that illness, I couldn't accept it.

    I couldn't accept that that was what was coming. Not yet. I wasn't ready. And I went to get the gloves to pick up the logs for the stove one day. And just behind the log basket was the pile of books on a bookcase. And it was a pile of guidebooks, guidebooks to walks. And in amongst that there was the Salt Path guidebook that's just got held together within an elastic hairband, that rippled like the beach when the tide goes out and then obviously Iceland one that sort of smells of sulfur and grit. And then there was this other one and it was a little thin volume that had never been used, but it was a place that I knew Moth really, really wanted to go. And it was the Cape Wrath Trail, which is the most remote, the most difficult un-way marked path in Britain.

    And it starts in the very north-west of Scotland and runs down to Fort William. It's 230 miles through the wildest part of Britain, through the great wilderness of Scotland and through the rough bounds of Knoydart. And I thought if anywhere would persuade him to just try one more time, it would be that. So I left it out on the table and he put it away and I put it back on the table and he put it away and we argued and I put it on the kitchen worktop and eventually he said, "Okay, when are we going then?"

    And eventually after just a little bit of preparation for him, because he was at the point where when we'd walked those two miles around the loch at home, he was having to sleep for two hours afterwards because it was just wearing him out. And like all of us, we'd come to know our locality very, very well and there was not much stimulation left in that walk. But he kept trying and it got to the point where he only slept for 20 minutes after that walk. And then we thought, well, we're ready to go now. And we headed to the north of Scotland.

    Katherine May:

    That sounds incredible. I love the way that so much of your work has become about keeping on walking and why it's so important metaphorically and physically to just keep moving through the landscape.

    Raynor Winn:

    I think so. I think it's about a forward motion. I think it's about allowing yourself to keep going forwards, but also there's something really physical about just putting one foot in front of another, in front of another, and just taking the next step and the next step. It almost allows you to reset yourself because it puts you outside of the everyday because you know this Kathryn, that just by walking a long distance, you go into another place. It's almost like a meditation I think, where things start to fall away. Where the anxieties and the feelings that we carry, just start to fall away. Also, it's what we're made for. It's what we're built to do. So physically it can only be beneficial to us and yeah, yeah. We keep walking.

    Katherine May:

    So Ray's book comes out on the 15th September. It is pre-orderable as you listen and maybe even orderable, depending on when you're listening. But now take a listen to what she said when she first spoke to me in the very first season of the Wintering Sessions a couple of years ago. Enjoy.

    Welcome Raynor. It's lovely to talk to you.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes, you too. Katherine, it's been ages.

    Katherine May:

    It's been really ages, and we have had trauma with the tech today, so thank you for sticking with me. We met because of our shared love of the South West Coast Path really, I think it's fair to say. We were put on a panel together.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes we were weren't we? At Budleigh.

    Katherine May:

    Was it two years ago now? It must be two years ago, yeah. So it feels like a long, long time ago. So we both had books out at the same time. Yours is much more famous than mine. I will put that out there straight away, but you are the author of the Salt Path, which is such a beautiful book about your journey around the Southwest coast path after you were made homeless. And I'd really love to talk about that today, but first of all, I'd love to ask you because you live in Cornwall, what's Cornwall like at the moment under lockdown. How is it all going for you?

    Raynor Winn:

    It's actually gone quite well for me because I think I'm very suited to a life of isolation actually. So it's just been Moth and myself here where we are in a very, very quiet spot where maybe one car has passed today and then a girl with a dog that we look out for every morning at 11 o'clock, and that's been our lockdown and we're still here. We're still more or less still isolated in the house.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it sounds very peaceful. I think because I'm in the slightly busier coastal town, we've had loads and loads of tourists come in the last few weeks and it's been quite troubling really, just the beach being absolutely packed and full of huge groups of youths. I've reached the age now when I look at them and I think, "Oh gosh, youths. They're drinking." I like to think I'm the only one that can drink on the beach. But apparently other people do it too. And yeah, it's been peaceful for a long time, but now it's not peaceful and that's been quite intimidating really because it's hard seeing lockdown just disappear, but I'm glad it was lovely where you are.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah. It's been the same here I think. Out in the wider world, I think same issues been going on here, but for us it's carried on being quite quiet. So very lucky.

    Katherine May:

    That sounds like heaven. You've chosen the right place to live. So let's talk about the Salt Path which is the book that massively made your reputation. I'd love to actually talk a little bit about that later because I think it must have been really hard for you to suddenly have that explode in the way it did and for so many people to feel so passionately about it. But first of all, let's talk about the book itself and I know that you'll be great at telling the story of it, but two things happened at the beginning of the book that began your journey. First of all, Moth, your husband became ill and you also lost your house at the same time. Can you take us through that?

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes, yes it was, if we go back a little bit further than the start of the book really, it probably puts it more into context really. I met Moth when I was a teenager, Moth my husband, when I was a teenager, I was 18 and I was in the college canteen and looked up across the room and just saw this young man in a white shirt with dazzling blue eyes, dipping a Mars Bar in a cup of tea. And I thought "That's the one for me." And weirdly it turned out to be, because he's still here. But we sort of had this dream that we would find a ruin somewhere in the hills, a place that we could restore and create a home and a way of life that would be ours entirely. And that's what we did. By the time we were about 30 we'd bought a ramshackle old place in the hills of Wales and we spent the next 20 years of our life restoring it. And we kept sheep and hens and grew vegetables and two children. It was like the perfect life, the idyllic life.

    Katherine May:

    It sounds absolutely idyllic. Yeah.

    Raynor Winn:

    It absolutely was. It was what we imagined it would be. And we had it. But then sadly at the same time we had a dispute, a financial dispute with a lifetime friend, that ended up in a court case. We were served with a conviction notice from that home and ...

    Katherine May:

    That's not idyllic at all.

    Raynor Winn:

    No, that is not idyllic and it was absolutely devastating. At the time we thought probably the worst thing that could possibly happen to us. But then during the week that we were given to pack up and leave the house, so a week of trying to pack 20 years of our life into boxes, during that week Moth had what we thought was going to be just a routine hospital appointment and turned out to be anything but, because he was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, CBD. That's a neurodegenerative disease that has no treatment, no cure. So just in that one week it was as if our entire lives had been wiped out, everything that we'd worked towards and the whole future that we imagined, just gone in a week.

    Katherine May:

    It's extraordinary isn't it, how life can come at you like that sometimes? It's never just one thing. It seems that these things come in terrible, terrible clusters.

    Raynor Winn:

    Oh yes, don't you find that? Never one thing at times, always everything.

    Katherine May:

    Everything at once. But I mean for you, I always think that both sides of your sense of security were hit at once. Your sense of home and financial stability, which is, seems trivial when you talk about Moth's illness in comparison, but it actually isn't is it? Those things can be incredibly undermining.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because your home is everything that you sort of structure your life around, isn't it? You create a format of your life and it encompasses your home, but then for Moth to become ill as well, that was doubly ...

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That's terrifying. Did they give a kind of time period that they're expecting him to?

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah. So at the time they said we'd probably be lucky if it was two years, most of that would be a rapid decline into poor health, really so ...

    Katherine May:

    Terrifying and from nothing really. From him seeming completely fine, you were given his vision of this future that you couldn't quite comprehend.

    Raynor Winn:

    Absolutely. I mean, he'd had a problem with his shoulder and we thought it was because he'd fallen through the barn roof and we were expecting them to say, "Well it's ligament damage and we'll just sew you back together and that'll be that." But then it wasn't. It was an absolute shock.

    Katherine May:

    So reading from that, you packed up the whole house.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And then what?

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes, we got the whole house was packed. It was the very, very last moment. The bailiffs were knocking at the door waiting to change the lock and we were hiding under the stairs. It wasn't that we were hiding under the stairs thinking some miracle was going to happen and we weren't going to have to leave. It was just, we weren't ready. Just weren't ready to take that very last step over the threshold just knowing that we were never, ever go back. Just hanging onto that last minute of some kind of security, normality, safety, call it what you like, I don't know.

    But it was in that moment that I spotted a book in a packing case that hadn't gone out of the door and it was Mark Wallington's 500 mile Walkies. It's the story of Mark Wallington is a young man who walks around the South West Coast Path with a dog that he's borrowed from a friend and a rucksack that he borrowed from someone else, and walks for what he seems to describe as 500 miles of the South West Coast Path. And just in that moment, that horrible desperate moment, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. Just fill a rucksack and go for a walk.

    Katherine May:

    Have you always been a spontaneous kind of a person? Because I'm not. And so I can't imagine making that decision at that point.

    Raynor Winn:

    Spontaneous. I don't know. Maybe there was always something of that in me somewhere. I don't know. I looked up, I saw Moth that first time and I just knew I'd be with him forever. Other odd moments in my life, maybe spontaneous, but I was 50 for goodness's sake. How spontaneous are most of us at 50? Not very. But just then, there, everything had gone. The whole construct of our life had gone. It was the last moments, the last threads of hanging on to some sort of normality. So I think then, when you take everything away, then anything becomes possible. And maybe even if you are the biggest planner in the world, which I think I've probably become quite a planner, then you can change in those situations. You can just become something else without even planning to do so.

    Katherine May:

    It's amazing. So let's talk about the path, because we both know it intimately, you more than me because you slept along the way. What were your first impressions? What were those first few days like of walking?

    Raynor Winn:

    Well I think you've been there. You know what it's like. You can plan as much as you like, you can read the guide books, you can read other people's blogs, but nothing compares to when you get there and you stand there in Minehead and you look at the start of the path and it heads up that cliff through the woods and you realize just how steep it is, how difficult it's going to be. And you stand there and you think what on earth am I doing?

    Katherine May:

    You tend to think that walking is fine. You think I can walk. I can walk anywhere? And the South West Coast Path very quickly tells you that you can't walk anywhere. That actually it takes you hours to get a mile sometimes. And it hurts so much.

    Raynor Winn:

    Oh, it hurts from the first step to the very last, it's just pain. But it's about getting used to the pain isn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. You get used to the pain and you develop techniques I think, don't you? I mean, I became a better walker, but it took me a long time and I just hated it for quite a while.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes. That's it. You are absolutely right when you say you think you can walk. Well, we all think we can walk don't we? And you might just go for casual 10 mile walk at the weekend and feel great. But when you put that rucksack on your back on your back and you head up that ... It's a rollercoaster isn't it that path?

    Katherine May:

    Literally, yes.

    Raynor Winn:

    No sooner have you climbed up onto a headland, you're back down to sea level again. Just goes on and on all day, every day. It's really ...

    Katherine May:

    And it's often raining while that's happening. I mean, let's be blunt. The sun does not shine on it for a lot of the year.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well, we were, I don't know how whether you would describe it as lucky or not, but for quite a large proportion of our walk, it wasn't just hot. It was intensely hot. It was a year when it was climbing up to about 38 degrees some days. And on the north coast, there's hardly any shelter after you get past Clovelly, it sort of becomes just bare headlands and there's hardly any shelter. So it was tricky in parts that's for sure. Seemed to be an awful lot of dehydration going on.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I was the opposite. I was experiencing flooded paths and lashing rain and wind. It seems that it gets you either way.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well, we did have some storms. We had some incredible storms and that path, when it gets wet, it becomes like ice. It just turns to sort of slime under your feet doesn't it? You could [inaudible 00:17:40]. It's very tricky to walk when it's wet, especially.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I mean, there's a very real risk of falling down a massive cliff into the sea for quite a lot of the time, I think.

    Raynor Winn:

    Time, yeah. You could fall into the sea. There could be a landslide and you could [inaudible 00:17:55] into the sea. You could be blown into the sea.

    Katherine May:

    So many different ways it could get you.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah. So many ways.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I'm fascinated by why I love it so much. And you do too I think, I mean we're being negative, but ...

    Raynor Winn:

    Absolutely. There's something so magnetic about it though isn't there? I think there's something, after a few miles, after a few days, that path starts to draw you along doesn't it? There is something, like I say, there's something magical about being on that strip of wilderness, but separate from the ordinary world on one side and that endless horizon of the sea on the other, it's like you're trapped in a world apart.

    Katherine May:

    It really does. It feels very otherworldly and you are not far from civilization because you never really are in the UK, I don't think, but it feels like you step into a different world and it's so utterly absorbing and beautiful but also so physically hard. And that absorbs you too. I'm really interested to know how it helped you to process what was going on being on that path. Did it take your mind off things or did it let your mind go on to things as it were?

    Raynor Winn:

    It's strange thing, isn't it? We started out thinking that we would have lots of time to think, lots of time to talk through how we'd come to that point and how to formulate some kind of future going on. But we found we didn't really talk about anything much at all other than where we were going to sleep that night or where we'd get the next bag of noodles. It became almost like a meditation. I think when you've walked for many hours, it becomes a matter of taking the next step and the next step, and each step becomes a success doesn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Definitely, yeah.

    Raynor Winn:

    Each headland that you manage to get up is a battle won and it becomes your entire focus. And I think that empties your head in lot of ways. And it stops you thinking, because life becomes really immediate. It becomes about, really literally, about that next step. And I think that in itself has the ability to allow your brain to calm. It allows the panic to subside and something far more elemental to take over. And I think the salvation was in that actually.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I can imagine how it would be incredibly comforting. I mean, it puts you back into contact with survival in a different way to the way that we understand it in an everyday sense. You really do feel like you're battling the elements. But there was for me, this feeling, which I think is exactly what you're describing. And I always thought that that was because I was walking alone most of the time. But obviously it happens when you're walking with someone else too, that maybe a few hours in every day, my mind would go into this incredibly quiet space where there weren't even any words left anymore. It was just, yeah, I was just walking. I was just existing and that, I think, is a very difficult place to get to in any other way.

    Raynor Winn:

    I think you're right. I think that's why I describe it like a meditation because that's what you are looking for when you meditate, don't you? So I think that's that element of complete disconnection from everything, but in that emptiness, anything can come can't it? Anything can come. And I think because after hours, you just stop, you stop thinking. As you say, you stop thinking, you stop considering anything and you just be. And there's an incredible sense of release in that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I always say that I would never have come to my autism diagnosis if I hadn't been doing those walks. It opened up a kind of forum in my mind where I could accept a completely new idea about myself and I needed to get past my conscious self to get there. It opened me to new possibilities.

    Raynor Winn:

    I think we'd taken away everything material, more or less everything financial. All the day-to-day ordinary problems of life had gone with that as well. So we weren't concerned about had we paid the council tax or did we need a new wheel on the van. All of that was gone and our lives had gone to a far more, just a mode of survival really. And it was down to a really basic base level of food, shelter, water, warmth, those being the only things that we needed to concern ourselves about.

    Katherine May:

    And you were literally kind of pitching a tent and sleeping along the way. How was that?

    Raynor Winn:

    Oh, well wild camping, because we just couldn't afford camp sites basically, and so to wild camp was the only way we could do it. To start with it was really, really hard, not only just for Moth because he was struggling just to get in and out of the tent every day, but really hard to find somewhere to put the tent, because as you know, on a lot of the path, you can't find a flat spot anywhere. [inaudible 00:23:22] campsite at lunchtime, but by the time, sort of seven, eight o'clock at night, when you're thinking I've really got to stop there, I've got stop, you are on a slope of thistles and gorse for the next three miles and you can't possibly stop at all. So just finding somewhere to put the tent every day was a endeavor. And I've got to say when we started that walk, I really always thought I'd be somewhere near public toilets or some ...

    Katherine May:

    There's no toilets, there's no tele, there's no shops.

    Raynor Winn:

    No shops when you need them. There are never ever toilets when you need them. So dog walkers became my nemesis because they get up too early. Always there when you were trying to, rushing to get out of your tent first thing in the morning, there was always a dog walker outside. But then there was something else really about that wild camping. And I think that was that element of never really knowing where you were going to find yourself. Because often by the time we'd got the tent up at night, it was getting dark and you weren't really 100% aware of where you were. So often you'd wake up in the morning and you'd find that you bring this ... Once we woke up we were in this magical little meadow where there were millions of ladybirds just hatching into [inaudible 00:24:40].

    And there's other days, you got the day we woke on all this wet, foggy headland in a field of cows, but the sun started to break and it was lifting over the horizon and just lighting the headlands one by one towards us. And we could just hear the seals calling to each other in the cove below. I think that's what the wide camping gave us more than anything. It was that real immersion in nature. That real sense of not living alongside nature, but really as part of it.

    Katherine May:

    And I feel like it probably let you do it in the way the path wants you to walk it, in that you can't predict how long anything will take. You can use any formula for crossing contour lines on a map that you like, but I never ever walked at the pace that I ever expected. And I constantly downgraded my expectations of how far I was going to get. And I still routinely didn't make my point that I was planning to finish. And it seems to me that there's a real wisdom to doing what you did along the path, which is just stopping when you need to stop.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well, we had to really. It was the only way, especially with Moth's illness. Some days we might only walk two miles and we'd have to stop and put the tent back up. Other days as time went on and we got a little bit stronger, maybe we were lucky if we did 10 miles a day. So people constantly say, "Oh, what was your average mileage?" I didn't have an average mileage. And people will say, "Well, didn't you do sort of three miles an hour. That's standard walking speed."

    Katherine May:

    No [inaudible 00:26:22].

    Raynor Winn:

    There is no standard walking speed is there on that path?

    Katherine May:

    No. I mean, quite often I was walking for an hour and a half and realized I'd got less than a mile, particularly in Heartland. That was the bit that really got me.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah. We used to say, if we're doing a mile an hour, we're doing well.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, that's so true. But then I kept seeing all these incredibly fit pensioners come yomping past me and people running it. For God's sake. People run the path.

    Raynor Winn:

    Exactly. Yeah. Super fit people yomping by, but luckily usually in the other direction so that's fine.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of the Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode at exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to.patreon.com/ katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    By the time you got to the end of your journey, what had changed for you? What had the walk put in place for you and what world were you looking towards then?

    Raynor Winn:

    I think not only had we changed in so many ways, but we had formulated some sort of structure for how our future would be. Moth had found that actually walking improved his health in ways that he'd had been told were utterly impossible.

    Katherine May:

    Incredible.

    Raynor Winn:

    And that he had gained strength as we'd walked, rather than losing his mobility as we'd been told he would. Because the doctors had told him just don't get too tired and be careful on the stairs. So we've walked ...

    Katherine May:

    So you decided to scale some cliffs instead.

    Raynor Winn:

    Exactly, exactly.

    Katherine May:

    And he's still fit and well now?

    Raynor Winn:

    He has spells when he's really not been as well as he was when we finished the path. But when he gets on a real low, we pack the rucksacks and go for a walk.

    Katherine May:

    What a wonderful thing to have that you can go and go out and make yourself feel better.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes. And that's at the moment, that's the only treatment that we have. So we keep doing that.

    Katherine May:

    Right. But it's wonderful. And I think what's lovely is that you've bought extra time together somehow by going on your mission. That still sounds absolutely crazy to me. I mean, I admire it so much, but I know I can never have done it.

    Raynor Winn:

    I'm sure you could. I'm sure you could.

    Katherine May:

    No I'd have been at home by that time.

    Raynor Winn:

    Your husband picking you up in the evening. You would do it. I know you would.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I'm not one of the world's campers. Tell me about ...

    Raynor Winn:

    Camping.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, no. Yeah. I would do one of those lovely safari tent things.

    Raynor Winn:

    [inaudible 00:29:33] things.

    Katherine May:

    I do like a duvet you know.

    Raynor Winn:

    I'm partial to one myself.

    Katherine May:

    You decided to write about your journey. And so many people have read the beautiful book that ensued. That must have changed your world in ways you never could have expected. For a start, the love and enthusiasm for the book must have really struck you.

    Raynor Winn:

    Absolutely. I mean, I wrote the book. It wasn't really a book for people to read. I wrote it for Moth because I wanted to make a record of that walk because it seemed so important to us and he was starting to lose his memory of bits of it. So I wanted to capture it and keep it for him so when he did start to forget it, I could put it in front of him and say, "Look what we did. Remember. [inaudible 00:30:28] keep trying. You've got to keep trying."

    Katherine May:

    But instead ...

    Raynor Winn:

    Instead, yeah, my daughter read it before he did. And she said, "Mum, you ought to do something with this." And then eventually I did.

    Katherine May:

    So life changed for you for a lot. And maybe I'm, I'm guessing, has given you a lot of security that didn't ever look possible for you when you were writing it.

    Raynor Winn:

    I can certainly pay the rent now, which is always a pleasure.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that always feels good.

    Raynor Winn:

    You have to pay your bills, but I can pay my bills now. And it always makes me smile when I pay the electric bill. There's something not quite right about that isn't there?

    Katherine May:

    No, I think there's huge gratitude. My husband, before I met him, had been made effectively homeless when he was in his late teens and he was thrown out of home and he ended up in a very difficult financial situation where he had caught county court judgments because he was 16 and trying to rent a flat with no money. And I remember when we were first together, he appreciated so many things that everybody else takes for granted, like when we owned our first washing machine, he'd go in and say goodnight to it every night. And I think it's really good to feel like that about the world around you. There's great gratitude there.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes. Yeah. I think that will never leave me. I think it's really sort of ingrained in me now, that sense of knowing just how things are different, but I don't stop feeling lucky or extremely grateful more than ...

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, even ordinary things. And you've become a fantastic advocate for homelessness. Sorry, an advocate for homelessness sounds terrible. You've you've become an advocate for people who become homeless I should say.

    Raynor Winn:

    Well, I think it's really important because it's very easy for many people to regard homeless people as just a problem in the doorway rather than the individuals with the individual stories that they are.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:32:35].

    Raynor Winn:

    Exactly. I've been given this incredible platform, which a book does, which are in itself is a bit of a surprise. But yeah, if I don't talk about homelessness in that situation, then I feel as if I'm letting people down because I would've hoped when I was homeless that people would be trying their best to raise awareness if nothing else.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely. It's an obligation in lots of ways, but a kind of warm obligation to be able to use your voice.

    Raynor Winn:

    Oh absolutely. To be able to actually do something, if it's only to change one person's opinion of what homelessness is, then that's a step along the way to actually solving the problem. I mean, we've just been through this incredible time when we did actually solve the problem of homelessness. Just for those few short weeks, we did not have a homeless problem.

    Katherine May:

    Incredibly quickly as well.

    Raynor Winn:

    Which just goes to prove that it is absolutely doable and it is all about prioritizing and what we as the country prioritize.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. So important.

    Raynor Winn:

    So now all those homeless people who have found shelter and they've found some sort of structure to their days, are very, very shortly going to be back out on the street, back to square one.

    Katherine May:

    It's extraordinary isn't it that we have the tools to solve these things, and yet we choose not to essentially? There's no other way to think about it. I don't think,

    Raynor Winn:

    But this time has shown good it was always solvable and it was always possible to solve it virtually overnight, but we chose not to.

    Katherine May:

    And we go on doing that.

    Raynor Winn:

    And we've chosen to put them back out in the streets and that's a low point for anyone who's made that choice, I think.

    Katherine May:

    Here, here. So to finish, you were due to release a new book in the middle of lockdown and you've decided to delay it, but that's coming in September?

    Raynor Winn:

    Yes. September 3rd. It should have been April, but due to lockdown and the amount of publicity that was booked for the months after release, it just wouldn't have been possible. So yes it's September 3rd, but quite excited about that really. It's really a book that it's called The Wild Silence and it follows on really from the Salt Path. So although it seems like idyllic to find yourself going from homelessness into a home again, I found it quite a difficult adjustment and it's coming to terms with that adjustment in life and a really sort of closer look to our connection to the natural world and how that's informed our lives and is now forming our future. Not bad without giving too much away is it?

    Katherine May:

    That's very good. Yeah. You said you couldn't give too much away, but that sounds absolutely amazing. And it strikes me already that you're talking about those wintry moments that take you by surprise, I guess. Those times when you think everything should be fine and that's often the bits that take you down the most.

    Raynor Winn:

    Exactly. And that's a real parallel with your book, Wintering.

    Katherine May:

    We're always on slightly the same wavelength you and I, I think.

    Raynor Winn:

    So we're must have a chat about the next one when we get off.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. No, I'm not telling you anything.

    Raynor Winn:

    Yeah. I think those moments in life when you expect everything to be okay and they're unexpectedly not okay, can be really hard to work your way through. And I think this book is about one of those moments and the strengths of the natural world to pull you through and how we are all really closely connected to the natural world, whether we recognize it or we don't.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, Raynor, it's been so lovely to speak to you and I cannot wait to read it. I will be first in line at Waterstones in September, if indeed Waterstones is open by then. We can all hope right? Fingers crossed. But I look forward to us sharing a stage on a literary festival talking about having written a very similar book again.

    Raynor Winn:

    It's going to happen. I know it is. Thank you Katherine. It's been lovely to talk to you again.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you so much.

Show Notes

Author Raynor Winn talks to Katherine May about the losing her home when her husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness, and finding new life from having nothing.

Raynor Winn has captured a multitude of hearts with her book, The Salt Path, which recounts the time she lost her home just as her husband received a terminal diagnosis. With nothing to lose, they set off to walk the South West Coast Path carrying nothing but a tent.

Here Raynor reflects on that transformative time that redefined the meaning of home - and gives a welcome update on Moth’s health. We also hear about her book, The Wild Silence.

I adored talking to Raynor about our shared love of the South West Coast Path, as I always do :)

References from this episode:

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Leah Hazard on changing career after having her first child

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Leah Hazard on changing career after having her first child

———
While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners. This week, I talk to Leah Hazard, NHS midwife extraordinaire and author of Hard Pushed, part memoir of Leah’s life on the labour ward, and part exploration of the current state of the profession.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I am speaking to you on a beautiful, cool morning. Thankfully, after days of intense heat, something broke in the middle of the night. We didn't get a storm. We got some thunder and lightning, a few drops of rain, nothing much to speak of, but when I woke up this morning, the air was cool, and I went and sat outside until I got goosebumps. It was heaven.

    I'm really rubbish in the heat. I come from a family of heat lovers. I am a heat hater. I just cannot regulate my own body temperature, but today there's this amazing wind blowing. You might be able to hear it a little bit around the mic. Ah, it feels a little bit like a hot hand dryer, but there's something refreshing about it too. It's lovely. It's so weird how micro-seasonal we are, how we're affected on a moment by moment basis by just one or two days of weather. By the end of yesterday, I felt done. I felt like I couldn't cope with anything much at all, and I was emotional and self-pitying, and it just seemed devastating, and today everything seems okay again. Everything seems manageable, although clearly we have, as a world, an awful lot of work to do to try and push back against these incredibly hot days.

    So, I'm on the beach. I've just been walking along the tide line, listening to the trickle of water that drains off the beach when the tide's low. It's such a tiny sound. I love to stand and just listen to it just carefully for a little while. It's beneath everything else. It feels like a secret. There are some good parts of summer. I'm not entirely against it as a concept. I just like the cool bits, that's all, the shade.

    So, today we have our second re-up episode from season one, remastered and presented for your delectation and pleasure because I think lots of people missed some of those season one episodes. Lots of you have come later which is great, hello, welcome, but there was some great stuff there. They're all my favorites really, but we asked our Patreons and our listeners who they might like to hear from again, and this was what was voted for.

    So, today, I'm sharing my conversation with the amazing Leah Hazard who is a writer, a midwife, and I've just been reading a proof copy of her new book, Womb, all about the uterus which is such, I was about to say a fertile subject area, ha ha ha ha, but it's such a fantastically interesting grounds to write about and I've learned so much, but also I'm just loving the way she writes as I did in all her previous work that I've read. So, you can count me as a fan, but actually, one of the lovely things that might not be obvious about The Wintering Session is that some of my guests have become friends after we spoke and Leah's one of them. She's one of the good guys in this world, and I love to have a little chat with her, although we've never met in person. That's the COVID world for you. We keep saying that one day we will actually get together in a room and talk to each other face to face which would just be a miracle, but maybe next year.

    Anyway, I commend this episode to you. I loved recording it. I love listening back to it, and I think it just has such a lot to say about how we grow and change, and how we know when we can't take anymore. See what you think. I'll see you a bit later.

    Today, I'm excited to welcome Leah Hazard, the best-selling author of Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story, and practicing NHS midwife. It's really great to speak to you, Leah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, it's great to speak to you too. Thank you so much for having me.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I'm really delighted to. We've been chatting for a very long time, haven't we, and it's really nice to hear your voice.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, definitely.

    Katherine May:

    We were just discussing that Leah's accent is Scottish Connecticut which is quite a fascinating mix there.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a bit niche. It's quite unusual, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It's good to have your own [inaudible 00:06:11] there.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I guess so, yes.

    Katherine May:

    So, I came across you, Leah, when I read your book Hard Pushed which interestingly, I read just after I'd read Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, okay.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it was quite an interesting contrast because I'd read This is Going to Hurt in the week that my husband was in hospital with a ruptured appendix, and I'd actually found it immensely comforting because I felt, I was listening to it on audio book driving to and from the hospital, and I felt like it put me in contact with the people who were behind the scenes who, if I'm honest, I was completely frustrated with at the time, the nurses and doctors who didn't seem to be making him much better. He was suffering a lot, and I would've been much more angry had I not been able to listen to that.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, that's good.

    Katherine May:

    But in the weeks that followed, a kind of nother tide washed over me, and that was my feminist consciousness reemerging because I actually had quite a hard time when I was pregnant and giving birth and I felt like women's voices were absent from that book in a way that I don't expect you to reply to because I know you're [inaudible 00:07:19].

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But when I read your book, I punched the air because it was still such great storytelling, so warm and funny and moving, but also, you are a kick-arse advocate for women in the maternity ward. Is that fair to say?

    Leah Hazard:

    Thank you. I mean, I wouldn't be the best person to answer that, but I hope so. I think that's the job of every midwife really, and certainly people have asked me about that book, and I have read it, and maybe that's where I should leave it. No, I mean, I can understand why some people have really enjoyed it and why it's been a huge success, and I can also understand why some people have been upset by it and have felt that maybe another voice was needed. So, I'm pleased if I can provide that voice or another voice, and yeah, I think it's really important in anything I write to demonstrate respect for women, and that doesn't mean that we have to be worthy all the time and very sort of virtue signaling and all the rest, but we can have a laugh, but we have to be respectful and mindful of who's at the center of that story, and it's women. So, yeah, I hope that's come through.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and I think it really does come through. I think that from the other side, people are fascinated by midwives because you are present at one of the most dramatic and yet entirely normal moments of human life, but when I say normal, it's different for everybody every time, and I think that there's this sense that you guys kind of look into a space that most of us don't really understand, even if we've been in it.

    Leah Hazard:

    Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's completely true, and it strikes me all the time, and it should strike me all the time. When I'm with a woman who's laboring or who's having issues in pregnancy, for whatever reason, I kind of have to stop myself sometimes and think, "What, they let me do this? This is really intimate and visceral and special and risky." I don't just mean physically risky. I mean emotionally risky, and yeah, it's a huge privilege to be in that role. So, I'm very grateful for that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It would be hard not to mention at the moment that we are still in the middle of lockdown. I suspect we will be in some kind of lockdown or some kind of pandemic alertness when this podcast goes out, unless something changes very dramatically, and I think it would be remiss of me not to ask you about how you're finding it at the moment. Is it becoming business as normal or does everything still feel very strange?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yes and no. At the beginning, by which I mean sort of middle of March to end of March, we were anticipating this huge tsunami of sick women because we were looking at what was happening in the rest of Europe and even starting to happen down in London, and we thought, "Right, okay." I'm up in Glasgow, and we thought, "Okay, this is coming and this is going to be horrific." And every day in the hospital, things were changing in terms of there was talk of reorganizing wards and new pathways and protocols. It did become very quiet for a couple of weeks in the triage department where I work because the only women coming in were women who really needed to come in. There wasn't so much of the kind of worried well and all the other. Probably a good part of our business is people who actually are completely fine.

    And then, yes, we have had some sick women, not as many as we feared, but some, but on the whole, no, the workload, the sort of quality and quantity of what we're seeing now is right up to where it was, so very, very busy. So, my last shift was Friday night, and it was just myself and another midwife in the ward as it always is at night in triage, and I think we had eight or nine women in labor, and maybe another five or six women with different things that they were coming in with.

    Katherine May:

    Plenty.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's busy, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Plenty to be doing with. That's actually a really great point to talk about how you became a midwife because you weren't always, were you? You had a whole career before this.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I had a sort of mini career. I had the beginnings of a career. I worked in telly which was as surprising to me as it was to anybody else. So, I was a researcher for sort of arts and factual programming and documentaries at BBC Scotland, and I worked for an independent company for a while as well, and when I had my first daughters, she's now 17, I took some time off, and then I came back part-time, and I could see very quickly that I would hit the glass ceiling very fast and that the only women who seemed to succeed in telly at that time were women who either didn't have children or had clearly made a conscious decision not to spend very much time at home, and really to be at work at all hours and really available all the time, and that wasn't really for me.

    At the same time, I'd had this huge life-changing experience of being pregnant and giving birth, and it kind of blew my world apart in a way. Nothing about it was anything I had prepared for or anticipated, and I think any woman who becomes a mother will say that that kind of draws your priorities into quite sharp relief and changes how you feel about things, but for me, it was really, I don't want to say like an identity crisis, but it was an identity challenge for sure.

    Katherine May:

    So, talk me through that time. I mean, I guess media jobs are full of people who are ambitious and have always wanted to be in them, you know?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And therefore, are often willing to make whatever sacrifices it takes. And so, you're back in that world with a tiny baby and kind of thinking, "How an earth do I confront this? What do I do?"

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Well, I think a big part of it for me was that the birth to begin with didn't go the way I had expected or was told it would happen. Silly me. I had long labor and then I had an emergency section, and that was obviously really difficult in terms of recovery, and breastfeeding didn't work, and I wasn't loving every minute of my life as I kind of thought maybe I would. Loved my baby obviously, and wouldn't change that for the world, but I just felt a bit kind of exploded. My time wasn't my own. My body was completely different, and at the same time, as the sort of weeks and months went on, I was meeting other women who had had babies, whether we'd been in antenatal classes together or met them through other groups and things, and everybody that I met seemed to have had an awful time, and I just thought, "Why is it like this? We were not sold this experience. This was not what we were told about."

    So, and I really started to think, "Oh, surely there's some way this can change. Can I change it? Is there some way that this can be made better?" And I did actually at that time start to think about retraining, but I had just gone through four years of university in America and a year of master's degree studies in the UK, and the thought of going back to sit in a classroom and being told what to do, it just was not on. That was not the time in my life to be doing that. So, I did go back to work and then I realized, no, this was not for me.

    So, I did think about midwifery, but I then found out about doulas. For anyone listening, who doesn't know what a doula is, it's just like a birth partner really, and I thought, "Yeah, that's something I could do and I can work it around my family."

    Katherine May:

    How interesting.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. So, it's just a lay birth partner. It's like a cheerleader for pregnant and birthing people. It's just emotional and practical support. It's completely non-clinical. It's a very old role, although we're calling it something different now. Yeah, so I did some training around that, and I was a doula for six years supporting women in home births and hospital births, and doing some postnatal support as well.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, that was kind of-

    Katherine May:

    It's like a halfway house almost of becoming a midwife. It's probably quite a good early preparation, I suppose. You get used to being in that space.

    Leah Hazard:

    It was, yeah. You get used to being in that space. You have that fundamental respect for women and commitment to advocating for women without any of the clinical responsibility which sometimes I look at and think, "Hmm, that was nice." But ultimately, with that, I did get to the point where I thought, "No, I want the whole package. I want to be able to provide all the care." And I had another child, so I decided, yeah, that maybe now is the time to go back to school. So, that's what I did, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    So, how old were your children when you retrained because that must have been really tricky?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it was pretty horrendous at the start, to be honest. It was a crazy thing to do. I get emails all the time and messages and things from women saying, "Oh, I've got two young children. Should I go back and retrain?" And I'm like, "Hmm, yeah, that sounds great." So, it was 10 years ago this year that I started training, so my kids would've been seven and three.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    I'm not going to lie, that was hard. That was really challenging because they just knew me as somebody who was around most of the time. I was on call for births from time to time, but mostly that was when they were sleeping or times when I could sort of melt away without too much disruption. So, yeah, it was a huge adjustment for all of us, but we got there in the end.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. I mean, I guess it's the kind of job I'd be too scared to do because I am terrified of, I don't know, doing the wrong thing which is why I hide behind a desk and write, and I still get terrified even then.

    Leah Hazard:

    I'm pretty scared of that too though, to be fair.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, I think probably having a healthy respect for that is good, but I imagine that those first years when you're a trained midwife and you're practicing on your own as being quite tense actually. Is that just me projecting that idea onto it or is that how it is?

    Leah Hazard:

    No, not at all, absolutely terrifying. I think when you're a student, and most midwifery degrees are three years, you sort of do develop some confidence, of course, and you need to over the three years, and then the fear becomes real just when you're about to qualify and you think, "Oh, I'm about to be thrown out of the nest and now it's me," and then you do. One day, you're just chucked in a room with a woman, as simple as that, and it's like, "Right, okay, you do it. Off you go."

    Katherine May:

    Off you go. I can't imagine the fear. I didn't train as a teacher. I did the on the job learning route, the graduate training program to become a secondary teacher. And so, there was I, I think I was 24, and what happens when you do that is the first day you go into a classroom and you teach, and you've had no training or experience whatsoever, and I can remember that moment of standing in the staff room and my legs not wanting to walk me to my first class.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I can imagine.

    Katherine May:

    I was so scared because I taught sixth form. I was so conscious of how old they were and how close to my age they were, and they knew that, and they were ever so nice to me, but after a week, they said, "We knew you were new because when you wrote your name on the board, it was enormous."

    Leah Hazard:

    Rookie mistake, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's obviously really obvious. But yeah, so I can only imagine what it must be like for something that's much more life and death than teaching some A level student psychology.

    Leah Hazard:

    It's scary, and I think also it just depends what the working culture is like around you. Yeah, I mean all hospitals and birth centers and things are different, but the place where I work does have an element of sort of macho, although it's all women, sort of tough talk, it's quite intimidating, or at least it can be to a newly qualified midwife, and your face has to fit and your behavior has to tow a certain line, and it really is like living on another planet. As soon as you go through that sort of air lock of the hospital doors, you're in the zone. You're in another place. I'm seven years qualified this year, I still kind of think, "Mm, will I fit in at some point?" I know I can do the job, and I have a great team that I work with, and we all support each other, but that's, I think, as scary as the actual clinical side of it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, I think the thing that you most want when you're the person giving birth is to look at your midwife and to see certainty and confidence because I mean, I suppose it must be different for women who have multiple children, but I've only done it once, and I just wanted someone to tell me what to do because I had no clue, and I had deliberately avoided the books because I thought, I just didn't think they'd help, and I still, I'm not sure that was the wrong decision actually.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, well, they didn't do me any favors, so you probably did the right thing. But yeah, it's interesting. Every woman has a different way of responding to that challenge. So, some women do want that really kind of firm hand and tell me what to do, what would you do, what should I do now. Some women don't want to communicate at all really, and that's completely fine.

    Katherine May:

    Oh really? That's fascinating.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, for sure. Uh-huh. And for some, you just sort of feel your way through it together, and you really have to develop a knack for sussing out very quickly what that woman's needs are, and sometimes you do it and sometimes you can't, and that's okay. You can only try your best.

    Katherine May:

    Do you get sworn at a lot?

    Leah Hazard:

    Sometimes. Very seldom. It's usually the guys that are on the sharp end of the swearing. But now, I have to say, at the minute, and I think this is the case for most units around the UK, men aren't actually allowed in our department.

    Katherine May:

    Right, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    And I'm not really going to go into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's much calmer, and there's much less swearing, I will say. So, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Interesting. Are women kind of coming out the other end of it commenting on what it was like without their... Or partner, sorry, I shouldn't say husband. That's a terrible thing to say really in 2020.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, that's okay.

    Katherine May:

    But are women kind of saying about whether they wish they were there or whether they... Because my mother chose not to have my dad there when she gave birth, and I really did reflect on it when it came to my time because I kind of thought a bit of me just wants to get on with it on my own, you know?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. I mean, ideally, women aren't in our department for too long because we really just assess them and give them some support before they go to labor ward, the partners can join them there. But yeah, I think it's very subjective. I think some women do seem grateful to just have the focus of the midwife, and there's no extraneous distraction or having to manage somebody else's fear, somebody else's expectation, but obviously, some partners are great. Maybe they've been laboring at home together for days before they've even come in, and the partner's been a great support, and then all of a sudden, that isn't there. So, it's interesting. It's going to be really interesting when this all, if this all ever settles down to see how people feel about that aspect of things, whether that will change.

    Katherine May:

    I think there's going to be so many reckonings, and I think we are going to be fascinated by it for years to come actually, and I think it will change us, but none of us know how yet it's still all floating up in the air. I'm endlessly reading about all these different experiences, and just hearing things from friends, terrible things, amazing things. It's such a huge moment in human history.

    Leah Hazard:

    I think it's really interesting, just to connect it back to your book, that a lot of people are looking at their experience just now and thinking, "Am I wintering? Am I enduring this really horrible thing?" And of course, some people are much more than you or I.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, absolutely, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    But some people are also asking themselves, "Do I kind of like it? Am I kind of enjoying parts of this or maybe learning things about myself?' So, if you have the privilege of perspective to be able to ask those questions, yeah, it's pretty interesting.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it is, it's this moment of pause, I think, where I always talk about, I don't know if everyone will relate to this piece, but the piece of art by Cornelia Parker, the exploded shed, and I remember going to see that when it was in the Turner Prize, I don't know, probably 20 years ago or more now, and you walk into a room, and you feel like time has stopped because there's just a shed that literally she had someone explode that she suspended all the pieces of it hanging in the air around you, and for me, it was an uncanny moment where I literally felt like I'd walked into stopped time.

    I think for me, I keep coming back to that as a metaphor for moments like this and those wintering moments as well which is that time has paused for a while. Nothing's happening, and in that space, our fears can completely overwhelm us, and they so often do, but also, we can reflect and think about changes we want to make. It's a sort of very revolutionary moment with both good and bad coming in, and I think that's where loads of stuff's happening at the moment, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. And I think as women and as mothers so often, I'm sure you probably like me have had times in your life where you've thought, "Oh god, I wish this would just stop." There's just too much to do, and we have to do homework, and cook dinners, and go to music lessons, and manage our own stuff, and get our own things done, and try and make some money, and I wish it would just stop, and now it's like, "Hmm, okay. It's all stopped. What can we make of this?"

    Katherine May:

    Let's watch the more Teen Titans go.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Some of this stuff we've been doing is just kind of getting by day to day, and I think for the first month, apart from going to work as a midwife, on my days off, I just allowed myself to just vegetate and just had no expectations of myself or my family or trying to be productive really. I just let go, and actually-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It did feel like pressure's off in a lot of ways, I think, and that's really unusual for me. I normally feel very like I'm supposed to be getting out there and doing this and that, and there's nothing to do. There is absolutely nothing that can be done. I was about to say it's luxurious, but it's not even that. It just is. It's just a time when we are acting, making it up as we go along, and there's something about quality of that, that I'm quite liking if that's a terrible thing to say.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I feel so conflicted because obviously this is a crisis that we wouldn't wish on ourselves or anyone in any way.

    Katherine May:

    Oh goodness, no.

    Leah Hazard:

    Having looked after women who are ill and seeing the disruption of the world in general, I wish it wasn't happening, but at the same time, I kind of really like that all I need to do in a day is maybe I can get up early and do some writing if I'm up to it. If I'm not, fine. I can spend lots of time making nice food. I can eat lots of nice food. I don't have to run my kids around to a million and one classes. And then the days when I'm at work, I go to work. I help women. I come home.

    Katherine May:

    It's simpler.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I'm kind of liking that. And yesterday we went out and about in the sort of area where we live, and lockdown here has eased slightly, although not as much as where you are, and it was really, yeah, not quite-

    Katherine May:

    It truly has eased here, yeah, in Whitstable.

    Leah Hazard:

    Well, what was weird for me yesterday was there weren't sort of hoards of people, but there were lots of people out walking about and sort of queuing for coffees and things and lying out in the park, and kind of made me a little bit uncomfortable, and I kind of wanted to go back to how it was, and I know that's awful because that's not... The reason for why it was the way it was is not a good one.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's terrible, but no, I know exactly what you mean, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    But I think that's why I've kind of stayed in the house all day today.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I actually, I remember at the beginning of it, I felt really restricted and I thought, "What am I going to do without being able to go out at weekends and do this and that?" And now I think, "Well, what did we used to do at weekends?" I can't imagine what we were so busy with. I think I've quite happily jettisoned a lot of rushing around that I won't go back to now. I'm very glad to do it. Mm. So, back to you. Sorry, it's hard to have a conversation at the moment without going into pandemic talk.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, completely, completely. There, we've done it. We've nailed it now.

    Katherine May:

    I hope this will sound quaint in a year's time, and everyone will be out raving again. I don't know. I won't be, but then I never was in the first place.

    We'll be back to Remona in a minute, but I just wanted to take a short pause to tell you about a workshop I'm holding in Rockport, Maine, I know, American soil, on the 8th of August this year. I will be working with the brilliant Elissa Altman to deliver a day retreat, courtesy of Barnswallow Books, and the workshop is called On Comfort. It's a whole day to join us and explore what comfort, sustenance, and homecoming mean to you.

    So, I'll be working with the group first to explore feelings of being at home, of being comfortable and cozy, and how we can create an environment that makes us feel safe, and from which we can springboard into the work we need to do in the outside world. Elissa will be working to explore what food means, the idea of comfort food but reimagined. So, thinking about how we can truly sustain our minds and bodies through the act of cooking, preparing, and eating food which I know is such a complicated issue for so many of us. There will be a light lunch included, and at the end of the day, a lovely communal supper so we can all get together and break bread, or something else if you're gluten free. We know how it goes.

    There's a link in my bio to explore more about the workshops, but do take a look quickly because I know they're going to book up quickly. It's the only workshop I'm running on American soil this year and it's my first ever. So, if you can come, please do. I'd love to see you there. Okay, back to Remona.

    So, one of the things that comes across really strongly in your book is your engagement with the different women that you come across and meet, and their different stories and lives and hardships. How difficult is it for you to leave that behind when you come home? Does it prey on your mind, or are you able to have that separation?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it can be quite difficult. I mean, you were saying you have the fear of doing things wrong, and I think that's the fear that follows every midwife or every healthcare practitioner when they've left the hospital. There's always the nagging feeling of, oh, did I sign for that drug that I gave, or maybe I sent her to labor ward at the wrong time, or was that examination actually right, or maybe she was only two centimeters, and I thought she was eight centimeters, and I've done it all wrong, and I'm a horrible midwife. Everybody, I think, feels that way on their days off. But some women's stories obviously affect me on a deeper level, and some of those are the ones that I wrote about.

    I think there's this saying that every doctor has their own personal graveyard in their head because it's the patients they couldn't save, and I think that midwives carry a similar thing, not a graveyard, thankfully, but a little collection of women who have really touched them and made them question things, maybe we've connected with them, or maybe they've really challenged us in some way, and I definitely have that, and I definitely think of those women often. I think that's normal. I think that's healthy.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think that's human, actually. I think that's not a negative thing necessarily. I think if your work didn't leave a mark on you, it wouldn't seem right somehow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. The trick is just not letting it overwhelm you, I guess, and there certainly have been times on days off when all I can think about is something that's happened during my last shift, and it really, really niggles me, but that is just part of being an adult in the world, I guess. We all have things. We all have to encounter other people in our work generally or just in our daily lives, and we all have upsets.

    Katherine May:

    It's sad but true. Yes, we do.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean, I don't know, maybe for me, it's fair to say at times the stakes are maybe a little bit higher, but still, we all go through that in our own way, and the trick is just not to let it rankle, and to try and work it out somehow. So, I'm still learning about that.

    Katherine May:

    But there was a point that you wrote about where the stress began to really get to you, I think.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. I mean, as I sort of went through the first few years of my career, I work in a really busy hospital. We have about six and a half thousand births a year.

    Katherine May:

    That's an incredible number, isn't it?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a lot of babies.

    Katherine May:

    That's a lot of day, isn't it?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a lot of day and we don't always have the staffing levels that I would like. I think it's okay to say that. As a working midwife, quite often your own needs come way down the pecking order in terms of what has to get done that day and what can get done, and most of my career I've worked in its triage department which is very busy and fast-paced. I describe it as A&E for pregnant people so it's always changing, it's always acute which is part of what makes it interesting and exciting, but also sometimes what makes it impossible.

    So, yeah, I wrote about that sort of gradual feeling of pressure building, and I wrote about one particular night when it was a really busy shift, and the women just kept coming and coming and coming, and the hospital was full, and there were discussions about closing the hospital to new patients, and that wasn't done for one reason and another, and just became untenable, and I had what I now know, I can see it was a panic attack which probably sounds pretty boring and run of the mill to most people, but-

    Katherine May:

    They're never boring and run of the mill when you're having them though.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, they're not, and it was the first time at work that I just felt completely paralyzed, and that is deeply shameful for somebody who goes to work so she can help people and put herself last and always be competent and always be effective and efficient and safe, and I couldn't. There have been times before and since that night when I've been able to kind of pull myself back from that edge and kind of pull it together and just keep going, but I just couldn't that night, and I had to leave.

    Katherine May:

    But that's the problem with feelings when you're pushing them down. They just, at some point, will all come flooding up when you don't want them to.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and I guess I'd probably been doing that for a while on other occasions as well, and that's why on that night, I was not in control, and I had to go home. Yeah, I mean, the only word that keeps coming into my mind when I think about that is shame which is ridiculous rationally because I know I shouldn't be ashamed and I shouldn't be embarrassed and that's just normal, and I do all kinds of this other sort of advocacy around mental health to tell other people that it's fine, but I was not in that place on that night. It took a long time for me to accept that that was okay, and actually, looking back that night probably was kind of transformative in how I treat myself and look after myself.

    And then I did something really silly and I wrote about it, and told everyone that it happened, and that kind of maybe in a way diffused it a bit because at first, when I thought about writing the book, I thought, "Right, this is just going to be a book about women's stories and midwifery in general. It's not going to be about me because that's boring and nobody wants to hear that." But then the more I started writing, the more I thought, "No, I'm actually doing my colleagues an injustice if I'm not honest about the pressures we're all under because I'm certainly not the only person ever to have had a night like that."

    Katherine May:

    And I think it's hardest for carers and people who see themselves as the person that sorts out the problem. I think it's often hardest for people like you to acknowledge when you're suffering yourself. You want to be the person that carries on solving it. That's part of your identity somehow, and it's very undermining when you have to admit you can't cope.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, absolutely, because all of a sudden, all those skills, it doesn't matter if you can make up an IV pump of a really fancy antibiotic, it doesn't matter if you can suture somebody's perineum, or catch a baby, or guide someone through a 12-hour labor. It's totally irrelevant if you are then sat frozen on a chair in the tea room, unable to even chew your dinner. I mean, that's kind of where it was. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But I mean, I had to learn this myself. I didn't have that one moment of crisis, but by the time I got to have my autism diagnosis when I was 39, I had been through decades of panic attacks, anxiety, dropping out of major things in life, jobs, university, I tried to drop out university, they didn't let me, damn it, but I gave it a bloody good go, missing out on all sorts of experiences. What was really transformative for me was to be able to say, finally, after all those years, I couldn't cope with what life was throwing at me, and until then, I was so resistant to being able to say that because if I was modeling myself as a neurotypical person, then there was no reason why I shouldn't be coping with it. What was wrong with me? I mean, I'd literally been to counselors where I'd had a few months of talking to them. They finally leaned over and said, "Is there an abuse story here?"

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh no. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    They were kind of waiting to find out what the hell was wrong with me.

    Leah Hazard:

    Like the big reveal.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because I was acting like somebody who was carrying terrible trauma that hadn't happened, and so I was kind of a mystery, but having that moment of revelation has changed a lot for me. It doesn't mean to say that I cope perfectly with everything, but I've learned to let myself off the hook, and it kind of works actually. It kind of works to say, "Do you know what? This is just more input than you can cope with at the moment, and you need to go and sit down in a quiet room and recover yourself."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, definitely. I'm sure if you had a friend who was feeling that way or your son was feeling that way, that would be the first thing you would say.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Leah Hazard:

    You would be so kind to them and you'd say, "Right, this is too much for you. Why don't you just remove yourself from this or take a break or look at it in another way?" But I think for some of us, and again, I don't know if it's a woman thing or a mother thing-

    Katherine May:

    Or an overachiever thing.

    Leah Hazard:

    Or just an overachiever perfectionist thing, yeah, or all of the above. It takes a long time to think, "Oh, right. Maybe I can actually be nice to myself in that way too." It's really difficult, and there shouldn't be any shame attached to it, but there is, I think.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah. I think we all kind of carry that shame of those moments where we've not managed it, but we, I hope, all don't believe that other people should carry it. So, what did you change after that? What did you learn from that moment, and what adjustments have you made to help you to not get to the point where your head's about to explode in the future?

    Leah Hazard:

    I think again, it's a process and it's still unfolding. I think I'm much quicker to recognize now when I'm starting to feel like that, and the only thing to do is slow down, and now, it's not always possible in my workplace because if there are six women in the waiting room, all needing to be seen in that moment, it's not much you can do about that. But just slowing down incrementally is very seldom a dangerous thing to do and realizing that it's okay not to see all the women at once. It's okay to ask somebody else to maybe do something for you if they have a minute.

    It's actually quite important to make sure you eat and drink something and go to the toilet, and I know these are really daft sounding things, but it would be so easy to go through a 12-hour shift and not have a break, and just try and see every single person single-handedly who comes through the door. And also, just about on days off, recognizing that, checking in and realizing maybe I'm not feeling great, maybe I'm feeling quite anxious. Really, I should force myself to go for a walk or a run, or write something, even if it's not very good.

    Katherine May:

    Well, there's a probably other source of stress now that you're a publisher writer. It's not casual anymore.

    Leah Hazard:

    God, yeah, the dreaded second album. Here it comes. Yeah, so it's just about having better self-awareness, I think, because again, if that was happening to one of my children, I could see it a mile off, and I could say, "Oh, I don't think you look right in yourself. What is going on? How are you feeling? Slow down a bit." But in myself, stupidly, it's taken 42 years to learn those cues and to acknowledge them.

    Katherine May:

    They take long time, those lessons. And yeah, I'm exactly the same as you. If I saw somebody else ready to pop, I would say, "Are you getting enough sleep? Put yourself to bed early. Have a glass of water."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, simple things.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, eat something. They're exactly the things that we skip when we are stressed. It's fascinating. We all need a mother following us around and sort of checking in, I think, sometimes, or we have to be our own one of those, unfortunately.

    Leah Hazard:

    We do. I mean, that's a whole other podcast for another day, to be honest, about who's been mothered and in what way and how that affects how we look after ourselves. But yeah, I've had to learn a bit of that and be kind to myself in that way.

    Katherine May:

    But I feel like for you, it has led to a kind of leadership in your field, not necessarily in the technicalities of being a midwife, but in that radical vulnerability and in being able to talk about the humanity behind that uniform and that role.

    Leah Hazard:

    I guess so. I mean, I think I'm a bit of an unlikely person, or in myself, I feel like an unlikely person to be a leader in that area, but I've seen so many colleagues and students struggle with these very same things, and we're working so hard in the NHS now and at all times, that again, not recognizing these things and sort of amplifying these concerns seems like a disservice to everybody else on my team. It's not really about me, but if I can share my experience and let the world know how hard we're all working and how sometimes it affects us, then I'm glad. I think that can only be a good thing.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it seems really important to me. So, finally, tell me about what you're working on next in those few minutes you can grab.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh god. Oh, okay. So, this is a world debut exclusive, almost.

    Katherine May:

    Yay. Whoa.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. So, as we were just saying before you pressed record, when lockdown hit, I was days away from selling my next big, exciting, non-fiction project, and this was like the big one. This was like jaws of my life. This was going to be the one that was going to make it, I felt. So, without giving too much away because maybe it'll happen at some point, it would've involved a lot of research and a lot of traveling and looking at sort of birth work around the world, but the one trip I did manage to do as part of my research before this all happened was I went to Sweden and I watched a uterus transplant.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it was absolutely fascinating, and I was getting into this whole world of womb transplants, and what they are, and how they work, and how women feel about them, or why they might have them, and what birth might look like in the future. And unfortunately, the book that was going to be a part of it looks like it might never happen, but at the same time, when I was kind of just stating that and starting to write it up and stuff, I had an idea for a novel about two sisters, one of whom gives her uterus to the other.

    Katherine May:

    Wow, that's a fascinating premise.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it happens. It has happened, and when I went to watch this particular transplant in Sweden in November, it was two sisters on the table as it were, and I thought, "Wow, that is pretty cool, and also pretty messed up in a lot of ways in terms of where that could take you if it all went wrong and if you didn't maybe psychologically manage that very well." So, that started off as the premise, and now it's become this thing.

    Katherine May:

    This monster.

    Leah Hazard:

    This monster, this novel. It's about what it means to be a sister, but also to be a mother. It's about women's relationships with their bodies. It's about Scotland, strangely enough. I've found myself researching all kinds of flora of Scottish islands in 11th century monasteries and all kinds of weird stuff where I never thought it would take me, but it's great. I'm actually, when I'm not hating what I write, I'm loving it. I'm loving the process of it.

    Katherine May:

    It's a part of the process, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so watch this space. I'm enjoying it and hoping to have it a bit less horrible in a few months time.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, well, that just sounds absolutely amazing, and I cannot wait to read it. I hope you get some good time to get on with it. [inaudible 00:45:28].

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    That's really exciting.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Well, thank you for talking to me today. I am so, so delighted to actually speak to you, not in person because nothing can be in person.

    Leah Hazard:

    I know.

    Katherine May:

    I think that's the gift of this time that actually we can sidle up to each other and go, "Oh, I could Skype you. We don't have to be in the same city."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah, it's great. No, thank you so much. I know we were meant to meet in person the week that this all kicked off.

    Katherine May:

    I know.

    Leah Hazard:

    This is great. So, yeah, thank you so much for having me.

    Katherine May:

    It's really good. I'd just like to recommend your book yet again to the readers, Hard pushed, which I just love the moment I read it, and I'm sure loads and loads of other people will too, and indeed, loads and loads of people have already, and we'll look forward to your next work.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, hopefully, fingers crossed. Thank you so much.

    Katherine May:

    Thanks, Leah. Bye-bye.

    The day's warming up a bit here now. The white clouds that were covering the sky this morning are gradually burning off. There's a beautiful blue sky, but I think I'll be hiding indoors again come lunchtime. Probably for the best, but you know, I'm always talking about how to embrace the rhythms of the year in the winter, and it's true of the summer too. It's maybe not so much part of our culture to talk about how difficult the summer can be, how interminable it can feel, how, although it has kind of luxury associated with it, holidays and sitting outside pubs and restaurants drinking rose, it's also a very difficult time for lots of people. I think it's a time when it feels out of place to be sad, to be grieving, to be anxious, to be depressed, to be recovering from something that's happened to us. I don't think summer and summer culture welcomes that, and so that can be really hard.

    I think for some of us, the way that there's a natural pause in the year here, because even if we're not on holiday, often the people we work with or that we know are, everything can feel very disrupted, and I don't really cope very well with that disruption. It breaks up my routines. It makes everything seem slow and complicated, and I often get really frustrated with myself because like every other human being, I have to slow down a bit in the heat. I don't get as much done, and I don't always clock why that is. I just get frustrated that my to-do list isn't going down, but these things have their natural break, and it'll come, that moment of acceptance, that moment of, ah, screw it actually. But honestly, we do have to surrender to the constant change that's happening across the year.

    I'm going to be in America for Lammas this year. Lammas is the sort of residual pagan festival that happens around about the beginning of August, the 1st of August, which in traditional culture, including in church culture, Church of England culture, it's a derivation of Loaf Mass. It's a time when we mark the beginning of the harvest. We're perhaps more familiar with the harvest festivals that we all attended at school maybe, or is that just me. I went to a country primary that marked the end of the harvest, but Lammas is the beginning of the harvest period. It's a time when the grain is ripe, a time when we think about gathering that in, before it is eaten by the mice.

    And last year I baked my first Lammas loaf which is a wheatsheaf-shaped loaf that is traditional in some parts of England this time of year. You can have a look at it on my Instagram feed. And so, this year, I'm going to bake mine early, and I'm still going to bake it because it's another lovely way to mark this turn in the year and actually to process some of the difficulties that come at this point.

    Anyway, I hope you're enjoying summer or at least surviving it wherever you are in the world. I want to say a massive thank you to Leah Hazard for the interview she gave a while ago, but for letting us rebroadcast it. Thank you to the Patreons who I've been having really interesting discussions with lately about how our community's about to change for the better, I hope. I'll let you all know about that soon. Thank you to Meghan and producer Buddy who look after this podcast so well, keep it running, and I have been working really hard on its reinvention for the next season. I'm hoping to share more with you soon. Take care, everyone. Bye.

    Katherine May:

    Hi, I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I am speaking to you on a beautiful, cool morning. Thankfully, after days of intense heat, something broke in the middle of the night. We didn't get a storm. We got some thunder and lightning, a few drops of rain, nothing much to speak of, but when I woke up this morning, the air was cool, and I went and sat outside until I got goosebumps. It was heaven.

    I'm really rubbish in the heat. I come from a family of heat lovers. I am a heat hater. I just cannot regulate my own body temperature, but today there's this amazing wind blowing. You might be able to hear it a little bit around the mic. Ah, it feels a little bit like a hot hand dryer, but there's something refreshing about it too. It's lovely. It's so weird how micro-seasonal we are, how we're affected on a moment by moment basis by just one or two days of weather. By the end of yesterday, I felt done. I felt like I couldn't cope with anything much at all, and I was emotional and self-pitying, and it just seemed devastating, and today everything seems okay again. Everything seems manageable, although clearly we have, as a world, an awful lot of work to do to try and push back against these incredibly hot days.

    So, I'm on the beach. I've just been walking along the tide line, listening to the trickle of water that drains off the beach when the tide's low. It's such a tiny sound. I love to stand and just listen to it just carefully for a little while. It's beneath everything else. It feels like a secret. There are some good parts of summer. I'm not entirely against it as a concept. I just like the cool bits, that's all, the shade.

    So, today we have our second re-up episode from season one, remastered and presented for your delectation and pleasure because I think lots of people missed some of those season one episodes. Lots of you have come later which is great, hello, welcome, but there was some great stuff there. They're all my favorites really, but we asked our Patreons and our listeners who they might like to hear from again, and this was what was voted for.

    So, today, I'm sharing my conversation with the amazing Leah Hazard who is a writer, a midwife, and I've just been reading a proof copy of her new book, Womb, all about the uterus which is such, I was about to say a fertile subject area, ha ha ha ha, but it's such a fantastically interesting grounds to write about and I've learned so much, but also I'm just loving the way she writes as I did in all her previous work that I've read. So, you can count me as a fan, but actually, one of the lovely things that might not be obvious about The Wintering Session is that some of my guests have become friends after we spoke and Leah's one of them. She's one of the good guys in this world, and I love to have a little chat with her, although we've never met in person. That's the COVID world for you. We keep saying that one day we will actually get together in a room and talk to each other face to face which would just be a miracle, but maybe next year.

    Anyway, I commend this episode to you. I loved recording it. I love listening back to it, and I think it just has such a lot to say about how we grow and change, and how we know when we can't take anymore. See what you think. I'll see you a bit later.

    Today, I'm excited to welcome Leah Hazard, the best-selling author of Hard Pushed: A Midwife's Story, and practicing NHS midwife. It's really great to speak to you, Leah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, it's great to speak to you too. Thank you so much for having me.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I'm really delighted to. We've been chatting for a very long time, haven't we, and it's really nice to hear your voice.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, definitely.

    Katherine May:

    We were just discussing that Leah's accent is Scottish Connecticut which is quite a fascinating mix there.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a bit niche. It's quite unusual, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It's good to have your own [inaudible 00:06:11] there.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I guess so, yes.

    Katherine May:

    So, I came across you, Leah, when I read your book Hard Pushed which interestingly, I read just after I'd read Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, okay.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it was quite an interesting contrast because I'd read This is Going to Hurt in the week that my husband was in hospital with a ruptured appendix, and I'd actually found it immensely comforting because I felt, I was listening to it on audio book driving to and from the hospital, and I felt like it put me in contact with the people who were behind the scenes who, if I'm honest, I was completely frustrated with at the time, the nurses and doctors who didn't seem to be making him much better. He was suffering a lot, and I would've been much more angry had I not been able to listen to that.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, that's good.

    Katherine May:

    But in the weeks that followed, a kind of nother tide washed over me, and that was my feminist consciousness reemerging because I actually had quite a hard time when I was pregnant and giving birth and I felt like women's voices were absent from that book in a way that I don't expect you to reply to because I know you're [inaudible 00:07:19].

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But when I read your book, I punched the air because it was still such great storytelling, so warm and funny and moving, but also, you are a kick-arse advocate for women in the maternity ward. Is that fair to say?

    Leah Hazard:

    Thank you. I mean, I wouldn't be the best person to answer that, but I hope so. I think that's the job of every midwife really, and certainly people have asked me about that book, and I have read it, and maybe that's where I should leave it. No, I mean, I can understand why some people have really enjoyed it and why it's been a huge success, and I can also understand why some people have been upset by it and have felt that maybe another voice was needed. So, I'm pleased if I can provide that voice or another voice, and yeah, I think it's really important in anything I write to demonstrate respect for women, and that doesn't mean that we have to be worthy all the time and very sort of virtue signaling and all the rest, but we can have a laugh, but we have to be respectful and mindful of who's at the center of that story, and it's women. So, yeah, I hope that's come through.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and I think it really does come through. I think that from the other side, people are fascinated by midwives because you are present at one of the most dramatic and yet entirely normal moments of human life, but when I say normal, it's different for everybody every time, and I think that there's this sense that you guys kind of look into a space that most of us don't really understand, even if we've been in it.

    Leah Hazard:

    Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that's completely true, and it strikes me all the time, and it should strike me all the time. When I'm with a woman who's laboring or who's having issues in pregnancy, for whatever reason, I kind of have to stop myself sometimes and think, "What, they let me do this? This is really intimate and visceral and special and risky." I don't just mean physically risky. I mean emotionally risky, and yeah, it's a huge privilege to be in that role. So, I'm very grateful for that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It would be hard not to mention at the moment that we are still in the middle of lockdown. I suspect we will be in some kind of lockdown or some kind of pandemic alertness when this podcast goes out, unless something changes very dramatically, and I think it would be remiss of me not to ask you about how you're finding it at the moment. Is it becoming business as normal or does everything still feel very strange?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yes and no. At the beginning, by which I mean sort of middle of March to end of March, we were anticipating this huge tsunami of sick women because we were looking at what was happening in the rest of Europe and even starting to happen down in London, and we thought, "Right, okay." I'm up in Glasgow, and we thought, "Okay, this is coming and this is going to be horrific." And every day in the hospital, things were changing in terms of there was talk of reorganizing wards and new pathways and protocols. It did become very quiet for a couple of weeks in the triage department where I work because the only women coming in were women who really needed to come in. There wasn't so much of the kind of worried well and all the other. Probably a good part of our business is people who actually are completely fine.

    And then, yes, we have had some sick women, not as many as we feared, but some, but on the whole, no, the workload, the sort of quality and quantity of what we're seeing now is right up to where it was, so very, very busy. So, my last shift was Friday night, and it was just myself and another midwife in the ward as it always is at night in triage, and I think we had eight or nine women in labor, and maybe another five or six women with different things that they were coming in with.

    Katherine May:

    Plenty.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's busy, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Plenty to be doing with. That's actually a really great point to talk about how you became a midwife because you weren't always, were you? You had a whole career before this.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I had a sort of mini career. I had the beginnings of a career. I worked in telly which was as surprising to me as it was to anybody else. So, I was a researcher for sort of arts and factual programming and documentaries at BBC Scotland, and I worked for an independent company for a while as well, and when I had my first daughters, she's now 17, I took some time off, and then I came back part-time, and I could see very quickly that I would hit the glass ceiling very fast and that the only women who seemed to succeed in telly at that time were women who either didn't have children or had clearly made a conscious decision not to spend very much time at home, and really to be at work at all hours and really available all the time, and that wasn't really for me.

    At the same time, I'd had this huge life-changing experience of being pregnant and giving birth, and it kind of blew my world apart in a way. Nothing about it was anything I had prepared for or anticipated, and I think any woman who becomes a mother will say that that kind of draws your priorities into quite sharp relief and changes how you feel about things, but for me, it was really, I don't want to say like an identity crisis, but it was an identity challenge for sure.

    Katherine May:

    So, talk me through that time. I mean, I guess media jobs are full of people who are ambitious and have always wanted to be in them, you know?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And therefore, are often willing to make whatever sacrifices it takes. And so, you're back in that world with a tiny baby and kind of thinking, "How an earth do I confront this? What do I do?"

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Well, I think a big part of it for me was that the birth to begin with didn't go the way I had expected or was told it would happen. Silly me. I had long labor and then I had an emergency section, and that was obviously really difficult in terms of recovery, and breastfeeding didn't work, and I wasn't loving every minute of my life as I kind of thought maybe I would. Loved my baby obviously, and wouldn't change that for the world, but I just felt a bit kind of exploded. My time wasn't my own. My body was completely different, and at the same time, as the sort of weeks and months went on, I was meeting other women who had had babies, whether we'd been in antenatal classes together or met them through other groups and things, and everybody that I met seemed to have had an awful time, and I just thought, "Why is it like this? We were not sold this experience. This was not what we were told about."

    So, and I really started to think, "Oh, surely there's some way this can change. Can I change it? Is there some way that this can be made better?" And I did actually at that time start to think about retraining, but I had just gone through four years of university in America and a year of master's degree studies in the UK, and the thought of going back to sit in a classroom and being told what to do, it just was not on. That was not the time in my life to be doing that. So, I did go back to work and then I realized, no, this was not for me.

    So, I did think about midwifery, but I then found out about doulas. For anyone listening, who doesn't know what a doula is, it's just like a birth partner really, and I thought, "Yeah, that's something I could do and I can work it around my family."

    Katherine May:

    How interesting.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. So, it's just a lay birth partner. It's like a cheerleader for pregnant and birthing people. It's just emotional and practical support. It's completely non-clinical. It's a very old role, although we're calling it something different now. Yeah, so I did some training around that, and I was a doula for six years supporting women in home births and hospital births, and doing some postnatal support as well.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, that was kind of-

    Katherine May:

    It's like a halfway house almost of becoming a midwife. It's probably quite a good early preparation, I suppose. You get used to being in that space.

    Leah Hazard:

    It was, yeah. You get used to being in that space. You have that fundamental respect for women and commitment to advocating for women without any of the clinical responsibility which sometimes I look at and think, "Hmm, that was nice." But ultimately, with that, I did get to the point where I thought, "No, I want the whole package. I want to be able to provide all the care." And I had another child, so I decided, yeah, that maybe now is the time to go back to school. So, that's what I did, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    So, how old were your children when you retrained because that must have been really tricky?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it was pretty horrendous at the start, to be honest. It was a crazy thing to do. I get emails all the time and messages and things from women saying, "Oh, I've got two young children. Should I go back and retrain?" And I'm like, "Hmm, yeah, that sounds great." So, it was 10 years ago this year that I started training, so my kids would've been seven and three.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    I'm not going to lie, that was hard. That was really challenging because they just knew me as somebody who was around most of the time. I was on call for births from time to time, but mostly that was when they were sleeping or times when I could sort of melt away without too much disruption. So, yeah, it was a huge adjustment for all of us, but we got there in the end.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. I mean, I guess it's the kind of job I'd be too scared to do because I am terrified of, I don't know, doing the wrong thing which is why I hide behind a desk and write, and I still get terrified even then.

    Leah Hazard:

    I'm pretty scared of that too though, to be fair.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, I think probably having a healthy respect for that is good, but I imagine that those first years when you're a trained midwife and you're practicing on your own as being quite tense actually. Is that just me projecting that idea onto it or is that how it is?

    Leah Hazard:

    No, not at all, absolutely terrifying. I think when you're a student, and most midwifery degrees are three years, you sort of do develop some confidence, of course, and you need to over the three years, and then the fear becomes real just when you're about to qualify and you think, "Oh, I'm about to be thrown out of the nest and now it's me," and then you do. One day, you're just chucked in a room with a woman, as simple as that, and it's like, "Right, okay, you do it. Off you go."

    Katherine May:

    Off you go. I can't imagine the fear. I didn't train as a teacher. I did the on the job learning route, the graduate training program to become a secondary teacher. And so, there was I, I think I was 24, and what happens when you do that is the first day you go into a classroom and you teach, and you've had no training or experience whatsoever, and I can remember that moment of standing in the staff room and my legs not wanting to walk me to my first class.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I can imagine.

    Katherine May:

    I was so scared because I taught sixth form. I was so conscious of how old they were and how close to my age they were, and they knew that, and they were ever so nice to me, but after a week, they said, "We knew you were new because when you wrote your name on the board, it was enormous."

    Leah Hazard:

    Rookie mistake, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's obviously really obvious. But yeah, so I can only imagine what it must be like for something that's much more life and death than teaching some A level student psychology.

    Leah Hazard:

    It's scary, and I think also it just depends what the working culture is like around you. Yeah, I mean all hospitals and birth centers and things are different, but the place where I work does have an element of sort of macho, although it's all women, sort of tough talk, it's quite intimidating, or at least it can be to a newly qualified midwife, and your face has to fit and your behavior has to tow a certain line, and it really is like living on another planet. As soon as you go through that sort of air lock of the hospital doors, you're in the zone. You're in another place. I'm seven years qualified this year, I still kind of think, "Mm, will I fit in at some point?" I know I can do the job, and I have a great team that I work with, and we all support each other, but that's, I think, as scary as the actual clinical side of it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, I think the thing that you most want when you're the person giving birth is to look at your midwife and to see certainty and confidence because I mean, I suppose it must be different for women who have multiple children, but I've only done it once, and I just wanted someone to tell me what to do because I had no clue, and I had deliberately avoided the books because I thought, I just didn't think they'd help, and I still, I'm not sure that was the wrong decision actually.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, well, they didn't do me any favors, so you probably did the right thing. But yeah, it's interesting. Every woman has a different way of responding to that challenge. So, some women do want that really kind of firm hand and tell me what to do, what would you do, what should I do now. Some women don't want to communicate at all really, and that's completely fine.

    Katherine May:

    Oh really? That's fascinating.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, for sure. Uh-huh. And for some, you just sort of feel your way through it together, and you really have to develop a knack for sussing out very quickly what that woman's needs are, and sometimes you do it and sometimes you can't, and that's okay. You can only try your best.

    Katherine May:

    Do you get sworn at a lot?

    Leah Hazard:

    Sometimes. Very seldom. It's usually the guys that are on the sharp end of the swearing. But now, I have to say, at the minute, and I think this is the case for most units around the UK, men aren't actually allowed in our department.

    Katherine May:

    Right, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    And I'm not really going to go into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's much calmer, and there's much less swearing, I will say. So, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Interesting. Are women kind of coming out the other end of it commenting on what it was like without their... Or partner, sorry, I shouldn't say husband. That's a terrible thing to say really in 2020.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, that's okay.

    Katherine May:

    But are women kind of saying about whether they wish they were there or whether they... Because my mother chose not to have my dad there when she gave birth, and I really did reflect on it when it came to my time because I kind of thought a bit of me just wants to get on with it on my own, you know?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. I mean, ideally, women aren't in our department for too long because we really just assess them and give them some support before they go to labor ward, the partners can join them there. But yeah, I think it's very subjective. I think some women do seem grateful to just have the focus of the midwife, and there's no extraneous distraction or having to manage somebody else's fear, somebody else's expectation, but obviously, some partners are great. Maybe they've been laboring at home together for days before they've even come in, and the partner's been a great support, and then all of a sudden, that isn't there. So, it's interesting. It's going to be really interesting when this all, if this all ever settles down to see how people feel about that aspect of things, whether that will change.

    Katherine May:

    I think there's going to be so many reckonings, and I think we are going to be fascinated by it for years to come actually, and I think it will change us, but none of us know how yet it's still all floating up in the air. I'm endlessly reading about all these different experiences, and just hearing things from friends, terrible things, amazing things. It's such a huge moment in human history.

    Leah Hazard:

    I think it's really interesting, just to connect it back to your book, that a lot of people are looking at their experience just now and thinking, "Am I wintering? Am I enduring this really horrible thing?" And of course, some people are much more than you or I.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, absolutely, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    But some people are also asking themselves, "Do I kind of like it? Am I kind of enjoying parts of this or maybe learning things about myself?' So, if you have the privilege of perspective to be able to ask those questions, yeah, it's pretty interesting.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it is, it's this moment of pause, I think, where I always talk about, I don't know if everyone will relate to this piece, but the piece of art by Cornelia Parker, the exploded shed, and I remember going to see that when it was in the Turner Prize, I don't know, probably 20 years ago or more now, and you walk into a room, and you feel like time has stopped because there's just a shed that literally she had someone explode that she suspended all the pieces of it hanging in the air around you, and for me, it was an uncanny moment where I literally felt like I'd walked into stopped time.

    I think for me, I keep coming back to that as a metaphor for moments like this and those wintering moments as well which is that time has paused for a while. Nothing's happening, and in that space, our fears can completely overwhelm us, and they so often do, but also, we can reflect and think about changes we want to make. It's a sort of very revolutionary moment with both good and bad coming in, and I think that's where loads of stuff's happening at the moment, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. And I think as women and as mothers so often, I'm sure you probably like me have had times in your life where you've thought, "Oh god, I wish this would just stop." There's just too much to do, and we have to do homework, and cook dinners, and go to music lessons, and manage our own stuff, and get our own things done, and try and make some money, and I wish it would just stop, and now it's like, "Hmm, okay. It's all stopped. What can we make of this?"

    Katherine May:

    Let's watch the more Teen Titans go.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Some of this stuff we've been doing is just kind of getting by day to day, and I think for the first month, apart from going to work as a midwife, on my days off, I just allowed myself to just vegetate and just had no expectations of myself or my family or trying to be productive really. I just let go, and actually-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It did feel like pressure's off in a lot of ways, I think, and that's really unusual for me. I normally feel very like I'm supposed to be getting out there and doing this and that, and there's nothing to do. There is absolutely nothing that can be done. I was about to say it's luxurious, but it's not even that. It just is. It's just a time when we are acting, making it up as we go along, and there's something about quality of that, that I'm quite liking if that's a terrible thing to say.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I feel so conflicted because obviously this is a crisis that we wouldn't wish on ourselves or anyone in any way.

    Katherine May:

    Oh goodness, no.

    Leah Hazard:

    Having looked after women who are ill and seeing the disruption of the world in general, I wish it wasn't happening, but at the same time, I kind of really like that all I need to do in a day is maybe I can get up early and do some writing if I'm up to it. If I'm not, fine. I can spend lots of time making nice food. I can eat lots of nice food. I don't have to run my kids around to a million and one classes. And then the days when I'm at work, I go to work. I help women. I come home.

    Katherine May:

    It's simpler.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, I'm kind of liking that. And yesterday we went out and about in the sort of area where we live, and lockdown here has eased slightly, although not as much as where you are, and it was really, yeah, not quite-

    Katherine May:

    It truly has eased here, yeah, in Whitstable.

    Leah Hazard:

    Well, what was weird for me yesterday was there weren't sort of hoards of people, but there were lots of people out walking about and sort of queuing for coffees and things and lying out in the park, and kind of made me a little bit uncomfortable, and I kind of wanted to go back to how it was, and I know that's awful because that's not... The reason for why it was the way it was is not a good one.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's terrible, but no, I know exactly what you mean, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    But I think that's why I've kind of stayed in the house all day today.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I actually, I remember at the beginning of it, I felt really restricted and I thought, "What am I going to do without being able to go out at weekends and do this and that?" And now I think, "Well, what did we used to do at weekends?" I can't imagine what we were so busy with. I think I've quite happily jettisoned a lot of rushing around that I won't go back to now. I'm very glad to do it. Mm. So, back to you. Sorry, it's hard to have a conversation at the moment without going into pandemic talk.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, completely, completely. There, we've done it. We've nailed it now.

    Katherine May:

    I hope this will sound quaint in a year's time, and everyone will be out raving again. I don't know. I won't be, but then I never was in the first place.

    We'll be back to Remona in a minute, but I just wanted to take a short pause to tell you about a workshop I'm holding in Rockport, Maine, I know, American soil, on the 8th of August this year. I will be working with the brilliant Elissa Altman to deliver a day retreat, courtesy of Barnswallow Books, and the workshop is called On Comfort. It's a whole day to join us and explore what comfort, sustenance, and homecoming mean to you.

    So, I'll be working with the group first to explore feelings of being at home, of being comfortable and cozy, and how we can create an environment that makes us feel safe, and from which we can springboard into the work we need to do in the outside world. Elissa will be working to explore what food means, the idea of comfort food but reimagined. So, thinking about how we can truly sustain our minds and bodies through the act of cooking, preparing, and eating food which I know is such a complicated issue for so many of us. There will be a light lunch included, and at the end of the day, a lovely communal supper so we can all get together and break bread, or something else if you're gluten free. We know how it goes.

    There's a link in my bio to explore more about the workshops, but do take a look quickly because I know they're going to book up quickly. It's the only workshop I'm running on American soil this year and it's my first ever. So, if you can come, please do. I'd love to see you there. Okay, back to Remona.

    So, one of the things that comes across really strongly in your book is your engagement with the different women that you come across and meet, and their different stories and lives and hardships. How difficult is it for you to leave that behind when you come home? Does it prey on your mind, or are you able to have that separation?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it can be quite difficult. I mean, you were saying you have the fear of doing things wrong, and I think that's the fear that follows every midwife or every healthcare practitioner when they've left the hospital. There's always the nagging feeling of, oh, did I sign for that drug that I gave, or maybe I sent her to labor ward at the wrong time, or was that examination actually right, or maybe she was only two centimeters, and I thought she was eight centimeters, and I've done it all wrong, and I'm a horrible midwife. Everybody, I think, feels that way on their days off. But some women's stories obviously affect me on a deeper level, and some of those are the ones that I wrote about.

    I think there's this saying that every doctor has their own personal graveyard in their head because it's the patients they couldn't save, and I think that midwives carry a similar thing, not a graveyard, thankfully, but a little collection of women who have really touched them and made them question things, maybe we've connected with them, or maybe they've really challenged us in some way, and I definitely have that, and I definitely think of those women often. I think that's normal. I think that's healthy.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think that's human, actually. I think that's not a negative thing necessarily. I think if your work didn't leave a mark on you, it wouldn't seem right somehow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. The trick is just not letting it overwhelm you, I guess, and there certainly have been times on days off when all I can think about is something that's happened during my last shift, and it really, really niggles me, but that is just part of being an adult in the world, I guess. We all have things. We all have to encounter other people in our work generally or just in our daily lives, and we all have upsets.

    Katherine May:

    It's sad but true. Yes, we do.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it is, yeah. I mean, I don't know, maybe for me, it's fair to say at times the stakes are maybe a little bit higher, but still, we all go through that in our own way, and the trick is just not to let it rankle, and to try and work it out somehow. So, I'm still learning about that.

    Katherine May:

    But there was a point that you wrote about where the stress began to really get to you, I think.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. I mean, as I sort of went through the first few years of my career, I work in a really busy hospital. We have about six and a half thousand births a year.

    Katherine May:

    That's an incredible number, isn't it?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a lot of babies.

    Katherine May:

    That's a lot of day, isn't it?

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's a lot of day and we don't always have the staffing levels that I would like. I think it's okay to say that. As a working midwife, quite often your own needs come way down the pecking order in terms of what has to get done that day and what can get done, and most of my career I've worked in its triage department which is very busy and fast-paced. I describe it as A&E for pregnant people so it's always changing, it's always acute which is part of what makes it interesting and exciting, but also sometimes what makes it impossible.

    So, yeah, I wrote about that sort of gradual feeling of pressure building, and I wrote about one particular night when it was a really busy shift, and the women just kept coming and coming and coming, and the hospital was full, and there were discussions about closing the hospital to new patients, and that wasn't done for one reason and another, and just became untenable, and I had what I now know, I can see it was a panic attack which probably sounds pretty boring and run of the mill to most people, but-

    Katherine May:

    They're never boring and run of the mill when you're having them though.

    Leah Hazard:

    No, they're not, and it was the first time at work that I just felt completely paralyzed, and that is deeply shameful for somebody who goes to work so she can help people and put herself last and always be competent and always be effective and efficient and safe, and I couldn't. There have been times before and since that night when I've been able to kind of pull myself back from that edge and kind of pull it together and just keep going, but I just couldn't that night, and I had to leave.

    Katherine May:

    But that's the problem with feelings when you're pushing them down. They just, at some point, will all come flooding up when you don't want them to.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and I guess I'd probably been doing that for a while on other occasions as well, and that's why on that night, I was not in control, and I had to go home. Yeah, I mean, the only word that keeps coming into my mind when I think about that is shame which is ridiculous rationally because I know I shouldn't be ashamed and I shouldn't be embarrassed and that's just normal, and I do all kinds of this other sort of advocacy around mental health to tell other people that it's fine, but I was not in that place on that night. It took a long time for me to accept that that was okay, and actually, looking back that night probably was kind of transformative in how I treat myself and look after myself.

    And then I did something really silly and I wrote about it, and told everyone that it happened, and that kind of maybe in a way diffused it a bit because at first, when I thought about writing the book, I thought, "Right, this is just going to be a book about women's stories and midwifery in general. It's not going to be about me because that's boring and nobody wants to hear that." But then the more I started writing, the more I thought, "No, I'm actually doing my colleagues an injustice if I'm not honest about the pressures we're all under because I'm certainly not the only person ever to have had a night like that."

    Katherine May:

    And I think it's hardest for carers and people who see themselves as the person that sorts out the problem. I think it's often hardest for people like you to acknowledge when you're suffering yourself. You want to be the person that carries on solving it. That's part of your identity somehow, and it's very undermining when you have to admit you can't cope.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, absolutely, because all of a sudden, all those skills, it doesn't matter if you can make up an IV pump of a really fancy antibiotic, it doesn't matter if you can suture somebody's perineum, or catch a baby, or guide someone through a 12-hour labor. It's totally irrelevant if you are then sat frozen on a chair in the tea room, unable to even chew your dinner. I mean, that's kind of where it was. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But I mean, I had to learn this myself. I didn't have that one moment of crisis, but by the time I got to have my autism diagnosis when I was 39, I had been through decades of panic attacks, anxiety, dropping out of major things in life, jobs, university, I tried to drop out university, they didn't let me, damn it, but I gave it a bloody good go, missing out on all sorts of experiences. What was really transformative for me was to be able to say, finally, after all those years, I couldn't cope with what life was throwing at me, and until then, I was so resistant to being able to say that because if I was modeling myself as a neurotypical person, then there was no reason why I shouldn't be coping with it. What was wrong with me? I mean, I'd literally been to counselors where I'd had a few months of talking to them. They finally leaned over and said, "Is there an abuse story here?"

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh no. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    They were kind of waiting to find out what the hell was wrong with me.

    Leah Hazard:

    Like the big reveal.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because I was acting like somebody who was carrying terrible trauma that hadn't happened, and so I was kind of a mystery, but having that moment of revelation has changed a lot for me. It doesn't mean to say that I cope perfectly with everything, but I've learned to let myself off the hook, and it kind of works actually. It kind of works to say, "Do you know what? This is just more input than you can cope with at the moment, and you need to go and sit down in a quiet room and recover yourself."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, definitely. I'm sure if you had a friend who was feeling that way or your son was feeling that way, that would be the first thing you would say.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Leah Hazard:

    You would be so kind to them and you'd say, "Right, this is too much for you. Why don't you just remove yourself from this or take a break or look at it in another way?" But I think for some of us, and again, I don't know if it's a woman thing or a mother thing-

    Katherine May:

    Or an overachiever thing.

    Leah Hazard:

    Or just an overachiever perfectionist thing, yeah, or all of the above. It takes a long time to think, "Oh, right. Maybe I can actually be nice to myself in that way too." It's really difficult, and there shouldn't be any shame attached to it, but there is, I think.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah. I think we all kind of carry that shame of those moments where we've not managed it, but we, I hope, all don't believe that other people should carry it. So, what did you change after that? What did you learn from that moment, and what adjustments have you made to help you to not get to the point where your head's about to explode in the future?

    Leah Hazard:

    I think again, it's a process and it's still unfolding. I think I'm much quicker to recognize now when I'm starting to feel like that, and the only thing to do is slow down, and now, it's not always possible in my workplace because if there are six women in the waiting room, all needing to be seen in that moment, it's not much you can do about that. But just slowing down incrementally is very seldom a dangerous thing to do and realizing that it's okay not to see all the women at once. It's okay to ask somebody else to maybe do something for you if they have a minute.

    It's actually quite important to make sure you eat and drink something and go to the toilet, and I know these are really daft sounding things, but it would be so easy to go through a 12-hour shift and not have a break, and just try and see every single person single-handedly who comes through the door. And also, just about on days off, recognizing that, checking in and realizing maybe I'm not feeling great, maybe I'm feeling quite anxious. Really, I should force myself to go for a walk or a run, or write something, even if it's not very good.

    Katherine May:

    Well, there's a probably other source of stress now that you're a publisher writer. It's not casual anymore.

    Leah Hazard:

    God, yeah, the dreaded second album. Here it comes. Yeah, so it's just about having better self-awareness, I think, because again, if that was happening to one of my children, I could see it a mile off, and I could say, "Oh, I don't think you look right in yourself. What is going on? How are you feeling? Slow down a bit." But in myself, stupidly, it's taken 42 years to learn those cues and to acknowledge them.

    Katherine May:

    They take long time, those lessons. And yeah, I'm exactly the same as you. If I saw somebody else ready to pop, I would say, "Are you getting enough sleep? Put yourself to bed early. Have a glass of water."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, simple things.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, eat something. They're exactly the things that we skip when we are stressed. It's fascinating. We all need a mother following us around and sort of checking in, I think, sometimes, or we have to be our own one of those, unfortunately.

    Leah Hazard:

    We do. I mean, that's a whole other podcast for another day, to be honest, about who's been mothered and in what way and how that affects how we look after ourselves. But yeah, I've had to learn a bit of that and be kind to myself in that way.

    Katherine May:

    But I feel like for you, it has led to a kind of leadership in your field, not necessarily in the technicalities of being a midwife, but in that radical vulnerability and in being able to talk about the humanity behind that uniform and that role.

    Leah Hazard:

    I guess so. I mean, I think I'm a bit of an unlikely person, or in myself, I feel like an unlikely person to be a leader in that area, but I've seen so many colleagues and students struggle with these very same things, and we're working so hard in the NHS now and at all times, that again, not recognizing these things and sort of amplifying these concerns seems like a disservice to everybody else on my team. It's not really about me, but if I can share my experience and let the world know how hard we're all working and how sometimes it affects us, then I'm glad. I think that can only be a good thing.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it seems really important to me. So, finally, tell me about what you're working on next in those few minutes you can grab.

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh god. Oh, okay. So, this is a world debut exclusive, almost.

    Katherine May:

    Yay. Whoa.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah. So, as we were just saying before you pressed record, when lockdown hit, I was days away from selling my next big, exciting, non-fiction project, and this was like the big one. This was like jaws of my life. This was going to be the one that was going to make it, I felt. So, without giving too much away because maybe it'll happen at some point, it would've involved a lot of research and a lot of traveling and looking at sort of birth work around the world, but the one trip I did manage to do as part of my research before this all happened was I went to Sweden and I watched a uterus transplant.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it was absolutely fascinating, and I was getting into this whole world of womb transplants, and what they are, and how they work, and how women feel about them, or why they might have them, and what birth might look like in the future. And unfortunately, the book that was going to be a part of it looks like it might never happen, but at the same time, when I was kind of just stating that and starting to write it up and stuff, I had an idea for a novel about two sisters, one of whom gives her uterus to the other.

    Katherine May:

    Wow, that's a fascinating premise.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, it's pretty cool, and it happens. It has happened, and when I went to watch this particular transplant in Sweden in November, it was two sisters on the table as it were, and I thought, "Wow, that is pretty cool, and also pretty messed up in a lot of ways in terms of where that could take you if it all went wrong and if you didn't maybe psychologically manage that very well." So, that started off as the premise, and now it's become this thing.

    Katherine May:

    This monster.

    Leah Hazard:

    This monster, this novel. It's about what it means to be a sister, but also to be a mother. It's about women's relationships with their bodies. It's about Scotland, strangely enough. I've found myself researching all kinds of flora of Scottish islands in 11th century monasteries and all kinds of weird stuff where I never thought it would take me, but it's great. I'm actually, when I'm not hating what I write, I'm loving it. I'm loving the process of it.

    Katherine May:

    It's a part of the process, yeah.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so watch this space. I'm enjoying it and hoping to have it a bit less horrible in a few months time.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, well, that just sounds absolutely amazing, and I cannot wait to read it. I hope you get some good time to get on with it. [inaudible 00:45:28].

    Leah Hazard:

    Oh, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    That's really exciting.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Well, thank you for talking to me today. I am so, so delighted to actually speak to you, not in person because nothing can be in person.

    Leah Hazard:

    I know.

    Katherine May:

    I think that's the gift of this time that actually we can sidle up to each other and go, "Oh, I could Skype you. We don't have to be in the same city."

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, yeah, it's great. No, thank you so much. I know we were meant to meet in person the week that this all kicked off.

    Katherine May:

    I know.

    Leah Hazard:

    This is great. So, yeah, thank you so much for having me.

    Katherine May:

    It's really good. I'd just like to recommend your book yet again to the readers, Hard pushed, which I just love the moment I read it, and I'm sure loads and loads of other people will too, and indeed, loads and loads of people have already, and we'll look forward to your next work.

    Leah Hazard:

    Yeah, hopefully, fingers crossed. Thank you so much.

    Katherine May:

    Thanks, Leah. Bye-bye.

    The day's warming up a bit here now. The white clouds that were covering the sky this morning are gradually burning off. There's a beautiful blue sky, but I think I'll be hiding indoors again come lunchtime. Probably for the best, but you know, I'm always talking about how to embrace the rhythms of the year in the winter, and it's true of the summer too. It's maybe not so much part of our culture to talk about how difficult the summer can be, how interminable it can feel, how, although it has kind of luxury associated with it, holidays and sitting outside pubs and restaurants drinking rose, it's also a very difficult time for lots of people. I think it's a time when it feels out of place to be sad, to be grieving, to be anxious, to be depressed, to be recovering from something that's happened to us. I don't think summer and summer culture welcomes that, and so that can be really hard.

    I think for some of us, the way that there's a natural pause in the year here, because even if we're not on holiday, often the people we work with or that we know are, everything can feel very disrupted, and I don't really cope very well with that disruption. It breaks up my routines. It makes everything seem slow and complicated, and I often get really frustrated with myself because like every other human being, I have to slow down a bit in the heat. I don't get as much done, and I don't always clock why that is. I just get frustrated that my to-do list isn't going down, but these things have their natural break, and it'll come, that moment of acceptance, that moment of, ah, screw it actually. But honestly, we do have to surrender to the constant change that's happening across the year.

    I'm going to be in America for Lammas this year. Lammas is the sort of residual pagan festival that happens around about the beginning of August, the 1st of August, which in traditional culture, including in church culture, Church of England culture, it's a derivation of Loaf Mass. It's a time when we mark the beginning of the harvest. We're perhaps more familiar with the harvest festivals that we all attended at school maybe, or is that just me. I went to a country primary that marked the end of the harvest, but Lammas is the beginning of the harvest period. It's a time when the grain is ripe, a time when we think about gathering that in, before it is eaten by the mice.

    And last year I baked my first Lammas loaf which is a wheatsheaf-shaped loaf that is traditional in some parts of England this time of year. You can have a look at it on my Instagram feed. And so, this year, I'm going to bake mine early, and I'm still going to bake it because it's another lovely way to mark this turn in the year and actually to process some of the difficulties that come at this point.

    Anyway, I hope you're enjoying summer or at least surviving it wherever you are in the world. I want to say a massive thank you to Leah Hazard for the interview she gave a while ago, but for letting us rebroadcast it. Thank you to the Patreons who I've been having really interesting discussions with lately about how our community's about to change for the better, I hope. I'll let you all know about that soon. Thank you to Meghan and producer Buddy who look after this podcast so well, keep it running, and I have been working really hard on its reinvention for the next season. I'm hoping to share more with you soon. Take care, everyone. Bye.

Show Notes

While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners.

This week, I talk to Leah Hazard, NHS midwife extraordinaire and author of Hard Pushed, part memoir of Leah’s life on the labour ward, and part exploration of the current state of the profession.

Leah is as funny, wise and warm in person as she is in print, and she talks about the life-changing decision to leave her TV career and train to be a midwife, and the moment when the stress became too much during one very busy night on the ward.

References from this episode:

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

Read More
Katherine May Katherine May

Remona Aly on breaking an engagement and the transformative force of grief

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Remona Aly on breaking an engagement and the transformative force of grief

———
In this episode, I speak to journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly about her life-changing decision to call off an engagement, and how it echoed through the years to teach her about forgiveness, faith and empathy.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I am sitting in my back garden under a big parasol. It's really hot here right now. I live in the very far southeast of England, and when there's a heatwave we always get the hottest bit, every single time. And we are told that for the first time ever in the UK, on Monday, the temperature's likely to go over 40 degrees Centigrade, which is over a hundred Fahrenheit. And that's not a temperature that I or my country are adapted to. So there's a slight feeling of panic in the air, except for some of us who are really looking forward to it, but I'm not one of those people.

    Katherine May:

    And because of the heat, my Ménière's Disease has kicked off. Ménière's is a condition of the inner ear where basically, I mean, this is a very big simplification, but you get an excess of fluid building up in your inner ear, and that leaves you with a sort of severe dizziness, so I'm quite disoriented right now. But one of the side effects of it is that all of the muscles in my body tense up, because my brain thinks I'm falling, and so every muscle in my body braces. So I feel like I've got a whole body headache. I'm feeling very sorry for myself.

    Katherine May:

    It's been a week of things, not going to plan, my friends, because I was hoping to be introducing a kind of grand finale before the summer for you today. I had one of my literary heroes, Susan Cain, author of Quiet and the new Bittersweet lined up. We'd had a wonderful conversation. She had said many, many really interesting things. And my producer emailed last week to say he'd got halfway through the edits and the file had got all mangled from, you know, 20 minutes in. So with some level of devastation we're going to hold off on that. We're not sure if there's something we can do to recover the second half. Worst comes to worst we'll put the first half out as a bonus, because I'm sure there'll be wonderful things in there. But Susan's on holiday at the moment and I hope she's having a wonderful relaxing time and we'll see what we can do for you.

    Katherine May:

    However, instead of that, I've got a great treat for you, which is a re-up of an old episode. Now I'm taking a break over the summer. So I'm planning to give you some, I don't know what the word is, like remastered versions of season one of The Wintering Sessions, which is when I was making it myself in my office, in the middle of a pandemic with absolutely no editing skills whatsoever. And so now I have the brilliant producer, Buddy, on board. He has agreed to take some of my original recordings and turn them into something that maybe, I don't know, sounds a bit more competent. And I think for loads of you who listen now, maybe you didn't catch season one. So I'm really excited to get some of my favorite interviews back out there again. They were all great, but I did ask for votes on Instagram and on my Patreon feed. And these were the ones that came up trumps.

    Katherine May:

    So first of all, I would like to introduce to you one of the favorite conversations I had in the last couple of years with Remona Aly, who is a journalist and writer on how to live our life, really. She's got a wonderful spiritual perspective, but she's also incredibly, incredibly funny. And I know that because I went to school with her. We are both from the very glamorous suburb of Strood, in Kent. I'm actually from a village just outside, but that doesn't make it any more fancy. And we both went to the same school and I... well, I don't think either of us ever expected to be working in the media now. And so when I spotted her online a few years ago, I had to send her a message to say, "Is that you? Did we go to school?" It took a little while for us to realize, but it's just so nice to be back in touch with her. She's amazing. Anyway, that's rambling. I hope you really enjoy this conversation and I'll be back a little bit later.

    Katherine May:

    Hello, and welcome to The Wintering Sessions with me, Katherine May. Each week I talk to a writer who's experienced a wintering period where they felt frozen out of the world. And this week I'm delighted to introduce journalist and broadcaster, Remona Aly. Welcome Remona.

    Remona Aly:

    Hi Katherine, and thanks for having me. I know we tried before. And then we went into a two hour chat.

    Katherine May:

    We should, we should own up to-

    Remona Aly:

    Catch-up.

    Katherine May:

    ... There's a whole load of stuff we need to own up to there, at the beginning of this podcast. Because, yeah, first of all, we tried this once before and it just failed and you ended up-

    Remona Aly:

    Or succeeded, depending on how you look at it.

    Katherine May:

    ... Yeah, it was lovely. I had the best time and you ended up sitting in your wardrobe, talking to me for like two hours.

    Remona Aly:

    I'm back in my wardrobe again.

    Katherine May:

    I love this vision of you in your wardrobe. But that is because we went to school together. And, yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah, many, many years ago.

    Katherine May:

    I know.

    Remona Aly:

    We went to the same school in Kent and in Rochester, and I think we reconnected many years later. I think you connected with me on Twitter.

    Katherine May:

    Well, yeah, so I saw you be retweeted or something on Twitter, and I recognized the name instantly, but because I'm face blind, of course I had no idea if it was you or not. And I spent a little while looking at Facebook. Nope, not a clue. And so I sent you a tweet, like, "Are you the Remona that I went to school with?"

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, it was so cool. It was such a lovely moment actually. I was like, "Oh my goodness!" Because obviously your surname has changed.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, yeah. Of course, yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And I was like, "Wow, she's this big, hotshot. I knew she would always be that."

    Katherine May:

    Hardly.

    Remona Aly:

    Because I was so, I love... I mean, at school I was just so in awe of you, you were so confident-

    Katherine May:

    Stop.

    Remona Aly:

    ... and so clever, I'm like, "Obviously, nothing's really changed in that regard."

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah, obviously. I mean, I'm just exuding cleverness in the 20 minutes that we've just spent for me trying to sort the sound out on my podcast. Can't even do the basics, honestly.

    Remona Aly:

    Look, you're doing a podcast. This is amazing. And the book. I've been reading Wintering as well. It's just so beautiful.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, thank you.

    Remona Aly:

    So beautiful. And what you are doing is just so brilliant, just like talking to different people about wintering sessions and wintering periods.

    Katherine May:

    I'm loving it.

    Remona Aly:

    It's so resonate. It really resonates. It was amazing. I've been listening to them. So, yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

    Katherine May:

    Oh no, well, it's so lovely to be there. And it was just, it was lovely last time to catch up on like, what is it, 20 years worth, more than 20 years worth of life.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. 20 years in two hours. Yeah, it was full throttle.

    Katherine May:

    It was a lot. Yeah, I learnt a lot. But I think, I guess we don't ever expect to be part of an old girls' network, going to a state school, and it's just always so lovely to talk to someone that's in the same industry as you anyway, but when you've got history with that person, it's amazing.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    So, so exciting. So since I knew you at school, you have become a kind of uber journalist and broadcaster on Muslim spirituality. Would that be fair to say?

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah, that's definitely part of it. Yeah. So on faith, on identity, lifestyle, culture, I've really been interested in exploring what people believe, how they feel their spirituality and just everything to do with life because it's just very holistic. I see faith as very holistic and it's not in a vacuum. So there's so many sides to who I am, my personality and my writing and I just wanted to always be authentic to that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And that really comes across. And that's a little bit about what we're going to talk about today, isn't it? That I think what you do is you talk so beautifully about real life as a Muslim woman. You're not a romanticizer necessarily. You kind of dig into those quandaries of real life that you've experienced.

    Remona Aly:

    Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, because it's really important to be honest and open, but at the same time kind of not giving away everything that would maybe compromise other people's trust, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Because often I'm talking about my family and it is very sensitive, and I think we spoke about this together when we were talking about these things, we want to be so open and we want to be personal, but you have to also respect the other people around you.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    So it's kind of a balance. It's finding a balance in that and finding your voice as well through that.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Because I mean, I think that's the eternal dilemma of the memoirist or life writer. I've been putting together these courses lately for people who write from life and I absolutely love doing it, but I think one of the parts of that I've really wrestled with is the ethical component, like how do you teach people about the ethics of being someone who... like when you write from your own life, you always touch on other people's, and that's crunchy, isn't it?

    Remona Aly:

    Absolutely. Yeah. So I've often, sometimes when I've written pieces, I've actually had to just check with my brother or my sister or my mom, go, "Look, I'm talking about this, it's really personal to all of us. So is this all right? Is the way I'm saying this okay for you?" And often they're like, "Yeah, no, that's fine," because I'm always conscious of that, that this is their emotions as well that I'm talking about, it's not only my own, because we have this shared grief or shared loss. When we lost my father, for example.

    Remona Aly:

    So conveying that in a public space, it can be really daunting, but also it can be really empowering and sharing some of my experiences in public, I've had the most incredible responses to it. Not only from strangers, but also from my own family members, because it's like you process your grief in a certain way. And I've certainly been able to do that, I've certainly been able to process those times in my life that have been traumatic or painful, and that writing, it really does help, as you completely know.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    It really does help you kind of channel that. And I understand how you're feeling about those moments in hindsight and at the time. So yeah, my writing has definitely helped me and I hope also my family members.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I mean, I sometimes get some kind of askance comments about why on earth I'd write about my own dirty laundry, essentially. And yeah, it is hard. That process of writing can be really painful and kind of gut wrenching.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And it drags out all your shame and all of your kind of self-loathing sometimes. And definitely your grief. It's definitely, there's always-

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, definitely.

    Katherine May:

    ... stuff that surfaces that you still feel terrible about.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. You're absolutely right, it is. It is gut wrenching. When you're writing, it's not easy, it is not easy to write in this way, in this open way and digging deep into your soul and just bringing it out. I was really nervous about the reactions to some of my writing. What I was saying, like when The Guardian commissioned me to write something, a moment that changed my life, or the one thing that worked. And I was like, "Well, there were a few things, but one of them was my broken engagement where that just kind of went really bad." And talking about that was difficult, and I was really, I was scared and I was feeling a little bit sick about it actually.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that's really great that we're going to talk about that today.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. That's the segue.

    Katherine May:

    You can feel sick all over again, Remona. I'm giving you that opportunity now.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, great. Oh, that's good, I've got lots of clothes around me, so it's all right. It can absorb it.

    Katherine May:

    I'm so glad you're in your protective wardrobe.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. I am in my little room of my wardrobe.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, because I read that article and I thought it was wonderful. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it. But I think one of the things that does when I read about that story is that it tells me a very different story about Muslim women that I guess we don't hear very much.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I think that's one of the really important things that life writing does. So tell me, first of all, about the plans you had. How did you meet your partner, and what was the... what was the deal?

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. So this was a long, long time ago. I was in my twenties. I think I was around 24. So this is well over 15 years ago.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That's a long time ago.

    Remona Aly:

    And I, you know, as the good Muslim girl, I didn't really have any relationships at all growing up. I remember at school when we used to go to parties or whatever, I used to just stay away from everybody, and there was like all these kind of discos and I'd be sitting on the sideline-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, those school discos.

    Remona Aly:

    ... watching everybody else. You know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Those school discos. And I was brought up with freedom and liberal values and Islamic values, and I just I knew that boys were kind of off limits. So when I met my ex-fiance, I was quite naive, bit of a romantic. And I met him outside of a traditional setting, which is like, normally at that time, where you'd have people come over, you know, suitors come over to the house to meet you.

    Katherine May:

    I love that word, suitor.

    Remona Aly:

    Suitor. I know it's so-

    Katherine May:

    It sounds fantastic.

    Remona Aly:

    ... It's so like archaic.

    Katherine May:

    No, it sounds great. I'd love to have had suitors.

    Remona Aly:

    I know, it's like Jane Austen time, or something. So we used to have people call up, there used to be some kind of auntie network, and they would call up the house and call my mom and say, "Oh, I know a suitable boy who is," you know, whatever height, whatever, like skin color. It's so stupid.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Remona Aly:

    There is so much colorism in the Asian community as well. And then they would come over with their parents and probably their entire family sometimes, and yeah, we'd just sit very awkwardly in the living room and have samosas and tea and kind of chat marriage.

    Katherine May:

    That sounds incredibly awkward.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, it was so terrible. It was honestly the worst experiences of my life. Terrible. So when I kind of met my ex-fiance, it was beyond that setting. So I met him at some demonstration in London, my first demo that I went to, when I was like, "Oh, right on." Yeah, and it was... and it felt like, "Oh, this is it." This is free from all that kind of cultural setting, and I just met him and I quite liked him and he liked me. Yeah, and so I kind of was on cloud nine a little bit and I couldn't believe that someone liked me as well. That was a bit of a shocker.

    Katherine May:

    Now, now.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. You know, everything's so artificial normally, and nothing was organic. So this kind of happened a bit more organically.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's a big change.

    Remona Aly:

    So I was quite excited, and I told my parents about him. They weren't that happy because at the time he didn't really have a good job, he didn't have a degree, and with Asians, it's like, you know, "You got to give financial security to my daughter." So for that reason they weren't too happy, but when they saw how happy I was, they accepted it. And they were happy for me and they told the world about it. So the whole world knew about my engagement, like even the taxi driver, the local taxi driver knew about it. That's just the nature of how like Asians are, they just, it's an entire community getting married, when it's you getting married, you know, everyone is in on it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And actually throughout my knowing him and my relationship with him, it was actually, there was so many alarm bells ringing that I kind of just dismissed because I thought, "No, I met him, and I'm the one that brought him home, and this can't be right. He's perfect. I'm the issue." So I kind of dismissed a lot of those doubts and those niggles about him. I don't really want to talk about what [inaudible 00:17:19]-

    Katherine May:

    The doubts are, that's fine. No.

    Remona Aly:

    I want to focus on my own feelings. I'll respect his [inaudible 00:17:25].

    Katherine May:

    That comes back to those ethics that we-

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That we kind of try and build.

    Remona Aly:

    Again, those ethics, those ethics are coming in. Yeah. And I eventually had this huge panic attack a week before our engagement.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my goodness.

    Remona Aly:

    Where I couldn't breathe. I couldn't eat. And this all happened at his mother's house. And it was horrible. And my mom was with me, my sister, we'd gone shopping for engagement gifts for each other. And I think that's where it came to a head, you see, because I kept brushing it under the carpet, thinking, "Oh, we'll be okay. I just need to get through this and get to the engagement." And then this huge... like my body literally just conked out.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah, I know that only too well.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah, you know.

    Katherine May:

    And I often think... Yeah, I know all about those. In fact, by the time I left school, I couldn't get into school without having one of them. It was really fun times. But I often think that panic attacks are something that arrives when you are ignoring your... you know, you've ignored your feelings for too long and your body just finds this way of going, "No, come on. Here I am."

    Remona Aly:

    Yes. Yes. That's exactly what it was. It was like, "Okay, you're not listening to me." Your mind is not listening. You're not listening to your mind. So, all right, I'm going to... the body has to act.

    Katherine May:

    I'm going to make you listen. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And it did. It really did. Well, it almost did. So I kind of was pretty floored at that time, but I was speaking to some members of my family and I was just describing how I was feeling, and one of them, my brother, was like, "I think you're, basically, you're depressed.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. Your brother, he's a doctor isn't he?

    Remona Aly:

    He's a doctor. Yeah. He's a doctor. And yeah, and he said, "Look, do you want to go on pills? Do you want to have Prozac?" I was like, "Listen, I don't want any antidepressants. I need to get through this in my own way." So I literally turned to my faith. That was the only thing I could cling to, because I felt like I was plunged into this place where it was just a dark place of complete loneliness. So yeah, I only had my faith, and there's this verse in the Koran that says like, "God is closer to you than your jugular vein." And I'd never felt the meaning of that until that time. It just really came to me because I felt like nobody was really hearing me.

    Remona Aly:

    And so I turned to my faith, but then I still, I still went through with the engagement and it was the unhappiest day of my life.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my goodness, that's so sad.

    Remona Aly:

    I was just looking at the photos thinking I look dead behind the eyes.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Remona Aly:

    It's terrible. But we had, it was like a big party, because we don't do things by half. We had a marquee in the garden, a cake, I mean it was like a wedding. It was like a mini-wedding. And everyone, all my relatives in India knew, everyone was calling. Oh my gosh, it was just dreadful. And I thought, okay-

    Katherine May:

    The stakes are so high by then.

    Remona Aly:

    ... So high. So high. So yeah, it wasn't just my own trauma I was dealing with, it was thinking about what kind of trauma and pain would I bring to everyone else as well if I say no and I can't do this. But I eventually did, I eventually did do that, and it was really, really, really difficult. And I kind of lost sense of who I was in that, in that process. I think you say so beautifully in your book, you fall into gaps of somewhere else.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And I was reading that thinking, I fell into the gaps of someone else as well.

    Katherine May:

    Right. That's interesting. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And I didn't recognize myself, I lost sense of who I was. I forgot how to smile.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's so-

    Remona Aly:

    I kept beating myself up. Even, I remember one uncle saying to me, "We trusted you, we trusted your judgment." And he was just so surprised and that made me feel even worse.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. That's quite a harsh comment though, isn't it?

    Remona Aly:

    I know.

    Katherine May:

    Because who does have that level of judgment about... I mean, that's... You know, choosing a partner is the hardest choice, if you position it as a choice, it's the hardest thing to do because you just cannot tell everything about somebody else and you can't tell everything about yourself even. You don't know what you're going to feel like 10 years down the line. It's a tricky, tricky decision to make, really.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, totally. Totally. And it's almost unforgivable in a way with me. I certainly couldn't forgive myself for a really long time because I thought, "I've brought everybody to this point. It's my fault. I didn't trust my judgment early enough." You know? And I was the one who was pushing it because I was this silly, romantic who was totally inexperienced. And I just beat myself up way, way too much. And also there was this time where I thought, "Okay, now I need to choose." Just before I made the decision to break it off. I was like, "I literally have destiny in my hands." Like, "What do I choose? Whatever I choose is my path." So I was like, "Okay, so do I break it off or do I go for it?" because actually in a way breaking it off was much harder.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Definitely.

    Remona Aly:

    Doing it would've been easier because it would have been an easy way, but then ultimately it would've been the worst thing for me. So I just had to do it completely on my own. And I decided, and it took me a long time to recover. I think the first time I smiled was about three months later or something.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my goodness.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. It was terrible. Really I'm laughing now, but it was extraordinarily difficult and dark. And you know, I didn't even say the word depression really until much, much later, because it's something that you think, "Oh no, this doesn't happen to me. It happens to other people. Why would it happen to me?" But I do now recognize that I was depressed.

    Katherine May:

    Do you know what? I actually think we've forgotten that you and I come... I mean, I'm 42. I'm not going to give your age away, but we're in the same class at school.

    Remona Aly:

    Well, now. It's important to be honest, but not all time. But go on.

    Katherine May:

    Sorry, couldn't resist that one. But when we were growing up, depression was not normalized, I don't think.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And it was not talked about in the way it's spoken about now, and I'm [inaudible 00:23:27]-

    Remona Aly:

    It was taboo.

    Katherine May:

    ... It was taboo. I was first diagnosed with depression when I was 16.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh my gosh.

    Katherine May:

    And I remember a member of my family saying, "You can't be depressed. That doesn't happen to people your age." And I, not only did I feel terrible because I was depressed, but also I felt terrible that I'd kind of brought this humiliation, which meant that we as a family were somehow faulty, as well as me personally.

    Remona Aly:

    Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh gosh, oh gosh. I can feel that pain. I can feel it right now.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Terrible. I understand completely.

    Katherine May:

    And having to go into school and talk to kind of random teachers about it. You know who our head of year was at that point, and whether you'd want to tell her about your depression.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We forget how much that conversation's changed for the better and how much more open we are about it. But I can well imagine that-

    Remona Aly:

    Well, it's only recent though, isn't it? I mean [inaudible 00:24:27]-

    Katherine May:

    It's so recent.

    Remona Aly:

    ... Very recent.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I can imagine how hard it was for you to recognize it.

    Remona Aly:

    Mm-hmm.

    Katherine May:

    To see it for what it was because the information wasn't really there.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. No, exactly, exactly. And when you're not really recognizing it, you're kind of very scared of it. And and also with the whole cultural background, it was even like a double taboo. And then like a triple taboo with my Muslim background. But even though there is recognition of trauma and pain within that tradition, and reassurance as well. Which I only really found it in my faith, and a lot of my friends were even like, "What's going on?" Because I couldn't really explain what was going on. I kept saying, "Look, he's just not right for me." And I couldn't explain to them why. But there was something in my gut and in my core that was telling me, "Do not do this."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    So, yeah. So I would even do this guidance prayer. I was doing a guidance prayer at the time that Muslims do when they want to take a decision.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Remona Aly:

    It was this-

    Katherine May:

    That sounds handy. Can we all do that?

    Remona Aly:

    ... It is very handy. It's a very good get out clause as well. Yeah. Yeah. I've used, it's called like my God disclaimer, so I'm like, "It's not in my destiny, God hasn't written it for me so I'm not meant to be with you." So it basically goes along the lines of if this thing is good for me, then bring me closer to it, and make it good for me and my end. And if it's bad for me than just remove me from it, and remove it from me. So it's for people who are kind of a bit more uncertain. I kind of did it for an assurance, that it was a confirmation of what I already felt deep down inside. And it did. And every time I thought about breaking it off, I did feel some kind of relief.

    Katherine May:

    That's so interesting.

    Remona Aly:

    So that's why I just... I did it. I did it. And very... literally, just a few months later, I broke off the engagement and I remember telling my dad, I think it was Ramadan at the time and had come back from-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's a good moment to pick.

    Remona Aly:

    ... Very good moment. I'm like, "Okay, this is a good month to use." Because he didn't know. My mom was like, "Don't tell him yet," because he was so excited and he was also not well at the time. So came home from the mosque and I was waiting up for him and I said, "Dad, I just need to talk to you. I just can't, I can't do this. I can't marry this guy." And he literally held me, hugged me on the sofa. And it was just the most reassuring moment for me. He just said like, "Don't worry about everything. I will sort everything out. I will tell everybody, you don't need to worry."

    Katherine May:

    That gives me chills.

    Remona Aly:

    And I was just like... oh, it was just the most amazing.... I was just crying. And yeah, I just felt so much, so much comfort and reassurance. And he really did. He really... He kind of said he was the one that called it off. You know, he wrote letters to all like kind of the important relatives, and it just, he took so much pressure off my shoulders. And it was a way, it was kind of... so it comes from a kind of place of authority as well. So people won't question it so much, they won't go, "What's going on? What are you talking about?" So he kind of removed that for me.

    Katherine May:

    He kind of shielded you. I mean, that's-

    Remona Aly:

    Shielded me. Yeah, he did.

    Katherine May:

    ... a beautiful thing to give to your children, I think.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah. My mom's so grateful.

    Katherine May:

    If you can just shield them from a little bit of harm while they're figuring the hard stuff out, I think that's a wonderful thing to do.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah, absolutely. And I'll never ever forget that.

    Katherine May:

    We'll be back to Remona in a minute, but I just wanted to take a short pause to tell you about a workshop I'm holding in Rockport, Maine. I know, American soil.

    Katherine May:

    On the 8th of August this year I will be working with the brilliant Alyssa Altman to deliver a day retreat courtesy of Barnswallow Books. And the workshop is called On Comfort. It's a whole day to join us and explore what comfort, sustenance and homecoming mean to you. So I'll be working with the group first to explore feelings of being at home, of being comfortable and cozy, and how we can create an environment that makes us feel safe and from which we can springboard into the work we need to do in the outside world.Alyssa will be working to explore what food means, the idea of comfort food, but reimagined. So thinking about how we can truly sustain our minds and bodies through the act of cooking, preparing, and eating food, which I know is such a complicated issue for so many of us.

    Katherine May:

    There will be a light lunch included, and at the end of the day, a lovely communal supper so we can all get together and break bread, or something else if you're gluten free. We know how it goes. There's a link in my bio to explore more about the workshops, but do take a look quickly, because I know they're going to book up quickly. It's the only workshop I'm running on American soil this year, and it's my first ever. So if you can come, please do. I'd love to see you there.

    Katherine May:

    Okay. Back to Remona.

    Remona Aly:

    People absorb your wintering as well. There is this, even for myself, there's an empathy of wintering, where you take on other people's sadness and grief. And it does help, it's kind of distributed a bit more, isn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And sometimes that empathy, it just becomes your own winter, doesn't it? When people are going through that-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    ... because you're so close to that person.

    Katherine May:

    You can take small bits away from people, can't you? You can just lift the burden and share it for a while.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Sharing is... it really helps so much. And not only with your own family members, but also with just general people.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm.

    Remona Aly:

    The article that I wrote had so many hits worldwide. Apparently it had like 160,000 hits in the first week or something. So that means that there was this recognition.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    People go through this pain. There's this collective sense of it, collective sense of wintering going on and the collective sense of the resilience as well. So people kind of saw that and I got so many messages saying, "I've been through something really similar." And that kind of assured me, and at the same time really alarmed me, because I'm like, "Oh no, everyone's going through this pain." But at the same time, you're like, "This is life. This is what human beings go through."

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Exactly.

    Remona Aly:

    These are all lessons and they build us, they build. You know, we have to be broken down in order to be built up again, just to have those scars, but you carry them with more wisdom and more clarity going forward. So that was very overwhelming for me to have that kind of empathy from people. And you realize how deep it goes, how deep these roots go in all of us.

    Katherine May:

    It's that moment of feeling part of a big human community, which I think we glimpse so rarely, but often we glimpse that in our moments of intense pain actually. And when we see other... and actually that takes me right back to what I was talking about when we started, about life writing, just gives us those points of contact with other human beings and their humanity and their commonality with you.

    Remona Aly:

    And that is the best writing, isn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Oh, for me, every time.

    Remona Aly:

    When there is resonance.

    Katherine May:

    Every time.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. When people can recognize themselves and their emotions and their experiences in your words.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm.

    Remona Aly:

    It's the most incredible feeling.

    Katherine May:

    What a privilege to be able to write that too. I mean, honestly, I'll never stop being grateful for being able to-

    Remona Aly:

    Absolutely.

    Katherine May:

    ... put that most painful material out there. And to always find a mirror that reflects me back at myself. I think that's just-

    Remona Aly:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    ... Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Definitely. That's it, that's exactly what it is. It is a mirror. And also you're giving a sense of honor to what you've gone through.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    There is a dignity to it-

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    ... in the way you're conveying it, and that is what people will also recognize. You're not just kind of like, "I'm sending all this stuff out there for sympathy," and people kind of going, "Yeah, I feel you, bud."

    Katherine May:

    Going, "Oh, poor you." Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    You know. There is integrity there and people really appreciate that you're being authentic.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Remona Aly:

    And you're being open and you're being dignified about it as well.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I think it returns dignity to it, because often the whole experience is very chaotic and-

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah, that's right.

    Katherine May:

    ... it's you never get your narrative arc. You know, you never get your perfect beginning, middle and end and sense of closure. But that creation of the story of it, I think helps to reintegrate everything and returns the dignity, to the moment, I suppose.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. That's beautifully said. That was beautifully put.

    Katherine May:

    I'm loving this. It says everything to me about writing as a kind of spiritual practice, actually. And as an act of prayer, almost. As an act of-

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, yeah. That's exactly it.

    Katherine May:

    ... worship, somehow, of something that's bigger than you are. Even if that's intangible.

    Remona Aly:

    You sound like a Sufi Muslim. That is exactly it.

    Katherine May:

    That's never been said before, but I'll take it. Thank you.

    Remona Aly:

    It is. It honestly is. It is, it is sacred. What we're writing is sacred because our existences are sacred.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And we are all spiritual beings. Whatever our beliefs are, we are all spiritual beings and there is something deep within us that we need to convey to the world. And when people recognize that and there's a bridge there, there is a beautiful universality of spirit and love and compassion and understanding. And I think your writing does that and it does it so beautifully.

    Katherine May:

    I try very hard to do that, you know? Well, but only because-

    Remona Aly:

    It's hard. It is hard. It is hard. It's not easy.

    Katherine May:

    It's really hard. But I also think, like I come from an atheist, kind of culturally Christian background. I have no template for discussing my spiritual sense of the world, and was very wary of it too, because religion was always taught to me as kind of control and something to be resisted. So I wanted to communicate with people like me who are a bit wary of anything that's got rules behind it, but who want that spiritual engagement with the world. That's definitely my aim. But it's very hard to talk about that in the UK specifically as well, I think. That conversation is much easier in America.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    We're kind of-

    Remona Aly:

    No, I completely... Yeah. Though, there is a move towards like more spirituality via mindfulness and things like that. There is this need and yearning for it. And for me personally, I've obviously, I've been brought up in a religious setting and upbringing. And I wasn't somebody who liked rules either. And I never wanted to approach it like a set of dos and don'ts. For me, it was just about expressing who I was. It was very liberating, it was like seeing the beauty of my faith and seeing how it can open up so many doors to me and also make me really understand who I am and help me in self development. So that's how I approached my faith, and I still approach my faith in that way. I just see it as very dynamic. And very nuanced. People always try and put it in a box and it really, it does not belong in a box. It belongs everywhere, and I think it belongs to everyone as well because that's the sacredness in all of us.

    Katherine May:

    ... And that's what lets you be of such service to other people as well. That's how you feed it back into the world. You take in that wisdom and you go out, and it helps. It helps.

    Remona Aly:

    Yes. That's exactly what the writing is all about as well.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Like that's what you're doing, it is a service. It's a service to yourself and to others, and it is bringing benefit. And that's why we do need to be honest. And honesty is a challenge but ultimately it is something that is a human experience that everybody will appreciate and recognize, and we'll grow from each other's experiences. I feel like I... You know, you grow every time you read anything. There is a growth in there. It's definitely like a plant or a seed that just keeps growing and growing. That's why I love reading [inaudible 00:37:46].

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely.

    Remona Aly:

    ... work and experiences. And I always want to know about everybody else's lives, "What's going on with you?" Not in the way of celebratory gossip, but what people go through. Like I think I was listening to Sheryl Sandberg's-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, right.

    Remona Aly:

    ... Was it Desert Island Discs, was it?

    Katherine May:

    I hadn't caught that.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, it was just, I think it was just about her losing her husband.

    Katherine May:

    Right. That's Sheryl Sandberg. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    And it was so... Oh my God, you're crying with her. You're feeling that pain with her and that recognition of pain is so important. I feel like grief personifies in each one of us and it becomes like two people who recognize each other when you-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's amazing. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    ... So when you're, I guess like... So me listening to what you've gone through and your loss, it helps you, doesn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    To kind of... You know, you do see it as a person, almost, and a [inaudible 00:38:39].

    Katherine May:

    And your grieving self meets other grieving selves, I think.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Those two can always be in dialogue. Whenever you meet someone who's lost someone, those two parts of each person can always talk. There's always something there.

    Remona Aly:

    Totally.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Even in the silence. Honestly, like your souls just can hear each other.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    It's just, it is incredible. And I felt that with... You know, one of my closest friends had a... she lost her baby in a stillbirth. And it was one of the darkest moments of her life, and of mine, because I kind of took on her pain and her trauma. And then it also happened in our own family when my sister lost her baby. And that also again, because I was kind of almost prepared for it with my friend, it just happened recently before that loss. It kind of prepared me for that in a way. But the pain was so deep, like you feel like your heart has-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's hard to imagine deeper pain than that.

    Remona Aly:

    ... You can actually feel the heartbreaking. It's actually, actually feel the cracks, you felt the cracks. And I thought I knew pain. I thought I knew pain? And then, pain's just like, "Yeah? No, this is how it feels. This is how it can really feel."

    Katherine May:

    That's life for you.

    Remona Aly:

    That is life. That really is.

    Katherine May:

    You don't know pain, lady. Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. And just watching how my friend and my sister just came out of that, and how they found the strength to come out of that, was extraordinary. And it gave me strength as well. It was kind of like a symbiotic kind of relationship going on. We were kind of, I was supporting, and then she was supporting me, and it was... yeah, it was extraordinary.

    Katherine May:

    It's redemptive.

    Remona Aly:

    Extraordinary. This empathy of wintering is extraordinary.

    Katherine May:

    It's a wonderful thing. This has been the best conversation that I've had for years with anyone. I feel like I've got absolute chills. It's just so beautiful. And I just-

    Remona Aly:

    Me too.

    Katherine May:

    ... Yeah. It's really lovely. We could just sit here and have a little cry now, couldn't we, afterwards.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. I mean, I think we probably will need to afterwards.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Maybe might have a cup of tea in a minute.

    Remona Aly:

    I'd like a cup of tea, sure thing.

    Katherine May:

    I want to ask you one final thing before we go off for our little individual cries. Did you, did you come to a point many years after, after all the pain and the embarrassment of breaking off that engagement, and all of those, kind of that big cluster of feelings and the confusion, did you ever come to a point of clarity about why you needed to do it?

    Remona Aly:

    Whoa, that's a big one.

    Katherine May:

    Sorry. Hey, we're doing big ones today. That's where we are.

    Remona Aly:

    Big endings, big endings. I think that I had clarity even around the time that I made the decision. I knew that I was doing the right thing so I never, ever had regret about the decision that I made to break it off. But the clarity, it became clearer as I went along, because I actually heard things that reconfirmed that I made the right decision from others, other people's experiences of that person. But you know, for years I couldn't forgive myself. Until, I think this was many years afterwards, I kept beating myself up about it, and then I think I went to some talk by a Muslim scholar and he said, "Look, you keep asking God for forgiveness, but you need to forgive yourself. You need to know that that prayer has been accepted and answered. And then you got to let it go. You just got to let it go."

    Remona Aly:

    Because I kept praying over and over.

    Katherine May:

    For the same... Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    I kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I've done this." And then there was a moment of release where I was like, "Okay, I'm not going to make this prayer. I'm not going to offer this prayer anymore. I'm going to let it fly. I'm just, I've done it. I've done with it and I know that I've been forgiven and I know that it set me free now. Why am I chaining myself in this way? It was like shackles, you put invisible shackles on yourself. And then, that's I think, probably that's my real moment of clarity.

    Katherine May:

    And that's true faith. Faith that your prayers are actually answered, you know?

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That's... And faith that you can-

    Remona Aly:

    And just believing in yourself that you made the right decisions. Because these what-ifs and why didn't I do this? They just destroy you and you need to nurture yourself, not kill yourself. So it really helped, that really helped me, and actually that entire experience now? It was a huge lesson for me, and it built up who I am. It really did because it enabled me to kind of dive deep into my emotions and to understanding myself better.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, I can tell. I can tell. I mean, like when you meet someone that you knew kind of then and now-

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    ... I think you're probably more aware of the contrast than most. But you are so... Oh, I don't know, self-actualized is a really naff term.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh, no, no, no. Let's use it. Let's use it.

    Katherine May:

    Let's do it. Let's do it. But you inhabit yourself fully in a way that not many people do, I don't think. And it just shows, it shows. You've grown so much wisdom since I last knew you and it's extraordinary.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Since I was that silly girl at school.

    Katherine May:

    Oh. Weren't we all. Oh, my days. I just... Mm-hmm.

    Remona Aly:

    No, that's really... No, I really appreciate that though. No, I do. That was really lovely. Really nice to hear. And I'm taking it and I'm going to take that sound bite and play it back to myself every morning.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I wish I hadn't used self-actualized now, I just feel like that's naff language. But you know what I mean. My heart was in the right place.

    Remona Aly:

    No, I completely know what you mean though. Like there is a comfort there and a confidence in who you are, in your sense of self. And it's a constant journey though, Katherine, I have to say.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    I still, I still get so much self doubt and confidence issues and anxiety, and it's a constant battle. But you know what your strengths are, you know what your weaknesses are better at this time in our lives than perhaps when we were at school or in my twenties when I was going through that experience. And kind of a journey into yourself is so, so crucial and so revealing. And these emotions, we're still learning, we're still learning within them. I still, I don't know what love is still, I still don't know what grief really is. It's a constant, constant learning curve and a constant journey.

    Katherine May:

    I just think that we don't talk about ourselves as a work in progress enough, and if we ever give each other the impression that anyone can be fixed and have it sorted once and for all, then we're doing great harm.

    Remona Aly:

    Definitely.

    Katherine May:

    The journey is the point.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And I-

    Remona Aly:

    We haven't got it sorted. It's not like, "Oh yeah, I've done that. And now I know everything." You know?

    Katherine May:

    ... I don't even want to get it sorted.

    Remona Aly:

    No.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, can you imagine how boring it would be if you had it sorted.

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But we carry on this kind of cycling through change.

    Remona Aly:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And every time, it's a spiral rather than a circle, so we move up a little bit maybe, hopefully, if we take enough time to reflect, but maybe we don't always manage to do that. But it's never going to stop. That's not the point of this, you know?

    Remona Aly:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That's absolutely not how this works. And I think that too much of our culture talks about, "Okay, here's how it's done." Like, stuff's solvable. And we have to start seeing that's totally undesirable and totally unwise and totally cold. It's not even interesting to me at all. I like the work.

    Remona Aly:

    Totally, yeah. I mean... Yeah. It's not. It is. I mean, it's what keeps us alive really, isn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm.

    Remona Aly:

    And ticking and... Oh, I just thought of something really clever to say, and it's gone now. I was like, "Oh, I thought of something." And it's literally gone. But just think-

    Katherine May:

    Ain't that always the way.

    Remona Aly:

    ... just know it was going to be the best thing. It was going to be the best thing on this podcast.

    Katherine May:

    I know I'd have felt nourished by it.

    Remona Aly:

    Oh my gosh. That was so funny.

    Katherine May:

    That's amazing.

    Remona Aly:

    I'm so sorry. I don't know where it went. It really, it went somewhere.

    Katherine May:

    No, we felt it. We felt it. You downloaded it. It's fine. We've all got it.

    Remona Aly:

    Did you?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Remona Aly:

    Did you feel it?

    Katherine May:

    I did. I did. I did.

    Remona Aly:

    Basically, whatever you said [inaudible 00:47:06].

    Katherine May:

    Oh, Remona. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me.

    Remona Aly:

    No, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    And for just saying such amazing things that have given me chills. It's just been wonderful. Thank you.

    Remona Aly:

    Likewise, likewise. Everything you've said has just been beautiful, spectacular, and meaningful. Thank you so much. Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you.

    Remona Aly:

    You've been wonderful.

    Katherine May:

    Can you hear that wood pigeon in the background?

    Katherine May:

    I know loads of people absolutely hate the sound of wood pigeons. They always come up on lists whenever they're made of people's least favorite bird songs. People find them really noisy, but I find that sound really always transports me back to sitting in my grandparents' garden, in the middle of summer, a bit like it is today. And I must have been really small because my grandma had pulled me a bowl of water, like a sort of washing up bowl of water to sit in. And I love the sound of them. They're quite annoying though, I do accept. I've got two that fight in the tree that overhangs my garden. All the time, they're just constantly battling with each other. I don't know what's upset them so much.

    Katherine May:

    I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. So good to hear it again, honestly. It's amazing how my little lockdown project has come so far and it's about to change a bit. We're kind of coming to the end of our third season and I've realized it's time to make a bridge, I think, between wintering and my new book, Enchantment, which will be coming out next March. So I need to freshen up the format a bit from October. There's still going to be loads of things that are just the same. It's still going to be about rambling, intimate conversations with really, really interesting people, but I'm going to be changing the focus a little, as I have in the last few episodes anyway, to focus on the question of what we do now in the face of all the changes we've so recently endured.

    Katherine May:

    And that means I can talk to maybe a wider range of people, but it also means, I think, that I'll be addressing the shift that so many of us are feeling right now. That sense that there are new battles to fight, definitely, but also there's a new world to be won. A breeze is just blowing up as I said that. I love talking about change and having the wind running through my hair. I think that there were some things that happened in the pandemic that were terrible. Many, many things that were terrible. But there were some things that made us realize that the lives we've been living weren't sustainable. And there were some things we just did not want to go back to. And some changes that we wanted to make that were permanent.

    Katherine May:

    And for me, there's a big, wide open space out there in which I need to talk about what we do now, what we do next, how we should think about this world and what toolkit we can draw on almost to inspire and elevate us in the world to come. That's all I'll say for now. I'll be launching a new name and probably a new visual identity after the summer. But for now, I just wanted to tell you all about it, because I'm really excited. I'm really ready to take this more seriously, you know? It's been a couple of years since I've been making The Wintering Sessions, and I've started to see myself as a podcaster in a way that I didn't before.

    Katherine May:

    So yeah, that's where I am right now. I hope you are having a really lovely summer and I'll be back really soon with another re-upped episode. See you later.

Show Notes

While we take a rest over the summer, we’re sharing some remastered episodes from Season One, chosen by listeners.

In this episode, I speak to journalist and broadcaster Remona Aly about her life-changing decision to call off an engagement, and how it echoed through the years to teach her about forgiveness, faith and empathy.

This is such a special one for me - I went to school with Remona, and I think you can hear our joy at reconnecting after a couple of decades, and feeling so at home in the process. We cover all of human life here: buckle in.

We talked about:

  • Finding the sacred in everyday life

  • How grief changes you

  • The need for community

  • Breaking off an engagement and family shame

References from this episode:

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Emma Dabiri on history and belonging

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Emma Dabiri on history and belonging

———
This week, Katherine talks to Emma Dabiri, author of Don’t Touch My Hair/Twisted and What White People Can Do Next.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Wintering Sessions. I’m Katherine May. I’m making a pot of tea, which feels like about all I can do at the moment. I just keep coming back and making pots of tea. Today’s, as it often is in the afternoon, is jasmine, dragon jasmine pearls, my favourite. It’s the tea I make when I want to feel soothed.

    And there’s a really particular reason that jasmine tea makes me feel soothed. It’s because, when I started university, I drove there with H and my mum and got into my room, unpacked all my stuff and then, there was this terrible moment when none of us knew what to do. My mum suggested that H and I went into town and bought some supplies, and so that’s what we did. We went and walked down to the high street, and we bought really stupid things. We didn’t know what to buy for ourselves, and we ended up in the Whittard tea shop which anyone English will know is like the world’s least practical grocery store. It only sells fancy tea, and it’s not even all that fancy—anyway, that’s another story—but we bought a teapot and a packet of jasmine tea, and then they both went home, and I was left on my own to get to know everybody else on the corridor. Those people are now some of my best friends in the world, so it didn’t turn out badly.

    But what I do remember is that first week making pots of jasmine tea for people. It was something that I could offer, and so when people came to my room, I’d make them jasmine tea and hope that that was something distinctive that I could offer. And, weirdly, I came to associate that really distinctive scent of jasmine tea with, I don’t know, like a strange mix of emotions, actually, with feeling unsettled but finding a way through it. It’s not comforting in itself; it’s kind of almost edgy. It brings back that feeling for me, that mix of fear and anxiety and excitement and possibility and trying to do a thing that makes you feel soothed. I always used to take it with a little slice of lemon, too. I’m not sure about that anymore. I think that might undervalue the innate beauty of jasmine tea.

    Anyway, I’m telling you this because I know that so many people listening will be feeling hugely unsettled at the moment. I feel like the Roe v. Wade decision in America has just turned every woman I know upside down, and plenty of men too; although, I would say not enough of them, frankly, but maybe that’s something for another time too.

    But that connects fantastically with my guest this week, Emma Dabiri, who is one of those people that when that news broke and I was dealing with my unsettled feelings, I went to her social media feeds to see what she thought, as I so often do, because she’s such an astonishingly clear and certain voice that cuts through so much of our discourse. I love that there is this person out there who is so nakedly clever and critical and kind of fearless and who thinks about the overall balance of things in such a crisp way.

    I was thrilled when she agreed to an interview, and I think you’ll love listening to her too. This interview was recorded before the Roe v. Wade decision. We don’t touch on that at all. Maybe it’s a welcome space from the before times, but I think you’ll really enjoy it anyway. We talk about some serious stuff, and we talk about some light stuff too, least of all my early struggles with entering the British middle class and learning their conventions. I hope it will give you a laugh, and I hope it will make you think. I’ll see you out the other side.

    Katherine May:

    Emma, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I am so chuffed to be talking to you. I’m such a fan of yours. You know like when it’s a real thrill to meet someone? Hi.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh my gosh. The feeling’s so mutual. I’m actually just kind of grinning stupidly, thinking I feel the same way.

    Katherine May:

    It’s so funny.

    Emma Dabiri:

    So, yeah, I’m looking forward to our conversation.

    Katherine May:

    That’s why I run a podcast: so I get to chat to really cool people. It’s like a ready-made social life that people get invited to in a really formal way. So we came to the idea of this conversation because you wrote a beautiful post a while ago about learning to come to terms with winter having always been a summer person, and I think I’m gradually learning to come to terms with summer, so I think we’re like moving on reverse planes. It’s been really hot the last few days, so I am very ill at ease at the moment because I just do not deal with the heat at all, and I hate the flood of light that comes at this time of year. Like, I don’t know what to do with myself in it; I want some shade. And also, I’m like permanently sunburnt at this time of year too.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Aww.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I know, it’s pathetic. So I would like to start by asking you, tell me about why summer is fantastic, before we even think about winter. What is it you love about this time of year?

    Emma Dabiri:

    So I really feel that I’m into the seasons, and I feel quite strongly that were I to live, say, in somewhere like California that was kind of a perennial summer, I personally would go mad because I definitely need gloom and darkness and shade. I think it’s just that to live in a climate that is kind of gloomy and grey all of the time, or nearly all of the time, or where there are potentially years and certainly months where there’s just kind of no sustained sunshine, I think, is also quite detrimental. But I think I really need the balance, I think. I need seasons. Or I like seasons.

    Katherine May:

    I used to have a Ghanaian friend. It’s summer all year round where she was from, and I couldn’t stop asking her. I couldn’t get my head round the idea of it. “What’s it like? How do you know notice when it’s Christmas? What changes are signalled?” And she’s like, “There is no change. It’s exactly the same. The days are the same length, the weather’s the same, and we make the changes. We bring the culture to the weather.” And she said, “You guys, you’re kind of really dependent on the movement of the year to guide you.” She found us all quite surprisingly changeable, I think, as people, almost, because we were so moved by the way the year was changing. I still can’t get my head round what it would be like.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Determined by outside forces rather than having more autonomy. It’s so funny that you reference Ghana because I think I actually really had this realisation about myself. Now, this realisation far predates me liking the cold; I have to preface it with that. Me liking the cold and actually kind of craving the cold is a very recent development. I lived in Ghana for about six months many, many years ago, about 15 years ago, and it was actually there where I realised, after maybe two months or so of just constant heat and warmth and sunshine, that I was actually craving the particular dampness of Ireland.

    Katherine May:

    Imagine that.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I was just like, I actually need to go to, not even Dublin, where I come from. I was like, I need to be in the west coast; I need to be in the west of Ireland. And I was like, what is wrong with me? I’ve literally spent my life complaining about that, trying to flee from it, and now I feel myself craving it. When I left Ghana, I went to Mayo and somewhere else. I went to the west coast, basically, for about ten days, and even though it was the summer, it rained.

    Katherine May:

    Of course, it did.

    Emma Dabiri:

    It was occasionally, regularly kind of gloomy and damp, but also so richly saturated in a particular way that I felt like my eyes really were just drinking that up, and the fine misty rain on my face. I was like, oh man, I didn’t realise how much I have actually been kind of shaped by this environment. I wouldn’t have liked the cold at that stage. That was still a good decade off, actually liking the cold, but definitely seeking out that wetness.

    Katherine May:

    That’s amazing because, actually, Ireland’s damp is such a particular damp. It is part of how mystical it can feel. It’s that kind of mood that the damp creates. And that deep, deep green and all those wildflowers in every lawn that you find in Ireland, which you don’t find in my part of England, is special. Even though it’s kind of a bit unpleasant and makes it difficult to dry your washing. Did you know that that kind of miserly rain and what it does to your skin is called ‘a Cornish facial’?

    Emma Dabiri:

    Really?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I didn’t know that, but it makes sense. Actually, I was in rural Ireland last year. It was that kind of weather, even though, again, it was the summer, and this old man was just like, “Oh, this weather is wonderful for your complexion no matter what colour you are.” I was just like, “Thank you.”

    Katherine May:

    It’s like an Evian spray but built into the environment. It’s supposed to be amazing for your skin.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, yeah. I definitely know I was craving it, but I feel like, because my relationship to Ireland was-- so, yeah, I grew up there—well, I was born there, I grew up there, and my mum’s side of the family is entirely Irish—but because my dad is Nigerian and because that was such an anomaly when I was a small child in the 1980s and a teenager in the 90s, my sense of belonging there was very complicated, and I was always being told that I wasn’t really Irish. I honestly think that really had an impact on my relationship to the landscape and to my environment and to the weather. I was just like, “Oh my God, the other side of my family is from this really hot, warm place.”

    Katherine May:

    Maybe I’m better-suited kind of thing, yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah. “I’m brown, and I need vitamin D, and, actually, I should be in the tropics. What kind of perverse punishment has been meted out on me that I’m me, and I’m here, and so alone.” But, yeah, when I left Ireland, I think that’s when I realised actually how much that weather and that environment had actually shaped me and, I think, had a big impact on who I am and actually how much I crave to be in that kind of weather sometimes.

    Katherine May:

    But it does make sense because I think when you’re younger—well, I don’t know about you—I was very absolute about things, and I thought I would find my place in the world and that that would be a definite thing, and as I’ve got older, I’ve realised that I’m just always craving change. I get to one place, and I get nostalgic about somewhere else, or I think about the next thing. I can imagine having those feelings when I was younger and experiencing racism as you did when you were younger and thinking, “Okay, so this isn’t my place, then. There must be a place.” It makes a load of sense. I know you’ve written that you kind of got out of Ireland as soon as you could, really, and moved on and tried to find that place, I guess.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, completely like as you’re saying. I think what I’ve really come to not just know but fully understand as I’ve gotten older is that kind of perpetual quest for finding the right geographical location. If it’s motivated by something that’s internal, and there’s an internal disconnect, or you’re looking for that place where you think everything will just fall into place, and there’ll be kind of like a magic formula that you fit and you belong, I think you could spend your whole life looking for that place. To an extent, not entirely, I think a lot of it is internal, something that’s internal, but kind of looking for an external solution to it. I recently re-read one of Nella Larsen’s books called Quicksand.

    Katherine May:

    I’ve not read that one.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, Passing is better known, particularly because it’s just been made into a movie. But this course that I was teaching in Villanova, it was like a comparative literature course, and we were looking at the relationship between the Irish Literary Revival and the Harlem Renaissance.

    Katherine May:

    It’s impossible to say.

    Emma Dabiri:

    It’s a proper tongue twister. We were looking at Quicksand, and I re-read that book as part of that course. I mean, it’s written a hundred years ago, but in it is this woman who has a Danish mother and a black father. She’s in 1920s America, and it’s basically her search from everywhere, like from the rural South, to Harlem at the height of the Renaissance, to Copenhagen where her mother’s family comes from. Her search to kind of find the place where she believes everything’s just going to fall into place, and inevitably, it never happens. She never finds it.

    Katherine May:

    There’s dramatic irony even in that set-up, isn’t there? You’re never going to find that place. That’s just not how it happens, but there’s always a part of me that thinks I would be better off living in a much more rural location, where it’s really quiet, and I wouldn’t have to see people. And as soon as I get to one of those places on holidays, I’m really bored within five days, and I’m like, “Right, where are the people? What am I doing?” I don’t think we know ourselves very well, really.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I don’t know how I would fare in that environment. I think when I was younger, it wouldn’t have even remotely appealed. It would have just seemed like a hellish possibility; whereas, now, I totally see the appeal of that kind of existence. I think it would be probably good for us all to be in that kind of environment or set-up for, I don’t know, a week or two, at least, a year. But I think, for me, that would be quite adequate.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that would be enough.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I’ve just left London, though, after 20+ years of living there.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, really? So are you still in a city, or have you changed completely?

    Emma Dabiri:

    No, I’m not that far from you actually. I’m on the Kent coast.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, are you?

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, and actually, how I came across Wintering was, I was in one of my local bookshops, and I picked it up at the cash register, and I was like, “Oh, that looks intriguing.” I was just thinking that, but I didn’t say anything, and the woman who works there was just like, “Oh my God. This book is amazing. You have to read it.”

    Katherine May:

    Ah, that’s nice.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I thought you were American. I thought it was an American book because I just saw ‘New York Times Best Seller’ on the front. I was just like, “Oh, is she American? Is it an American book?” and she was like, “No, she’s local basically.” And I was like, “Really?” I was like, “I have to read this.” So, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I’m local-local as well. I’ve lived here all my life, not in Whitstable but further along the river, so I am truly a Kent native. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I’m so local.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh, I love that.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I mean, I did manage to move away briefly for university. It’s really funny. I’m always really curious about what it would be like to live in another place, like a different country or even the other side of this country, but I’ve got this really strong sense that I belong here even though I love other places. I mean, maybe it’s just a complete lack of courage and opportunity so far, I guess, but I can’t imagine moving around. I still can’t picture it somehow.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh my goodness. If you are where you are from, and you feel that you just really, really belong there, I think, yeah, that’s what so many people are searching for. I don’t think you need to leave. It’s all good.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that’s true.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I miss Ireland so intensely. I don’t know. It feels weird for me. I’m really happy where I am now, more so than I’ve been, I think, in a lot of places. I really do feel very content here, but at the same time, I really, really pine for Ireland. The thought of never living there again is quite hard to countenance, but then it’s like, would I uproot my--? My children were born in London but grew up here, which is quite close to London, and also, on their dad’s side, they actually have been in this part of Kent for generations, so their roots have been quite connected to here for generations.

    Katherine May:

    It’s just so fascinating how particular our sense of place is because I moved to Whitstable 15 years ago, and it took me ages to feel like I belong here. I moved here because I’d always wanted to live by the sea, but I moved from the really working-class area of Kent. I grew up in Gravesend and then the Medway Towns, and I felt like a class traitor when I first moved here. Whitstable hadn’t gentrified as much as it has now. It’s really gentrified now, and there’s no way I could afford to have moved here now, but even as it was, it had a few nice little places to go to.

    I felt intensely uncomfortable for the longest time, and like I had to almost defend a kind of working-class position for everybody else that those people didn’t know. It sounds just ridiculous as I say it, but I almost didn’t feel like I deserved this place. It felt, like, too fancy. That’s the truth of it: it felt too fancy for me. I felt like I didn’t belong. I used to get maybe invited to parties or whatever. I suddenly realised that I couldn’t master the middle-class sense of humour. The way you talk to each other in Chatham is that you take the piss of each other. That’s what you do. If anyone starts to go on about themselves, you take them down a peg a bit. You can’t do that here. Oh my God, I offended so many people when I first moved here.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I totally, totally get it. Dublin, particularly the part of Dublin I grew up in, the humour, what people expect from a social situation, is extremely different, and it does feel weird. Part of the reason I left Ireland was because I was like, “I need to be around other black people. I need to not be the black girl,” but then, at university and stuff, there actually were very few black people at my university. When I moved over here, I just found myself around very upper-middle-class, upper-class white English people, and I was just like, “Oh, this is a whole different vibe.”

    Katherine May:

    I know. Yeah, let’s do an anthropology of the British white upper middle classes. Because I knew I was going to go to university, and I knew that was going to be a change, I’d really paid attention to all those discussions of manners. I knew that you called it a napkin and not a serviette, and that you said sofa instead of settee, and you said lunch instead of dinner, and you didn’t say front room, all of that kind of thing. I’d learnt all of that, but nobody talked about the humour and the way that social conventions about how you talk about yourself was so different, and it took me a decade at least to master it.

    I could not understand why these people talked about their children like they were like these little gods that [inaudible]; whereas where I come from, you insult your children. That’s what you do. It’s like, “Yeah, this idiot over here.” That was the convention as I was growing up, a very warm convention, not people being mean to their children, but you wouldn’t over-rate your children to other people because it would be like a failure of humility, I guess, if I was going to say it.

    I feel like I’m rambling here, but what I’m trying to say is that belonging is not just about landscape; It’s about the peopling of that landscape and how there’s these tiny things that you can transgress without even knowing it.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, what you’re saying completely resonates. I think one of the things that I miss most about Dublin is, it’s like the culture, it’s the sensibilities, the perspective, the sense of humour, and also, actually, the way people speak to each other, the importance that is placed on craic—obviously, I mean craic, like the [fun?], C-R-A-I-C—and then also people just very witty, fast-paced. I guess, the closest thing you’d say would be like banter, but people really like slagging each other off. Do you know what I mean?

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely.

    Emma Dabiri:

    In a way, sometimes when I go home now, that side of me has become kind of dulled. It’s not as sharp, the way it used to be.

    Katherine May:

    You can’t take it anymore.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I’m kind of like, “What? Hang on. Are they taking the piss, or have I just been seriously insulted?” and then I’m like, “Oh no, God. I’ve been in England too long.”

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and also, the first time I asked a middle-class person how’s your mum, they were like, “Do you know my mum?” I was like, “No, of course, I don’t. That’s just what you ask, isn’t it?” I feel like probably a lot of people listening to this are understanding me for the first time now. Let’s move on from my social incompetence, but actually, I think this is a neat segue. I’ve noticed your writing lately has been so much about class, and about economic disadvantage, I guess, and it’s so refreshing to read your analysis of it because I don’t think it comes across very often in our culture, people really talking about the disadvantages that still massively linger and the way that we’re connected by disadvantage, sometimes, rather than by other things. Does it feel invisible to you? It feels to me like we’re losing that discourse, and that it’s almost out of fashion a little.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh yeah. We’re totally losing it, which is very convenient for the status quo, and for power, actually, and I feel like with the emphasis being on other aspects of identity-- and then, again, there’s the idea that class isn’t necessarily an identity; it’s actually like a social positioning. Of course, there are class cultures that exist, but it’s not solely a culture or an identity. It’s also like a structural position, and that is not really engaged with in the kind of intersection of different identities that are prominent, where emphasis and attention is placed, and I feel that race and class often overlap.

    I write a lot about how race was invented and the motivations behind the introduction of the idea of a white race and a black race. This is in the 17th century, like English colonial Barbados. It wasn’t called the black race then, but the idea of there being these two distinctly different races and a white race that was allegedly inherently superior was-- in many ways, part of the motivation behind this was to enshrine and protect class interests. I always find it really interesting that the first slave codes that we see that are the first example we have of the notion of a white race and a black race being codified into law, the first time that happens is in colonial Barbados in 1661, and it’s a response to the series of uprisings that happens on the island where indentured Irish servants and kidnapped Africans are coming together to attack the English landlords who they see as a common enemy because the notion of race hasn’t yet been introduced.

    Katherine May:

    Just to pause there, when I read that, I thought, it’s so hard to imagine now, isn’t it?

    Emma Dabiri:

    So quite effective.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, it’s been really effective and really compelling, and it seems so natural to our understanding, but just to put massive emphasis on this, that wasn’t always there.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that’s not the way it’s been for most of human existence. You see the same thing in colonial Virginia as well, where indentured English servants and kidnapped Africans come together, and there’s a rebellion called Bacon’s Rebellion where they fight, again, the elite class of land owners and lawmakers, and, again, those two exploited populations who were comprised of people who will soon begin to understand themselves as black and white can see the landlord class as a common enemy.

    But what happened after race is invented is, those class solidarities—this is essentially what they were—become overridden by racial identity, where people who were racialised as white, even if they were exploited by a particular class of people, if they are also white people, they see more of a shared identity based on whiteness rather than based on their kind of class or structural position.

    Then the other thing that I think really informs my writing or my thinking about class is that I grew up in a very working-class part of Dublin, and I just felt so strongly that—and I very much mean the kind of liberal mainstream social media type of anti-racism that is very popular and dominant at the moment—when they’re speaking about white people, I’m like, “This doesn’t seem like it maps on to the realities or the experiences, or is going to resonate at all with the white people that I grew up with.”

    Katherine May:

    That you grew up with, yeah. Absolutely.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    It always really strikes me, because I’ve changed social class—I’m definitely middle class now—my son is definitely, definitely middle class. I mean, he pronounces the T in Waitrose. I find it really hard to even do that. I can see the difference in my social capital and my power now, in that I can say things and people listen to them. People hear me when I speak, and I don’t think the mainstream discourse understands just how powerless that group of people is. They don’t have connections to anyone that might even help them. I don’t think the middle class can imagine not knowing a journalist somewhere along the line or something like that. It’s so far back from the understanding.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Completely. It’s those networks and those connections, and that’s kind of what I’m saying about it being like an actual position, like a position rather than just an identity. It’s where you’re kind of structurally positioned in society.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely, yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    You don’t have those networks. You don’t have that access, which is the basis of social mobility or careers and career progression in this country and in many places. I also think class, in terms of just the idea that it’s kind of-- the strikes that are happening at the moment. I find labour movements so interesting because when you think about people power, since 2020, there have been these conversations—they’ve been happening for a long time—really, really mainstream widespread zeitgeisty conversations about how can we enact change, and people protest or make a lot of noise online, and nothing really changes.

    Katherine May:

    Nothing happens, yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Nothing happens. And when you think about where real effect, real change has been created, one of the kinds of few sides where people power can be demonstrated is through striking, is through [inaudible].

    Katherine May:

    It’s the labour movements, yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Exactly. And if you have no class analysis, and you’re not thinking about labour, and you’re not thinking about workers, you’re not going to focus on that kind of organising. Your emphasis is going to be in other places, and those other places often don’t prove as effective in bringing about any change because they’re performative and symbolic.

    Katherine May:

    It means we think we’re organising, but we’re organising ineffectively. We’re using up so much of our time and energy getting upset with each other online, and then not--

    Emma Dabiri:

    Thinking we’re doing something.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it does. It does feel like occupation, doesn’t it? It’s been such a theme of the conversations in this season on The Wintering Sessions, that everybody’s very disenchanted with, particularly, Twitter, which I think for a long time felt really effective. That’s not to be too harsh on it because, actually, it was an effective way of gathering, but the gathering itself doesn’t impact anyone that isn’t on Twitter. I think we’re beginning to see the huge problem that that’s caused us because we have got ourselves really tangled up in ineffective protest. That feels so blunt to say that, but I think it’s probably true.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah. I recently read a really amazing book that named some of these processes that I’ve found so troubling recently, and it’s called Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else). It’s quite interesting because the author is talking about the elites of marginalised groups and how, again, it’s this conflation of race and class, people that do belong to groups that are not the dominant white male middle class. There’s power within groups—the people who kind of constitute the elites of those other groups—and it might be a class position, or it might be a class privilege. I’m trying to avoid privilege.

    He also talks about the attention economy, like a new class of people who really control attention because of a social media following, for instance, and how their priorities might be very different from the priorities of somebody who’s maybe in the same group as them but isn’t on social media or doesn’t actually really care about Hollywood representation or some of these demands where all of the attention has been focussed, but actually needs access just the basic requirements that people need to have a decent quality of living. But those voices, we don’t hear from those people. They don’t come to the fore, and so the set of priorities, even with marginalised groups, are determined, often, by people who have power and access and privilege within those groups.

    Katherine May:

    And who are doing it for them. When you paused at using the word privilege, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been a bit troubled by the kind of announcing of white privilege that happens between white people like me. It’s almost like that kind of packages it up, and we’ve done that now. We do it at the beginning of every online event. Someone will say, “Well, of course, as a white privileged person,” and we all go, “Mm, yes.” That feels like action, and of course, it isn’t.

    It just struck me as you stumbled on that word that one of the things that social media does is, it uses up words really quickly and taints them. So where once a term like white privilege would have had enduring power for maybe a decade or more, and it would have been a useful term that we could’ve worked with, it gets burnt up really, really fast and becomes just cliched and completely emptied out of any meaning so quickly. That’s one of the things that makes activism really difficult as well, I think, that the terminology is so unstable, and the rallying cries are so unstable, and the sense of what we’re arguing about at the moment is unstable and having everybody’s opinion all at once means that everything decomposes very, very quickly and political ardour just burns itself out.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Even from the perspective of writing, I can’t bear to use certain words just because they’re just so cliched. There’s kind of predetermined stock phrases and buzz words that are not only expected but demanded of one to use, and I’m like, “No. I refuse to be forced to use this language.” There’s a lot of very stock words in the kind of online liberal, mainstream, anti-racist lexicon, and I really try to avoid using really any of them in my writing, even from the perspective of just having a love of language.

    Katherine May:

    Just so it feels fresh.

    Emma Dabiri:

    [inaudible].

    Katherine May:

    But I don’t think people hear stuff if you don’t use different language. My background’s more in autism awareness and rights, and I’ve seen exactly the same thing, that we all end up using the same language over and over again, and the effect is just deadening. You just think, “I’ve heard that. I know that already,” and the brain just skips over it. There’s nothing interesting there anymore because we’ve said it.

    But, of course, that person that’s used that language might be talking about something really, really urgently important that’s happening to a real human being. I don’t know what to do about that. This is my big human question at the moment because autistic people wouldn’t have been able to get together without those social media organs that have been so powerful for us to meet each other. But they’re sort of destroying us at the same time, and they’re making us very, very tired in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever experienced before, that fatigue with self-advocacy and activism that comes from doing it as a full-time job, almost.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Well, I think it’s about recognising the utility in these platforms or methods because as you’ve described there, there is a lot.

    Katherine May:

    There’s a lot.

    Emma Dabiri:

    But being very aware of not only their limitations but also their capacity to do damage as well.

    Katherine May:

    And to create in-fighting. It’s easier to in-fight than it is to focus on what really needs to be done. It’s so simple to just go, “Well, I didn’t like it when you said that.” You just see fights breaking out all over the internet every day between people that are aligned.

    Emma Dabiri:

    But a lot of that is because-- there’s the narcissism of small differences, but then, that’s turbo charged as well by the fact that this concept of clout-rage and calling people out and these sassy ‘I’m speaking truths to power’ takes are actually more divisive than that, actually kind of witch hunts and pile-ons on people and stuff. That is actually really incentivised, particularly in somewhere like Twitter. That highly emotive content is what accrues likes and shares and, therefore, more influence, so people are actually incentivised to be divisive. It’s kind of like a politics of competition rather than one of solidarity.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, who’s the most outraged; who’s the most offended? That’s seen as a position of triumph, and it’s just unconstructive, I think.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Well, who has the most followers, but a great way to accrue followers is through outrage.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, and I know that if I say something angry on Twitter, I will get five times the retweets than if I say something just pleasantly observational, everyday life. “Here we are. Hi.” It’s looking for your outrage because that’s so contagious. The problem is that it has such a personal effect on the person that is outraged. What I’m saying is, I feel guilty that I’m always scooting off to Instagram for some nice pictures. I feel terrible about that, but there’s this real [inaudible] that I experience that’s like, I can’t take this anymore. I can’t deal with it. The world is so outrageous. What do we do with that? I don’t know.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I mean, for me, Twitter feels like a real hotbed of it, so I spend very little time on the Twitter streams, and honestly, I read a lot of theory—I’ve been doing a PhD for a really long time, so that kind of is why I have to be doing that—yeah, a lot of theory in the black radical tradition, which is something that I talk about quite a lot, and I actually find that such an antidote to the kind of reactive one-dimensional outraged hot takes. It’s really rigorous, generous, radical, I’d say. Yeah, rigorous and radical, and actually quite generous and generative tradition with deep thinking happening as well as organising.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely. I mean, it’s an incredibly scholarly tradition, yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    So, yeah, I find that a real antidote to social media race discourse.

    Katherine May:

    Does this put you in conflict and opposition with people that really is your kind of team ultimately? Is that offensive to people, for you to say that, or does it fit very comfortably into a kind of wide-ranging discourse? It should be the latter. Is it?

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I don’t know. Not necessarily speaking about me directly, but I have seen people who say that it’s elitist to say that people should be engaging with some of these texts. And my response to that is, I think of the Black Panthers, and I think of them as being very, very working-class black people from Oakland in the 1960s [inaudible], and they’re reading Nietzsche and Plato, so I don’t know. I don’t believe it’s elitist to read.

    Katherine May:

    I feel like it’s kind of elitist to say that reading’s elitist, but it might be [inaudible] probably. What do you think about that headline in The Sun yesterday that actually mocked builders for saying that they were reading and that they were in touch with their emotions? Did you see that?

    Emma Dabiri:

    Shoving bacon sandwiches, [inaudible] woke.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, that’s it, woke builders. They’re woke because they’re slightly educated, and they’re in touch with their emotions.

    Emma Dabiri:

    That was it, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That’s, like, a really obvious example of using education against working-class people. Like, you’re not allowed to reach out and learn stuff. You must stay down. I really think that was-- yeah.

    Emma Dabiri:

    It’s actually obscene. I’m so glad that you brought that up because I saw that, to much mirth and hysteria, the other day, but it’s actually endemic of something far more pernicious, and I think that’s kind of more of a recent development. I don’t mean just since social media, but maybe recent in the past, I don’t know, few decades because there are very strong working-class socialist traditions, for instance, where people would be reading lots of theory and lots of books that are dense, and very, very engaged in international solidarity and the socio-economic climate in other parts of the world and have a really strong knowledge of international relations. I think, increasingly, there’s been this idea that, actually, that’s not for working-class people. It’s real ‘stay in your place’.

    Katherine May:

    It’s deeply offensive, and I think it comes from both sides of the political spectrum as well. I think the Labour Party has become an incredibly middle-class organisation, and I don’t think everybody in there understands that working-class people are capable of that kind of thought. I have depressed myself again. We need a class analysis more than ever, is what I’m saying.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, completely.

    Katherine May:

    Actually, this is a good moment to ask a question that one of my patrons sent in because it fits just right here. It’s from Sarah Horner, and she asked—and I think this is such a pertinent question—are podcasts, uh-oh, like Blindboy, The Rest Is Politics, Revolutions and so on, building an opportunity for critical thinking, or are they just another echo chamber for a small number of people who already agree? And she says, “I want to be optimistic that they’re an indicator of our appetite for real insight, but in daily life, with real people, I’m not seeing it.” I don’t know if you know those podcasts.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I do. I’ve been on Blindboy a couple of times. He’s a friend of mine. Yeah, so, for instance, I feel that when I speak to Irish guys who’d be kind of the generation below me, for instance—actually, not just men, people generally, but I’m going to actually just focus on men for a second—the way a lot of them think about their identity as men and about masculinity and stuff has shifted so much because my male friends wouldn’t have been able to express themselves maybe in those kind of ways. I think that is in large part because of a cultural shift, that a lot of it has been expressed through social media, and a lot of it has been expressed through podcasts and men talking about their emotions and their sexuality--

    Katherine May:

    Mental health

    Emma Dabiri:

    --their identity and mental health and stuff in ways that wouldn’t have been permissible when I was a teenager or even in my twenties.

    Katherine May:

    When you think about the cultural shift that’s been happening in our lifetime, men attending births, for example, my dad’s generation didn’t do that.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh God, yeah. My dad wasn’t even in the country when I was born.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I think I’d avoid it that much again. The conversations we’re having about gender, the conversations we’re having about sexuality, the conversations about parenting, about housework, about who earns the most, every part of our culture’s been exploded, and I don’t think we all realise all the time just how much we’re in the middle of that explosion. A lot of that stuff has yet to fully settle, and it’s, therefore, no wonder everything feels so up for grabs and uncomfortable. But I’m such an optimistic person. I can’t help it. I do think that discomfort is a sign of something good gradually happening, not straightforwardly, but the fact that it still hasn’t set yet is a very, very good thing indeed because if we all felt culturally certain, I think we’d be regretting a lot of those certainties in 50 years’ time in the way that we look back at the cultural certainties of the 50s, and they now look horrifying actually. They relied on a lot of unspoken oppression.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I’m really interested in a lot of late-60s and early-70s movements, and if you look at the progress that was seemingly made, there was progress made, but then I think about how attitudes were when I was growing up in the 90s. They were dreadful.

    Katherine May:

    I know.

    Emma Dabiri:

    And it’s just like, where did all that progressiveness go, and I feel like the pendulum can just swing. I feel like we can’t rest on our laurels because it is all kind of up for grabs. I see very conservative and anti-progressive tendencies, also, that are very strong as well, so, yeah, I just don’t know. I think I’m an optimistic person as well, but we might kind of resolve microaggressions, and by the time we’ve done that, the world will be too hot to live in.

    Katherine May:

    We’ll be too hot to be aggressive to each other. We’ll just be all tired.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Earth won’t be able to sustain human life, so it won’t matter. Yeah, I think the stuff with the environment is kind of pretty pressing. Then, sometimes, I see the naval-gazing kind of infighting of people who actually you would think be able to see themselves as not even just allies but actually fighting for the same thing, and I just feel a bit like, ugh.

    But I’m looking at those movements, that organising with the Amazon workers and all the left-wing governments that are coming into power in Latin America and South America and the recent election in Colombia where it has its first left-wing president. He’s like a former guerrilla. And then the vice-president is the first black woman who’s ever had that position in Colombia. If it was just a black woman who was the vice-president of Colombia, but she was a raging conservative, I wouldn’t be celebrating that as a win, but it’s a black woman who’s also a strongly leftist black woman, so, yeah, it’s just a very leftist government. Their stated aims are for equality and no repression, and these are the stated aims. I don’t know how achievable that will be in our current--

    Katherine May:

    Well, it’s a global system. I think we in the West forget that there is a global picture here, and the despair I feel about the direction politics is going is actually quite specifically European and North American.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Ireland is a bit of shining light in that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, tell us about Ireland. I don’t think everyone always notices though.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I know. I literally have people ask me. They’re like, “Well, how is it a different country?” I’m just like, “What?” I’ve honestly had people ask me that question, and I don’t know how to answer it. “How is France a different country? What are you talking about?” There can be a weird ownership over Ireland, people being surprised that it has its own currency.

    Anyway, Ireland has just kind of emerged as-- it’s so funny because when I left, it was still very socially conservative, and London, especially, seemed, like, so liberatory and just lightyears ahead. There’s been a reversal. Through mass movements and organising, Ireland has just changed, brought in a lot of new legislation around pretty draconian laws that we had. I don’t know. This generation is just really, like, “No, we’re not having all of this super repressive bullshit that has determined life and culture for so long.”

    Katherine May:

    I love that. It makes me so excited. I was a generation-Z teenager, just very badly misplaced. I would have been so at home right now. I’d have been so angry. Having a little TikTok rather than a really stupid old lady TikTok which is what I’ve just developed, me not doing dances.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I love TikTok, but I actually just don’t have the headspace. I wish I was sixteen because I would have the headspace.

    Katherine May:

    It would be amazing if you were sixteen.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I know. I had such bad social anxiety, but I would have been able to express my sense of humour to an audience without having to engage with anyone. It would have been great.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. God, I could talk about TikTok forever at the moment because I’ve just got interested in it, and I’m learning so much there. It is so much more global than any media I’ve ever encountered before, and so much more diverse. Let’s end on a note of optimism. That feels like the future to me. It really does. It feels like young people are flooding into these spaces that are a genuine mixing pot. The term mixing pot is another term that just burned itself out, but here is an actual cauldron that ideas are being thrown into, and they’re all sitting quite comfortably alongside each other. You can spend half an hour on there and learn some stuff about other people that you just did not know, and I love that.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Yeah, I think that’s incredibly exciting. I don’t think I’ve engaged with it as much as I would like to.

    Katherine May:

    As obsessively.

    Emma Dabiri:

    No, I’ve had quite a few peers of my kind of age, who are not big into social media at all and actually, find the way people are on Instagram, they find it quite cringy, being like, “Oh no. TikTok is actually really cool,” people whose opinions I respect speaking very highly of it when they’re not social media people really at all. So I think I really do need to explore it, but I don’t have headspace. I’m like, I can’t handle it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I know.

    Emma Dabiri:

    I can’t handle another app.

    Katherine May:’

    Too many other things. When my publisher suggested it, I was like, “Not another thing,” and then I obsessed over it for about two weeks and can’t leave it alone now. It feels punk actually. It’s very--

    Emma Dabiri:

    DIY.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it’s like it’s really unaesthetic, like it’s the anti-Instagram.

    Emma Dabiri:

    That’s what I’ve heard.

    Katherine May:

    That’s the joy of it, people doing really scrappy stuff that’s intelligent and that the quality of it lies in something other than prettiness.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Oh my God. You’ve got me hyped. I’m like [inaudible] TikTok when we finished talking.

    Katherine May:

    I’m a convert [inaudible] to you. Emma, thank you. I would just carry on talking for the next three hours, so I will have to stop. I think we should just do a series where we just put the world to rights and just carry on week by week. It’s been amazing to talk to you. Thank you so, so much, and I know everyone’s going to love listening to you, so thank you.

    Emma Dabiri:

    Well, thank you so much for having me, and we didn’t even get into sea swimming.

    Katherine May:

    So I decided to have a little slice of lemon in my tea for old times’ sake, just the smallest slither. It’s like a little crescent moon floating in the top of my tea. Smells great. It’s so funny how these things comfort us, but also how often we deny ourselves those comforts when we’re at our most distressed and our most worried.

    If I can do anything for this world through writing Wintering, I hope it will be to convince people that they’re not obliged to increase their own suffering when they’re already suffering, that you don’t show solidarity for people in need by making your life painful. Instead, it’s about acknowledging that suffering comes round to all of us sometimes. We all get our turn, and we do all we can to comfort ourselves in those times. We do everything always to live the best life we can, and that gives us the strength and the level of calm that’s required to go out and fight in this world for the things that are necessary and for the compassion that we need to give.

    So I’m going to keep on making jasmine tea. And I was thinking, while I was making it, that I learned to use that teapot for another purpose quite quickly in my first weeks at university. I learnt to make whiskey tea, as well, in that big teapot which is whiskey and tea and sugar and lemons, and I realised that I became a lot more popular when I started pouring cups of that than when I just stuck to the jasmine. It’s really funny to think about it. I know my grandma had told me that she used to occasionally like a little slug of whiskey in her tea; although, I never once saw her take it. And I thought, well, okay, I’ve always been an inventive soul, so whiskey tea is sometimes a thing for me and my friends now. It’s definitely, definitely a way to bring a sense of dazed calm to your afternoon if it’s your kind of thing.

    I feel like I’m having to do a lot of breathing out at the moment, very deliberately, but you know me, I’m always optimistic, and I’m always hopeful. I’m hopeful because every single person that I’m talking to at the moment is saying enough is enough, and I’m so ready for that, you know? My postie knocked on the door today, and after she’d given the dog a biscuit, as she does every day—the dog loves her—she just started talking about her working conditions and how difficult things are for people in her job at the moment and how childcare is a massive factor, that they’re struggling to plan around childcare because of working hours getting changed.

    She said, “I just wanted to tell you that because I think we’ll be going on strike too, and I want all of you people to understand why because I don’t think the message will get across in the news.” I’m just so full of admiration for her to stand and do that, to come and tell the people that she has casual chats with every day exactly where she’s coming from and where her hardships lie and to say it face to face in a way that we don’t do enough. It’s socially awkward to go from those really light, casual chats that she and I have, while I’m signing for something or when she’s petting the dog, that are very superficial and very deliberately so. It takes such steel to say, “I just need to tell you something about my situation that’s going to illuminate a world for you that I know you don’t understand,” and, wow, that is what we’re all going to have start doing in this world, to say, gently, respectfully, I disagree, and here’s why and here’s my perspective, and here’s what I know that you may not know, and here’s what I’ve experienced. It’s not easy lovelies.

    I hope you’re all okay. Take enormous care of yourselves, and we’re in it together. Thank you to everyone who helped make this podcast possible, to my brilliant Patreon community, to Buddy the producer and Meghan the convener. We’ve been talking a lot lately about how we shift this podcast to meet the needs of the world that’s coming, and I think we’re going to take a little break over the summer and replay some brilliant old episodes. We’re going to come back slightly different, but still, I think it’ll be wonderful. But the world’s changing, and we need to change a little bit too. Thanks so much to Emma Dabiri whose books are available wherever you get your books, but there are links to her books and to her socials in the episode description, so do check her out. She’s a wonder. And thank you all. I’ll see you very soon. Bye.

Show Notes

Producer Note: You'll notice a slight change in Katherine's audio in the second half of the podcast. This is just due to a necessary 'source switch', where we had to change where her recording was coming from. Your ears will adjust very quickly but apologies for the ever so slight dip. Thank you!

This week, Katherine talks to Emma Dabiri, author of Don’t Touch My Hair and What White People Can Do Next.

What begins as a conversation about Emma’s new-found commitment to appreciating all the seasons - not just summer - becomes something else entirely. Emma is one of our most agile thinkers and fearless speakers, and soon she is talking about everything from race and class to how we should think about the world right now. A thread of belonging runs through it all - how we seek and find it, how complicated our identities have become, and why it matters.

We talked about:

  • Seasons and learning to appreciate winter

  • Invisible social transgressions

  • External solutions to internal problems

  • Race, class and needing to be around other Black people in Ireland

References from this episode:

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Saima Mir on marriage, dreams and late flourishing

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Saima Mir on marriage, dreams and late flourishing

———
This week, Katherine talks to Saima Mir about marriage, dreams and late flourishing

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi. I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. It is quarter to 9:00 on a beautiful blue sky June morning. My son has just headed off to school. The birds are singing, and I'm walking down to the beach for a swim. I love mornings like this. I love it when the tide's up, just after school drop-off. Morning swims, I want was about to say are my favorite, but actually evening swims are my favorite, particularly sunset swims, but anyway, I like this.

    Katherine May:

    I'm walking down in my towel poncho, something you can do when you live in a seaside town, without raising too many eyebrows, I think; I hope. I'm going to go for a lovely, early morning swim. The weather hasn't been so good yet this year. It's coming up to the solstice, the longest day, and normally by now, I'll have had a few nights on the beach, having some food, maybe a little glass of wine, and just generally hanging out as the sun goes down, coming home in the dark, such a lovely thing to do with kids, because eventually the stars come out, if they stay up long enough.

    Katherine May:

    It just hasn't been warm enough for one of those yet. The weather seems to be so disrupted everywhere. I just came back from a little holiday in the Azores, and there it was unseasonably cold; whereas, my mum, who lives in Spain, says it's been ridiculously hot. Everything's changing.

    Katherine May:

    I've just realized, of course, that not only am I walking through the streets in a towel poncho, I'm also talking into a big furry microphone. I'm getting a few askance looks. I just can't think why.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, I've got yearnings for nights on the beach, but these beautiful summer mornings that make it so easy to swim without having to worry about taking loads of kit, or necessarily getting out of your swimming costume as soon as you've swum, are just such a gift. I love winter swimming, as you know, but there's something about the ease and luxury of those summer swims that reinvigorates your passion all over again.

    Katherine May:

    I've made it onto the beach now, as you can probably hear. The tide is high, and it's a lovely greeny-blue today, not quite the full high summer blue. We're still a little bit choppy. There's a breeze. I can't wait to get in. I'm really here to introduce you to this week's guest, Saima Mir, who, after a long career as a journalist has turned her hand to novel writing, and what a novel, and what an impact. She's going to talk about The Khan, which I think I probably mispronounce, but I do my best, you know. I'm willing. It has just swept the boards everywhere, and really reinvented the crime syndicate novel. I just really couldn't wait to get the chance to interview her on The Wintering Sessions, because I know she's someone who has lived about a dozen lives, really, who's endlessly had to steel herself to reinvent and to dig her fingernails into her palms and find the confidence to carry on.

    Katherine May:

    You know, when you watch people like that living their life, it's so wonderful when they start to truly, truly flourish. Anyway, you're going to love her. She's brilliant. She's funny, and she's smart, and she's hard as nails. I'm going to get in the water. I'll see you a little later.

    Katherine May:

    Saima, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. It's amazing to have you here. I don't know. Is it bad to say I feel so proud of you for how your novel has been doing? I don't think I've got the right to feel proud, but I'm right behind you. It's amazing.

    Saima Mir:

    I think you do, because we've known each other for a while, haven't we? When we wrote Maternal Rage, when I wrote the Maternal Rage essay, so I feel like we sort of know each other, but don't, because we've not met physically.

    Katherine May:

    No, no. It's one of those funny online relationships. Yeah, because you wrote the amazing essay that everybody always talks to me about when they've read The Best Most Awful Job, about what it's like, that kind of rage where you're pushing your fingernails into your palms when you've got small children. I think it just struck a note for all of us. I think that tells us something very early on about you, which is that you're willing to say stuff that other people would shy away from saying, but which is completely true and recognizable when you say it.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yeah. I always joke that it's like I flashed the world.

    Katherine May:

    Okay.

    Saima Mir:

    For me, I don't want to write about anything if it doesn't connect with somebody. For me, the process of writing is to make other people feel seen and heard in all sorts of like, I'm going through this. Are you going through it, too? Then, so people read it, and they're like, oh God, yeah, I'm not weird. I'm not strange. I'm normal. This is perfectly normal, even though everybody else has been telling me it's not.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, it matters so much, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    That's why I write, and that's the joy of it, because I felt alone for such a long time, and I've been in situations where I've been like, I'm completely nuts. Am I going nuts with this? Am I the only one who feels like this? Yeah, that's what I wrote, and my essay did seem to strike a chord, didn't it, with so many people?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because I do, I think those times in parenthood, when you are feeling like that fury that drops into you, that isn't aimed at your kids, like I... We were only able to talk about the idea that that might be a terrible, dangerous thing, but actually most of us our busy suppressing that all of the time, and I think that's why we need to talk about it to each other, because that's the only way it gets released, really.

    Saima Mir:

    I agree. I absolutely agree. It's not my children who are the source of it, but they're the ones-

    Katherine May:

    Or the object of it, or the subject of it, or whatever.

    Saima Mir:

    Or the object of it, sorry. Yeah, it's sort of... It's everything else around motherhood and parenthood that I feel like I didn't know, and I don't know if I was complicit in it, by not knowing it before I had children. I'm not sure about that. I've not figured out whether it was, but it's just the disrespect that's heaped upon women, all the stuff around maternity pay and childcare costs.

    Saima Mir:

    I've also been thinking about this a lot. I'm afraid I'm going off on a tangent, but how, as women, we were told we could have everything, and then I realized actually even men didn't do everything and have everything. They had an army of women doing all the stuff in the background. As women, why did I think I could do it all, when men weren't doing it?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but we were always told that they were doing everything. Now I look at... I don't know. I look at the traditional successful man, and I think how indulged he was, like how looked after and catered for.

    Saima Mir:

    Totally.

    Katherine May:

    When we're going out doing the whole damn lot. It's really no wonder we're tired.

    Saima Mir:

    Absolutely, and I feel as if we did a disservice to ourselves where, instead of raising the importance of what was traditionally women's work, all the work that women did, we sort of go, "Oh, we're going to aspire to the work that men do." I'm not saying we should not do that, because I think we should. We should have access to it, but I think it was the raising of the status of the work that those women were doing that hasn't been done until now, and I think we've only just started talking about it. I think it's when we do that, and our own men are taught the importance of the work that those women are doing at home, that things will change.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely. I feel like you know that from both sides more than most people, because when I was prepping for this interview, I was going back to old articles that I've read before, but I was reading back about your first marriage, and indeed your second marriage, but it's quite traditional marriages in lots of ways. I was just thinking about how far you've traveled and how different your life must be, but maybe we can go back and tell the story of that a little, because you were married when you were 19.

    Saima Mir:

    I met my first husband when I was 19. I was married when I was 21, and there's not much in it. There's not much in what you get when you're 19. It feels like it, but yeah, I was 21. I come from a British Pakistani family. About 90% of the women in my family are graduates, so I come from an educated family. I had a really nice childhood. My parents had an arranged marriage. They were cousins, which happened culturally quite a lot, and they loved each other.

    Saima Mir:

    I never questioned this idea of marriage, like having an arranged marriage, and so I was just sort of oblivious. I feel like I want to go back and shake myself, like what were you doing? You were just in this bubble of niceness. I was reading Anne of Green Gables, and I was reading Shalace, all these books, and Little Women, and then I was thinking, "I'm going to have this..."

    Saima Mir:

    I got married to this guy who was a doctor. I'd met him literally once before I married him. That was a norm in my culture. It didn't work, and three months later, I... I moved to Mississippi, I should say, finished university, graduated, didn't really bother much with my degree, because I thought I was going to get married and be this doctor's wife. I don't know what I was thinking.

    Saima Mir:

    Then I moved to Mississippi, and three months later I came back, because it was really strange. I was miserable. I don't think I knew quite what had happened, but I knew it was awful, and it was wrong, and I shouldn't be there. My parents seemed to know, so they sort of said... My grandmother, I remember, said to my mom, "Make sure she brings back all her wedding jewelry." Wedding jewelry was a big thing in my culture.

    Katherine May:

    Ooh, wow.

    Saima Mir:

    She knew. I think my grandmother was wise enough and had seen enough in life to know that this is wrong.

    Katherine May:

    You were in this really weird situation where his mother was, well, a bigger part of the marriage than you were, I think.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yes, absolutely. I don't really talk about it much, because I can't remember it. I'm now 47, and...

    Katherine May:

    Grand old lady that you are.

    Saima Mir:

    But the fact that it was such a long time ago now that I think, and I don't want to do a disservice to the situation and say things that I can't really clearly remember, but I remember the feeling of it being awful. His mother lived with us, and I never got to go anywhere. I was just basically in this house all day, cooking and cleaning, and just sitting on the sofa waiting for him to come home from the hospital where he worked. His mum would be with me, and we would all sit on the sofa together, the three of us next to each other, him in the middle, watching television, and then it would be bedtime.

    Saima Mir:

    It was like, you know, it was really weird. He did things like he measured the distance between the speakers and the TV. That's one thing I really remember. It had to be optimal.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I don't know. I've got a very audiophile husband who, he would not even raise an eyebrow. He'd be like, "Yes, of course you'd do that."

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, and generally speaking, there's things like that, that I don't really know enough about to say...

    Katherine May:

    But it just struck you as off, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    It was odd, and I wasn't happy, and I think I was getting quite depressed, because I sort of... I came back, and when I told him, and my parents spoke to him, he said, "My mum's not happy. My mum's got enmity towards her." I think she was some woman in her 70s or whatever, 60s-70s, and I was a 21-year-old, so it was weird.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    So I got divorced. At that time, women from my background didn't get divorced. If you were a nice girl from a nice, educated, Pakistani household, you didn't do that. You just didn't. I was there, and I'd sort of done this thing, and so I was a bit of a... I mean, I was a pariah. I didn't know what to do, and it felt like the world was ending.

    Katherine May:

    What stuff made you feel like a pariah? Did people make comments, or was it more diffuse than that?

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, so things like people would ask me things, because obviously I'd been married for three months, which meant I'd had a sexual relationship, and so people couldn't accept that. There was a thing where I was suddenly tainted because I've had sex. I'd got married. I mean, I don't know what they thought I was going to be doing.

    Saima Mir:

    They would ask me things. I'd have people come and they'd say things like, "Where did he kiss you?" And, "I can't accept that this has happened," because it was such a big deal to have had this thing happen to this young woman who... It was sort of a this doesn't happen to us kind of thing.

    Katherine May:

    Gosh.

    Saima Mir:

    I felt tainted, and I felt sullied, and I remember standing in the shower and scrubbing myself clean. I had shame, great shame, associated with it, because I'd had this [inaudible 00:14:35].

    Katherine May:

    It's so weird, isn't it?

    Saima Mir:

    It's very weird.

    Katherine May:

    All the stuff that, I don't know, that downloads with marriage. I mean, I got married quite young, and for me, that was the transgressive thing, like different cultural norms. I think people saw me as having thrown myself away too early, whereas I was more expected to go and play the field through my 20s and maybe settle down later, so it's kind of the opposite expectations, but what really shocked me was how people treated me differently after that marriage ceremony. I mean, nothing had changed, you know? But everything changed. It was shocking.

    Saima Mir:

    That's how I feel. I feel like nothing, and now I look back on it, and I think, that was three months of my life. It was, in the grand scheme of how my life, how long it might end up, three months is nothing.

    Katherine May:

    Tiny, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    But it completely changed the way people looked at me and talked to me. My family, they were... I mean, my mum and dad were young, and they were naïve, and they'd never been through anything like that. They wanted the best for me, but I don't think they knew what to do, when you're suddenly the talk of the town, and your child is the talk of the town, and so they... Somebody else kind of proposed, and they were like, "Yeah, this is the way to do it. This is the... Just marry her off, and it'll be all right."

    Katherine May:

    Here's the solution.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, the solution. It will be as if that thing never happened. She'll be over it, because nobody... Even, therapy wasn't a thing that people talked about, even in kind of western circles, it wasn't... It was sort of something that Woody Allen did on a [inaudible 00:16:07] movie.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my God, therapy is so recent in the UK. I don't think Americans listening will understand just how recent therapy has come to the UK on any level, and the idea that you might do it as somebody who wasn't in complete crisis, it's just... It's very alien to us, still, culturally.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, I'm laughing at that, and I feel like I'm in this bit of a black comedy. Sometimes [inaudible 00:16:33] measure time by my first wedding, second wedding, and third wedding. It's like, "Yeah, do you remember that from..."

    Saima Mir:

    So I got married to a guy who was only a couple of years older than me, and the opposite of my first, because my first husband was very calm and controlled and very proper, and he was about 10-11 years older than me. My second husband was about a year and a half, two years, older. He was just full of life, the zest of life, and he just thought everything was funny and a joke, and he was just living and sucking the juice out of life and having this time.

    Saima Mir:

    I just thought, okay, I'll try this. I know that sounds terrible. I feel like I was just throwing my life away, but he said to me, because I was reluctant, and he said, "What's stopping you?" He said to me that I will, "If anything like what happened to you before happened, I'll stand by you. I'll take a stand for you." I was blown away by the fact, and this is how low my standards were, that he was willing to accept me, knowing that I'd been married to somebody else before, just for three months.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Saima Mir:

    I thought, this guy must be great, and his family must be great. They presented as a nice family. Mum was a teacher. His dad had been a banker. He was a banker. They were all sort of... They all lived, this was in the UK. I said to my parents, "I don't want to live with his mum and dad." His parents said, "It's only going to be a year, and then they can move out and get their own place." I was 23 at the time, and he was 24 or 25, so we were young. We were in London.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, still so young, really.

    Saima Mir:

    So young. If you think that the human brain, apparently, doesn't fully form until you're 25, at 24 you're still making rash decisions, so we got married.

    Katherine May:

    I don't think youth... I mean, people say youth is lost on the young, but I don't think it's even that. I think it's that when you are young, you don't have any context to how young you are, and you feel really grown up.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yes.

    Katherine May:

    Then you look back on your 20s now, and you just think, my God, I knew nothing about anything.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yes.

    Katherine May:

    It's shocking, like how was I allowed to make financial decisions?

    Saima Mir:

    I think it's because nothing's bookended. You're not bookended. I feel as if now my life, I can see in the future, at some point, there's going to be an end to it, and I feel that, but it wasn't like that in my 20s. I was just there doing whatever. It was going to go on forever. Time was infinite.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely. I'm sure there are 70-year-olds listening to this, going, "God, they sound naïve. Listen to how young they are."

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, totally. I'm well aware of that now.

    Katherine May:

    Rolling their eyes at us right now.

    Saima Mir:

    I'm so... But the difference, I think, is now that I'm aware that those 70-year-olds are quite rightly rolling their eyes at me.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Saima Mir:

    Whereas, in my 20s, I would be like, "No, I know everything there is to know, and I'm going to do it so much better than those people in their 40s, or whatever." They're ancient. Look at those women in their 40s. They're just going to drop off the edge, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I know, and actually, I mean, it's interesting that we started off talking about how motherhood is compared to how we thought it would be. Actually, I remember at that age looking up the ranks towards women who were my age, and who were parents, and thinking how compromised they were and how boring, and how convinced I was that I wouldn't do it the same, so there we have it.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, absolutely. I can agree. I just didn't understand. I didn't understand how hard and draining and exhausting motherhood is, and how it's increment... I think the thing I didn't understand was the incremental nature of the exhaustion that happened.

    Katherine May:

    It chips away at you.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yes.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, sorry. I'm digressing, because you were in the middle of telling us about your second marriage, and I've shifted you away from it. Sorry, that's my fault.

    Saima Mir:

    No, it's fine. I got married, and we lived with his parents. We lived in Essex, and it just was wrong from the get-go. His parents were very controlling, and it was things like from what I was wearing to who I was seeing to, slowly, I ended up being a complete maidservant in the house. I did all the cooking. I did all the cleaning. I ended up doing all the ironing for everybody. I don't even do that in my own house now. I mean, I-

    Katherine May:

    Shake it out and put it on the hanger, honestly.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yes. I mean, who does that, everybody's clothes? I remember things like, if I went to my parents' for the weekend, I remember coming back, and his dad taking me aside and saying, "When you leave, you need to make sure there's enough food cooked for the weekend for us."

    Katherine May:

    My goodness, wow.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, how odd, taking me to the fridge and showing me some cheese that had gone moldy and saying, "You should've thrown that cheese away." Why, oh why, didn't I say to that man, "Well, why didn't you throw that cheese away? Why is that cheese my responsibility"?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, throw your own cheese away.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, "Handle your own cheese. Some of us have got our own stuff to handle."

    Katherine May:

    That is interesting to me, because I can't... Knowing you now as you are, I can't imagine you not saying, "Throw away your own cheese, Mate." It's such a huge change in you.

    Saima Mir:

    Because my current husband, as I refer to him, says the same thing as just as you said. He said, "I don't know that woman you described. I only know you the way you are, who would not take..." I don't know if I can swear on this program.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, no. Swear away. It's fine, no worries.

    Saima Mir:

    "You just wouldn't take shit from anyone. You'd just be like..." Ah, yeah, actually when I think back to that time, I don't know why I was so scared, but I was scared. I was physically afraid of those people. I mean, no one hit me. There was no physical violence.

    Katherine May:

    No, no.

    Saima Mir:

    There wasn't anything like that, but the coercive control and the emotional abuse of a situation that's strict, strict, and also because I was raised with this disease to please, I was just supposed to be nice. I thought that if I was nice to everybody, and if I just could do the absolute right thing, it would be okay.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, to make everybody happy with you.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Of course, it had all gone wrong before, as well, and I guess, I imagine you just felt like you couldn't afford for a second thing to go wrong, second marriage, I should say, not a thing.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, and I... Yeah, it's the whispers of society. There are little whispers that come, which is, "You need to deal with this, because you've got sisters, and if you don't show yourself to be a good daughter-in-law and a good wife, then who's going to marry your sisters."

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Saima Mir:

    This is how it is, and I was told things like I wasn't raised properly. I didn't know how to be, and I believed it, because it was so incremental, and my self-esteem was chipped away and destroyed. By the end of the two and a half years that I was there, I just thought I was worthless.

    Katherine May:

    It's actually, so much of what you write is about gossip and the effect of gossip.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And the way that your reputation can be manipulated by others, and the whispers of, often, older women, who judge younger women really harshly.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes. I think it's soul destroying, and also one of the things, for me, coming from this culture, was that when you're the child in an immigrant community, from an immigrant community, the pool is small that you belong to.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, you're very visible.

    Saima Mir:

    You're very visible. After I left that second marriage, I was literally shunned. I mean, I would go to events where people wouldn't speak to me.

    Katherine May:

    That's horrifying.

    Saima Mir:

    Friends of mine, who I'd grown up with, I feel... Because they thought I'd left two perfectly good men, one was a doctor and one was a banker. If you think in the pool of marriage, marital pool, arranged marriage kind of thing, these were two good guys. I'd literally taken out two good guys by the time I was 25, and [inaudible 00:24:32], you know? People said things to me like, "Well, we put up with it. Why couldn't you?" Superficially, I was given the trappings of life, so a car. He bought me a car, or took me on these holidays, or bought me a diamond, diamond rings. It was things like that those things come at a cost, and the cost is my soul and my self-confidence and my mental well-being, and they're his way of making himself feel better about having shouted at me.

    Katherine May:

    They're almost the instruments of control, aren't they?

    Saima Mir:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    They're the ways that, not only you're controlled by it, but also it's like an external demonstration to the people who are not party to the dark bits of the marriage, that everything's perfect, actually. It's always against the truth that you can tell.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, they are absolutely the instruments of control. That's exactly the phrase. It's almost like they're sort of stuffing those things in your mouth, so you can't speak, used as the silencing of you. My ex-husband was very big on public displays of affection, so when we were at events, he would be mouthing the words, "I love you," across the room, and people genuinely thought-

    Katherine May:

    I'm sorry. It's hard not to laugh at that. I mean, like wow.

    Saima Mir:

    People genuinely thought he adored me. One of the things I don't see people talking about is the addiction of that kind of abuse, that the receiver of it, I don't know, victim... I don't know if victim is a very good word, but the receiver of it becomes, and I think I was addicted to that high and low of that marriage, because when I met my husband, my now husband, who's a lovely, normal person, where everything's on an even keel, I almost sabotaged that marriage and that relationship by thinking, why is this so normal? This is boring. It was boring to me, when I met him.

    Saima Mir:

    The only reason I think I managed to get past my own self is because I'd seen my parents in a loving relationship, and I knew, that's what I want, and I have to get out of my own way to get there. It's almost like I had to detox, because my husband doesn't... We don't have raging rows. He can be a bit passive-aggressive, and I'm like, "What did you say?" He's like, "All right, we'll talk about it now."

    Katherine May:

    We've all been there. Don't worry.

    Saima Mir:

    But people that, but there was no in your face, rah-rah-rah, and that had become my norm.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode, and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    I'm guessing you've been following the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial very closely in that case, because it seems to me that those conversations have been really ignited again, and it's fascinating to see lots of commenters say, "She can't possibly have been abused, because..." There's a whole list of things that seem to be coming out, like why did nobody ever see any bruises? Why did she keep going back for more? Why was she contributing to the anger? It's like, wow, we still really don't have a popular understanding of how abusive relationships work at all.

    Saima Mir:

    No, I don't think... I think, one of the things with these abusive relationships is the thing that we consider love is so far removed from what actually healthy, normal, positive love is that, if you've been in that toxic situation, you really have to go through a process of detoxing and learning that actually this is what I want.

    Saima Mir:

    I was lucky, because I had seen that in my own lifetime with my own parents. I knew, okay, that's what I want, but I think if I hadn't, and if I'd seen... If my parents had been in this similar relationship, I would've just stayed, because that would be marriage to me.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, and that's true for so many people, isn't it? That they go and replicate the same patterns over and over again, because they have no way of knowing any better.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, and I think a lot of the judgment, now, when I look back at the judgment that came from other people, it was from people who had never seen healthy relationships, and the culture I came from... My husband has also come from a healthy... his parents, similar to mine. We have a very similar background, which is purely coincidental.

    Katherine May:

    Or maybe not. Maybe that's why you were attracted to each other.

    Saima Mir:

    I think and maybe that's why he put up with my madness for a while, but I think... He talks about this, as well, about how rare it was for us to see couples who loved each other and were kind to each other and respectful in the backgrounds that we came from, because we came from this culture of arranged marriage, where people just stayed together. It was survival, I guess, and they were immigrant families, and it was a different time. It was completely different, but that's why they perpetuated and talked about and gossiped about it really.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, but I don't think just Pakistani marriages should carry the can there, because I think when I grew up, white western marriages that I saw were often incredibly unequal. The men were, I don't know, just often served and were allowed to make really unreasonable demands, and women did a lot of biting their tongue and keeping quiet, because you kept the peace, and that was not seen as a rare or a difficult marriage. That was just what marriage was.

    Saima Mir:

    It was what you were supposed to do, wasn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    Because we were just... They were bringing in the money in those kind of generations.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, that's right.

    Saima Mir:

    We had no... Women had no financial power, and that work that the men were doing was considered so much more valuable, because it was financial remunerated, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it was, and I think we are so close to those times, and we're still... I'm still surprised how many people's relationships I see that in, the idea that you don't say no to your husband. You don't challenge or disrupt him. You just go off with your girlfriends and talk about it between you and complain about it.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yeah, totally. How dare we try to get them to talk about it? My husband and I often joke, because he avoids... He's a conflict avoider, and I'm someone who's like, as I said, flashing the world. Look at this! What's going on? Oh my God! Look at me! Look what I did! What's wrong with me?

    Saima Mir:

    He says that he's got this carpet that he used to... emotional carpet that he'd hide things under, and he said, "You're always making me lift that rug up and have a look underneath it. That's not what I want to do."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, "Leave my rug alone."

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, "Leave my rug alone. Why do you always make me face things?"

    Katherine May:

    That's so funny. We have a very similar dynamic, very, very similar. Just leave things alone, and I'm like, no. Every stone must be turned over. We must analyze this.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah. I'm really lucky because he understands the value of it. I think my husband is that generation that was on the cusp of... He was raised with this idea of equality and feminism for women, but he was raised in a family where it was still... His dad was a traditional breadwinner, and his mum did the house stuff, and so when he went to university, and he's very... He wouldn't even use the word feminism, because he said, "Well, that's just good sense isn't it. This should just be how it is," but I think, no, he wasn't really taught how to be an ally, so his emotional needs were, "I am an ally, and I'll be there," and he's massively supportive, but I feel like I had to teach him.

    Saima Mir:

    You actually have to do laundry in order to be my ally, and you have to... You've got just enough that you're okay with everything else, and you know you're my biggest champion, but these are the practical aspects of allyship that you need to do, and he was never taught that.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. We are in this process of change, and I think it's invisible to us, the work of change that we're all doing in personal relationships, but when I look back over my 45 years of life, I can't fathom the level of change in our expectations, the genuine change.

    Katherine May:

    I remember the point when I was reading about the possibility of women living the lives that we're living, and the possibility that we could rebalance things, but it seemed very distant, and people weren't sure if it was possible. Even the people that wanted it weren't sure if it was possible. Now I think, God, we've changed. We've changed so much and so fast.

    Saima Mir:

    I said something to him the other day. I said, "I am my childhood's wildest dream," and I think that sums it up. I have come so far from the kind of child that I was, who was afraid of everything, who didn't want to upset the status quo, but was reading all these fascinating things about strong women, and about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and somehow those foundations were being laid, and then life happened to now, where I am in this situation where I've been on a book tour with The Khan, and my husband has had the boys for five days alone.

    Saima Mir:

    I have never had the boys alone for five days. I've got three boys, and it's not even a question. It's not even a... I didn't ask. It's like, he's like, "Well, of course you're going to do this. Of course, I'm going to do this. I'm going to make it work."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that's amazing.

    Saima Mir:

    There's no discussion of, well, whose going to leave me... There's no put the moldy cheese in the bin. It's like, "Don't worry about the moldy cheese. I'll find more cheese. You go on your book tour. Don't worry about the boys. They'll be fine."

    Katherine May:

    The cheese is under control.

    Saima Mir:

    The cheese is, there is no importance to this cheese. It's about you. I am my own wildest dream, and I think I'm still processing it. It's been an interesting week. I was The Times bestseller on Saturday.

    Katherine May:

    I know! Congratulations. It's extraordinary.

    Saima Mir:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, it's such a great book. I mean, it's an obviously great book, so it should be, but it hasn't always happened to, I know as you used to say, brown writers.

    Saima Mir:

    I know. It hasn't.

    Katherine May:

    You've been told in the past that they don't sell, and it's not true.

    Saima Mir:

    They don't sell. Who's going to read this book? And so, the fact that my life is so vastly different. If you think that, when I was 27... I was 25. I was twice divorced, and I was 27, and I started working at my local paper. The reason I did the things I did is because I thought my life was over. I thought, that's it. I'm never going to get my read. I'm never going to have children. I've screwed this up, and so now I'm just going to live on my own terms. It's not that I did anything particularly radical in the grand scheme of things.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Saima Mir:

    But from the background that I came from, just saying that, I'm just saying no, as a people pleaser, who was just saying yes to everybody, just to drawing boundaries and saying actually no.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, I know you don't think it's anything exceptional you did, but I think loads of people would not have felt permission to go and start a career as a journalist, even at that stage, you know? They'd have waited for someone to make it okay for them, or they would've waited forever, but you approached it very differently. You obviously still believed enough that you were worth it, despite all that had happened by then.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, I think I must've done. I just know that I realized, and I still believe this, and I still say this to anybody who asks me. No one is going to give us permission, as women of color, as mothers, or any of those things, and even men... If you're doing something that's slightly different, no one is going to give us permission to do something that's new and that's radical, and we just have to go and do it, and let the world catch up, which is what I've seen.

    Saima Mir:

    Even as a journalist, I left the BBC 12 years ago. I was thinking about this the other day. I was trying to send out my show reel, which I look at now, and I think, it was a great show reel. I was young. I was attractive. I was slim, and I was in the wilderness. There was just nothing. Nobody was interested in my work, and I couldn't sell my book. I'd been this social pariah, culturally, and now I was this... sort of felt like I was out in the cold as a journalist, and I had lost a little bit of faith in myself and self-belief, but I knew that nobody was going to give me permission, and I just was going to take what I needed just to get there.

    Saima Mir:

    My agent said this to me yesterday. She said, "You've always said, 'I'm buckled in for the ride. I'm going to do the work.'" Do the work.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that's it. That's what I kind of think over and over again. I honestly spent years with a very, very unpromising writing career, but I kept going back to it, just because putting my head down and working is what I know how to do, and also because I wanted it. It seemed to me that I was allowed that simple leaning towards something. That's all it was. It wasn't anything more than that. I mean, when I used to talk to people about it, I used to get weird reactions like, "Well, who made you believe that you were allowed that, almost," like, "Who..."

    Saima Mir:

    Who do you think you are?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it is. It comes down to, "Who do you think you are, to want that in the first place?" I used to think, well, it's nothing to want it. It's not... It doesn't mean anything. It just means that I want it. That's the most basic building block of this. It's no more than that. It's quite humble, in a way. I want to make work.

    Saima Mir:

    I want to make work. I also have discovered through achieving various strange things in life that the joy really is in the work. It sounds like I'm saying my diamond shoes are too tight, but I don't mean that in a [inaudible 00:38:56]. It's great having The Times say, "Oh, you're a Times bestseller." It's wonderful, but that moment lasts... It literally lasts a moment, but the work, when you're sitting there, and it's coming together, and it's happening, and you're lost in it, that's actual joy. That's the joy of it.

    Katherine May:

    Such a luxury, isn't it? It's so...

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    And I know that, so this... The rest of it is sort of like, it's on the side. Yes, it's wonderful, and it means that I get paid to do that work, and I have the privilege of saying I'm a writer, because publishing houses now continually say, "Will you write for us?" But...

    Katherine May:

    Which is quite nice.

    Saima Mir:

    Which is lovely, yeah, because now when people say, "Well, who do you think you are?" I can say, "Well, I'm Saima Mir, and this is what I've done." I think that, "Who do you think you are?" is really fascinating, because I think it's just by being asked and committing to a dream, we shake the structures of those other people, because they're not committing to it. They're not brave enough, and it's almost like we're a mirror, and they're looking at us and thinking... They see themselves as not being strong enough to do what they really wanted. That's what upsets them.

    Katherine May:

    The people who only ever talk to you about themselves, honestly, I think you learn this over and over again. All the things that have stung me most, when I look back on them, were all about other people's lack of confidence and self-belief and sense of permission to do the thing that they wanted to do. I forgive them for that. I take it... It's got nothing to do with me. It's not about me at all.

    Saima Mir:

    That's it. People-

    Katherine May:

    I've just sat down and written stuff. That's all I've done.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes. People see the world as they are, not as it is. That's what they say. I find Twitter fascinating for that. If you ever write a message on Twitter and just say, "Can anybody help me with X, Y, and Zed?" And the plethora of responses that come back sometimes, and I think, you've not read that message. You've just seen something in it about you, or you felt attacked. I've not attacked you, but you've felt attacked because something within you is making you feel that way.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    That's such a... Yeah, that's the lesson I've, one of the great lessons of life I've learned is that. I always used to think it was about me. What's wrong with me? Why are they attacking me? Why are they being like... Now, it's got nothing to do with me. It's to do with them.

    Katherine May:

    No. It's what's wrong with the world, and how do we change it, and how do we create a new one that makes this stuff easy for the people who want it? That's the big question I think.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    You created this character, in Jia, who is, I think, is so much of you, but is also, I mean, obviously very different, has a very different family background, and makes a different set of decisions, and in many ways is actually, weirdly, more compromised than you ended up being, I guess. Let's talk about her a little bit. Tell, for those who haven't read your book yet, which I think is a dwindling number of people, frankly, but tell us about her.

    Saima Mir:

    I love Jia Khan. Jia Khan is a barrister in London, so she's living this very luxury lifestyle. She grew up in the north of England, in this fictional town. She's from a British Pakistani background. She's [inaudible 00:42:16], and her father is a criminal kingpin.

    Saima Mir:

    When her father is killed and her brother kidnapped, she gets drawn back into this underworld. She's estranged. She's got a husband who she's not seen in 16 years and a son, and she's just been living this kind of life away from everything she grew up with. Yeah, I just think she was fascinating to write, and I absolutely love her.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because she's so... I mean, she's competent in a way that I could never aspire to be.

    Saima Mir:

    I was saying... I was on a panel the other day, and I said, "She's basically... You know when something happens to you, and you don't know what to say? Maybe you're in the shower the next morning, and then you think, 'That's what I should've said,'" She is competent in that way that we are in the shower,-

    Katherine May:

    Should've said it in the first place.

    Saima Mir:

    But in that moment.

    Katherine May:

    She... What you unpack through-

    Saima Mir:

    She's controlled.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, self-control and self-poise, I think is the word I'm looking for, which I think loads of us dream of having, and struggle to attain. But what you use her to unpack is a Muslim community that I don't think white British people understand, necessarily, that is complex and interconnected and has shades of moral black and white rather than a kind of flat belief system, and which is kind of in profound flux, I think.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, I think absolutely that's exactly how it is. It's this idea that we are somehow homogenous, and we're all the same, is something that I've never seen growing up, and I've never seen it. I've never seen the nuance of being from these backgrounds in books before now, because we all like to read different things.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, no, me neither, yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah. I mean, there's always this thing about which cricket team do you support, and it's like, well, I don't like cricket, so I don't [inaudible 00:44:13] British, English cricket team. There's lots of us who don't.

    Katherine May:

    And certainly not Indian.

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah. There's lots of us who don't, and because actually we are something in the middle. We are completely different.

    Saima Mir:

    Culturally, one of the things that I have come to be okay with and accept and like about myself is that I am something in the middle. I am a bit of a mutation, and there's lots of us. As mutations go, we all have different bits of the cultures that we come from and the culture we were raised in that make us, us. Actually, it's wonderful. We don't have to be one or the other. That's the beauty of living in the now.

    Katherine May:

    That's how evolution happens.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes, yeah, absolutely, and I wanted to talk about that and how Jia Khan isn't a Pakistani woman, and she's not purely... She doesn't have the same life as a white English woman, but she has some of the sensibilities of it and the trappings of it. She still has some of the code of the [inaudible 00:45:12] and Pakistani heritage that she was raised in. She's forged this new thing, and because she's a bit of a disrupter, she's having to take the rest of, some of the rest of her people with her, and why that's okay.

    Katherine May:

    I'm guessing she's going to be part of a long series of books now, right?

    Saima Mir:

    Yeah, so there's a sequel. I've signed a deal for a sequel, so I'm working on that. I don't know if there's going to be a long series of books, maybe three. Literally, this is like discussions that are ongoing, because it's so exciting that it's being well received. It's Waterstones' Thriller of the Month, and it was a Times paperback.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Saima Mir:

    For a book that publishers didn't know what to do with, it's something you're just not sure your readers like it, and they want more, so we'll see.

    Katherine May:

    I think it's amazing, and I think it's just you doing what you've always done, which is forging a completely different way through, that no one's dared to trek before.

    Saima Mir:

    Yes. Yeah, flashing the world, as I said.

    Katherine May:

    That's so funny. Saima, thank you. That was just such a joy to talk to you, and I think people will find you so inspirational, honestly. I think people will be listening and cheering you on.

    Saima Mir:

    Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.

    Katherine May:

    Ah, thank you. Hello, post-swim glow here. I've got a falling tide. It's just beginning to retreat from the beach. I'm drying off a bit in the sun. That's another thing you can't do in the winter.

    Katherine May:

    It is so often the case that my friends and I, who swim together, really have to drag ourselves down here. I mean, I don't mean like it's a chore, but we so often think that we haven't got the time, and we get onto WhatsApp and say, "Do you fancy a swim?" And everyone will go, "Oh, no. I've got such a busy day."

    Katherine May:

    Then, every now and us, one of us will say, "Yeah, but we won't regret it, and we'll all get in together." It's so, so hard to make time for the stuff that's good for you, like good for your soul, good in any kind of a practical, measurable sense, but good in that it leaves you with a sense of calm and of having done something wonderful that will fire you through the rest of your day.

    Katherine May:

    I know that my relaxation turns up a notch after I've been in the sea. There's a dropping of the shoulders. There's a big exhale of breath. I don't know why it's sometimes so hard to persuade myself to get down here. Here I am. I'm glad I did it.

    Katherine May:

    Ah. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Thank you to Saima, who is just a superstar, obviously. Thank you to Meghan and Buddy, who make this podcast possible. Thank you to the amazing listeners and Patreons. We have had fun this month with the Patreons doing a live chat, which I now get online and do once a month. I really enjoy... It's so nice to be in a room of funny, wonderful, clever people who are chatting together. It's really nice. Do join us if you can. It helps to make this podcast possible and sustainable and accessible, because one of the things Patreons pay for is for the podcast to be transcribed, every single episode. If you didn't know that, you can always find a transcription on my website, katherinemay.co.uk/winteringsessions, where you can read the podcast with all the ums and uhs instead of listening. If you love it, please do give it some stars in whatever app you listen to. I know everyone begs for this, but it really helps, or leave a review or share it.

    Katherine May:

    These things are so hard to get out there. There's no, I don't know, fixed route where you can tell everyone about your podcast, and it is a medium that is, I don't know, dominated by people who are famous, and I'm not famous. My son thinks I am but, you know, what 10-year-olds know is limited.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, I'll stop begging. Thank you for listening. We're going to take a break over the summer, not yet, just to recharge our batteries a little, and we'll be asking you to vote for your favorite episode from season one, which we will then remaster and put out again over the summer, because I think loads of you, who are listening now, didn't hear that first series, and there are some of my favorite interviews in there, so look out for that. Let us know, or let us know in the comments which ones you'd like to hear again with maybe a bit more of a sparkly treatment from Buddy, rather than my own homemade approach, endearing as it was. All right, I'm going to walk home now. See you all soon. Bye.

Show Notes

This week, Katherine talks to Saima Mir about marriage, dreams and late flourishing.

‘I am my childhood’s wildest dream,’ says Saima Mir. This episode is about the process of getting there, not just the determination and hard work, but also the intangibles: the beliefs, ambitions and understandings that you don’t even know how to articulate, but which hold you up on a decades-long journey to becoming.

In this conversation, the journalist and bestselling novelist talks about shame, failure, the experience of being gossiped about - but also the inner strength and family support that allowed her to reinvent herself after leaving her first two husbands. Saima came late to journalism, but forged a successful career on TV and in print before writing her genre-changing (or will it be genre-defining?) novel, The Khan. Here, she surveys that pathway to this place, and how it built her iconic character, Jia Khan.

We talked about:

  • Shame, failure, the experience of being gossiped about

  • Inner strength and family support that allowed her to reinvent herself

  • Her best-selling novel, The Khan

References from this episode:

Other episodes you might enjoy:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Ross Gay on delight

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Ross Gay on delight

———
This week, Katherine talks to Ross Gay about finding delight in dark times.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Well, hello. I'm Katherine May. Welcome to the Wintering Sessions. I think this is my most dramatic entrance yet. I'm standing outside in my back garden and it's raining a little, but it's also thundering and lightning. And I'm one of those people who loves thunder and lightning. I love the drama. I love the way it kind of takes over. When it's thundering, you can't do anything else. You have to engage with the thunder. I also love the sound around it. I love the sound of rain in trees and all the leaves rustling and the way that you can almost hear the garden drinking it up at this time of year. I don't know why people don't like rain more, honestly. It's one of my favorite things. In fact, and I'm going to attempt a really lame segue here. You might call it a delight.

    Katherine May:

    This week, I've interviewed Ross Gay, who talks so beautifully about delight. What he expresses so perfectly is this really quite delicate emotion of just being pleased by something. And it doesn't have to be a demonstrative thing. It's normally a point of contact for him, a way that he's making a connection with the people around him. Sorry, I have to stop here because another delight has landed in my garden, a little robin who seems to be really friendly this year and who comes to see me every day at the moment. I was in the kitchen yesterday and I was doing the washing up and I suddenly looked through the window and there was his little face pressed right against the glass. And I screamed. I feel a bit bad about that now. Sorry.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, Ross Gay, just as delightful as the robin. I think reading his book, The Book of Delights makes you really think about the delights in your own life and to engage with it is to start to notice the things that delight you, that just raise a smile. Anyway, I will leave you to hear the conversation, but I enjoyed talking to him so much and not least, as I do mention a few times, because he's the first man on my podcast. I'll see you all in a bit.

    Katherine May:

    So Ross, welcome to the Wintering Sessions. Thank you so much for joining me. I've just told you this story, but I'm going to tell it again out loud because, as listeners may notice, you are my first ever male guest, which is quite the moment, I think, probably not for you, but for me. And it was never my intention not to ever talk to men, but I just got to the point where I realized I'd only spoken to women and then it became like a thing that I couldn't get through, which is probably the wrong way to approach it. But then I began to think, right, I have to have the absolutely perfect male first guest. And then after that it will be easy. And according to my listeners, you are it. So that's kind of a nice thing to be, isn't it?

    Ross Gay:

    I'm proud to be, yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you for that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I mean, I think that's an accolade. That's like getting an Oscar or something on a very small scale.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But I was thinking about, what was it that made people feel like the perfect person to come into this space? And I think it's not just because you talk about delight in and of itself. I think it's because you talk about delight as a facet of a kind of complicated and often difficult and often dreadful life. And that's the fit I think.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Let's dig into some of that anyway. Delight is, I don't know. I listened to your book on audiobook and I've just reread it this morning actually, to refresh my memory. And I found again, I couldn't put it down. When I was listening to the audiobook, I kept driving round in circles so I could keep listening for longer because actually, it's not often, we think about those beautiful moments in life in really simple terms. Can you unpack what you mean by delights? What are the delights you think about?

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, it's such a good question. So it's fun, because I'm writing book two. I'm calling it Book Two of Delights. So it's been five years since I wrote... The first book I wrote August 1st, 2016 to August 1st, 2017. So August 1st of last year I started a new one. So I'm kind of rethinking it. And I realize people often ask me what I mean by delight, kind of to define it. And I realize I'm like, why don't I have a great definition? But the more I write, the more I think about it, the more I am kind of inclined to think that it has something to do with surprise or realizing something that you didn't realize before. You may have been aware of it, but you maybe haven't been aware of it necessarily. I mean, it's just like...

    Ross Gay:

    I was walking the other day and I saw these kids playing tag and I felt so glad to see kids playing tag. And I thought, oh, maybe because I'm in this kind of, whatever you call it, delight practice of sort of articulating the thing that makes me feel that thing, that we're calling delight. But I noticed it, I recognized and I thought, oh, tag, what a great game. I love that game. And I love the fact that seeing these children playing this game without any adults around, it's just like... And then from there, it's like the kind of revere of those simple games that we just know how to do. But there is definitely something about surprise, about something being made sort of available to us that prior to the sort of occasioning event, whatever, the hummingbird, boom, then you're like, whoa, hummingbird.

    Katherine May:

    It delights me that you live in a place with hummingbirds. I've never seen a hummingbird. I was very excited by your hummingbirds.

    Ross Gay:

    They're delightful. They're amazing.

    Katherine May:

    And praying mantises too.

    Ross Gay:

    Yes. Yes, that's right. That's right.

    Katherine May:

    We have such boring insects compared to you. I don't know. I just, I'm really disappointed in my insect life now.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. But actually, and that's actually a great point too. I was visiting this school here and I read a couple of these delights and this kid said to me, "You seem like you have a really eventful life." And I said, "Nah." I said, "I think I paid very close attention. I describe my life. I pay attention to my life," which is my way of saying, even those boring insects over there, I bet if you got close enough, it'd be like, whoa.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    So I also think that that just makes me think that it's both, that sort of surprise, but it's the kind of surprise that's available almost anytime you look close enough.

    Katherine May:

    So it's unexpected, but I think there is like a childlike thread in your delights. Not necessarily as closely connected as playing tag, but there's something about fresh eyes and seeing things anew.

    Ross Gay:

    Yep. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Surprise. Surprise. Yeah, seeing something new. Yeah, I think that's probably also part of... Well, what's moving to me about thinking about these things or reading them when I write them or writing them is that I realize how often I am sort of walking through the world with a kind of, what would you call it? Like just not really paying attention. The way like, part of what are the qualities, I think, one of the sad qualities of growing up is that we cease paying attention. We kind of got it down, which is why kids take so long to walk down the street. It's because possibly, they're like, what in the world is that thing?

    Katherine May:

    I think about this every morning where my son is brushing his teeth and I have to stand over him, because otherwise it literally takes an hour. And he's like, "Oh wow. Look at this little blob of toothpaste on the sink. That looks like a Pikachu. And, "Oh, look over there." And it could just go on for ages, like these tiny grains of fascination, which are, I mean, honestly, I shouldn't be frustrated with them because they are so beautiful. We need to recapture those a little bit as adults, I think.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah, totally. Totally.

    Katherine May:

    I think probably there's something in there about being a poet as well, that trains you into this kind of granularity of experience. Is that something that you feel about your practice?

    Ross Gay:

    That's a great question. I think one of the things that I try to do in my poems, like I am very, yeah, that granularity, that's a good word for it. I am interested in very small details, whether it's details of sound or details of syntax, which to a poem is everything. But it can be very sort of, like the arrangement of two words can mean everything of course, but it's also, I'm very interested in poems. I'm interested in images, sort of precise ways of depicting images.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Ross Gay:

    And I think in order to do that, often I spend a lot of time sort of really looking hard at what this thing, what the actual stand of garlic greens in the wind actually looks like, what does that look like? Is it this, is it that? Yeah, it's a good question. I feel like I've been doing that for a while, so I feel like it maybe lends itself to just taking time and really trying to really look at something.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I mean, I didn't always write, I started writing in my mid, late 20s. I always wrote as a child, but I came back to it and I realized that I had always meant to carry on writing, but didn't. And I felt like I had to relearn that level of observation and that it made me conscious that I'd almost hit a point that I thought I had to stop noticing those small things, because it was part of the kind of putting away childhood, almost. That to be an adult, you had to be almost deliberately more cynical and jaded and weary with the world and find it all really boring. I mean, that's the terrible thing that being a teenager does to you, I think. It's like this act of violence against noticing.

    Ross Gay:

    Totally.

    Katherine May:

    And I think I've really consciously relearnt my noticing actually, but now it is just elemental to me and I can't stop. But yeah, it's interesting to think about how absent it can be.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I do think it's... Yeah, you can see it as a kind of training into adulthood, is that you put wonder aside and you put enthusiasm, except about very sort of mandated things aside, but for the most part you... The kids who, when they're 17 are just like, ah, look at this [inaudible 00:12:08]. Oh my god. Those kids might be hanging out, but it's a small group. But that's really the kid that I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be like that about the bird songs, about what my friend is wearing, about the music that I love, about the food that someone has made me. Yeah, I'm trying to be that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's a good way to be. And I think also a lot of your delights are about human connections made, like fleeting ones, just little gestures of... Again, it's of seeing people in lots of ways, but you often talk about touch, I think.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I did. At some point, I noticed that so often the lights were these examples of very sort of small interactions between people that you otherwise, you just might not notice, but there were small, little interactions between people. Like there's one on the... There's kids running down the aisle in a plane and people can't help but poke this kid in the tummy. And it's just like, it's remarkable. There's all these sort of gestures and, like you say, touchings and stuff that happen in the book. I noticed at some point that those, I was sort of witnessing these moments of care and then those moments of care made me inclined to be like, hey, did you notice that moment of care?

    Katherine May:

    I mean, assuming your book was written before the pandemic, which it must have been if it was five years ago, I guess maybe that's one of the things we missed, but maybe we couldn't articulate it, was those casual instances of connection that like, I think that was part of what made life feel so flat, was not connecting with strangers on a minute level. I certainly began to really miss that, just smiling at people while I picked up my coffee or something.

    Ross Gay:

    Absolutely. Absolutely. It's fundamental. It's fundamental. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But I don't know if we realize it's fundamental, actually. It seems so trivial. Even as I'm saying it, it seems so trivial. I always talk about myself as having reclusive tendencies. And I think I'm probably lying when I say that, because when I really was shut away from other people, I missed people so much. I missed their randomness, their ability to bring randomness into my life and unexpected things and to throw my day off course and break my plans almost.

    Ross Gay:

    Yes. Yes. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Yeah, me too. It's funny. You wouldn't guess this from the book, but I'm also sort of reclusive. I can be social and then I kind of retreat, but being in company is as important as anything in my life. The exchange of the small, loving, almost invisible exchanges between my friends, who I just said it came out of my mouth, my friends at the coffee shop, just that simple daily interaction is, to me, among the fabrics of life.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Actually, I got to interview Cole Arthur Riley a couple of weeks ago, and she made this brilliant point, which was that we are so often told that to have a intellectual or spiritual life, we should retreat from other people and that that happens alone and it only happens in solitude, but that actually, particularly her sort of black upbringing meant that community was vital to her spiritual encounter with the world. And I kind of thought, yeah. Do you know what? I've believed that for a long time as well, that to be clever enough, I have to be isolated almost. And it's not true, is it?

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right.

    Katherine May:

    So interesting. I'd like to talk to you about your garden.

    Ross Gay:

    Oh please.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I know from reading you that you'll want to talk about it. But I have to confess upfront that I am the world's most hopeless gardener. A friend came around to my house for a drink recently and he was sitting in my garden and he said, "I don't know what you do to gardens." At the moment, the whole right-hand side of my garden is just mud. And I planted it out. Like somebody came and helped me to take down all the trees that had overgrown. I'd planted weird plants as usual. And he helped me to take them all down because they were all crowding each other out. And it was mainly bindweed. And in October, we planted out all new plants and I was like, "Is this the right time of year?" He was like, "Absolutely. This is just perfect. They will just bed down over winter. They're the right plants." Not a single one has survived over winter and I'm back with bare mud again. I cannot, I just, I don't know. I am the curse on gardens. You however, are not, right? Tell me about your garden.

    Ross Gay:

    Well, yeah, it's really great. It's funny, I told you I'm writing these delights. And one of the things that... A few years ago, I planted a bunch of sunflowers, big old sunflower. I had some sunflowers seeds lying around. And those sunflowers, some of them were these mammoth, I think they call them and they're 10 feet tall.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Ross Gay:

    Oh, they're beautiful. And at the end of the season, these gold finches, other birds too, but gold finches get on them and they just eat them and they send the seeds everywhere. It's amazing. So one of the beautiful entanglements of the garden is that those flowers grow up and then the gold finches plant them all over the place. So now, this time of year, my job is to transplant them, dig them up and plant them where I want them

    Katherine May:

    Kind of marshaling some flowers.

    Ross Gay:

    Yes, yes. And it's so neat. It's like this total collaboration. They do the hard work for me, the birds, but I was just replanting them where I wanted them to be. When you transplant plants often, you may or may not know this, but when you transplant them, they look kind of weary.

    Katherine May:

    You know I don't know this.

    Ross Gay:

    You will know this. You will know this.

    Katherine May:

    Carry on.

    Ross Gay:

    They look kind of weary. So I have that feeling that maybe you have, like often when I'm gardening, which is like, oh no, I think maybe I just killed these transplants, I just killed these sunflowers. And then I water them a little bit. And then four hours later, they're standing up and they're happy and they're ready to go. So anyway, that's actually one of the feelings that I noticed this year as I was gardening that although... I've been gardening for 15 years, so I'm basically a baby gardener. I'm 47. I started when I was like [inaudible 00:19:18]. But almost every time I plant stuff, I still, when it comes up, I'm like, what in the world? How this possible? Even though I know that's just what it does, that's the beginning. We can go on and on.

    Katherine May:

    No, I mean, please do. And I keep asking gardeners about gardening, because I feel like one day something's going to go into my head that explains to me why I kill everything so thoroughly. I think [inaudible 00:19:47]. Please tell me.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah. I wonder what... It sounds like you have bindweed.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, so much bindweed. Yeah. And couch grass as well. All of that. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    Okay. Yeah. I'm finding trying to figure out more and more what just grows well without a lot of intervention or tending and it sounds like [inaudible 00:20:11].

    Katherine May:

    It's bindweed.

    Ross Gay:

    That is a bindweed. So that's one thing, which is also a kind of patient relationship to the garden.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That does make sense. I think two things. I think, one, my dog digs everything up, which is not my fault. I killed things before I had a dog, but now the dog is not contributing frankly. But I think my bigger problem is I kind of like the weeds. They come up and I kind of think, oh, it's a shame to take that away. It looks so happy there. Over-empathizing with the weeds, I think is one of my gardening woes. And then obviously they take over and kill all the stuff I planted. There's a little bit of me that still thinks, oh, well, maybe they're meant to be there. It's bad. I need deprogramming.

    Ross Gay:

    Sounds reasonable to me. Sounds reasonable.

    Katherine May:

    Well, yeah. But I mean, I find plants really fascinating. And I just want to watch them grow and see what they do. I'm always really enchanted with plants, my friend has taught me to call them volunteers, that just appear in your garden and want to be there and grow. I just think they've got a right that I can't disrupt.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They also have a knowing, that's the other thing. It's like sort of to interact with that knowledge in a kind of like, I was going to say non in positional way, but like in a way that's sort of more collaborative. So actually really wondering with the garden, what wants to grow here as opposed to I want this to grow here. That can be a struggle. A lot of the language of gardening is the language of war. And it's just like, what if we put that aside? What if we put that aside and they're kind of like, huh, I wonder. Clearly you thrive here. What else might thrive here?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. There's a great kind of, I mean, I think it's true in America too, but this great British obsession with the lawn, like having this great big expanse of short grass.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Totally.

    Katherine May:

    And I can't engage with that. I don't find it interesting and I don't know what to do on grass and I'm a seaside person and I don't want to cut it. And actually, I mean, let's add another aspect to why my garden doesn't grow. I'm really lazy. I hate the work. I think we're learning a lot here. Do you spend a lot of time though? I mean, does it take a lot of your time? And I presume that's positive for you.

    Ross Gay:

    Well, I like being in the garden, but I'm also like, the more I learn how to garden, the more I'm sort of realizing how much I actually want to be working in the garden. I often think this, like if I was to make my living as a farmer, what would I grow? And I think I would grow things like garlic and sweet potatoes and potatoes and things that have one big harvest time that you manage for a little bit, and then they take care of themselves. The more I learn how I am, I realize that is part of my pace too. I don't actually like to have to do stuff every single day.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That really bothers me too.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. Yeah. There are plenty of things to grow and I love growing those things that to some extent it's like you put them in, you make sure they take okay, and then you're kind of, all right, we're going to check in with you periodically and make sure you're watered, but you're going to take care of yourself.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Okay. I feel like, maybe I might do better this year, but I've left it too late already, I presume. Yeah, big sigh.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you would consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of the Wintering Sessions, get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode, and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    I want to ask about the context in which you're writing about delight and about loveliness and happiness and all those very simple pleasures, because yours, isn't a book that's like, you must be blindly optimistic. You must be grateful for everything. You must just see the good side. Everything's fine. Everything's going to turn out. There's a real undercurrent of dark things happening behind it, isn't there?

    Ross Gay:

    Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting when I hear even the word optimistic or hope with this book, I think, I understand that response, because I think it probably feels for other people, it offers, I'm just realizing this now. It might offer other people, maybe readers, a sense of optimism or hope. But I don't think this book, the way I think of those terms, that this book, isn't really actually interested in that. This book is actually interested in attending to the day-to-day care we're in the midst of, or variations of that. The premise of the book is like, yeah, it's fucked. Shit's fucked up.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, of course, no doubt. And there will periodically be... Actually, in this new book two of The Book of Delights, I find myself wanting to respond to that a little bit because periodically people will sort of be under the impression that... How to say this? To some extent, I think maybe it is like, they so badly want the book just to be a happy book.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Ross Gay:

    And I'm like, read the essays.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. You wouldn't have to read very far. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    You don't have to read very far. And you know, it's talking about, there is the horror and there is the bloom. And they do not exist separate from one another, at least in my grownup life. And it's kind of interesting, as I said, I was sort of thinking the grownupness, it feels like a grownup thing. Like I have this essay on joy in the book. And actually, this new book I have coming out October, it's a kind of expansion in a way of that consideration that happens in that essay. It's a childish endeavor to imagine that we can just be happy. Put it like that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    Grown people know it's not all just happy. That's just like being grown. And it's funny because I feel like part of that, I'm making a connection here that I don't quite know how to make, but because we started talking a little bit about how the tamping down of enthusiasm and maybe even delight that comes with growing up, on this one side, it's a kind of, you tamp down a relationship to a full life to become a grownup. But it's also a quality of being a grownup to have a full life, to be like, yeah, I know it's terrible. And it's wonderful. As far as I'm concerned, that's how it is. In a way it's sort of the enthusiasm or the close looking or the paying attention, it's being able to attend to the sorrow. And it's also being able to attend what flummoxes us with delight. They are not mutually exclusive. And it feels to me like, childish to imagine that they are. And also, it makes sense for a kind of dumb consumer culture, because then you can buy a thing that will make you happy.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think there's something about full humanity in... Actually, I think it's something we've both got in common in our work, that we're thinking about bringing your full humanity to the fore, like the light and the shade and how that is completely interconnected and not in any way separable. And that it's not even desirable to separate it, because the pleasure of the joyful bits reside in that background of knowing exactly what life's like. And I increasingly realize that this obsession with happiness as a separate strata that we're supposed to isolate off and seek is such a Western 20th Century invention. Even my grandparents would not have recognized this concept, that it was attainable in a pure sense and wouldn't have found it an interesting idea almost. We've got here very recently. And I think we're realizing pretty quickly that it's not an attainable goal.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. You said the word gratitude too. And I think, to me, the word gratitude implies the full grownup understanding of the profound heartbreak, that it's just part of being a creature. And gratitude is sort of, and yet there are trees literally making it possible for me to breathe. There are literally creatures that a kind of conventional way of knowing would say are discretely inside of my body at this moment, making it possible for me to live. If they go away, I will die. And a practice of gratitude, I think, is serious. It is grave. It is understanding. It is understanding. Hard to be grateful when you don't have some kind of relationship to the sorrow.

    Katherine May:

    Because feeling gratitude is a huge part of what I do every single day, what I really resent is the constant entreaty to tell other people to feel grateful. I feel like that's something you have to come to by yourself. And that actually, it's not an instruction. It's got to be authentically felt. It's got to be traveled to almost.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So often that kind of grateful, the compulsion to gratitude or being compelled to gratitude, so often it's being told by people who could evict you.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a power relationship.

    Ross Gay:

    It's a power relationship. Yeah. And that's a completely different thing and it's a weaponized thing. So what I'm talking about, I'm not talking about that.

    Katherine May:

    No. No, no.

    Ross Gay:

    I'm talking about this actual thing that understands that we're profoundly entangled, we're profoundly entangled and it's by the generosity of the earth. That's who I'm always sort of... The earth of which we are all a sort of expression of.

    Katherine May:

    Which grow things for you and not for me. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    But you probably ate today too. So [inaudible 00:31:50] to all of us.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, I did.

    Ross Gay:

    That's what I'm talking about when I say gratitude. It's funny, I have this essay in this new book, and it's talking about gratitude. It's talking precisely about the thing you just said about what I would call a kind of brutal compulsion to effectively, to feel grateful that we have not killed you. To feel grateful that we didn't put a highway through your neighborhood. You should feel grateful we still let you live, even though there's lead in the water, et cetera, et cetera. This essay in the book is sort of acknowledging that and being like, we're not talking about that. We're talking about this other thing.

    Katherine May:

    My next book, which is coming out next year, it started off as a book about humility. And I was really interested in the concept of developing a sense of humility and how nourishing it is to feel humble. But I had to stop writing it because the more I dug into it, the more angry my own subject matter made me, because it was just abundantly clear that humility had so often been weaponized against other groups. It was something that we, particularly as white Westerners, I guess, kind of praised other people for having in what was actually the most condescending way possible. Like we admired the humility of Gandhi because ultimately we felt like he didn't cause too much trouble. He didn't harm us, so we were willing to admire that. Whereas we are critical of people who stepped up and said, no, actually I'm really furious with you and I'm going to do something really direct about it.

    Katherine May:

    And I got totally tangled up in it and I had to stop writing about it because I ultimately felt like, actually it wasn't my story to tell, that actually there's a whole hidden history here of the way we've demanded positive sentiment from other groups without ever applying it back to ourselves. And we've seen it as admirable from a distance without really feeling an obligation to equally take it on. And I feel like the gratitude conversation we've got to recently in the mainstream has often touched in that place as well for me.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, totally. Totally. It's funny, the word humility. It's interesting that word, the etymology of it, I'm pretty sure is the humus.

    Katherine May:

    Of the soil. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    Of the soil.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Ross Gay:

    And it's funny in that in your first sentence, you said humility and you said dug. Both of them are soil metaphors. And I think there's something, like a true humility, I think. I'm just sort of wondering, in relationship to the question of gratitude, like humility to recognize that we are of the soil or something.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, exactly.

    Ross Gay:

    That's a recognition of, again, the word entanglement or recognition of-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Rootedness.

    Ross Gay:

    Rootedness, beautiful. And the compulsion to being compelled to be humble is not that. It's not that. It's effectively saying, you're from the soil.

    Katherine May:

    And I'm not.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah, it's that kind of thing. Yes, it's that kind of thing.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I think there's also something about the practice of humility. Oh god, like I'm having this conversation now instead of writing a book about it. Forgive me.

    Ross Gay:

    No, no. Not at all. Say it.

    Katherine May:

    But it's about recognizing that you are exactly the same as everybody else. And part of that is not being any worse too. Like not punishing yourself harder for transgressions that you'd forgive of other people or that you'd actually find endearing in other people. Like, oh, I spilled my glass of milk and I'm going to berate myself for the next five hours about it. Whereas if your friend spilled their glass of milk, you'll be like, oh, don't worry, I'll get a cloth. That's fine. And so humility, it works in the opposite direction as well. There's a sense that sometimes we're being too humble, like forcefully humble and we're punishing ourselves and taking ourselves lower than where the equilibrium is supposed to be. It's a really complex idea when you start to look at it closely.

    Ross Gay:

    Yeah. I love that. I love that so much, that kind of like possibility for.... I mean, when you say that like of... I was just having that feeling the other day that I was getting on myself about something that, exactly how you said, if someone else had done it, I would've been like, how sweet. That kind of self, being tender-

    Katherine May:

    To yourself.

    Ross Gay:

    To yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. That ends up being one of these things that shows up in The Book of Delights a bit. And I think it's partly like... I don't know what it is. If it's like getting a little older or something and just sort of being like, golly, you have spent so much time really, really berating yourself and judging yourself and being unforgiving.

    Katherine May:

    And what a waste that is.

    Ross Gay:

    What a waste, what a waste. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's actually, to kind of talk about the sort of periodically sorrowful delight, it feels like occasionally in there, it'll be the case that I sort of recognize like, oh, I spend a lot of energy. What a relief to notice that maybe you don't have to do that. Maybe you don't have to do that.

    Katherine May:

    And that's a very bittersweet feeling, isn't it? Because that sense that we... Loads of us, so many of us just waste huge swathes of our life in this obsession with why we're not getting everything exactly right. I know I've done it. My god, really. Wow. I've committed some... If I'd committed the hours to that, that I committed to, I don't know. If I approached my learning of Spanish on Duolingo with quite the same fervor, I would be great at it by now. However.

    Ross Gay:

    Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right. That's right.

    Katherine May:

    But that puts me in mind of, I think one of my favorite parts of your book, which is right towards the end, when you're moisturizing your shins. And it struck me really hard as something I'd not heard a man write about before, not the act of moisturizing, but the sensual experience of being in a male body in a way that isn't violent or aggressive or sexualized unnecessarily or hard. The softness of being male, we don't hear about that.

    Ross Gay:

    I know, I know, I know. It's such a sorrow that we don't hear about that and that we're often compelled not to express it or to withhold that very obvious part of ourselves. Yeah, what a loss, what a loss. And also, what part of a loss I think is, requires that we inflict all kinds of damage on other people. When you can be like, hey, I'm soft, I'm tender, I'm hurting, in my experience anyway, that helps me not defend, not defend and then defending being all the other things, stupid and violent and brutal.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And not building a wall against other people's hardness that then creates your own hardness. I think that's the hardest act to pull off in adult life actually, is refusing to harden no matter what goes on.

    Ross Gay:

    That's it. And part of that thing of growing up of sort of pulling into our... Mastering the world and losing wonder, losing enthusiasm, like giving away those things to sort of pretend to kind of enoughness or something. It is a kind of hardening, it's a hardening. And it's like, it's so sad. It's so sad. And it does, it feels like such a relief when we can let that crack a little bit. I'm inclined to read that essay. It's not that long. Do you do that all?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? Have you got it?

    Ross Gay:

    I have it.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that would be amazing. Yeah. I love the sound of pages being shuffled through the ETHER. That's a delightful thing.

    Ross Gay:

    Okay. Yeah. It's called Coco-Baby.

    Ross Gay:

    I caught sight of myself this morning in the mirror applying coconut oil to my body. I was bent over with one foot on the edge of the tub, rubbing the oil into my calves, which had become a particularly ashen part of my body, particularly visibly ashen as it's summer, which I'm trying to address with a loofah and the oil, abundantly applied. If you want to get way further into this, and I think you do, I recommend Simone White's essay "Lotion" in her book Of Being Dispersed. This time of year I am mostly brown, except for the stretch from my waist to my mid-thighs, which is a lighter shade, neither of them to be compared to a food or coffee drink. With my leg up like this, bent over, my testicles swaying just beneath my pale thigh...

    Ross Gay:

    I can't help but interrupt myself. I got to interrupt myself for a second. I once made the interesting choice to read this essay at a huge poetry festival, where there were like, I don't know, there might have been 800 high school children in the audience.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my god.

    Ross Gay:

    And I swear to you, I don't know what... Because I think the spirit, as your listeners will know, when we get to the end of the essay is the right spirit. But these 16-year-old kids, when I said testicles, they were like, "No!"

    Katherine May:

    Oh, I bet that was a great moment. [inaudible 00:42:06]. I bet that was a delight in itself.

    Ross Gay:

    It was wonderful for me, but they were like, uh-huh. I don't know if they're ever going to read another thing.

    Katherine May:

    Love that. Continue.

    Ross Gay:

    With my leg up like this, bent over, my testicles swaying just beneath my pale thigh-

    Katherine May:

    Ah, sorry, do that sentence again. I just knocked something off the table. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

    Ross Gay:

    Your pencil was like, ah.

    Katherine May:

    Sorry.

    Ross Gay:

    With my leg up like this, bent over, my testicles swaying just beneath my pale thigh, I wondered if, whenever I'm in this position, which is often oiling, cutting toenails, I will always think of Toi Derricotte's poem in The Undertaker's Daughter where, as a child, she walks in on her abusive father standing more or less just like this, though he's shaving. Seeing his testicles dangling like that, she thinks they're his udders. As she writes, "The female part he hid, something soft and unprotected I shouldn't see."

    Ross Gay:

    I watched myself rub the oil liberally on my body while I was still wet, which my dear friend recently taught me keep some of the moisture in. I got my calves, then my feet, lacing my fingers into my toes. When doing this, I often recall another friend who, watching me put lotion on my feet one day smiled and said, "Good job." Up to my thighs, inner and outer, around my ass, which seems to want to break out some when I'm sitting too much. Then I get both arms and shoulders, my chest and stomach, and what I can reach in my back. Usually I oil my face with the residual oil on my hands, and finish by oiling my penis, not always last, but often, which I wouldn't read into too much, one way or the other.

    Ross Gay:

    Today when I watched myself, particularly when I was oiling my chest and stomach, which I do kind of by self-hugging, I was thinking how many bodies of mine are in this body, this nearly 43-year-old body stationed on this plane for the briefest. I could see as I always can, probably kind of dysmorphic-ly, my biggest body, when it was 260 pounds and a battering ram and felt sort of impervious. I could also see my 12-year-old self, chubby and gangly and ashamed. And of course the baby me, who I don't remember being, though I have seen pictures.

    Ross Gay:

    When you watch yourself in the mirror, oiling yourself like this, wrapping your arms around yourself, jostling yourself a little, it is easy or easier to see yourself as a child and maybe even a child you really love. It is easy, if you decide it, which might be hard, to let the oiling be of the baby you. Or at least I thought so today, looking at myself, whom I am so often not nice to. But the baby you, you oil until he shines.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's so perfect. Thank you so much. And I have to say, I love that my first male guest managed to talk about his penis and his testicles. I feel like we've done the whole thing. Yes. I feel like I've achieved a full cycle now and I've done it and I'm feeling really good about it. Ross, thank you so much. It's just been such a pleasure to meet you and to have you on the podcast. I'm so thrilled you said yes.

    Ross Gay:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Thank you so much.

    Ross Gay:

    Thank you. It's really great to talk to you.

    Katherine May:

    Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed that. While I'm standing here, and I will admit I'm getting slightly wet now, but I don't mind, but I'm looking at my tree, my only fruit tree in my garden. I have a very small garden. And when I first moved in, I planted a green gauge tree because I wanted a tree. I couldn't have a big tree, but I also wanted something that I could pick fruit from. And green gauges seemed to me to be very essentially Kentish really. They're a small green plum, but they're intensely sweet and you don't see them in the supermarkets very often. You sometimes see them in the green grocers, but they're actually, as it turns out... Thunder's still going. Oh, it's a good one. It must be nearly right overhead now.

    Katherine May:

    They're actually quite hard to grow, the greengages. It took 10 years for my tree to fruit and now it's fruiting every year. I've learnt to feed it with seaweed feed and it seems to help it a lot. And it actually grows like crazy, this tree. I had it pruned by someone else last year, because I was too scared to do it myself and already it's looking really straggly. It seems to have a lot of determination to get on with the business of producing fruit. And I think I've got a great crop this year. They're small at the moment, but they're all over the branches.

    Katherine May:

    And the trick with greengages is to not catch them too late. They go off really quickly and the wasps get them. So I'm going to be keeping a close eye on them this year. I might make some jam. You never know. Some really good green jam. Anyway, that's today's delight. And of course, the thunder and a bit of lightning, but less lightning than thunder without a doubt. I think it's beginning to pass now because you can hear the seagulls coming up in the air again. They seem to know when it's all over. They're really good predictors of a storm because they come in from the sea.

    Katherine May:

    I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I just wanted to say thank you to Ross again, for making the time to chat to me as a man without a iPhone smartphone, I should say, he gives me the sense that maybe he's not too bothered about getting onto podcasts and people's Instagram feeds and all the things that I fuss over in my daily life. So I was really, really chuffed when he said yes. And thank you to all the people who suggested him to me and who said that I really must make him my very first male guest. There will be more. I need to keep up the habit. I'm actually going to be taking a little break over the summer. More thunder. I hope no one here is not enjoying the thunder.

    Katherine May:

    I'm going to be taking a little break over the summer from producing new episodes just for a few weeks, just to rest and reset. I'm going to be visiting America for the first time since Wintering came out. So I'm hoping to maybe see some of you there. I'll let you know about anything I'm doing. The rain's getting harder now. And I'm also running my first retreat, which you may well have heard about, but if not, do have a look on my website to learn more about it. And all of those things are going to be keeping me really busy.

    Katherine May:

    And in fact, it just gave me the opportunity to do something that I wanted to do for ages, which is to put some of my earlier episodes into the very able hands of producer, Buddy, to kind of remaster them a bit and to get them back into shape because I produced the first series and you can really hear the difference. My guests were amazing and I feel like I didn't do them all justice. So I'm hoping for some slightly crisper versions and maybe for those of you that have only started listening more recently, there'll be a really nice surprise because there's some awesome people back there in the past.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you as ever to Meghan and to Buddy for looking after the podcast so well, and to my Patreons. This month, they have been formulating questions for all kinds of interesting people, including Susan Cain, which I think they really enjoyed. And we also had a lovely live Q&A about living a creative life, which made me dig so deep to think about how I think about my own practice and how to make it sustainable. I think I get way more out of this experience than they do. Ah, the robin has come to see me in the greengage tree now, which feels like a lovely time to say goodbye, because he and I are buddies now, we're mates and I've got some bonding to do. I'll see you all really soon. Bye.

Show Notes

This week, Katherine talks to Ross Gay about finding delight in dark times.

Ross’s practice of writing down a daily delight - a small surprise or pleasure that might otherwise go unnoticed - is the foundation of The Book of Delights, his bestselling essay collection. Here, he talks about the way that delight can sit alongside our fear, anger, frustration and grief, not to block them out, but to find a way to survive them. Along the way, we touch on fleeting moments of human connection, the joy of tending a garden, and childlike art of noticing.

In a first for The Wintering Session, Ross closes with a beautiful reading that meditates on the softness of living in a male body.

We talked about:

  • Fleeting moments of human connection

  • The joy of tending a garden

  • The childlike act of noticing

References from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Aja Barber on getting dressed

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Aja Barber on getting dressed

———
This week, Katherine asks Aja Barber how we can change the way we buy clothes.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. The sun is finally out in Whitstable. We have had a northeasterly wind that has blown for, I don't know, it feels like a month now. So even though the days have been bright, it has been so bitterly cold, particularly at night. Well, finally, the wind is westerly and it's just so beautiful here. I love that point in May when all the flowers come out on the beach. There is pink and white verbena, and loads of yellow ragworts. And loads and loads of tiny sparrows flitting between all the flowers and nibbling seeds and insects from them. It's just such a good moment.

    Katherine May:

    Tide's high. I've just been in for a swim. The sea is finally turning blue. It's so brown all winter. It's always churned up with mud here because we're in the [inaudible 00:01:38]. But when things get a little bit more settled, it goes clear and blue again. And then it's just a short while before the jellyfish arrive. There's always something to worry about, but it's good. Had a lovely swim. I feel really soothed by it. That's a nice exhale. So I'm beginning to do some slightly different things with The Wintering Sessions in coming months. I'm still going to be talking to guests who have told amazing life stories and who want to think about the difficult times in life. But I'm also on a mission to ask more people about how we go back into the world as this pandemic, not ends, but becomes part of normal life again for better or worse.

    Katherine May:

    I think so many of us have changed in this time. I think that we've had time to reflect and I think we've also come against the extremes of experience, whether that is extreme loneliness, intense work, fear, anxiety, illness, grief. There's been all kinds of ways that we have been forced into a reckoning with life. And for some of us, we found a better way when we were forced to slow down in the pandemic. We learnt that working from home had benefits, or we realized that we wanted to get out more, and that we crave more social contact, or we realized that we were in the wrong work and that we wanted something with more meaning and purpose, or that we wanted something that was less emotionally demanding. Lots of different conclusions. But I think the thread in common is that a lot of us are thinking about change or are making changes. And I wanted to begin to use this podcast to sometimes ask the question, how can we make those changes? How can we go back into the world and enact that change?

    Katherine May:

    Kind of see through the promises we made to ourselves in those very dark days when we were locked down. And how do we see this as an opportunity to remake the world a little bit, to not go back to bad old habits, but to make new better ones? And so I'll be speaking today to Aja Barber, who is a stylist and fashion expert, but also the most incredible passionate advocate for ethical fashion. And for us to engage our sense of common humanity with the people who make and distribute our clothes.

    Katherine May:

    And I mean, it feels to me like a world that maybe I see as none of my business. I'm not particularly engaged in fashion. Some of you may have noticed, but like everybody else, I do buy and wear clothes and I love clothes. I just am not very interested in trends and the cycles of fashion. And I don't find the conversation about that stuff very interesting. But I do want to make sure that when I'm buying my clothes and when I'm making choices, that I make good ones, environmentally good, ethically good towards people, sustainable, all of those things. So that's what I wanted to talk to Aja about today. I hope you enjoy the conversation. I think she's amazing. See you a bit later.

    Katherine May:

    Aja, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. You are kind of a special new guest for me because normally, up till now I've invited people to talk about a down season in their life and how they survived it. And we always have very rambling conversations. It's never that focused, but that's been the basic principle. But I've kind of wanted to begin to explore some different stuff lately. And I think that's about emerging from lockdowns and living with this new kind of pandemic reality that's going to roll on. And just thinking about how we can use that as an opportunity to not go back to exactly the same life that we lived before. And you were one of the first people that's sprang to mind for that because you are an absolute expert in, I mean, not just fashion in general, but ethical fashion and how we can behave better. Is that a good way to summarize what you do?

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. I mean, what I exist to do is just to remind people that maybe you don't actually need that dress. Maybe there's something deeper behind the reason why you want to buy that particular thing. And the truth in the matter is all of these issues that we're facing with the climate crisis are downright terrifying. It's a very, very weird time to be on this planet, but all of these issues do feel very scary, but when it comes to what we're buying, how much of it we're buying, why we're buying it, that doesn't have to be scary. It can actually be really fun. And you can really start to enjoy your life more when you pick apart consumerism in your life and the role that it plays. Because for me, I came from a place where I will never, ever not hold my hand up and not talk about the ways in which I used to consume fast fashion.

    Aja Barber:

    But one thing I know for certain is I so enjoy the way I exist and the way I play with fashion now so much more than I ever could have. The sense of urgency to buy and consume new things has completely gone away. I wear the clothing in my wardrobe more, longer, better. I spend a bit more money, but I spend less overall because I'm not feeling like I have to buy something new once a week or once a month. So even if I'm going to spend a bit more money on something that's ethically made, overall, I'm not spending anywhere near the amount of money I used to spend on clothing that I wouldn't like a year later.

    Katherine May:

    And I mean, I imagine we are roundabout the same age, and I think we've both grown up in a society that's told us that that's how you cheer yourself up. You go out and you buy yourself a new dress and you'll feel better about yourself. Like that will be an improvement to the miserable old you. This shiny new you will emerge in a fancy dress and you'll look great.

    Aja Barber:

    It's so embedded in our society that I don't even think we recognize it. Like one of the things that I talk about a lot is films and their makeover scenes. So all of the films ...

    Katherine May:

    The makeover scene.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. All of the films that we grew up loving, like Pretty Woman, for instance, that scene where she gets her revenge and says, "Big mistake, huge." That's a very normalizing [inaudible 00:09:29] consumerism. And the fact that people might treat you like dirt, but if you spend all your money on really nice clothing, you'll have your day, you'll have the last word. And it's a really satisfying scene, but consumerism is so hyper normalized, particularly in the media that we consume, that we don't even realize that this is something that we've sold and it's not a way in which we have to exist.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And the one that really gets me and it got me when I was a teenager too, is Grease. The kind of makeover of Sandy at the end. And he loves her anyway. Like she does it despite the fact that he wants her. It made me furious and it makes me even more furious now.

    Aja Barber:

    I really didn't understand the messaging. It was like, don't be yourself. Here, put on these tight trousers. And now you're cool. I remember not getting it when I was a kid, but everybody liked it so I just shut my mouth. And so, yeah. It's great. It's great. But I remember being like, oh, so he likes her because she wears tight trousers now.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Like what does that mean? And she smokes. But not really very much. Just enough to spit it out again.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. Well, it's a message that we're sending there. I mean, yeah. A lot of things have not aged well in our society.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But I mean, we are still doing. I mean, it's still a trope in novels quite often, the makeover and the ...

    Aja Barber:

    The makeover of Clueless, the movie, Clueless, has a makeover. The Devil Wears Prada has a makeover. The Princess Diaries has a makeover.

    Katherine May:

    So many, and it's like you make yourself over to become loved and lovable.

    Aja Barber:

    To be treated better by society.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's really ... So before we dig into what we can do, I'd love to know more about your story because you've done a lot of different stuff, haven't you? How did you end up in fashion and how did you get to the kind of end of fashion that you work in now?

    Aja Barber:

    So I always wanted to be in fashion, but I think one of the things that I talk about a lot on my platform is sort of privilege and wealth and, how these factors determine a lot of what we get to do in life, where we get to exist, that sort of thing. And so I've always wanted to write, and I've always wanted to be in fashion. And every message that I've received from society as a child basically told me that there wasn't room for me in these spaces. And not even just society, but also my parents being loving and protecting parents, but also wanting what's right for your child and saying, look, there is not a lot of room for black women who want to write. That is something where there doesn't seem to be a lot of space for you there. And so I always talk about how ethnic parents are like, you're going to school for liberal arts. No, you're not, not on my dime.

    Aja Barber:

    So basically explaining to my parents that I wanted to work in this industry that my mother wasn't the type of person who was really super into fashion to begin with. It just was a non conversation. Yeah. So I always sort of dabbled in ways in which I could, but I knew that it just wasn't going to go far. I knew that I wasn't going to go to school for fashion. I mean, at the time, when I was graduating, Parsons was like $30,000 a year.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my God.

    Aja Barber:

    So yeah, it was a lot of money. So I just knew that I probably wasn't going to get into the fashion industry in any traditional sense of the word, but that didn't stop me from writing about fashion, often for free, and always having an interest in it and reading everything I could get my hands on, but I kind of knew that I just wasn't going to take the straightforward path that someone with disposable income or someone with a lot of privilege could take.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And that's so interesting because you had to find your meandering path in which I think is what makes for really interesting careers in the end.

    Aja Barber:

    Totally. I always tell people, like I did not pull up a seat at the table. I climbed the tree across the street and shimmed over the branch into an open window upstairs.

    Katherine May:

    Like a squirrel.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah, basically, basically. And so I was always interested in fashion and I am someone where I think that we all have like certain skills that society doesn't define them as valuable in the capitalistic sense of the word. But I think we have these skills inside of us. And I think if I had to name what my skill is, it's foresight. I am the type of person where I can see the systems around us and I can see where they might end up. I could see if I'm driving on a road in a place I've never been, I know which direction I'm headed in, and I always have a feeling that if I take this road, I might come out here. And with the fashion systems that we've been dealing with in our life, particularly the rise of fast fashion, I remember having a point in my life where I said, "I feel like everybody is buying too much clothing, and I don't know where it's going, and I don't know what's happening with it, but this feels weird."

    Aja Barber:

    And it wasn't just me. I think personally, I felt like I knew I was buying a lot of clothing and I didn't really like what I was doing. I felt a bit uncomfortable with it. But then I noticed that other people around me were as well, I would have acquaintances, would be moving and they would just give away bin bags full of clothes to their local charity shop. And I thought, okay, if everybody's doing this, we can't all be buying it. That's just not how it works because many of us aren't even buying in charity shops to begin with. We're growing to the mall and buying new.

    Aja Barber:

    So I began to think, how is this possibly being used and how is this all possibly being resold? And then one summer I volunteered in a charity shop and I was like, oh, it's not. But even then, I didn't know where it was going. I knew that the charity shop that I volunteered in would get bags of clothing piled up to the ceiling. We would go through and probably take less than 10% of that. And then the other, some of it would get trashed because honestly people do donate trash. And then some of it would get sent to like another region of the United States. But I just knew deep down inside that we were dumping clothing on people that didn't want it.

    Aja Barber:

    And then later on in life, I learned about Ghana and Rwanda and Kenya. And I began to understand that's what happens with this system. Everything that I felt this whole time, where I felt kind of icky, I knew that somebody was paying the price and it wasn't those of us in privileged, wealthy countries. Additionally, as I liked fashion, I was always that person that wanted to know how it was made. So in my 20s, I got a sewing machine and I started trying to make clothing. And what I found was that surprise, it's hard. I mean, for every item I made that was wearable, there were three items that weren't. And knowing how hard it was and how much fabric costs, and how much materials cost, I began to go into fast fashion stores and go, I couldn't make that. So how can they make it and sell it for $10?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a question that has led, I mean, it's led you all over the world really hasn't it, to understand the long chain that this fashion represents.

    Aja Barber:

    One of the things that I think our society, we kind of got away from, we kind of stopped being curious. I think sometimes we see these systems and we go, oh, that seems weird. Oh, well, nothing to do with me, keep buying. And for me, I think I've always been very curious about, well, wait, that doesn't make sense. Okay. And part of it is, you kind of know if you turn over too many stones, you're going to have to change yourself in the way that you interact with the system. And so I do think in some ways, sometimes people don't even want to know. I mean, I have an example. I had this old roommate that I didn't really like, and she really enjoyed sandwiches from Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A is a homophobic company.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah, no, they're really, really homophobic. They do not like gay people. And the owner has just come out and said horrific things. They're super religious. So they're closed on Sunday. And my roommate was like, "Oh, I love Chick-fil-A." And I said, "Do you know what is at the core of this company?" And she went, "Don't tell me, don't ruin my sandwich for me." And I think even though it was such an obnoxious thing to say out loud, at least she was willing to say it. Where I think sometimes with the fashion industry, people legit do not want to know because once you know, you can't put it back in the box. If you consider yourself a good person and a person who does the right things, there does become a time period where you can't be free and loose with how you interact with certain systems once you know what's behind them.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's the going through the looking glass and everything kind of changes. And I mean, I do really understand. And I hear from a lot of people, that sense of kind of almost huntedness at the moment that people feel that they are becoming so aware of so many different inequalities and kind of problematic stuff in the world that they almost feel like they can't make a right decision. And that therefore leads to a sort of surrender to making wrong decisions. Does that make sense?

    Aja Barber:

    Well, I mean, the thing that people still don't really want to acknowledge because of the system of consumerism that tells us that this is how you participate in society is one decision we can all make is just to buy less. That's really it, but that's not the fun decision.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, is not to buy something, yeah.

    Aja Barber:

    It's not fun at first, but once you start to really unpick consumerism and unlink it to your happiness, you feel really free. I think the decision that people really, to interact less with the system is the one that people genuinely don't want to pick, because the idea of consumerism is becoming a part of our society, a part of our lives. This is what you do. That's something that people feel uncomfortable with moving away from.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. So what do people need to know about the cycle of their clothes? I mean, one thing that strikes me whenever I'm like looking at your posts and reading your book is it's actually not just the cheapest clothing we are talking about here, is it? It seems to be spread right the way across the industry, regardless of how much they're charging for the end product.

    Aja Barber:

    I think people have gotten a little free and loose with that notion that it's going to be like, oh, every place sucks. That's simply not true. Yes, there have been some luxury brands that have been entangled and messed with factories. However, I do think ultimately, if brands were paying more for their clothing, which is, this is why we should really rally for fair wages for everyone. No one's going to be able to overproduce and exploit in the same way. The fair payment part is what's missing. And that's what we have to champion first and foremost. Additionally, there's a book that's out about how fair wages is actually key to fighting the climate crisis within systems. And I think people like to sort of go, oh, well, you just can't win. Luxury fashion does it too. Da, da, da, da, da. How do I know? And I think that's kind of an excuse that people throw out so that they can continue to not move in any direction with the conversation, if you know what I mean?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's a paralysis excuse, yeah.

    Aja Barber:

    It is. It's like, oh well, I might as well just keep doing what I'm doing. But the one thing I do say is that when it comes to the clothing that we do spend more money on, there isn't a mountain of real product in [inaudible 00:22:02] market and there never will be. We value luxury fashion differently therefore we treat it differently. With the $5 t-shirt, you don't separate your clothing and you wash it poorly and then it falls apart and you go, oh, it was only $5. You're never going to do that with a Chanel suit. You know what I mean? And so I think our value system is incredibly faulty and that's part of the problem as well. Whether or not, luxury is that much better than fast fashion, the way we treat luxury is inherently different, which changes the life cycle of the garment.

    Katherine May:

    So talk to me about fast fashion because until I read your book, I mean, I kind of understood that it was really about creating these pieces that are very desirable for a very short space of time. But I didn't realize about the waste crisis that that brings about. Can you explain a bit about that? Because that took me by surprise.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. So fast fashion is clothing that is produced quickly and usually very trend driven in order to serve a quick sell. And a lot of the clothing has planned obsolescence in its core, meaning it's not built to last you. Some of it is fine. I mean, I remember when I used to go to an H&M store, you have various levels of quality spread throughout the store. The problem is the average person doesn't actually know anything about how clothing is made. So people don't even know how to look for quality within a store. So yes, there might be the more upscale, expensive stuff that's going to last you longer. I still have H&M stuff in my wardrobe that I bought years ago because I knew how to look for quality, but the average person doesn't and a lot of the store isn't built to be quality.

    Aja Barber:

    And so fast fashion is rapidly produced clothing that is produced in order to follow trends, to be sold very quickly, and to be worn very quickly. Fast fashion is not produced with longevity in its core. And we are sort of on this cycle now where every time you go into a store, there's a new season of clothing. A season is when they put out new clothes. And so some of the big brands on the high street operate on 51 seasons of clothing a year.

    Katherine May:

    What?

    Aja Barber:

    Meaning every single week, you are getting new clothes. And that cycle that is hyper sped up through micro trends and whatever. And also social media. I think we really neglected to understand how big of a part that social media has played in all of this. And so basically we buy 5 times more clothing than people bought in the 80s today.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. Five times.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. And that's another thing when people act like buying fast fashion is about necessity. I would argue if we're buying 5 times more clothing then someone did 30 years ago that we're not shopping for necessity, we're shopping because that's how we've been sort of trained to do it in a lot of ways.

    Katherine May:

    So the factories are overproducing basically. There comes a point when they ...

    Aja Barber:

    The brands are overproducing and they're getting the factories to do it obviously. And this is not a good system for factories either. We've got something called the race to the bottom and the race to the bottom is about brands trying to get the best possible, lowest, cheapest price for the garments that they're making at any cost. So they might go to one factory in Bangladesh and say, "We've got an order of 50,000 items. We want you to do it, but we want the turnover to be really quick. And you've got to make these shirts for a dollar a piece or whatever." And yeah, then they sell it to you for 10. And the factory might go, "Okay, we don't want to lose all their business. So we have to sort of say yes to them." But in actuality, that brand knows that they can't actually fulfill that order.

    Aja Barber:

    And then the factory might have to outsource to another factory for less money. So they'll go to another factory, one that might have children working and say, "Hey, can you make some of this for us and we'll give you some of the money as well?" And so it's a tough one because nobody really wants to accept the blame here, but I would say it's the brands, because when you give a factory an unfillable order of clothing for such a low price, what do you think is going to happen?

    Aja Barber:

    And we have to remember, no one goes overseas to manufacture their clothing to be altruistic. There's this notion that, oh, we're doing such a good thing. And it's like, well, why wouldn't you want to do that good thing for people in your country where your headquarters are? If it's such a good thing, no, they're going overseas for cheap exploitative labor where you can rip someone off. And so I think that we really, really have to put the blame where it belongs here and that's on a lot of the big brands. They've created this system and now they're going, oh, help us to fix it. And it's like, no, fix it yourself. You're the one that's made billions of dollars.

    Katherine May:

    And also the way that it kind of gets portrayed as like an act of charity when they behave with basic decency towards their workers. I think that's the one that drives me the most crazy.

    Aja Barber:

    Oh yeah. No, it's totally treated, and that's like white-saviorism and colonialism in its core, that attitude that you're doing something charitable for the workers, which make your company worth billions of dollars. And they're the ones that are paid the least amount of money. Like these workers, no workers, no clothes, no brand. And so these are the people that are doing the most backbreaking, hardest labor. And yet they're paid the least, they're at the bottom of the pyramid and they're paid the least. And then this brand acts like it's charitable.

    Katherine May:

    And one of the things that you unpick really effectively is the argument that I think we've all heard a lot, which is, well, they don't get paid much, but that's a lot of money in their country. I mean, these are not people on good wages, are they?

    Aja Barber:

    I always ask people, I'm like, well, do you want to do that job? And no one ever bounces back from that because it points out the colonialism behind their own statement, that someone in another country should be happy to do dangerous, horrible work that we wouldn't want to do. That's the reality. People say that. But they don't realize when they're saying it that you're participating in a system where you devalue other people based on where they live.

    Katherine May:

    So we've done the dreadful stuff, but you are actually ... I mean, you always strike me as like really hopeful about how this could work in the future. And I think your patience with repeating this message comes from a kind of faith that we can improve. Is that right?

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. I mean, it really doesn't have to be this way. If anything, I think what people don't realize is 90% of the profits of the fashion industry go to the same 20 stores, which is ridiculous. And when you have a system like this, it's bad for you as well. It's bad for your community. It's bad for your local economy. One of the things that I talk about in Consumed is when you support a local business, how much of that money stays locally. But when you support a big box store, a small portion of it stays locally and most of it flows in a different direction. And it's not going to the people that are doing the hardest work ever.

    Aja Barber:

    And so this system of total monopoly over the fashion industry is bad for everyone. I tell fashion students, if you want a job when you get out of school, you should definitely not like fast fashion because having a monopoly of these are the employers that you can work with is bad for you. There's less of a competitive job market. They don't have to pay well because that's all that's really being offered. And so every person who actually cares about the fashion industry should want to put a stop to fast fashion, because it's not actually good for any of us.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And you know what? Because I kind of have got away with thinking, well, I'm not really into fashion. I'm not fashionable, but actually I do wear clothes.

    Aja Barber:

    We all put clothing on our body.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so it is totally my business and I feel like my disengagement with it is a kind of luxury because actually I'm not thoughtlessly putting clothes on my body either. I might not be following micro trends, but I don't really have a right to feel smug about that.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. No, I think it's great if you don't feel certain pressures, but I think we have to realize that the majority of the world does. I mean, even within the conversation about buying secondhand, there will always be this system where people who feel very comfortable buying secondhand, won't really acknowledge the reasons why others might not feel comfortable. It's like this notion about the rich person that dresses in rags and it's like, yeah, you can dress that way because you're already in a certain club, aren't you? We all went to university with the person who's incredibly wealthy who dressed in tatters.

    Katherine May:

    Is scruffy.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. And you could be that scruffy person, if society isn't weighing you based upon certain appearances, because you're already in the right clubs and you're already in the right rooms. And so sometimes people will say, "oh, I don't know why everyone doesn't shop secondhand." And it's like, because for some people there's still a stigma there, which we have to break within our society, but we're never going to break it by acting like, oh, everyone should just do this. Like no, let's break it down. Let's talk about why someone who grew up in a low income background might not feel that comfortable with secondhand clothing. How do we get to a place where we can normalize this so that everyone feels comfortable with secondhand? How do we make it really cool, and not just cool, but also accessible? I mean, my niece in the UK, she lives in Sevenoaks, Kent. And I was there last year and I remember wanting to check out a local charity shop and realizing the charity shops there are not as accessible and as abundant as the ones we have in London. How do we change that?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And actually, I mean, like I'm really tall, for example. I can't find that much in charity shops because I might find some tops, but I won't find any bottoms. It's not that straightforward, is it? It's not the only way to solve this because at some point new clothes have to enter in.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. It's never going to be a one size fit all solution in this conversation. And that's where we need to do like all the things, but we need to try and meet people where they're at. But also I think people also have to be honest about where they're at. Because we have this thing in our society where nobody wants to be rich and everybody claims to be poor at different times. And it's this thing where we don't talk honestly about money. And so the idea of who has the agency to make changes and who doesn't, people sort of jump around with where they are in that conversation.

    Aja Barber:

    And I think being realistic about who you are and what changes you can make is crucial here because everybody buys fast fashion and everybody will claim to buy it because of affordability. But for the person who's never going to worry about how they're going to pay their mortgage or whatever, is the affordability argument really for you? Let's just be real. There's a lot of people. I think we do this thing in our society where everybody thinks that when it comes to justifying paying low prices for things, you can go, oh, well I'm poor. This is more affordable for me. I'm house poor. It's like you have a house. So yeah, I think being realistic. Because I just think there's a lot of dishonesty in this conversation. I mean the average American citizen buys 70 items of clothing a year. That's ...

    Katherine May:

    70?

    Aja Barber:

    70. It used to be 68, but I just read recently 70.

    Katherine May:

    It's gone up. That's more than one a week.

    Aja Barber:

    That's more than one a week and I don't have the numbers for the UK, but I bet you it's pretty similar. And so people will say, "Oh, I can't afford to pay for ethical clothing." But if you're buying 70 items a year, even if you're buying 10 to $20 items, that is still enough money where you could actually just get a few ethical items and call it a day.

    Katherine May:

    Right. I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    So when you started on your, I'm going to call it a journey, let's go for journey, your journey towards dressing more ethically, clothing yourself more ethically. Where did you begin? Did you like go completely cold turkey? Did you gradually transition?

    Aja Barber:

    Well, the first thing, yeah, it's gradual. I always tell people don't beat yourself up if you're ... There are very few people that can just be like, I'm never doing this again because it's pretty hardwired in us. But there were a few things for me. The first thing I did was I just one day really got so tired of reading all the emails. So I unsubscribed from everywhere.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. Yeah.

    Aja Barber:

    And I remember feeling, and this is still such a sad statement to say out loud. I remember feeling really like, who will I be if I'm not buying this way? Like feeling like there was a loss of identity for me. And then I thought that is patently ridiculous. So I continued to hit delete, unsubscribe. And at first I did feel like, oh, I really miss being harassed to buy things I don't need every single day in my email inbox. But then I realized, oh wait, I hated that. I absolutely hated it. I hated the obligation to read the emails. I hated always hunting for a coupon on something that I had seen once on another person on the internet. And realized that I didn't actually even really need that item, but I saw someone who I want to be friends with wearing it or whatever. I realized very quickly that I did not miss it. And so that was one step was unsubscribing.

    Aja Barber:

    But also moving overseas. I always tell people, when we move and we want to throw away all of our items, that is God's punishment for materialism because it never fails. Whenever I move, I'm always just like, my God, where does it all come from? And I've just moved recently. And let me tell you, I still have that feeling and I am so much better than I was before and I'm still feeling it. So that tells you I still have work to do. I am still work in progress. But moving, I think is really good for just thinking, I don't want to fill this space up, I want to really be more thoughtful and intentional about what I bring into my house.

    Aja Barber:

    But there were a few times where I would go back and be like, oh, maybe I do actually want this one item. But I tell people if you're in that place where you're trying to get away from it all, do the thing where you walk away. If you decide that you still really, really want that item and you can't stop thinking about it, after you've walked away from it, I'm not going to show up and slap your credit card out of your hand. Sometimes I wish I could for people, I feel like sometimes people need that.

    Katherine May:

    Maybe you could hire yourself out for a cost. That's where people could spend their money instead, on you slapping the credit card.

    Aja Barber:

    There were talks in America about putting Harriet Tubman on one of the bills, which I kind of disagree with but whatever. But the picture and image that they picked of Harriet Tubman, she's looking really judgemental and someone [inaudible 00:39:06].

    Katherine May:

    We need that.

    Aja Barber:

    Where it was like Harriet is judging you and telling you, you don't need that.

    Katherine May:

    Harriet is like, no, stop it. Step away.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. So I just think it's a lot easier than people think because we buy too much to begin with. So the first thing that all of us can do is just slow our our roll. Your bank account and your credit card will thank you. Because mind did. I remember there was one year where I had haphazardly kept all my receipts from one store in particular and it wasn't that I'm organized. I just did it because I don't know, they just collected in one space. And so at the end of the year, I decided to add up all of those receipts and let me tell you, I was so mad with myself. I wanted to kick my own ass because this store is run by a billionaire, and I've just given him like a percentage of my income, which was very low at the time, but still.

    Katherine May:

    And always going to be definitely much smaller than his.

    Aja Barber:

    Exactly. So having that realization that I just don't like this anymore. I'm spending all of my money. I don't even realize that I'm spending it, was really crucial. And so just slowing down, taking the time to unsubscribe from apps. And people will also ask me and I feel like this always reveals that people haven't done the unpicking that they need to. They always go, "Where do I shop from now?" And I think if you're really unpicking consumerism, you're realizing that that's not actually the first question that you could really be asking.

    Katherine May:

    It's not like about replacing one shopping behavior with another one.

    Aja Barber:

    That's exactly it. People are trying to replace unethical consumerism with ethical consumerism, but ethical consumerism takes time. It's slow. I mean, now I was explaining to someone, I had bought a dress on [inaudible 00:41:06] Collective, and it's a lovely dress. But I let that dress sit on my wishlist for a year before I bought it. In the past, I never would've done that. I would've been like, get it now, get it immediately. Buy, buy, buy. And it's a much slower pace of life, but I absolutely didn't need the dress. I just really wanted it. And I decided after a year, I can make this purchase. So really being very thoughtful and intentional about how you're purchasing is a part of that. And you won't get there quickly. You can't replace the type of consumerism we're doing with ethical consumerism and think that that's the problem solved. No, we're still participating in the problem if that's what we're doing.

    Katherine May:

    But I mean, I love your Instagram feed. And one of the things I love the most about your Instagram feed, and there's no way to say this without sounding weird, but I love watching you get dressed. Sounds like I've got binoculars through your window. It's so gentle.

    Aja Barber:

    They're like, I sound so weird. And I'm like, no, it's fine. There's a few things. Like one, my body is that of a middle aged person. And you don't see enough of that on social media, in my opinion.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely.

    Aja Barber:

    Part of the reason I put myself out there is so that people can actually see bodies that look like theirs reflected. Another reason is because I want people to understand that there is a method to how I do things and none of it is overnight. When I talk about the clothing I'm putting on, often I'm putting on pieces that are 8, 9, 10 years old. But they still really work. And what I hope to inspire people to do is to reach into their wardrobe and wear something that they've had for eight, nine years in a different way because sometimes that's what we really need. Not everyone can afford to hire a stylist, but I do like some styling for people.

    Aja Barber:

    And one of the top things I do is go into people's wardrobes and go, this is great. Why aren't you wearing this? And they'll say, "Oh, well, I used to wear it like this." Okay. Well, you just got bored of wearing it in a certain way. Let's find a new way to wear it so that we can breathe life into this in a different way. One of my clients, we had just gone through a few of her pieces and she said she went into work and it had been items that she had worn and she was so tired of. But we paired them together differently. And when she walked into work, her coworker looked at her and went, "You look nice today."

    Katherine May:

    That never happens.

    Aja Barber:

    So sometimes you just need a second pair of eyes. Well, I don't get that because I work from home. So it doesn't happen here either.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I understand that. But I think it seems to me as well that you take really good care of your clothes. Like you often talk about how long you've made something last. What am I not doing that you are doing that makes your clothes last for so long?

    Aja Barber:

    It depends. So part of it is a lot of what I own in my wardrobe, particularly things that are 10 years old and whatnot, I've always liked nice things, but I've just always bought it secondhand. So I do think in a lot of cases, like a lot of luxury goods and higher priced items will last you a long time if you care for them. But I think we're probably acting the same way. I mean, I separate my clothing for colors if I'm putting them in the washing machine, I don't just throw everything in together.

    Katherine May:

    I've only started doing that this year.

    Aja Barber:

    That's a part of it. That's a part of it. If your stuff looks dull, it's because you're ... I really, really separate my colors. One of the things that I do that American listeners probably don't do is we don't really use the tumble dryer. I mean, we have a washer dryer, but I call our dryer the Wrinkler because it doesn't do much for your garments. But also that's a part of the climate crisis problem is that apparently if nobody used tumble dryers with the frequency that countries like America uses it, that would account for a percentage of carbon emissions that we need to lower. So that's something, like not using the tumble dryer on everything, using a drying rack for clothing will dry on its own.

    Aja Barber:

    My knitwear, I don't over clean. I always wear an undershirt. So my knitwear collection is the jewel of my wardrobe. And I always wear an undershirt under knitwear and I do not clean it unless there's a spill or in our case, we're having a moth infestation. So I sent everything out to be dry cleaned. And we are getting parasitic wasps this week.

    Katherine May:

    What?

    Aja Barber:

    I'm so excited about them. So they're microscopic wasps that hatch, they send you a bunch of the eggs on a card and you just ...

    Katherine May:

    Oh my God.

    Aja Barber:

    Put them in your different rooms. And these little wasps hatch, they don't bother you or your pet, but they find the eggs that the moths have laid because it's a larva that eat your clothing, and the parasitic wasps lay their eggs within the moth eggs and ...

    Katherine May:

    And it kills them off.

    Aja Barber:

    And it kills it. They eat the eggs basically.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Aja Barber:

    And then once all the moth eggs are gone, they show themselves out.

    Katherine May:

    That is amazing.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. So basically that's going to be my solution there because we had moths at our old flat and they ate the carpet to pieces. And so yeah, this time around, I was just like, no, we need to bring in the big guns.

    Katherine May:

    Zero tolerance on moths.

    Aja Barber:

    Yeah. So I've sent everything out to be dry cleaned this week. But for a lot of those pieces, they would not be getting that because I would be refreshening, taking care. I try to always, really take good care of my knitwear, and that just includes not washing it a lot. Spot cleaning, that sort of thing.

    Katherine May:

    And as you say in your book, everyone can learn to sew on a button.

    Aja Barber:

    Everyone can learn to sew on a button or to just ... There's such a difference between getting your clothing tailored. And a lot of people are afraid, they don't know where to begin. But [inaudible 00:47:26] buy a jacket in a charity shop. And it's just a little bit too big, but you know that it could be really great. Take that to your tailor, spend a little bit of money and you will have a jacket that will fit you better than anything you'll buy off the rack. So tailoring, caring for your clothes, just really treating stuff well, and it will last you a lifetime, a lot of brands. Some stuff is not built to last you until next year. But if you choose well and take care of it, you can get a good life out of a lot of your clothing. And that's what I really aim for because I don't like to buy new things constantly. I don't want to be in that buying cycle.

    Katherine May:

    And most importantly, make sure you love it before you buy it in the first place. Just take some time to fall in love.

    Aja Barber:

    Yes. And I think we all know what that feeling is when you walk into a store and you absolutely fall in love with something. With fast fashion, we've gotten away from that because fast fashion sort of tells us, you have to love every micro trend. And I have to say, I've never felt more free before than when in my 20s, I was like, I'm not going to do that. And I remember what the trend was. It was those wet look leggings. And I just thought I will never ever do that. And in saying no, I felt so free. I felt like here's a trend that I just don't even have to try because I don't want to try it. And I don't have to explain that. And I also don't have to buy a polyester product that's going to be on this planet for longer than my body will. And after I realized that it was okay to say, that's not for me, I think I really freed myself to really dive deeper into, but what is for me?

    Katherine May:

    That's a lovely place to end actually. Thank you so much. I don't think we need to feel pessimistic about it and I just think that's a really refreshing idea in itself.

    Aja Barber:

    It can be so fun. Like that's the thing. I absolutely enjoy my wardrobe more now than I did when I was shopping in a way that wasn't good for myself or the planet. And that's what people don't realize is that these systems aren't good for us. They're not good for our wallet. It's not good for the people that have to make the clothing. And it's not good for the planet. But ultimately there is a better way and it's a lot more fun.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you so much. That was just brilliant. It was a real pleasure to talk about stuff that takes me outside of my comfort zone. So thank you.

    Aja Barber:

    Thank you for having me. It was a really great chat.

    Katherine May:

    It strikes me that while I'm sitting here, I should admit to you that I am in yoga pants. It's a wardrobe staple that I didn't adopt during the pandemic, believe it or not. I mean, I've worked from home on my own for years and I've always found that I'm happiest getting dressed properly in grown up clothes every day. It just makes my day feel more purposeful. It kind of makes me feel fresh in the morning. So I carried on doing the same thing throughout the whole pandemic. And it's only since we all got back into the world, that I bought my first pair of proper yoga pants. Why have we in England adopted yoga pants? I don't know. We don't call them leggings. We call them pants. Anyway, that's not important. The important thing to say is that I have finally ditched my 15 year old running tights that I paid £10 for in a discount store, which were beginning to look a little bit see through if we're honest.

    Katherine May:

    And I've bought some proper yoga leggings and I can finally see everybody's point. They are the most divinely, comfortable thing I have ever put onto my body, and I will be wearing them a lot in the future. So there you go. I do follow trends after all, just two years too late, which is fine. I'm a tall girl. Have to wait for them to come in my size. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I really, really did. I'm ready to be really challenged on these things, and I know that I kind of see it as a get out clause that I'm not terribly interested in these things, and that I am an awkward size and shape to dress, but it's not really good enough. And I think if we can all start to make small changes, it will have huge impact. But it is, I think, endlessly surprising how terrible our impact is on the rest of the world. And I guess I'm trying to bear witness to that more often now. I don't mean that in a smug way. I mean that in a very imperfect, rubbish, human being kind of a way.

    Katherine May:

    Two little dogs have just run past, having a lovely play. They've been in for a swim. They're all wet. They're now swimming again. Wow. Thanks for joining me. I hope to have more beach based chats with you in the future for a little while. We're coming to the time of year in Whitstable where everybody hangs out on the beach at night. It's such a lovely thing to do. We come down, we bring a picnic, or fish and chips, and maybe a glass of wine. Only do it if you're careful with the glass guys afterwards. And it's just the best feeling. I remember last year at midsummer, when the beach was packed, suddenly a heron appeared and started wading through the shallows. A surreal moment, felt like midsummer magic. And of course we get amazing sunsets in Whitstable. The Sun sets directly over the sea, particularly in summer. And the whole sky turns every shade of red, and orange, and purple. And some nights the sea turns red as well when it's a little bit stormy and overcast.

    Katherine May:

    I love it when the tide's high at that point. And I can swim in the sunset. Hope to be able to share with that with you over the summer. Right, I'm going to gaze at the sea some more. You all take care and I'll see you really soon. Thank you to everybody who helps make this podcast possible. To Buddy Peace, the producer to Meghan Hutchins, the convener, and to the brilliant Patreons who just have the best time, or give me the best time I should say. This month, we're working on some Q&As on how to live a creative life together, which has just been really interesting for me to think about and a really, really great conversation. Please do join them if you can. It really helps keep us afloat. But most of all, thanks for listening. I'll see you soon. Bye.

Show Notes

This week, Katherine asks Aja Barber how we can change the way we buy clothes.

Many of us have an uneasy feeling about the clothes we buy and wear. Although we know that there are ethical issues with their production, few of us understand how to change our behaviour, and make better choices. As a stylist and fashion consultant, Aja makes it her business to understand the whole supply chain, from raw materials to disposal. There are some dark stories to absorb, but there’s also plenty of hope: Aja shows that the change starts with us, and with the joy we find in the garments we love.

We also talk about Aja’s path to the work she does now, and her beautiful practice of getting dressed on Instagram. She can teach us so much about about learning to love our own bodies, and to cherish our old clothes.

We talked about:

  • How we engage with fashion

  • How changing in habits can mean opting out of the system

  • How to take care of your stuff so it lasts

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Joanne Limburg on reclaiming weird

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Joanne Limburg on reclaiming weird

———
This week, Katherine chats to writer Joanne Limburg about the ways that we can find connection in the experience of outsidership.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    I'm walking along the seafront in Margate today. Does it sound different to you, to my normal recordings? It's such a different sea. It's a bigger world, a sea. It's not in an estuary mouth anymore, but of course it's on the sand too. But also, when the tide comes in, in Margate and that's kind of where it is now, it comes right up against the sea wall. No beach at all. I love it, actually. It always feels that bit more powerful and potent around here. And every time I walk down here, I recite that T.S. Eliot line, "On Margate sounds, I can connect nothing with nothing," which is honestly, probably one of the lines of poetry that I've thought about the most, because what does he mean when he says that? Is it positive or negative? Is he talking about feeling empty? Or is he talking about feeling empty, like in a glorious way?

    Katherine May:

    It comes within The Waste Land, which is this poem that, on one hand, talks about the terrible aftermath of the First World War and the dislocation that people felt. And that covers a lot of what's carried in the meaning of that line, doesn't it? That sense that you might feel emptied out by those experiences. We do know that he came to Margate in order to recover from a fit of nerves, during the sort of run up to writing the poem. But also, The Waste Land covers lots of the ideas from the East that he was reflecting on at the time. He was understanding more about tantra and yoga and some of the spiritual ideas that derive from Buddhism and the Vedic texts. So equally, in context, that line could be talking about the experience of nothingness that is spiritually meaningful and soothing and positive, or maybe both at once. Maybe that's exactly what that whole cycle captures. I love it anyway.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just pausing so you get a little bit more wave. There's a cormorant sitting out to sea, on one of the posts that mark the height of the tide. I'm just watching him at the moment.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to this week's guest, Joanne Limburg, who's a good friend of mine. But I've been dying to find the right time to invite her onto the podcast, to talk about her book, Letters to My Weird Sisters. I'll let you listen to how we unpack it in the podcast, but I just wanted to talk about how important it is to express our weirdness and our strangeness in the world. I don't think we always get it right, when we talk about people who feel like outsiders. I don't think outsiders are always seeking to be made insiders or to have everybody accepting them even, or feeling the same as them. I think instead, we're often asking for our outsiderishness to be acknowledged and respected, for the periphery to be integrated into our understanding of the world, as a valid place to stand.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, it was a great conversation. And after we turned off the recording devices, we carried on chatting for ages, until both of us had to go. I always felt like, I wish that some of my best autistic girl buddies, that's what I call them, we don't call ourselves that, lived nearer by because I kind of feel like we could talk forever, about our shared experience of the world and just spark off each other. Anyway, hope you catch a little bit of that in the podcast recording. I'll see you a bit later.

    Katherine May:

    Joanne, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I'm delighted to have you here. It's really good to talk to you, as obviously a fellow autistic woman. But I'm excited that your book, Letters to My Weird Sisters, is about to come out in the US as well, because I just think it's such a landmark book, not just for autistic people to read about autism, as we love to lap up, but really for advancing the understanding of that quality of experience across time. Like asserting how it's always been, rather than, as we so often hear people saying, "Well, there were no autistic children when I was younger," and another.

    Joanne Limburg:

    There was just that weird kid, but that was disparate.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, there was just a kid we threw stones at.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But also, I think in the way that you assert a commonality, again, through different ways of being a weird sister, as you put it, like an outsider, a different kind of a mind. It's that solidarity that I think is really exciting about your book, because I don't feel that many people have really managed to nail that, and I think you have.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Oh, good. I'm delighted you think so, because it's all about commonality, community, solidarity and sisterhoods. I just think so much a part of the autistic experience is feeling horribly alone and isolated and that you don't have community. So I think the most important thing to do is to create and foster community, and that isn't just something that you do across space. It's something that you do across time. And as I'm very clear, you don't have to diagnose people posthumously.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Joanne Limburg:

    You can look back and say, "Oh, yes. I identify with these women. They had an experience like me. They are my weird sisters." The other thing that was very important to me and it sort of comes in the second letter to Adelheid Bloch, is to include those women who would be seen, who are non-speaking, people who use that kind of language and I don't would call low functioning or people with intellectual disabilities, because they are so often excluded from solidarity. And I think that's dangerous for them and diminishing for the rest of us.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I think more than that, actually, not only are they excluded and othered and their humanity diminished, but also, somehow they come to be used as a weapon against those of us who are autistic people, who can kind of take part in mainstream society. They're used as a kind of proof that we're not real and that our needs aren't valid.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Exactly. I think we need to sort of have them with us and say, no, no, we're not the privileged autistics or the clever autistics or, well, whatever you think we are. We're just all autistic and our commonality comes from our shared way of perceiving and being in and experiencing the world. It's nothing to do with what you see or what you judge.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. So interesting. Well, let's talk about this word, weird, first of all and your claiming of it. What does it mean to claim being a weird sister? Why is that a useful term to take on?

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, I think because it's non-clinical, for a start. It's a term that I've chosen. It's not autistic psychopathology of childhood or whatever they used to call it or Asperger's syndrome or any of that or developmental disorder. It's weird. This is what I am. It's sort of taking back a word like queer or crip and saying, "We're going to own this word and use it." Like I said, it's a very broad word. So you could use it to encompass any idea of neuro divergence or even things that are not seen as neurodivergent. You can take pride in it. Fergus Murray, you may have seen last couple of years, he's set up Weird Pride Day.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So it's a word we can use for ourselves. Hi, I'm a weird sister. I'm a weirdo. Me too.

    Katherine May:

    Because it is, it's a word that I feel like is so often being used against me and I've overheard it or caught the feel of it. It's one of those states of being, that as I've got older, I've been really glad to have, because I don't want to be the thing that is not weird. That has got no appeal to me at all. And so therefore, maybe weird is actually a really luxurious space to inhabit.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. Yes. It gives you room to be different and not to be easily definable, because it is a word that doesn't have a clear definition. And I kind of rejoice in that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Actually, I mean, thinking about the first addressee of one of your letters, Virginia Woolf, it kind of captures the state of those clever girls who should know better, who should be able to fit in better, but somehow don't and people wonder why. Is that a lack of will? Is that a deliberate standing at the sidelines? There's something in there for me.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I was thinking just now, about medicine in general, actually. And how the way it's taught is, here's a problem you can solve. When someone comes with some rumbling, chronic condition or some vague difference, it isn't a problem you can solve. How do you feel towards problems you can't solve? You feel resentment.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. In fact, the interview I did with Megan O'Rourke, talking about undiagnosable chronic illness, that nevertheless affected every aspect of her life, she said exactly the same thing, that her mainstream doctors wanted to be able to solve the problem. And when they couldn't, she became uninteresting to them, because they didn't have like a modality for working through a problem that they couldn't find a straightforward solution to.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I've been uninteresting to doctors and uninteresting to psychologists as well, in my time.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Psychologists in particular, actually.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. But I think that the Virginia Woolf experience, that sense of exasperation around you, which you probably were familiar with as well. Like, you're such a clever girl, there's nothing apparently wrong with you. Why can't you just go out and be like everyone else and enjoy yourself like everyone else? And then you won't be a perplexity to us, and we won't worry that your life won't be the same shape as everyone else's, which is what we think it should be.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And, why don't you want this? I think that's the phrase that I heard so often... I didn't hear it directly, but that's what I received. Why don't you want this thing enough, that we want you to want?

    Joanne Limburg:

    Exactly.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. So tell us about Virginia Woolf's weird sisterhood, because it seems to me that so many people are really captivated by her. Not necessarily even her writing, but her and her life.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, she was a very singular person. Some of that was intentional, but I think some of that, she just couldn't help. The Virginia Woolf I talk about is the one she talks about in her autobiographical writings, that were written late in her life, but were about her life when she was Virginia Steven, before she became Virginia Woolf, both literally and figuratively. Her mother died, her sister died. Her half-sister and she and Vanessa were left in the house with three men, with their father and their two half-brothers, George and Gerald Duckworth. George was very desperate to sort of make a figure in society. And obviously, the assets you have for that are your beautiful, well-connected half-sisters.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So, he insisted on Vanessa dressing up and coming out with him. And then when Vanessa threw a strop and wouldn't do it anymore, he turned his attention to Virginia. What was expected of her and Vanessa, actually, is that they would come down beautifully presented in the evening, either go out or receive at home, and that they would be pretty and charming and speak just enough about the right things. Virginia couldn't do either of those things. Virginia had this singularity about her. She also had quite a low income. So it was quite hard to turn herself out in the way that was expected.

    Joanne Limburg:

    She thought she'd found a brilliant solution, which was to buy some upholstery material, which was cheaper, and have it made up into a dress, which I think is great. It's the kind of thing I'd think to do, which is what really drew me to this story. So, she put it on. She came downstairs to be inspected by George. He looked her up and down and said, "Take that off and burn it." Not only did she not burn it, she described him in very, very, what's the word, derogatory terms years later. So, I think in the end, she won.

    Joanne Limburg:

    But there's another story she tells, from the same time. He takes her to see Lady someone or the Duchess of someone or the Honourable somebody. And she starts talking very enthusiastically about passion and platonic friendship between men and women, and there's this awkward silence. There's almost this sense of glass is breaking and cutlery being dropped. And afterwards, he says to her, "They're not used to girls saying anything."

    Katherine May:

    I just related so strongly to those stories.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Me too. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That sense of like bodily rebellion against wearing the right kind of dress and the incomprehension that there could be a wrong kind of a dress.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. And also the incomprehension that, why wouldn't you want to talk about this really interesting thing?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I still have that incomprehension.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Why are you looking at me like that? Yeah, I'll always have that.

    Katherine May:

    But also, those environments that we've all ended up in, where it seems like the rules are designed to catch you out. Like they're not stated, they're not possible to follow and you, of course, come a cropper somehow because how would you not? Yeah. It was so... I guess I didn't really understand that she wasn't a complete insider, right? She always seemed like a insider to that very kind of posh world to me. And I could see suddenly how she wasn't.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, she's a very complex figure. She's just both that well connected, privileged, upper middle-class woman and a woman who was weird and not of her place and in some respects, not of her time.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And also who ultimately the weight of that strangeness in the world overtook her at the end of her life.

    Joanne Limburg:

    It did. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    That seems to be what we all most know about her, actually. That's the kind of, I don't know, the sort of iconic gesture.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, we know she was in pain. However privileged you know she was, we know she was in pain because of the way it ended.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think it's such an image that she created in her own suicide actually.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    She created something enduring that sticks in our imaginations.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. She also wrote very well about awkwardness and I've sort of tried to rescue the character of... I've totally forgotten her name. Doris Kilman in Mrs. Dalloway, who's sometimes just seen as a sort of victim of Virginia's snobbishness. But actually, I think she holds Virginia's sense of awkwardness and humiliation.

    Katherine May:

    Interesting.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I think I say, I don't see how she could have written about that from the inside without experiencing it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. And I think once you break the assumption that Virginia Woolf is the ultimate insider, you realise how often she's writing about outsiders. I mean Septimus, struggling with what we'd now call PTSD. Her books are full and particularly her stories actually, I think are full of these-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Oh yes. Like lapping and lapping over and so on. And The Dress, there's a story I didn't have a chance to sort of reference in the book. I referenced it in our talk called The Dress about a woman going to a party and the horror of realizing she's wearing completely the wrong dress. So she experiences herself like a fly in a saucer. The fact that she's wearing the wrong dress makes her feel like a fly that's dying in a saucer.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, do you ever feel like you're in the right dress because I don't think I've ever left the house and felt like I've worn the right thing, particularly in public.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Sometimes I do because-

    Katherine May:

    If you nail it, great.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. But because there's a certain kind of middle class, white Cambridge woman, white stuff and, oh god, well, other brand names that I can dress up as quite easily.

    Katherine May:

    I see. I can understand. Yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    But I'm aware that it both is and isn't a disguise. As a young woman, I got it wrong constantly. I could not do young womanhood. I do middle-aged Cambridge womanhood quite convincingly, but young womanhood I could not do.

    Katherine May:

    I was much better at it when I was younger. I used to be really into vintage clothes and like '40s and '50s vintage clothes. That gave me a way to construct something that was historically accurate and therefore completing in and of itself, like it was something I could do and I. You get older and it's... But also, those clothes were really uncomfortable quite often. And it's really interesting to me that I endured that in favour of producing something that was consistent and understandable to me.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I'm just thinking about clothes as the equivalent of conversation. And sometimes clothes are making a statement and sometimes they're monologuing and sometimes they're saying the same thing as everyone else. And sometimes they're not, and they're not meant to. But sometimes when your clothes aren't saying the same as everyone else's, people don't know what to say to you, just as they don't know what to say to you if you go to a dinner party and start talking about platonic love between men and women.

    Katherine May:

    It's actually making a lot of the same statements I think.

    Joanne Limburg:

    It is. It is. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    But I remember this terrible, terrible moment when I was in the sixth form and I was a school prefect and we had to do all the kind of ushering at the church services and things like that, walk down the hill for... We got a really lovely badge though, which made it all worthwhile for me. I loved the badge. But I remember I'd turned up in this kind of crimplene suit. It was early '60s crimplene suit, dress and matching jacket. I was so pleased with it. I bought it in a charity shop.

    Joanne Limburg:

    That's sounds lovely.

    Katherine May:

    It was lovely. Blue crimplene. Perfect, gorgeous.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Gorgeous.

    Katherine May:

    Nice little matching handbag. Now, however, I was being really bullied at the time by some girls in that school, they'd been incredibly mean to me. And as I was ushering people into the front row of the annual leaver's church service, one of the girls walked up to me and just whispered in my ear, "That's my Nan's suit. She died a few weeks ago and we donated it to charity."

    Joanne Limburg:

    Fudge!

    Katherine May:

    Oh, I love where you said, fudge. Thank you. That doesn't seem very French for our podcast listeners. And I still don't know to this day, whether that was true or not. One of the agonies of that moment was that I couldn't read it like as a-

    Joanne Limburg:

    But it doesn't matter whether it was true or not. She didn't say it because it was true.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, it was just freaking mean.

    Joanne Limburg:

    She said it because she knew it would cause you pain.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So you got the meaning loud and clear.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah, absolutely. You couldn't miss the meaning, because I was probably one of the poorest kids in that school. One of the meanings it unpacked was that it was evident to her that I was buying clothes from a charity shop and that that was not okay as far as they were concerned.

    Joanne Limburg:

    You were ahead of your time with that.

    Katherine May:

    I know. I know. It's so funny. They were all in like Benetton sweatshirts at the time-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Of course they were.

    Katherine May:

    Or Calvin Klein or like that was the-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Was there Kookai when you were at school?

    Katherine May:

    Yes. I mean, there was all sorts of people with words on their T-shirt, which I never really got.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I've never understood that. I've never understood why you would want to give free advertising to the place you get your clothes from. But a lot of people seem very... The word that's on their clothes is more important than the clothes. I've never got that.

    Katherine May:

    The clothes... Because they were always such plain clothes. I couldn't see any appeal to the actual clothes. Anyway, that's just-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. That's just us not getting it.

    Katherine May:

    That's just us not getting it. I think that Virginia Woolf moment just really brought that particular thing back to me of not only feeling out of place, but it being pointed out to you in the cruelest possible way, so deliberately.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I mean my moment with that, which I describe in the book is when I was 14. I still found tights uncomfortable and I was still wearing white knee socks. And then it was made clear to me, not in a remark to my face, but in a remark between people in front of me, and possibly they didn't think I'd even notice, which is worse, that this was funny. That this was a funny thing that was definitive of me. And I was so humiliated.

    Katherine May:

    That's horrible.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Because until that point, I'd just been thinking about comfort, I think mostly. I lost my innocence at that point. I thought, oh my goodness. People are looking at my clothes and reading them and judging them. And then there's another bit I talk about where, actually, this is probably the analog of the Virginia Woolf green dress moment. It was a sick form again, you know, the kindest part of a woman's life.

    Katherine May:

    Why do they let us wear our own clothes in sick form, which is not ready?

    Joanne Limburg:

    I know, I know. We're just not ready for the politics of it. And I was just walking home behind a pair of other girls and they didn't know I was behind them. I'm absolutely sure they didn't. And one of them was complaining about not getting a boyfriend. And then she said, "I don't know what it is. It's not as if I dress like Joanne Limburg."

    Katherine May:

    Oh god. Oh my god.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And it's not that I don't think about clothes. I thought about them a lot and always do. So it's the point where, if I watch the news on television, I get distracted by what the news reader's wearing.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But I mean, I find that I can't quite figure out certain outfits. Like I've never been able to figure out sportswear, for example.

    Joanne Limburg:

    No.

    Katherine May:

    But other people wear sportswear and look great in it and look sporty in it. I just look awkward in sportswear, however I wear it, whatever I buy. What is that? How do people understand how to wear these things? I don't know.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I honestly don't know. I can never get my hair right.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I mean, I pay quite a lot to have it cut and coloured. So I'm reassured that it can't be going below a certain level because the person who does, it's really good and that makes me feel better. But I've got this sort of flyaway, crinkly, Jewish hair, and I'm ashamed of it, partly because of internalised racism, partly because I feel it marks me out as someone who can't woman because I can't get my hair under control. This is not... Back to news readers, news reader hair.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I don't want news reader hair though. Sorry, news readers. But I like my hair to move a little bit more than that, I would say.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. Yeah. But I've really noticed there is a certain way you have to look in order to be in front of a camera. Not that I want to be in front of one. You've got have the right teeth, the right makeup, the right hair, the right dress. You can't-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I never have any of those.

    Joanne Limburg:

    No. Me neither.

    Katherine May:

    You brought up your Jewishness and I'd love to talk about the weird sister whose Jewishness was part of the cruelty that was visited on her. Can you tell us a bit about her?

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. This is Adelheid Bloch. It's really a very, very horrible story. Adelheid was born to a prominent Jewish family in Lake Constance in, I can't remember exactly when, but she was about 30 when she died. So 1910s, I think. And then as a small child, she had, what's sometimes called meningitis and what's sometimes called encephalitis and it brain damaged her quite severely. And when she's described, she's described as not having much language and not having much control over her behaviour. And she's an intellectually disabled person and a lot of her symptoms are... And obviously she wasn't autistic. She might have been as well. I don't know. But they are not dissimilar to the traits that autistic people with higher support needs have ascribed to them. So she went as a teenager into an asylum. And then in 1939, something horrible happened in Germany.

    Katherine May:

    Which we seem to be as a world busy forgetting. But that's-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I mean, the other thing we forget is it wasn't kind of an isolated thing that grew up in Germany. They were big on eugenics. And eugenics are a British invention taken up enthusiastically by the Americans and then imported back to Europe. The first people to be sterilised were in America, but there were lots of laws by the time the Nazis came in, in Europe that allowed for the sterilisation of disabled people, people seen as defective. This was not a German invention. So against the background of this, the Nazis come in and all the asylums, the hospitals, the nursing homes are taken over. And basically the place where Adelheid is becomes a kind of research place for looking at degenerative heredity. So they're very interested in all the families of these people. And they're also interested in making sure they don't breed anymore.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So first they sterilise people and then they move into a phase which was called T4 after the address it was in, in Tiergarten in Berlin. That was where the headquarters were. And this was basically the precursor of the Holocaust. It was the systematic slaughtering of people who were judged as having, and the phrase was "lives unworthy of life." This is what's written on Adelheid's report, "life unworthy of life" and also idiocy. So I thought there's a causal relationship implied between those two. So in this chapter, I sort of explore the history of ideas of idiocy, on imbecility or amentia or whatever horrible name you want to give to it. Yeah. And the emergence of eugenics and what it means to be able to speak as opposed to not speak.

    Joanne Limburg:

    What happened to poor Adelheid was, she was one of the first people gassed. She was taken to Grafeneck, which was the first killing center for adults. Because they started with children rather horribly, but then they moved on to murdering adults. And she was taken there and she was gassed in the early 1940s. It's the most horrible story.

    Katherine May:

    It's a horrible story on so many levels. And I'm really interested in your unpacking of the word idiot. It's a word that comes up so often in casual speech. And I don't think we realise the history of it actually.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I think I've stopped using it, but it's really hard to do because we use it all the time-

    Katherine May:

    It's really hard to do.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Without understanding what it means and that it was a word used to push people outside humanity and then physically kill them.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I told my son about it after reading your book and he started campaigning at school against the word idiot.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Bless him. Oh, that's lovely.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And he has done ever since. Whenever someone uses the word idiot at school, he makes the clear connection between autism and idiot and how, as an autistic person, he would've been labeled that. And therefore would've been seen as unworthy of life. But nevertheless, I think we're all still coming out with it sometimes. It's interesting how we kind of like having that word. It's a dark insight into yourself, isn't it?

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I thought what is... I mean, you want certainly with many things that are going on at the moment to have a word for something that is ignorant or foolish. Well, I'll say that something's foolish because that, again, the original term was natural fool or whatever. An idiot is he that is a fool natural from his birth. But that seems long ago enough and somehow non-clinical enough to use. That was foolish behaviour. That was a foolish thing to do. That was a foolish policy. That was ill-informed. That was ignorant. I mean, there are lots of things you can call someone. You could say, you absolute plank, for example.

    Katherine May:

    Actually, there's some really good English ones in particular, I think we'll-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Like twerp. Just call someone a twerp.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, you could go for twat as well. Twat is-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Twat implies some kind of evil intention as well, doesn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Do you think so? That's interesting.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Also good. I have a friend, Caron Freeborn who I talk about in the book who used to call me a muppet. "You muppet!"

    Katherine May:

    Muppet. Yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And I'm quite happy to confess to being a muppet. It seems accurate. And it can be said affectionately as well.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Moppet. I think moppet's a really friendly one.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. And for those of us who have autism, and that takes the form of dyspraxia, it fits pretty well.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. I sometimes feel like I move a bit like a muppet. Like my whole body's like whoops.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah, me too. Like someone sort of withdrawn their controls and I've gone all over the place.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, that's right. That's right. I hate it when other people say that about me, but yeah, I'm fully aware that that's also true.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you would consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode, and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    What comes out in your book is something that I guess we know already, but that we maybe forget to state, which is this link between othering and the cruelty, an infliction of suffering. And I thought that about Katharina Kepler as well. Excuse me.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. Because one thing that happens is that social death can often proceed actual death being murdered, being put outside society, being put in an asocial space or a less than human space.

    Katherine May:

    Kind of outside the walls as it were almost.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Outside the walls. Yes. And Katharina Kepler was the mother of Johannes Kepler, the early modern astronomer and mathematician, and we'll come to this is what saved her. And she lived in the German town of Leonberg. She lived actually not awfully far away from where Adelheid died. It's a funny thing.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. There seems to be almost a connection between the two in your... An implied connection somehow.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. Almost. Yes. She was the oldest woman in town. She'd been on her own ever since her husband deserted her. So in a time where femininity, well, there always are, but there were overtly strict standards of femininity.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Joanne Limburg:

    You were supposed to speak quietly and as little as possible and be sensitive and emotional and weepy, all the things we now ascribe to white womanhood. That sort of thing. She was not, I mean, she couldn't be because as her son pointed out, she had to take over the business of everything. She had to assert herself in the public realm because there was no one to do it on her behalf. There was no man to be a proxy as was more approved of. And there were also things about her, the way she's described was she was very much not that kind of soft woman. She had opinions. She would state them. If she thought you were wrong, she would correct you. And she was very direct. She was very assertive. She wasn't very aware of, I guess what we now call social cues. So she doesn't seem to have seen if it was not a good time to approach someone, she would just go in there anyway, which I can relate to.

    Joanne Limburg:

    One of the things that was said about her in court was she doesn't make eye contact with the jury. That's weird. And I thought, uh-huh. And her son said, "Well, my mother doesn't, my mother talks across people and says what she has to say." And I thought, okay, that sounds-

    Katherine May:

    Interesting.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Very familiar. And also, this woman had a son who was an astronomer and a mathematician.

    Katherine May:

    Yep. There's that genetic link that we know about with autism that comes up again. Isn't it?

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. So she wound up being accused of witchcraft and there was a very long drawn-out procedure. She was out of town. She was back in town. She was put in prison in irons. And then, there was a final hearing and it's her son's meticulous notes for this final hearing that we have, which enable us to know who she was and that she had a life and that she existed because she, herself was illiterate as most women were. And he managed just by being utterly meticulous to get the charges thrown out. But this was after years of suffering. She died not long afterwards. She was an elderly woman and the stress-

    Katherine May:

    She was kept in terrible conditions, wasn't she?

    Joanne Limburg:

    She was kept in horrible conditions, literally in chains.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I mean, it says something that this influential man was what it took to get her out of it. And even then it wasn't straightforward.

    Joanne Limburg:

    No, it wasn't straightforward at all. I mean, it was his exceptional, I think, gifts and his conscientiousness and his determination. And it is very touching story in a way, because he speaks about her sometimes in a very disparaging way. She obviously drove him absolutely up the wall. You can see that, not even between the lines, you can see it in them. But he valued her and loved her enough to take all that time out of his life and devote himself to that. And I think that's the lovely aspect of his story.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And also, what a precise brain can do actually. It's the moments when those incredibly detail-oriented brains come into their own when it's unpicking a case like that.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    It's that chain reaction that I think is so invisible that, when you and I talk about outsidership and how it feels to be socially rejected. Perhaps when we're young, perhaps we are more in the centre of things now.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    But that kind of chain reaction between that and a threat to your life, which actually seems far-fetched, but isn't. Like, we know that at times of war, at times of civil unrest, at times of big social change, that the outsiders are suddenly at huge, huge risk. And it begins [inaudible 00:37:23].

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. Well, tell me about it being Jewish right now.

    Katherine May:

    Well, exactly that. I mean exactly that. I think, oh, I don't know, that's what we see all over the world as soon as life becomes fidgety.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes. I talk about in the Adelheid book, there's a word necropolitics, the politics of death who gets to live, who gets to die. And sometimes you see them played out very literally as in Nazi Germany. And sometimes you see them played out more insidiously as in only people with underlying conditions died few.

    Katherine May:

    Well, and quite a vertical. Autistic people at the beginning of the pandemic, when some NHS trusts put blanket, do not resuscitate some or all autistic people.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yes, exactly. Yes. And people with intellectual disabilities. Yeah, because we have lives unworthy of life by definition.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And suddenly-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Oh, it just makes you shudder, doesn't it?

    Katherine May:

    It does make you shudder, because in an age when we've all been pursuing this identity and it's been so helpful to us to come to that understanding, and we've been seeking out that label.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And we've found each other.

    Katherine May:

    And we've found each other and it's been life giving. And so it's been everything to me, it's been survival to me to understand autistic, but it suddenly made me remember how risky it is to also do that. It's not-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. I mean, I don't always declare myself.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I mean, certainly if I go into a medical setting, I don't think it's on my records. I don't know, but I don't always mention it.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And that's a shame really.

    Katherine May:

    Well, yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I mean, not in the current situation. The current situation, if you're able, sometimes masking is about survival.

    Katherine May:

    The massive privilege of masking. Honestly, I mean I-

    Joanne Limburg:

    The massive, massive privilege of masking. But also it means you have to suppress parts of you.

    Katherine May:

    Completely.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. You can't actually communicate your experience because you're using a language designed not to give away how your experience makes you one of them.

    Katherine May:

    Absolutely. We are engaged in that dance all the time, every time we need to access some form of help. Whenever I've disclosed, I think I've rarely had a good outcome, except I was telling you, wasn't I, because we talk on WhatsApp sometimes and I was telling you that in my recent visit to Sweden, I went to take part in a podcast and the host said, "Oh, you're autistic. Shall I turn that overhead light off?" I almost whirled up with the consideration because genuinely, I don't think most people would know that fluorescent light is such an issue for loads of autistic people. But also, I wouldn't, I'm so used to just dealing with the fluorescent light. My own home, I have all the lights low, but when I'm out, I get used to just dealing with it and I don't even notice.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I'm not too bad with light, but I'm very sensitive to noise.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I was in a big dining room yesterday. It was very echoey. And I suddenly realised, I thought, this hurts me. This is hurting my ears to be in this room. And I almost wished I hadn't allowed that into my consciousness because it then became very hard to stay in there. And you realise how much you suppress, how much physical discomfort and emotional discomfort and fear and confusion and pain, you are pushing down all the time and it feels almost dangerous to acknowledge it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And then you wonder why you're exhausted when you get home and it's because you've been-

    Joanne Limburg:

    All of that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And although a conscious reading of this, people around you, that you've... I mean, I've done it for so long that it is second nature, but it's still involving an effort in my brain that I assume most people don't have to do. And it's exhausting.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. No, absolutely.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I think of it as, I call it my room dyslexia. Like I can read the room, but it takes me longer. It takes me an effort and I'm tired afterwards.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. And if it's noisy and if people are standing close to me or it's hot, then I am significantly less likely to be able to actually do that reading, to be honest. And I will spend the next 12 hours replaying it moment by moment in my mind, over and over again to the point of absolute insanity.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. Me too. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    We need to begin to think about closing this, but I wanted to ask really about the way that you intertwine your own story with the story of these different women. What did it mean to you to make that deliberate connection and to actually speak to them directly and kind of share your story with them? It feels like an intimate conversation in places, the book.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, I wanted that intimacy. It's a book about connection. It's not a book that's making a psychological assertion about someone. It's a book that's expressing a sense of connection and bringing people into the fold and making your fold bigger. And I didn't want to write about them or I didn't want to write for them. I was especially aware with Adelheid that when you've got someone who's nonspeaking, then the temptation is to speak for them. And actually, maybe I'm being... I mean, don't get me wrong. People advocate wonderfully for their relatives and for their clients who can't speak. There are people doing a wonderful, loving job out there, but what you can't do is speak for that person. So I thought I can speak to you though. And I can give this letter to you as a gift and what you do with it and whether you can do anything is with you, but it's an expression of solidarity. It brings us back to the beginning, I think. And also, I was very influenced, I should say, by a book by Georgina Kleege called Blind Rage. It's a brilliant book. She's a blind American scholar.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, among other things, she's legally blind and started to go legally blind as a child. And Blind Rage is a series of letters to Helen Keller. It's partly a biography of Helen Keller. It's partly about Georgina's own experience. It's partly a reckoning with the figure of Helen Keller who is held up as kind of patron saint of deaf-blind people. This is how to be a good disabled.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Actually, watching the film about Helen Keller is I think one of my first brushes with, like a discourse about disability as a child. It's an early informational text that goes out there to say like, this is how you should do it.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. And it's given us something to overcome. She wasn't human, now she is-

    Katherine May:

    Yes. That's so interesting.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Is the kind of message of the story. I mean, she was actually a very sort of complex figure and far more interesting than the sort of saint that's been created out of her. But Georgina writes to her because she is reckoning with her. And the other thing is, and I think I said this in the Letter to the Reader, which is the only letter to the reader, I was thinking about how, you know what, I'm not masking, I'm not adjusting myself for you. This is not yet another book of me explaining myself to you. Screw that.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I'm going to have a chat with my friends over here and you can listen, but you can come to where we are.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Which is, again, more liberating than it should be, but definitely liberating.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I know. I mean, I was thinking analogously of, I was thinking of Beyonce's album Lemonade. And I don't understand all-

    Katherine May:

    Few people would compare you to Beyonce.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Well, I wouldn't compare myself to Beyonce. I wish in so many ways. But I was listening to Lemonade and there are bits of it I don't understand, but that's okay because it's not addressed to me. I can listen if I like, and I'm grateful for the privilege of listening, but I have no right to demand that it's completely accessible to me.

    Katherine May:

    That it's made into a text for you rather than-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Exactly. It is not a text for me.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And that's so hard, I think culturally. I think that's part of this cultural moment we're in that we're finding very hard is that not everything is for you as the imagined kind of [inaudible 00:45:41].

    Joanne Limburg:

    Default person.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Which has become the default that the we, the cultural we is the kind of white middle class across loads of different societies.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. And I'm, I mean, and you as well, are in a strange space of both being the cultural we and not being it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So we know both what it's like to not realise that we're centring ourselves. And we also know what it's like to be in different contexts, to not be in the centre, to be the they, instead of the we.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Because this is how I explain it. I say, who is the we and who is the us here and who is the they? And if someone's the they, like the most vulnerable in our society, they're always the they, you've got a problem.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's so interesting being invited into the sort of cultural centre having not been in it before, because even then I often come out feeling spoken over about my own experiences. So where I'm asked about my autism, the reply is often telling me back about how I should conceive of it rather than simply absorbing what I have said about it.

    Joanne Limburg:

    And I think the success of Wintering, I mean, it's a brilliant book, but also a lot of non-autistic people, wider people felt they could identify with it.

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Joanne Limburg:

    So I'm sure you've thought about this a lot, but then they've got to try and negotiate with the fact that you're like them, but not like them.

    Katherine May:

    Well, yes and no, because actually I find that a lot of people just skip over that information. I mean, I kind of drop it in, in the first few pages of the book, but I don't go into that.

    Joanne Limburg:

    That's what I figured they'd do.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We just forget it.

    Joanne Limburg:

    It's like, we don't really want to think about the implications of that.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, that's right. Or, of course, I mean, the human mind is profoundly confabulatory. It will make up a story to-

    Joanne Limburg:

    It is. I mean, what I think I find so impressive about Wintering is, it's something I don't think I could do, which is put myself in a place where most people could identify with me. I'm such a committed weirdo for better or worse. And I don't think it makes you less weird or less autistic or less unique, just somehow you've managed to find a bridge.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But that bridge really surprises me because actually, I feel like I wrote a book about the kind of gloomiest, weirdest part of myself, all the bits that have attracted that comment that we talked about at the beginning before like, why don't you want to be like everyone else? Why do you have to dwell on these things? Why are you obsessed with death? That kind of thing. That book is full of all that stuff, honestly.

    Joanne Limburg:

    But one thing you realize is that even people who are totally at the centre in a way they don't think about. They also have moments where they think about themselves as outsiders. Or there are always bits of themselves that they have to leave outside the circle because they don't fit in order to... Like when David Bowie died. Now, you can't have that many people who was really that weird and only ever identify with David Bowie. I mean, I'm sorry. But speaking as someone who has always been weird and can't help but be weird, if you can put weird on and off, you're not weird.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You're weird like a stick of rock all the way through or you're-

    Joanne Limburg:

    Exactly. Exactly. Or you're cosplaying weird. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I love the idea of cosplaying weird. But in my own world, I don't feel weird at all. I feel like everyone else is weird. So while I always feel like an outsider, I also feel like my centre is the truth, in that very arrogant, human way. Like I find other people's willingness to obey social norms and wanting to be part of a pack and wanting to look the same in those Benetton sweaters or whatever it is, I find that weird. To me that's weird.

    Joanne Limburg:

    I find it weird too. So I think I've really successfully internalised a lot of shame and fear about not being part of it. So I never feel able to assert most of the time that I'm the one that's got it right. I always know. I always have a sense where you could be wrong, you could be completely wrong. And it's this permanent, I'm never... What's the word? I mean, the phrase that's coming to my head is, I'm never quite in my skin. Maybe that'll do.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. You're always conscious of wearing whatever it is you're wearing at that moment.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. Exactly.

    Katherine May:

    And how contingent that is on-

    Joanne Limburg:

    And it might be wrong. You might've put on the wrong face today.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you, Joanne. That was just such a great conversation about [inaudible 00:50:23].

    Joanne Limburg:

    Yeah. It's always great to talk to you.

    Katherine May:

    I know, I know it's lovely to talk. And I could unpack outsidership forever actually, because I think it's this huge and complex experience that-

    Joanne Limburg:

    And I wouldn't say it's not something everyone experiences because it's contextual. So almost everyone will have experienced it at some point. I think, if there's a bridge, that's the bridge.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That's kind of lovely. Isn't it? That's an optimistic note to end on that maybe you can-

    Joanne Limburg:

    I think so. It does end on an optimistic note.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Why not?

    Joanne Limburg:

    We need optimistic notes.

    Katherine May:

    More optimism. More weirdness, more optimism. Thank you.

    Joanne Limburg:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    You brought what we needed today.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know if it's because I've made it a little bit further along the coast as I've been walking and talking to you or if the sea has genuinely calmed down, but you can hear probably the much more serene quality of the sea at this point on the path. It's just lapping up gently against the sea wall. I always think a lot about the smell of the sea. Loads of people hate it. I love it. I love the smell of the sea. It is, today, intensely green. It's like the smell of the roots of flowers when you pull them out of a case, hopefully before they've gone slimy. Maybe that's why people don't love it. I'm beginning to understand now that this might be my particular thing.

    Katherine May:

    It's funny, because as I'm walking along here, I'm feeling strange all over again. I'm sort of turning my back from the people who ride past on their bikes because I'm talking into a big furry microphone. It's weird, isn't it? It's a weird thing to do. But so many of the things worth doing are weird and they do make you appear to be weird. I think a lot about how the progress of my life and all the best things that have come to me are from leaning into weirdness rather than trying to hide it. Yeah. I think, Joanne's completely right, that reclaiming weird is our birthright. I hope some of you and all of you felt as relieved by that conversation as I did.

    Katherine May:

    Do you know what? As I carry on through life, I understand more and more that everybody feels like an outsider in one way or another. I don't know anyone who genuinely feels like an insider, even the people that look like insiders to me. Everyone's always busy identifying their difference and often feeling sort of challenged and victimised by that. And, of course, for loads of people, that victimisation is very real. But I do think it's an interesting exercise to identify the places where our outsidership is to some extent chosen and to some extent, a luxurious space where other people don't have control of us, a rebellious space, a creative space, a generative space. I don't want too much insidership. I like it on the edges here. Just like I like being right on the edge of the sea. I'm walking along a part now where the graffiti artists have taken over. And there's sand up on the path. It feels like this is a liminal space outside of the main constraints of the town. I wouldn't want to be here on my own at night, but here in the daytime, I don't know, it fits.

    Katherine May:

    I'm wishing you all a good week after you've listened to this. I wanted to say thank you again, to Joanne and to producer, Buddy, who I met with for lunch last week and completely failed to get a photo of us together. He does so much for this podcast. And it was great to see him. Everything happens remotely, doesn't it? We don't get to meet in person. And thank you to Meghan, our convener. I talked about her role last time. And thank you to the Patreons who just showed me the best time last week when we did a live book surgery on Patreon. Had so much fun talking about the books we love and the books we need at this point in time. I spent ages researching it beforehand as well, because I was scared that they would all laugh at me because they're all so knowledgeable. So it was good. It was good for me.

    Katherine May:

    I'll see you all again really soon. I've got some amazing guests coming up for you. And if you want the chance to feed in questions to them, I'll ask after I've done the main interview, then do join the Patreon. My Patreons are enjoying a really good extended episode this time and you could too. And it really, really helped keep us afloat. Thank you everyone. I'll see you soon. Bye for now.

Show Notes

This week, Katherine chats to writer Joanne Limburg about the ways that we can find connection in the experience of outsidership.

While writing her astonishing new book, Letters To My Weird Sisters, Joanne sought out women from the past who were marked out as ‘weird’, from Virginia Woolf, who was unable to choose the ‘right’ ballgown, to Katharina Kepler, who was put on trial for witchcraft. Drawing on her Jewish heritage, Joanne urges us all to assert the humanity of those who seem unfathomably different to us - the physically and intellectually disabled people who were considered to be ‘life unworthy of life’ in the Holocaust.

There is so much hope in Joanne’s project to own and cherish her own ‘weirdness’, and to find a kind of sisterhood there, stretching across time. Many listeners will find their community here, too.

We talk about:

  • Reclaiming 'weird'

  • The shared experience of outsidership and othering

  • Being Jewish and autistic

  • Disabled people and the holocaust

  • Not fitting in at school

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

Note: this post includes affiliate links which means Katherine will receive a small commission for any purchases made.

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Cole Arthur Riley on 'We did good'

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Cole Arthur Riley on 'We did good'

———
This week Katherine chats to writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    It's the end of a long day at my desk. I've had a lot to catch up with, but it's been on Easter holiday. So I have been hanging out with him, which is always lovely. And also my office has been decorated over the last couple of weeks. Well, actually it feels like longer than that, because I started decorating my office and then it got overwhelmed with stacked up boxes where I was doing other stuff in the house as is always the case my office incidentally, I'd like to a bitterly say that my office is the dumping ground for the rest of the house. I dream of a room of my own. And then I couldn't really get in there. And then a nice man called Dan came and painted it for me last week. And then of course I had to clean it all out again. It feels like a long time since I could get back in there and not be huddled on the dining room table, trying to make the best of things.

    Katherine May:

    And today I got back in and it's looking lovely. There's finally more than enough space for all my books, which is something of a first for me. I don't know what to do with all the space. It's really exciting. So yeah, I caught up on a few things today, but now I've just come down to the beach to catch the sun for a little while. I've got my summer dress on. I'm feeling springy. I think I'm having a time of sorting things out at the moment. I'm thinking about my working space and I've been busy with loads of other things too. I've got a strange time ahead for the next year in that my book is ready to go and it's a year until it's published. So that leaves me with an odd piece of time because it's too early to write the next book.

    Katherine May:

    I write books in quite a short period of time if I can. It's too soon and yet what will I do? What will I be if I'm not writing a book? There's this fear that rises up in me that I'll forget how to write somehow, or that I'll lose the knack. And I think in a way that's a valid fear. It's something that's a muscle writing or any creative practice. You have to keep moving. You have to keep doing it. So I've been looking for what I should do for the next while. I've got a few thoughts. Every night I go to bed and I dream a different novel. It's really funny, my brain is trying to make helpful suggestions for me. Maybe I'll write one of them who knows. Had a really good one about hotel last night, we'll see.

    Katherine May:

    But also I have been sorting out all my other things too. I'm revamping my newsletter, which I tried to revamp last year and didn't do it very well. So I'm doing another revamp. You'll see that soon. And I'm working with an amazing illustrator who is going to make it look beautiful, which it hasn't before. So excited to show you that. Watch this space, I'll let you know. And I guess I'm just trying to set everything to write, get my bookshelves in order. Sometimes you got to do that. It's lovely to be down here. I'm standing by the edge of the sea next to one of the wave breaks that's covered in beautiful bladder wrack sea weed, which is what I have tattooed on my arms now. And I've just noticed by my feet, there's an open clamshell. I'm going to pick it up. One of the double ones, that's still attached. It's beautiful colour pink inside like a butterfly. I'll never stop enjoying seashells and taking them home.

    Katherine May:

    Which brings me neatly to the conversation you're about to listen to with the author and spiritual teacher, Cole Arthur Riley, who it was just such a pleasure to talk to. I wasn't sure if she'd say yes when I asked her and I was so thrilled that she did, because it's wonderful to connect with people who've got such a beautiful engagement with the world. And she so often talks about wonder in her book, This Here Flesh. And about how wonder can flow through every day things and make the everyday luminous and how in many ways that's so much more important than these very distant ideas of a grand God who is making the rules in some far away place. Anyway, I think you'll love her. Do take a listen and I'll see you again in a while.

    Katherine May:

    Cole, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I am so thrilled to have you on the podcast for loads of reasons, actually. Partly because I just loved your book.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    But also, I wanted to talk to you because, I'm English as you can well tell, and we have a very awkward relationship with talking about spirituality in the UK. We are self-conscious about it and we are avoidant of it. And I know that it's really hard to publish books about any kind of spiritual issue in my country, because even like religious folk don't tend to engage in that conversation. It's this thing that very embarrassed about, and I'm trying to get better about talking about it and about hearing other people's perspectives too. And I feel like Americans are much better at this than us

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Maybe.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, Well, yeah. I know it's kind of complicated, but there isn't that absolute kind of sucking in of breath and drawing away that we certainly have. And I was laughing on Sunday because the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his Easter sermon made this proclamation, not proclamation, maybe that's the wrong word, but said that God would judge the government for the way they're treating Ukrainian refugees. And there was this kind of big political consensus in the UK that he shouldn't have brought God into it. And I thought, well, that tells you a lot about where we are in the UK, that we don't even think the Archbishop of Canterbury should bring God into anything, which is a nice summary of what we're like here.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Oh.

    Katherine May:

    But you are the founder of Black Liturgies, can you describe that a little for us because it's something I follow on Instagram and it's this very beautiful account?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Sure. Yeah. Well first I'll just say on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Americans who are just really excited to have a religion be supreme and to kind of triumph. And so sadly I think many Americans kind of use it as an excuse to talk maybe too much in order to have their spiritual belief system seem kind of larger then. And so it's really complicated. And so when I started Black Liturgies, I think I've always been kind of aware of that tension, that temptation to make any one spirituality supreme and to make spirituality more about being right than about conveying what it means to be human, what it means to love and what it means to grieve. I think there's always this temptation to kind of prove one's rightness and capital T truth.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And I wanted to resist that when I started Black Liturgies and kind of have this spiritual space that maybe felt more liberating in a way that would allow for a transparency that I'm speaking out of a Christian tradition, informed in a Christian tradition, but I never want to cling too tightly to any doctrine. I don't necessarily feel people sometimes are frightened by this, but I don't necessarily feel an allegiance to Christianity. I more so feel this allegiance to the questions of what it means to be human, a kind of fidelity to being a person that asks questions of the spiritual. I try to convey that in Black Liturgies and I connect and centre black emotion and black literature in the black body. And I connect that with the spiritual practice of written prayer and usually have some kind of breath exercise as well.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. Breath is so important to you and it's part of this sense that you are writing about day to day survival about the kind of realities of living and that kind of embodied experience.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. And I think, I mean, because of how I've chosen to share Black Liturgies initially through Instagram, and still early through Instagram, I felt like I really needed to be responsible with people's bodies because I know what social media can do. I know what these algorithms were created by very brilliant people who have learned how to keep us disembodied and scrolling. And I thought if I'm going to kind use this as a tool, I want to be able to try to draw people out and into their own bodies and whether they practice it or not, I wish I could tell but I think there's something of a dare in it like it's daring you when you scroll past it and something's telling you inhale and exhale, it's, at least I find it difficult not to practice that. So sure yeah, I incorporate breath a lot.

    Katherine May:

    And having that pause in that stream of information that we are scrolling through, your posts always make me just stop just for a moment in my endless scrolling, because they do invite me to do something very deliberately with my body, which I need to do. I live in my head all the time. I'm a writer, that's what I do. It's very hard to find that contact with the physical corporeal world sometimes for me.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I absolutely resonate with that and I can just be in my head for hours and completely forget. And when I kind of come to, I realize like my shoulder is hurting or my back is hurting just because of the way I've been sitting, but I've been so kind of out of my own body, I wasn't able to sense it. Anyways, I'm just realising these things about myself that have been true all my life, but I'm starting to put language to them and realising so much of it is grounded in disembodiment and yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And it's all connected. Well, let's start talking about you because you are such a storyteller and what I loved in This Here Flesh was this sense that your stories and your family's stories are all completely intertwined as if their stories are your stories, like as if you kind of inherited them genetically somehow.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And I loved this idea that you were a child who didn't really speak much, who chose to be mute for the longest time. Can you tell us a little bit about that and set the stage for me?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Sure. So you can picture four to six year old Cole was very, very shy and a very anxious child, I would walk around with my ears just tucked into my shoulders and very distinct from people in my family. So my family is just, they're lovely and loud and boisterous and chaotic and very charismatic and winsome and charming. And I am perhaps the only reserved person in my family. Reserved and quiet. So there are these home videos of everyone in the kitchen laughing and carrying on, and then the camera just pans to Cole sitting at a window still, staring sadly and long longingly out the window, or I could be found in closets kind of tucked away, reading Goosebumps books or things like that. So I was very reserved and very solitary, but a lot of that was born of anxiety as well.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    So I had a fairly common childhood anxiety disorder called selective mutism and I would find myself unable to speak around certain groups of people or strangers. And so I've a lot of memories of even wanting to speak, but feeling this bodily resistance, and feeling like I couldn't say what I needed to say. I tell a story in the book about getting my hands stuck in one of our screen doors and my father had friends over and my aunt was in the living room and there were people I didn't know in the house. And so I didn't cry out for help, just this little girl just writhing and knowing-

    Katherine May:

    Quietly being in terrible pain.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Just praying that his eyes just come over this way and see me. And yeah, if you read the book you know that it's my sister who in the end finds me and leads me in this kind of really sacred, childlike screaming session in the backyard with please pops. But yeah, I've had a very complicated relationship with language since I was little. And I did speech therapy for a number of years and remained pretty shy and not incredibly verbal through high school, really. So it's been a long journey.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And when you were I think, eight, your hair turned grey as well because you were so anxious. You were such an anxious little thing.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Yes. Oh man. I tell people this and they're just, the disbelief, but yeah, I had grey hair from just such a young age and poor me because all I wanted was my own invisibility sadly and a little black girl sprouting grey hairs at such a age, it just everyone's eyes drawn to me. Even if they weren't, it certainly felt like it was because it's the things that are distinct about us that are our earliest alienators, you know? And so I had a lot of shame and alienation and anxiety that I was carrying in my body and the hair did not help.

    Katherine May:

    An old head on young shoulders literally.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Wow.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But at the same time, your family are incredible talkers and storytellers and they sound like an amazing bunch of people.. Just to read about them, you just want to be in their company. It just sounds like this lively household. And I mean, I was fascinated by your dad and I was fascinated by your grandmother, but I'd love to get you talking about your dad because I mean, it seems to me like he was a talker above all else. He was like a persuader and someone who could kind of coach you into endless acts of making yourself braver and better and bigger.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I mean, my father is so smooth. He's just smooth, smooth, smooth. He's not even the kind of smooth where you kind of sense that someone's maybe selling you something or you know, it's not quite like that. It's just, he has a way of making you feel so yourself, so comfortable with however you present to him. He can adapt. He can adapt to kind of speak your language and even speak your body language. And I grew up just watching him and watching this unapologetic kind of metamorphosis that just happened again and again and again, and I'd hear him answer the phone and it sounded like he had six different voices. And so he's, he's lovely. He's always been a hustler, a hustler since he was like a child working multiple jobs, shovelling sidewalks and cleaning the laundry facility and the evenings.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And so he's always had a bit of hustle in him, not a restful spirit by any means. And certainly not a reader. A lot of people kind of assume that I'm from a family of readers or yeah. My father will be the first person to tell you know, he's not a reader nor a writer. He doesn't quite have the patience for books. But I think because of who he is, he recognised that in me. And so he adapted our entire household into being this family of written words. And so he would bribe me and my siblings to write little poems or short stories or we could do that to get out of chores you know, if we didn't want to vacuum that day. Yes, I mean, brilliant. You know, because if you have a choice between wiping baseboards and writing a poem on the colour of yellow, you'll choose the poem probably. And so he found a way and that also brought my siblings into my form of expression.

    Katherine May:

    Right. It brought you together.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Exactly because they frankly didn't need it in the way that I did. They were all very verbal, very charismatic children and very comfortable and as comfortable as children can be in their own skin. And so my father very wisely kind of saw something distinct in me and was able to rework our family culture and our kind of household spirituality to look different.

    Katherine May:

    It's amazing. He comes across in your book as a incredibly smart, intuitive parent who was constantly working with you in the way that you wanted to work rather than straining against you. It's such a rare thing.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    I do the older I get, the more I realized how rare it is to have a father that really takes you seriously. I always felt like he really took my emotion seriously even if he didn't understand them. There'd be times where I would just be crying and I wasn't able to articulate, or I don't think I even understood where the sadness was kind of coming from and I think it really tormented him in a way, but he always took it very seriously. It could have been a situation where when a child is unable to explain why they're sad, you kind of brush it away and say, okay, it must not be that serious. But yeah, to have an adult and a guardian who can really pay attention, I think is a gift.

    Katherine May:

    A huge gift. I love the story of you getting stuck halfway up a rock, like a climbing wall and please like you tell the story rather than me.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Okay. Yes. I mean, this is Arthur family lore. Like this is [crosstalk 00:20:28] Yes, exactly when everyone's going around the table. And everyone has a story, this is mine. So my father and my stepmom, they used to work at this, well, they volunteered at this annual rib cook off that would last about a week and my siblings and I thought they were very, very important because everyone knew who they were and they were kind of in charge of running the whole thing. And which in hindsight's a very big responsibility and says something about their hearts and their intuition. But so there are all kinds of activities at this thing.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And there's this giant rock wall to me, it felt giant at least. And I mean, when I tell you I was a scared child, I mean, I'm just a scared person. And I don't say that in a self deprecating way. I think fear can be really beautiful and sacred and I'm not ashamed of that, but I am a very scared person and my sister is quite brave. And so she drags me on this rock while I get halfway up it and I'm just sobbing. I feel like I cannot move. I cannot take, my legs are shaking. In my mind, this was the end, this was death. And you know I-

    Katherine May:

    You just stuck there forever, that was the end of it.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. And my little arms were shaking and my sister she goes up and down easy and she eventually has the worker call my parents on the walkie talkies. So my dad races over in the Gulf cart or whatever. And instead of coaching me from the ground, which would've been maybe the reasonable thing to do, he just straps, he harnesses in and gets on belay and he's up there. Next thing you know, he is next to me and he's like coaching me to the top, going reach and step and use your legs and not your arms and until we hit the buzzer and in my memory, at least whenever I hit that buzzer, just the crowd was just frenzy, but like joy and I mean, such a strong core memory of joy, I think, and of belonging and real pride in my body. I mean, we've talked about this a bit. I was really detached from my body as a child. I didn't know my body could do such a thing. And so I felt pride in my body as well as this connection, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That's amazing. I have a very similar memory, which I think is why I relate to that story so much of going up a mountain with the girl guides and getting stuck at the top. Like just having that feeling of my legs, falling away underneath me and lying on the ground, like clinging to a rock.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Wow.

    Katherine May:

    And saying, that's it, I can't come down again. Like, I literally felt like the mountain could crumble underneath me and everything was going to fall down and I couldn't move. And I was walked down by an entire girl guy troop, like literally taking me one step at a time. And I know exactly how you felt in that moment. And there's sometimes being the fearful one, which I definitely always was, is a real privilege because you learn what it is for people to take care of you. And I don't think everyone learns that lesson until it's forced on them when they're older and they resent it. And there's something about being taken care of that's a real, it's an aspect of our humanity that we don't like to think about, but that it's an important one. It comes to all of us eventually.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Oh, I mean, I think that's beautifully said. So much humility, I think comes or is born out of fear. And I also think for people like us, the scared ones, I think there's a kind of intuition that is grown in us because maybe we're more attuned to those inner stirrings, more attuned than the person who maybe is very quick to want to triumph and conquer the fear. Very different than the sensation of wanting to win. I think the sensation of fear is more of a listening which I think lends itself really well to intuition as we age.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, definitely. And in some ways I feel a little sorry for people who are so afraid of those moments. I get fearful of Heights and spiders and all kinds of things, but what I don't get afraid of is being afraid. Like that's okay for me. I don't mind being vulnerable and I'm really glad to have trust in being vulnerable because to me that is a life skill actually and a vital one.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I absolutely agree. I mean, I talk about this in This Here Flesh a bit, but I think fear can be such a protective force and it gets such a bad rap really. But if you think about it fear is the thing that keeps us from jumping from building to building, from putting our hand over the flame, there's this really protective force that I think that can be at the heart of it. When you talk about that being cared for, there's also a sense of being protected and kind of habitual realization that you are worthy of protection and worthy of that care and that nurturing, that I think comes out of those fear experiences.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Like, it's interesting to tell your dad's story in that context, because he had his own huge vulnerabilities as well as being this exceptionally mindful parent. He also had his kind of Achilles heel didn't he, which was addiction?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And there comes a point in the book when you have to take care of him as well.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Oh, that's, it's true. There's a shift that happens. My father he lived with his addiction for a number of years in secret. He's very, very shrewd, very smart and aware of his own presence. And so he was able to kind of operate in a kind of hiding for quite some time. And there's so much to say about illusions and kind of how enchanting they are, especially as a child and there's something beautiful in that enchantment, but also something really devastating when a veil is lifted and you realise I'm not the only one afraid, and I'm not the only one who needs protected and care and kind of nurturing. And so it's really complicated to encounter that I think in our heroes and those who want to believe to be super human, but I think I started to love my father so much deeper when I recognised him as human. As human and there was something really painful, but also healing about that shift and how I viewed him.

    Katherine May:

    And I loved how compassionately you wrote about that. Like in other writer's hands that would've been a duh duh duh moment but actually as it turns out, my father was not who I thought he was, that kind of thing. And actually the way you describe it, it was just another aspect of this man that you found incredible and a vulnerability that he needed help with, and that doesn't diminish him in your eyes or our eyes as we read.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. And I'm just so relieved anytime someone says that's how they've read it because that was just something that really haunted me as I was writing, how do I really complicate someone's humanity and not have them be diminished to any one kind of story or diminished to kind of plot, a narrative-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Actually complicated so that there's many kind of tensions and releases and this is significant and I don't want to diminish that, but I also don't want my father's story to just be eclipsed. And so I took extra care, I think in those early chapters, the first half of the book to really help people fall in love with my father and my grandmother, how I fell in love with them and I'm in love with them. And so that by the time they come to the basement, by the time they arrived to the realization, it's not this unmasking, it's kind of more so like turning a leaf over in your hand and you're seeing a different part, your privilege to more.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's a deepening and a very human story about a family who didn't always know how to love themselves and who have existed in a world that's been incredibly hostile to them and how we cope actually, how we get through.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yeah and as I wrote, I noticed so much overlap in my father story, my grandma story and my story in terms of hiding as a form of coping and dislocation, this kind of solitariness as a coping and that I was really eyeopening to encounter myself in my father, in my father's story. And I'd always thought of us as so different because he's so charming and like we talked about, he's this kind of character, this lovely character. And when I wrote, I realized the distance between us as really not that great.

    Katherine May:

    And I feel like that informs the way you talk about God, as you conceive of them as this charismatic figure who is with you in your weakest, degraded, difficult moments rather than is judging you, like who's walking alongside you.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Yeah. You know, I try to, I'm just trying to become more honest about what I really think about the divine and the truth is I really do think about God as this familial, this kind of tender familial existence maybe, and kind of embodying these different aspects of a family, certainly not a nuclear family necessarily. But I think about God as a mother, I think about God as a child. And, and so I wanted to express that and I've never really resonated with a very formal and demanding God.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Well I-

    Katherine May:

    And it just seems to me that lots of people use that God to tell people off for stuff that they themselves don't approve of, that God is like a talk kit that you throw at people you don't like, I mean.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Exactly, exactly. As opposed to a way of making sense of who you are and how you move in the world and what your relationship to other people. There is a way I think to experience God as kind of a lens, the divine as a lens to help you see the world and see yourself clearly, see the barn swallows in the backyard clearly. I think there's a way to experience the divine that's like that as opposed to this instruction manual and-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, right and wrong, like a really fixed sense of right and wrong that isn't in any way, contingent on what's coming up for you at the moment and what you're having to deal with.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Exactly. Exactly.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The Wintering Sessions, get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    So I want to hear about your grandma too. I'm always telling stories about my grandma and they are irresistible people, grandmas.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    They are.

    Katherine May:

    She sounds remarkable. I mean, what she endured and what she was able to become is a story in itself, isn't it?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to really think about the things that she's lived through. I was just talking to my sister about this the other day, the just trajectory of her life and then marking the trajectory of American history alongside that life. And whew, she's been through a lot, in many ways. She went to live with people who weren't her parents at a very young age because her mom was having struggles with her mental health and was in a hospital for a long time. And ultimately the family decided her mother couldn't raise her. So she went to live on this village, she went from Manhattan, Harlem the city to this very rural farm area with people who were quite cruel and cruel in the name of God actually, if we want to talk about using God as like this manual.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And really verbally abusive in every way you can imagine and had to make sense of herself and make sense of who she wanted God to be in that climate. And eventually she leaves and is kind of freed from that, but it took a toll and I mean, as her granddaughter, you want to believe that you completely kind of transcend these difficult things. And by the time you're 70, I don't know the language you've conquered them maybe and to see them so clearly in her. As her granddaughter to see these things, this abuse that had left its mark on her, sleeping with the door open, sleeping in a chair and never a bed. There's so much tragedy that I thought was just who she is as a person.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And as I got older and learned more of her story, I realized we're born out of a lot of trauma. But in ways she did, she did experience a kind of liberation. She created this family. We called her the queen matriarch and we would always, we'd, say this thing, like protect the matriarch at all costs. And she created this family of real love and not perfection but of love and our own kind of spirituality. It wasn't necessarily overtly Christian or we didn't grow up church or anything like that or reading the Bible but there was a sense in the family that she created that our humanity matters and how we relate to ourselves and our interior worlds, that matters. And so out of her own formation, the fact that she was able to then form this sacred community of love and tenderness is so, so special.

    Katherine May:

    And she shared, I mean, you came to share her history yourself. Like again, it's the same as your dad in a way, like she had this ability to be vulnerable with you and to be human with you and to allow that exchange almost, which I don't think everybody has with their grandparents to put it lightly.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I mean, I'm not sure. So I started interviewing people on my family a handful of years ago. Elders and trying to preserve their stories and their memories. I was kind of plagued by this thought of, this lack of artifacts in my family history. And so anyways, I started out on this personal project just to collect stories. And I would say it wasn't truly until then that I think to really let me in, it was almost like she needed a reason and she needed an invitation so that it didn't feel like a burden, which is quite sad, but as it happened, as I began interviewing her and when I decided that her stories would be in the book and she agreed to that, I would talk to her Saturdays and just ask her a question after question, and this intimacy was born. And I really don't think I would've ever told her about my own abuse as a child. And I don't think I ever would've had that with her, had it not been for that ritual of story telling and that kind of weekly nearness.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And so, yeah I'm really grateful for how that shows up in the book. It was a very last minute addition, I'm talking last minute edit, and I did it because-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's one of those bravery moments in writing.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. That can be an editor's nightmare, but I just knew in order for ... There was so much unsaid and there still is that I think there's kind of a beautiful withholding that I was trying to practice, but at the same time, I knew that there were just a few things I needed to say so that people would truly understand why it's our stories being told in this true, I mean, this connection that wouldn't make sense.

    Katherine May:

    Why it's so shared and the power of that sharing and that shared burden and how you can integrate all of those shameful things that you feel so terrible about which you shouldn't feel shameful, but you do by having a shared story. And it seems to me in your book that what you're saying is that those stories flow in both directions. It's not just about you inheriting your family's stories, but you're sharing them back to them and there's a kind of melding that happens there.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes, absolutely. And there's this moment that I share in the book. So my grandmother, she actually passed away during the editing phase of the book during the final edits, in fact. And so there's this story I tell where I visit her in the hospital. She had fibrosis of the lung and was having trouble breathing. And she had just come out of medically induced coma, which if anyone knows anything of that, it takes a lot of your capacities away, it takes time to recover your speech and your fine motor movements and all kinds of things.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    So anyways, I'm sitting on her bed and she's just talking and telling stories, but she's still just a bit out of it and so she's using we and I, and you, and they, and like her, it's all kind of jumbled. And I truly, because of so much overlap in our story, I wouldn't know, there were times I didn't know if she was talking about my story or hers and I just rested in that. There was something about the moment that I thought this doesn't need clarification, I'm just going to let her tell it and I mean-

    Katherine May:

    And she says, we did good, doesn't she? We did good.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes, she was such a poet. She said, we did good. We took the sweetest part of the fruit and we cut it off. That's what she said.

    Katherine May:

    It's incredible.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    We took the sweetest part of the fruit and we cut it off.

    Katherine May:

    And I'd love you to make the link for us towards like, your work is about the sort of the huge burden of black history that rests or black American history in particular that rests on you as this latest generation and how you come to carry that as the air to this huge kind of terrible story that hangs over you as a member of a wider community.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I mean, it would be so hard to tell our family's story without telling a story of blackness. Not that our generational story can encapsulate it, but I just wouldn't be telling a true story. And yeah so I do go there in my work with Black Liturgies and in This Here Flesh. I wanted to get out of kind of spirituality that didn't come at the expense of my blackness. I have belonged to spiritual spaces that kind of demanded that I leave my blackness at the door, so to speak in order to enter this larger community and it was really painful and damaging. So in This Here Flesh, I'm really protective of that. I'm really protective of maybe the unique ways, the particular ways that my family has come to understand the spiritual, not in spite of blackness, but because of it, you know, what are our rituals? Also what are our coping habits but what are our rituals? What are our loves? What are our desires?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    All of those things that are so informed by our blackness, they have room in the conversation as opposed to being kind of pushed down. I try to let it breathe.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And you say a lot there about there's a moment when your Bible teacher says to you God's in your heart and you rebel against that. You're like, no, I don't want God there. I want God, like at the corner of the street, kind of. I want that presence in my everyday life as I live it rather than in some kind of idealised future space in which I am perfect.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. This kind of immaterial, vague language of the heart. It's very white evangelical that language. And I don't think that people who use it always understand what they sound like to other people. I think there's nothing wrong with having your particular-ised language, but when you're completely unaware that your language doesn't translate to an outsider I think it says a lot about your spiritual practice. But I was in college when I first started hearing again, and again, all this language about inviting Jesus into your heart and it all felt very imprecise and very immaterial to me in a way I felt like I had to leave my body behind. It felt like there was a complete disregard for the flesh, for my embodied existence. She wasn't talking about my physical heart, certainly not. She was talking about-

    Katherine May:

    Not even the actual beating your heart is allowed.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Exactly. And I don't blame her. She was maybe 21 herself and ascribing to these things that we say and these beliefs that we say that we believe, but we're not actually sure. We're not actually convinced we believe them. I think she just like I and I certainly didn't have the confidence to say it out loud, all of those doubts and all of that resistance in me. It was an inner resistance, but the temptation of belonging is so large. It looms so large that you'll say you believe anything to belong. I mean, I truly believe that that is such a huge factor in what we say we believe, or don't believe, it comes down so often to belonging. And so what does it mean to create spaces, spiritual spaces where your belonging does is not predicated on what you believe, about on what you think about any given thing. What does it look like to create spiritual spaces that you can wake up one day and think an entirely different thing about God and you're no less?

    Katherine May:

    And there's something that you say right at the beginning of the book that struck me so hard, which I'd been thinking about a lot, because as you might know, I've written about my autism diagnosis, which was like five years ago now. And that for me was a moment when I thought a bit like you about having been a quiet person all my life, who hasn't been allowed to be quiet and how I needed to retreat from the world. But during the pandemic, I kind of came to the end of a cycle of that and realised that even I could get lonely and that actually my creative life doesn't exist in a vacuum. And you write so beautifully at the beginning about how like white, religious thinking has often told you that silence and retreat and isolation are where you enter into spiritual communion. But that actually, you say to quote you, I cannot sustain belief on my own and I'm learning that sometimes the most sacred thing to do is to shout. That spirituality exists within community and I think we can use that interchangeably with creativity there maybe.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Yeah. I think that's beautiful. And to allow that for yourself too, I mean, I used to think that solitude and silence were just the pinnacle, the complete pinnacle of spiritual wisdom. And I mean, I do still find spiritual wisdom in them, but I'd completely kind of constricted my spiritual experience to those things. And I think if it's only silence, I have a very complicated ... We've talked about my childhood, I have a very complicated relationship with silence from my childhood. I have a very complicated relationship with silence as a black woman in America and being silenced-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, being silenced, yeah.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Exactly. And so there's a real complicated relationship that I feel I must acknowledge and I have to allow for a diversity of things. I need to kind of silence that isn't done to me or that isn't impressed upon me, but that's chosen and I need a kind of solitude that is only coming because I feel deeply grounded in a community and people who love me and understand me and can pull me back in or else my solitude becomes just a practice and dislocation. And so I'm starting to realise all of these things about my contemplative practice and trying to expand how I think about them.

    Katherine May:

    Funny enough, I've got quite an angry passage in my new book about the way that silence and the tradition of men going off in a kind of monastic way to contemplate and therefore claiming the spiritual high ground because they've thought about this stuff harder. It's like a well way of systematically excluding most women who are busy with these mundane duties of caring, like whatever generation you're caring for, we are always looking after somebody and how that's been weaponised against us and how I weaponised it against myself after I have my son and I couldn't keep up with my life, very rigid meditation practice that I'd made for myself that only allowed, had to be twice a day. It had to be after breakfast, but before I started ... oh, sorry. Before breakfast, but like, blah, blah, blah, it went on and on, like, it was really rigid.

    Katherine May:

    And for ages, I felt like I couldn't therefore access this and actually it's only really recently that I've come to realize that I have to remake it for myself and that those people could learn a lot from me actually. There are depth of experience that they haven't reached if they've never looked after anyone and have only been looked after.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes, yes. We could talk about this for hours because I completely agree just the level of the sheer privilege and just being able to extract oneself and go off. Maybe they've thought about a thing more, but you've lived it, you're living it, you're feeling it hopefully. And I think the way that I'll say white intellectualism has situated itself in the world and white male intellectualism has situated itself in the world is that, the thinking, that's the top of the hierarchy. That's the most important thing.

    Katherine May:

    And everyone else must rally to facilitate that thinking for them.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Yes, exactly. And you have to prove yourself. You have to prove yourself as thoughtful, you have to prove that you can think well about being kind before you-

    Katherine May:

    Go out and do that.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    ... show that you're being kind, that you are kind, you're expected to articulate something meaningful about kindness, more than you're expected to operate in the world in a kind way. I think it's really tricky. And there's a Audrey Lord quote that I'll probably butcher a bit, but she said-

    Katherine May:

    That's okay, I do that with the time on here.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    To paraphrase, she said something like the white fathers told us, I think therefore I am and the black mother tells us, I feel therefore I can be free. And I think it really is. I think you can adapt that in so many ways, apart from just feeling, but there's something about the life of a woman about the life of most women and most socio economically neglected and oppressed people that has demanded a being, has demanded a doing that is really valid in terms of how you are spiritually formed and encounter the spiritual so much to learn. I think about this as well with children, the wisdom of children and before they're able to even articulate what they know, the things that they know and that they're paying attention to.

    Katherine May:

    And the questions they ask as well, the things they know how to seek that we so often tell them like, or we kind of squash that down a bit and diminish it and say, "Oh, no, no, no, don't think about that." But it actually like giving them the space to think about those things is what we should completely be doing.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. Yes. I mean children, like you said, the questions and there's this confidence that you have to have to ask a question, this kind of sacred confidence that you've been able to find something, you've been able to find the unknowing in you, and then say you desire something, or you're curious. I think there's so much courage and the curiosity of children and so much brilliance and how they operate in the world and with nature and how they play, that we have so much to learn from. But when we're trapped in these concepts of thought and the cognitive project to being the most important, one when we're trapped in that, I think we lose sight of all of these other forms of wisdom that are in our presence.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I feel like I'm very much a learner on that scale. I feel like I've been very devoted to my kind of cognitive development all my life. And I'm gradually learning to be more embodied and to seek different ways of knowing. And it doesn't come easy to me. I won't lie, but I totally see the value in it. And I'm just full of admiration for people who do move through the world as a OD, rather than a little kind of mind cloud floating above this useless fleshing casement. That's how I've often thought about my fleshing casement, anyway.

    Katherine May:

    I could talk to you forever and I wish we could. I'd like to just ask you about one final thing so that I don't take over your entire life. It's tempting though. But recently you've written in the Atlantic, I think about a different relationship with silence and about staying quiet sometimes and sometimes not feeling obliged to speak about everything. Could you talk a bit about that because I, again, kind of strongly related to what you were saying there?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. So before I began Black Liturgies, I didn't have too much of a social media presence. I mean, I didn't have Twitter, I didn't understand the culture and all the ways kind of all the pressures of it. I was extremely naive about it, I only followed like friends and family and not these brilliant thinkers or news anchors or people like that. So it all felt very new to me and I will have people, when something tragic happens or something tragic is trending, well meaning people message me and ask me, "Are you going to write about this? Why haven't you said anything about this?" I think because I was so new to the experience, I was maybe able to become more critical of what was happening to me so I was thinking how strange, like this wouldn't be asked of me in person. If I was having coffee with someone, and at the end they didn't-

    Katherine May:

    Do you think it's about this? Can you perform to me on this?

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Surely no one would criticise me, but there is this real cultural, current, and this formation really that is telling us that when something bad happens, that we must comment on it. I personally think the summer of 2020 and the murder of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery and Elijah McClain. And I could go on. Something about that moment, I think, maybe tip the scales or did something to where if you didn't comment on a thing, it meant that you did that thing, you're just as guilty as the hand that pulled the trigger.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that you're somehow culpable of, yeah.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And I think that really did some damage to everyone's psyche and to everyone's demand that requires the demand we place on ourselves to have something articulate or meaningful to say in response to the war in the invasion of Ukraine. In that Atlantic article, I say, on February 23rd, I couldn't have pointed out Ukraine on a map and I'm expected to craft some meaningful statement, which really would be, if I'm honest, it would've been a work of theater, it would've been theatrical because I knew so little and I knew I needed to read and I knew that there were other voices, in fact, that would it be much more appropriate voices who know more. It'd be much more appropriate to allow them to kind of have the air or at least for a little while, but it was the next day and people were asking me to comment.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And so I'm very suspicious of this. I'm not so suspicious that I think there's something wrong in commenting certainly if you feel drawn to, or you feel like you have something that you need to process, or I think that's beautiful and good, but what if you don't and is that okay? And I think silence, I think silence does something. It allows you to really become honest. I say to hope the theatre and to ask yourself, or hear rather to listen to, are you angry? Are you sad? Do you feel nothing? Silence, that's where I can be honest and say, I feel nothing. And I want to feel something. I think silence can do so many things and we've taken, I've done this, I'm guilty of this, the words of very brilliant black ancestors, we've taken them so far to heart about silence and we really oppress people throughout history.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    I've made really beautiful remarks on the violence of silence. We've talked about this some here, but I think what does it mean to nuance that, and I think that's been my journey a little bit, this silent little girl, this restricted girl, then becoming this kind of in resistance to the violence and the oppressive form of silence and wanting to really live in my own voice. And then also coming to reacquaint myself in, is there something beautiful in it? Is there something that I'm able to hear in silence that I would otherwise be completely unaware of? And I think the answer is, yes.

    Katherine May:

    Well, it seems to me that what's so obvious is that little girl who was choosing not to talk was listening and watching and understanding in a way that other people were not, that there is right now, like you are the embodiment of the value of sometimes just choosing silence in a positive way.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I do think it's possible and I think we have a lot to learn from people who are able to practice it when they're under great pressure. I think we have a lot to learn from that kind of silence and the rest of just pacing around the perimeter of my house and in silence, like what kind of formation that offers me, that allows me to then meet the tragedies of the world. Not from a state of an impoverished spirit, but one that's kind of awake and alive and not just concerned with the sound of my own voice.

    Katherine May:

    I just think that's such wisdom for our age and like, I've been gradually reversing out of Twitter, having been there right from the start actually and loved as somebody who felt very isolated in the world and very different to everyone else without understanding why. There was a time when I was so grateful to flow into that space and find other voices like mine and I can't even explain to you the release of that actually to be understood, truly understood, like for what I was. And then there came a phase when I felt overwhelmed by it, but also that I was taking part in an important act of witnessing that it had put me in contact with many, many scratchy truths of the world that were uncomfortable to see, but that I understood life on a more micro level.

    Katherine May:

    Twitter is just full of voices calling out to be heard. And I think it's a really mixed blessing to be able to hear them. And it's the first time in history we've been able to do it and it's changed us. It's changed us for the better. But there is also this pressure to go in and perform anger every day. Like at completely outrageous things, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't think those things are worthy of anger because they're awful and infuriating, but I am not living a good life if I'm just going out and spouting range in every direction every single day and being taken up by that, like it's useless to me and I'm useless to the world through that fury that just generates itself.

    Katherine May:

    It's like this big Inferno, and as soon as you are not angry, everybody's angry with you, which I think is what you were, you were saying. And so I'm stepping away and I've got mixed feelings about that because I do think that some of the things it's thrown in my path have been good for me to be rattled by that unsettled feeling that it often gives me is right. I should feel unsettled by those things going on.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yes. I feel we have similar feelings about Twitter. Everyone criticises Instagram, and I find Twitter just so painful. I made the mistake of scrolling through Twitter just before we had our conversation and I was on my laptop. I thought, why am I doing this? It came across this horrible, this very sad video. And the kind of ripping in and out of these kind of tragic moments. You're scrolling, that kind of, it's a real emotional labor to kind of pull yourself into the tragedy of Afghanistan and the little girls not being able to return to school. And then I scroll and I see Kim Kardashian and Kanye west and the next post is about face cream and it's then the next post is about losing another black person. It's a real emotional tag that I think we haven't been able to adapt to yet. I don't know if we ever will.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know if we have the equipment. I don't know if we've got the brain structure to deal with, as you say, like desiring face cream and believing that it will solve your problems next to the death of a child and a political injustice, and then a hilarious bit of gossip. Like, I don't know if I've got the capacity for that, honestly.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Yeah. I don't know if I want to you're right. Like, do I want to have the capacity for that kind of transition and what is that doing to me? And so I mean I've had to find ways and it sounds like you're figuring this out as well, or doing-

    Katherine May:

    Very much in that process of, yeah.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    I'm trying to find ways to kind of set up these boundaries in my life, because I'm really concerned about how I'm being formed as a public presence on these apps, as a human on these apps. I went and got a dumb phone shortly after starting Black Liturgies. I got rid of my smartphone, because I just felt like so much was changing about me so quickly that I thought I would be immune to. You think once you know the threat, you're immune to it, but these structures, these systems are very smart. So anyways, I go on Twitter on my laptop, which creates a bit of distance as opposed to carrying it with me. There's kind a silence throughout my day. I know that it's a very privileged thing to be able to have a dumb phone. I don't think that's really practical for my most people. I live in a very small town. I don't need directions often. So I mean, it's been so wonderful and so healing for me to not be carrying around the noise of the world with me, all day long to carry that heavy-

    Katherine May:

    All the world's pain in your pocket.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Right. Yeah. Right.

    Katherine May:

    It's heavy. Oh Cole, thank you so much. It was just the most wonderful conversation. And I-

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, I love where we've got to, because I'm now about to say to everyone that they should find you online.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    And here we are.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And that just neatly encapsulates where we are because we are going out and we are looking for wise minds like yours and we are trolling through a whole lot of other stuff in between, but I just thank you so much for your wonderful book, which I'd recommend to anyone This Here Flesh and for this brilliant conversation today.

    Cole Arthur Riley:

    Thank you. And thanks for inviting me into your space and trusting me with your listeners.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my goodness, always.

    Katherine May:

    I am standing next to the most magnificent herring gull. I know you're technically supposed to hate herring gulls if you live by the sea. They are the sea goals that come and aggressively still all your chips. But I think they're magnificent birds. They take three years to mature and so you can tell roughly how old a herring gull is when it's under three. This one is a year two juvenile. The first year are kind of big and puffy and speckled. And then the second year they're still speckled, but their wings are blacker and they just look a bit skinnier and leaner. By the third year, they'll have their incredible pristine white feathers that always look so neat and tidy but always calls them nosebleed goals because they have a little red spot on their beak that looks like their nose is bleeding. It's quite a good way to identify them actually.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, this gull who is a couple of metres away from me and looking me dead in the eye in a challenging way, he's only got one leg, but he's styling it out. He's landed on one of the groin posts. He's standing there looking for all the world like he could come and take my chips if I had any. I wouldn't fancy my chances against him.

    Katherine May:

    It's part of the amazing stuff that you could notice in this world. It's always there waiting for you. I just love the way Cole Arthur Riley talks about that big heady mix of suffering and life's challenges and the weight of history and political anger myth with wonder and awe and all those simple emotions that we are longing to feel and how we contain it rather than anything external to us. If you haven't read This Here Flesh, don't be put off if you're not a reader of spiritual book, seriously, challenge yourself, give it a go, park your cynicism, park your skepticism and just immerse yourself in her beautiful writing. I just love her prose and I love the way she made me see the world we live in for a little while. I can't give you any stronger recommendation than that. Read it, read it, read it, read it. It's a beautiful cover too, if that helps. I like a good cover.

    Katherine May:

    I'm going to head home and cook everyone dinner in a minute, but I just wanted to thank you for being here. I feel kind of good about the world at the moment. While I feel bad about the actual world, the world is full of dreadful, dreadful stuff but I kind of always notice in these moments when we are all despairing, that amazing compassionate quality of our despair and it gives me hope every time. I can't help it, I'm an optimist. I always admire the way we survive and take care of each other, even when we're urged not to. And even when we are told it's silly and that we should look away and that it's not our responsibility, we reach out. I just love that about us. We can't stop and we shouldn't ever.

    Katherine May:

    So I need to say thank you to everyone who helps making this podcast to the producer Buddy Peace who composes the music and Meghan Hutchins, who we've been trying to find a title for because Meghan is my virtual assistant. She puts so much in place in my world and just helps me endlessly to cope. But she has such a pivotal role in this podcast. She looks after all the guests, she makes sure they're really well informed, that they're looked after that they know where they should be, fills in big gaps that I leave there. And she makes sure that me and Buddy are well coordinated and motivated and that we know what we are doing.

    Katherine May:

    And so we have recently entered into the British Podcast Awards. I'm telling you that as an act of vulnerability, because as I don't suppose we'll even get listed. We're competing against much bigger podcasts, but I wanted to put us in there because I'm really proud of what we do and I know there's loads of you who love this podcast and I love that you love it. And I love making it anyway. Had to put a title for Meghan. And we've decided that she is the podcast's convener, which maybe isn't perfect, but I love that there's a role there for someone who is helping everyone to gather, helping everyone to get together. It's kind of a soft, gentle thing that she does, but she does it so well. Anyway, that's my tribute to Meghan today.

    Katherine May:

    I'm very lucky to have the team behind me that I have, and she helps me to manage my brilliant Patreon community who this month, as a special, are getting a reading clinic. I'm going to do my best to help everyone to understand how to get their reading mojo back or where to find that elusive next book, when you're a bit stuck. I've been really stuck with my reading for a long time and I'm just coming out of it again. And I'm feeling that urge to rush through loads of books now to kind of eat them whole and I want to help other people back. So if you're not a member of the Patreon community, consider joining. Come and talk to us. We're really friendly. It's really lovely. I've got some interesting plans for the future there too. Watch this space. Thank you all for listening. Thank you Cole for a brilliant conversation and I'll see you next time. Bye.

Show Notes

This week Katherine chats to writer and poet Cole Arthur Riley, author of This Here Flesh and creator of Black Liturgies. Unable to speak up as a child, Cole talks about how she learned to find her voice amid a family of gifted talkers and storytellers. Cole describes her father and grandmother as inspirational figures who nevertheless were marked by the generational trauma experienced by so many African Americans. But from this emerges Cole’s own, unique spiritual account of the world, overseen by a God who lives in our hurting, imperfect bodies, and who sees us as we are.

Cole is one of the most lyrical, perceptive and moving writers of her generation, at once cerebral and earthly, and always rooted in the body. We talk about Cole’s hair turning grey as a child, her wise grandmother and inspirational father, and the moments when she came to realise that both of them needed her care.

We talk about:

  • Childhood anxiety disorders and selective mutism

  • How inspirational parents can nurture confidence

  • Generational trauma, including abuse

  • Addiction in the family

  • How silence isn’t the only route to spiritual insight

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School

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Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Alexandra Heminsley on inhabiting a female body

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Alexandra Heminsley on inhabiting a female body

———
This week Katherine chats to journalist and writer Alexandra Heminsley, author of Some Body to Love.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, everyone. I'm Katherine May and this is The Wintering Sessions. How you all doing? Yeah. I can hear you replying, don't worry. It's been, well, I don't know. I don't think any one of us knows where to put our heads right now. I'm standing in my kitchen. Spring is breaking out. I have, and I'm counting here, four crocuses, one daffodil, two wood pigeons trying to mate. I think I can hear a robin, but I can't see him. Earlier, a big flock of starlings all landed in the ash tree that overhangs my garden at once and they made the most incredible noise.

    Katherine May:

    I feel like we're all clinging to these things at the moment, and well we should. There's absolute tragedies unfolding all across the world and we're all, all of us, doing our best to bear witness to those. Every one of us is doing what we can. But you know what? You need permission to turn off, as well. I know that the people who are being directly affected can't turn off, but this is a long haul. Nobody is helping by getting themselves stressed, distressed, unable to function.

    Katherine May:

    It's so important to take great care of the people around you, as well. This isn't some kind of a situation where you have to demonstrate that you care. No decent person is looking for your proof. It's okay to stop scrolling. Maybe think about watching the news at a set time, once a day, just like you would have done 15 years ago. That felt like a time when we could get the measure of the news, when we weren't living it. We've all been through a lot. I just wanted to say that. Go outside and breathe the air whenever you can. All my heart and soul is with the people who are suffering.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway. I've got a really good conversation to introduce you to today. Really, one of the first people that I thought about when I started this podcast was Alex Heminsley because she writes so interestingly about how we, I don't know, live through and overcome the problems that come up from being a woman, physical problems, ordinary problems. She doesn't talk about anything exceptional, normally, but she talks about the everyday challenges of how it feels to live in a female body.

    Katherine May:

    But then Somebody To Love came out, which is the book we're talking about in this interview. I think it's made her reach even deeper in a way that I found incredibly compelling. We'll outline the story in the interview, so I won't go into it now. But what I do want to say is, I think in this time when there's so little redemption, I think it's really brilliant to see a writer thinking hard about how their mind has been changed and how it's possible to understand the world in a completely different way, and still be compassionate towards the person who has made your life change so abruptly.

    Katherine May:

    I don't think we talk about that enough, the possibility of flexibility and pragmatism, and love that doesn't flow in quite the way we wanted it to, but that is nevertheless still love. We certainly don't talk enough about respect for people who have different identities, and different bodies, and different minds to us.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, I was really excited to talk to her. She's always great fun. She's always really thoughtful. I think you'll all really enjoy listening to this interview and how it brings a different perspective on the trans issue, which shouldn't be an issue to me at all, but which apparently is.

    Katherine May:

    But I love to hear somebody who has been personally affected by somebody realising they're trans and who still comes out fighting for that person rather than wanting to punish them. Take a listen anyway. I'll be back a bit later.

    Katherine May:

    Alex, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to me. I have been wanting to talk to you about this particular book, I think for a long time, because it's such an interesting turn of events for you, I suppose.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. Thank you for having me.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. No, total pleasure. But also I think because it does this rare thing, which shows a writer in motion changing and learning a different perspective on the world in the middle of it. I think that's a really thrilling thing to read, personally.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Well, thank you. No one has put it like that, but that is exactly what it felt like while I was writing it. I felt like my brain at the time was as if it were a laptop with too many tabs open, that faint fan noise, heat coming from somewhere within. I couldn't just think my way through the situation I was in. I had to write my way through it, and then in the editing understand myself better.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I was really lucky to be able to do that. I was very well guided because I specifically chose the editor that I felt would be the wisest person to perform that with, rather than the "razzly dazzliest, we'll make you a best sellerist" deals that were being offered at the height of the gender debate type thing a few years ago.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's so interesting. Let's outline what this situation is for anyone who doesn't know it. I'll let you tell it in your words.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I'd already written Running Like A Girl, which was about being a terrible runner but embracing it anyway. Then I wrote Leap In, which was going to in some ways replicate Running Like A Girl. Instead of doing lots of marathons, I was going to do lots of long swims, and swim to Alcatraz in the current. Then it ended up being a book about appreciating your limitations, because I ended up doing IVF. It was about embracing flaws, and seeing strength from a new perspective and things like that, because I ended up doing a lot of cold water swimming.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Then I thought I had it made. My son was born and everything was looking great. Whatever will I find to write about next, I found myself pondering. It turned out that actually three things happened to me in quite close succession, which I don't think I could have survived. Even in having three quite intense things happening so quickly was awful, the perspective that each lent the other ultimately turned out to be the thing that helped me survive.

    Alex Heminsley:

    When I was very early in pregnancy, I went to have a test, which actually I heard The Daily, no, The New York Times podcast had a whole podcast on last week. A DNA blood test which most people have to find out about the sex of their baby because it's much more reliable than just looking on a scan. It also tests for all the chromosome abnormalities that can happen. That's why I wanted to have it because at that point, my swimming book was around the corner and people were saying, "Can you do this daring swim? Can you have this photo of you in the freezing cold sea?"

    Alex Heminsley:

    I was too scared to tell my publishers I was pregnant because I was only six or seven weeks. But I didn't want to say no and be being shady. So I went to have all of these tests. It's a blood test. The midwife who'd done the test, it was a private thing, called me and said, "Oh, weird. The tests have come back from the lab. Did you use a donor egg?" I said, "No, definitely not." Anyone who's had IVF knows that the worst thing about IVF is getting the eggs out.

    Katherine May:

    In the first place, yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    She said, "You don't share any DNA with the baby," which obviously provided almost exponential possibilities in ever varying levels of sci-fi novel horror from another couple altogether's child in me. This was our last embryo, so there'd been a year of me trying all the other embryos we made, during which time I was thinking our embryo could have been born to somebody. It could be living in someone else's house now if there's just been a label swap. It could be an embryo that was made with my ex's sperm. There were so many different levels of awfulness because it's a relatively new test and new science. Until three or four years earlier, you wouldn't find out, it would be a telenovela plot that the baby would be born and it wouldn't be the same colour as the father, or whatever. Whereas this was, the terrifying sentence, no legal precedent was used from time to time.

    Alex Heminsley:

    As it all turned out, it was just a lab mistake. My son is entirely both of his allotted parents', but there was a good few weeks during which I was outside of legal precedent. I was into new science. I was into things that people would call perhaps unnatural. If you just have sex with your partner, you know that it's at least your baby, even if you've got multiple partners and it could be different father. Most women or female body people having babies who have just had sex rather than IVF know that they're the mother.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Whereas, there was no novel that had dealt with this. There was no film. There was no frame of reference, emotionally. Then about three or four weeks before my son was born, I was sexually assaulted on a train. Someone groped me. He repeatedly said, it went to court and he was found innocent because of weird things to do with the angle of the CCTV. He repeatedly said he hadn't done it, it hadn't happened. The male magistrate also said that he was finding the guy innocent because it would be very traumatic for him to be falsely accused and could have an impact on his life, a massive impact on his life.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. He also pointed out that you were pregnant and not rational, necessarily, which I just thought was the most breathtakingly misogynistic thing I've heard in quite a long time.

    Alex Heminsley:

    That absolutely floored me because this guy was hammered. What he admitted to in court was 10 gin and tonics, 10 pints, and two bottles of white wine. He'd been to a football match. That was what he was prepared to go on the record and say, while also lying about having groped me.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I had just thought for the entire nine months preceding the court case that the one thing I could rely on would be that the eight and a half months pregnant person, that I could be reliably understood to be sober, and therefore, a reliable witness of what had happened. There was another witness that came forward and said she'd seen it all happen. She'd been sitting behind me, so I hadn't known that she was there. It wasn't like it was my friend going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." It was a complete stranger.

    Alex Heminsley:

    My state of pregnancy was deemed to be more of a cognitive impairment than all of the booze that this guy was prepared to talk about.

    Katherine May:

    Unbelievable.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Then, around this time, once my son was born but before the court case, my co-parent realised that she had to transition. She was going to go through transition. Came out, effectively. That's usually the point, when I have conversations like this, that people gasp because it's the thing that your 11 year old self would want to avoid at all costs. When actually, it turned into the making of me, and that's what this book's about was because I'd been turned inside out so comprehensively by the preceding two things and their implications about what we think about a natural, or a real, or a proper woman's body and about gender politics.

    Alex Heminsley:

    It just sort of razed everything to the ground. I felt like a building that had been in a terrible fire and only the few remaining stones and steel girders, which was a handful of friends that I could talk this through, or people I trusted to read, or to listen to, or whatever.

    Alex Heminsley:

    That was all I had. That popular culture was giving me Chris Kardashian, Jenna. Disclosure, that amazing Netflix documentary hadn't been even released then. There was no template. I absolutely understood why my ex needed to transition. It was a huge relief to find out that was it, that was the problem. There wasn't something else that I couldn't understand as to why this person that I really loved was clearly in such extreme levels of torment at what we were understanding to be the happiest time in our lives.

    Alex Heminsley:

    So yeah, having confidently begun this memoir journey almost 10 years before saying, "I'm just a normal woman and any woman with a woman's body can do that." Now I realise that those broad brushstroke terms from the smiley, slightly curvy, possibly size 14 blond white lady was taking and making assumptions on a dizzying scale that I was then forced to reexamine, which was obviously incredibly painful. I was grieving for my marriage, and I was freaking out about how to be a single parent, and I was mourning lots of things that I thought I knew about myself.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But actually, when something so radical like that happens, I was so far outside of normal by that point, that it was in for a penny. It absolutely proved to be the thing that's helped me to see the world entirely different, helped me to approach things completely differently. Obviously, there are negatives, but on the whole, it has definitely been the pivot point at which I went from the first half to the second half of my life, and realised that the second half could be this amazing re-embracing of all sorts of things. Rather than, when I had my son I was thinking, "I'm 40. It's all downhill from here," all that kind of thing.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Whereas, the whole of life seemed completely different than I'd understood it to be for half my life. I hope half my life.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, let's say [crosstalk 00:16:13].

    Alex Heminsley:

    Making some more of my wild assumptions.

    Katherine May:

    You've got vary wary of those over the last few years.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But it was an extremely traumatic period to live through, but also proved to be, ultimately, a really positive one and uber wintering.

    Katherine May:

    Uber wintering; a multi-headed hydra wintering.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    They always are, I think. I think it's your mother in the book who says you've been radicalised by this. It seems to me like you're visited by what it really means to own a female body, and a woman's body, and the gap in between, as well. It's like the whole thing was enacted in your life in one big cluster.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. It sounds funny because it's such a dogged term now, but I did feel really privileged to have had some of those experiences and understandings on a really visceral, personal level. It's that expression. I saw it on a T-shirt the other day. I don't know where it came from, "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you."

    Alex Heminsley:

    I got to understand it within the cells of my body. To turn up in Harley Street where we'd been sent by the IVF clinic to this most high powered gynecologist and foetal expert in the world. To see the look of bafflement on the receptionist's face when she was saying, "So you're here for the paternity test," and we go, "And maternity test." The feeling of the cocktail of cortisol and adrenaline sloshes through you in those moments where you realise you are not being seen as a normal case. You are outside of what anyone's assumption, just standing at reception.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I know that now. That day is imprinted in the DNA of my existence and will be until the day I die. So, it taught me a lot about a trans person, but specifically a trans woman's experience of, "You're saying this, but I've never heard of that," or, "That doesn't figure. It's perfectly simple. That's not the way things are," all those terms that you see online, or in standup, or whatever. "Uh, no," as the punchline.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I know what it feels like to stand at the reception and go, "Yes, it is a maternity test."

    Katherine May:

    Yes, actually. Yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Things happen that you haven't heard of and might not make you comfortable. This poor receptionist was lovely. It's just an example.

    Katherine May:

    Well, it's the experience of having to explain yourself. I think what you were really saying earlier was that you'd been able to assume that you were normal and understandable up until this point in your life.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah, and that I knew what normal was, and that it was a static boundary rather than a permeable membrane that we all float through.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Similarly, the assault case taught me that you can feel enormous rage, and aggrievement, and fear, and terror. I didn't get on a train by myself until my son was a toddler. I could only get on trains with the buggy as a physical barrier between me and people. To have those anxieties and to feel rigid with furry, a magistrate in that position who could make those assumptions and feel confident and calm saying those things in front of me.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Also, not see trans women as a silent aggressor in that case. It was men. It was just cis, straight men who were making these impacts on my life. They are, to me, not problematically confusable with trans women. We share a perpetrator in that, rather than the cis men and the trans women sharing that position.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Again, I felt very lucky, especially in 2020 when all the Black Lives Matter stuff happened. I was watching friends go through that process of, "But I don't say racist things, so don't call me a racist." I'd gone through that with transphobia two years earlier of, "I'm not really transphobic," but just blithe assumptions can still have transphobic impacts, the same as blithe assumptions can have racist impacts.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I did feel quite lucky that I'd been able to undergo this experience of understanding how fallible a privileged person's assumptions can be. Privately, I'd done it in my home talking to my friends on a micro scale and I'd had really visceral emotional pinpoints and pivot points. Whereas everyone else last summer, whatever it was, more than 18 months now, seemed to be thinking, "But I'm a good person." Me, I was thinking, "Oh, yeah. I remember those days when I thought just saying normal was a simple term."

    Katherine May:

    That's so funny because I had exactly the same impression. I'd learned I was autistic and I'd had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about autism. I held all those same assumptions that loads of people hold about autism now, that I now find deeply undermining and offensive. I had exactly that same thought process of, "Oh, yeah. I've been through this before." As soon as that stuff really hit the mainstream I just thought, "Yeah, I recognize this completely."

    Katherine May:

    I can almost unquestioningly accept it because actually, I know exactly what it is to find myself in conversations with people that ends in a pause when they realize that they're about to say something that's offensive to you and they would normally say it.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yes, they can see the end of the street and they realize they don't want to go down it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Or when people say, "I don't mean autistic people like you, but of course."

    Alex Heminsley:

    The real ones.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I also feel, I know it sounds quite self-aggrandizing, and now I'm Britain's most woke woman.

    Alex Heminsley:

    What I have got is a confidence to know how little I know and that I learned that privately rather than because of some horrendous social media faux pas, which I think you see public figures going through. I'm just very lucky that, I will happily now if corrected or see a shadow across someone's face, I feel confident enough now to say, "What was it? Educate me quick."

    Katherine May:

    Interesting, yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Whereas before, I would have tried to talk a bit faster and hope no one had noticed I'd said something awful, and then not sleep for three weeks.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Now I feel confident enough in my curiosity and my willingness to understand different viewpoints that, that terror of, "What are they going to get me on?" Because realistically, it could be anything. You could find anything. I could probably hang up this podcast now and go and find five old articles which make me cringe, but I can at least say I did try to see the world differently and it did make my life better, as well.

    Katherine May:

    Isn't that wonderful? It's lovely to have the reverse of the conversation that I've had with so many people, which is, we are under threat. We can't say anything. People are out there waiting to get us, and when they do, they're going to cancel us. We're all in trouble. It's so dangerous to be a white person in this world, or whatever.

    Katherine May:

    I've heard people say it. It's so easy to have the opposite conversation, which is to say, "There are some things I don't know and there are some experiences I don't understand." Actually, what my experience has taught me is that I probably am screwing up a whole load of things and I'm willing to hear it if I am and just go, "I'm so sorry." I know that, that's all people want from me, is to just be able to hear them.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. It's so true. Also, I'm now finding, I've been separated from my ex for four years now. We're coming up for two years since the summer of all the Black Lives Matter protests. I can see personally quite a clear mark now where the authors or creators, even if they're stand ups or whatever, who I'm really interested in their material, are increasingly proving to be the people who are staying curious about wider social issues. Especially with people a generation older than me who were the kind of writers who were interested in how the 20 somethings of today see the world.

    Alex Heminsley:

    You don't have to go, "I totally adhere to every single thing I've ever seen on Tik Tok. The 20-somethings have absolutely got it nailed." To be someone who goes in the other direction and says, "The youth of today." That's [crosstalk 00:25:18].

    Katherine May:

    Who thought we'd be saying that?

    Alex Heminsley:

    It seems so obvious that a consistent and compassionate interest in multiple perspectives will make better art. Why would you entrench yourself and not try and see that as part of making better art rather than being just under attack?

    Katherine May:

    I love that. I love that so much.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But it's really true. You look at something like, I became obsessed over Christmas, obviously like so many other people, by watching Get Back, the millionaire [crosstalk 00:25:58].

    Katherine May:

    Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Alex Heminsley:

    By 2022, I believed I was a really quite crucial part of The Beatles.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I found it really compelling as a writer, watching a collaborative, creative process. The amount of times that they, they were all driving each other mad, and they were all obviously about to break up, but it was really interesting seeing the amount of times you have to stop and listen. They all debunked to George's house because he's in a half. Then there's trying to get John. Then there's an amazing scene where two of them, Paul McCartney and I think, is it Ringo, go off and they sit. No, it's Paul and John in the canteen at the film studios, discussing George. You can really see them trying to understand his point of view, to work out why they've had this big falling out. It just seems so obvious that a group that could articulate themselves emotionally and a decades long friendship since childhood would make interesting things.

    Alex Heminsley:

    It was fascinating to me, that idea of actively watching people trying to understand each other's perspectives and why they were in a grump at lunch, and see how obviously, then, that would imprint itself on a series of songs.

    Katherine May:

    That's really interesting.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Would it be better if I had turned up obviously [crosstalk 00:27:24]

    Katherine May:

    You could have solved it. It would have been fine. Everything would have been okay and they'd have carried on making really terrible records into the '80s. It would be like Genesis or something. You'd be like, "Oh, God. I wish The Beatles had split up in the '70s." We can all be grateful that they hated each other for a little while.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I worry about, one of the things that I try and follow is, I try not to externalize the things I dislike in the world and look for the bit of me that, that reflects when I'm reacting against it. One of the things I think about a lot in myself is my unwillingness to find a middle way with people who I consider to be beyond the pale.

    Katherine May:

    I was talking to somebody yesterday in my Pilates class. She was saying about an upstairs neighbor of her, who sounds like a holy nightmare. She's had to talk her down from smashing a police car with a hammer and all these kind of things. She sounds like a lot. But I was so interested to hear the person in my class say, "So I've had to work really hard to get on with her. We've come to terms."

    Katherine May:

    I thought, "Wow. I don't know if I'm capable of that." She's older than me and I did wonder if that's my intolerance writ large. I know that's a really extreme example, but would I see it as my responsibility to find a way to get on with this woman or would I be trying to get her-

    Alex Heminsley:

    Bring her down.

    Katherine May:

    ... get her evicted.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It did make me wonder about myself.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yes. It is, it's really interesting. I think that's an interesting question at a point in society where we've been literally isolated from each other. You could probably put your head out of your front door any given day and see someone shouting at someone at traffic lights or any of those things that wouldn't have happened to the same degree if we hadn't all spent half of the last couple of years literally avoiding each other.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Also, this hyper connectivity of being online all the time. I find it really difficult and I've, I say wasted. Maybe it was really super valuable and I'll be really insightful for decades to come. I feel at the moment like I've wasted a phenomenal amount of my own life on trying to work out at what point #speakingout is worth it on social media, or whether you're just stamping the grass down in the pathways more and making the algorithm learn that more money is to be made here and more clicks are to be made here. When speaking out is of value and when it's adding to the heat, and light, and ghastliness of social media and when actually taking the loftiest [inaudible 00:30:13] type route of saying, "I'm only responsible for my life and I will try to do that as well and as ethically as possible," and to do it offline.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I heard her, at the end of the summer of 2020, on the Adam Buxton podcast. I thought it was a really interesting interview because she's such an offline person and where she sees, where does social responsibility lie if you don't have social media accounts to repost stuff on.

    Katherine May:

    God, isn't it terrible that I find it hard to imagine? I can't imagine not being there.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. You feel like, what is there to do if not to retweet. That sentence was a big part of me leaving Twitter was, if that's what I think doing good things is, I need to not have that crutch.

    Katherine May:

    That's so interesting.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I'm not saying, I haven't rebuilt a church hall.

    Katherine May:

    With your bare hands.

    Alex Heminsley:

    [crosstalk 00:31:20] nine months was lead footed, but it has made me more conscious of how, obviously because I'm not scrolling online a lot of the time. But I find it fascinating trying to work out that boundary of at what point, I tend to say to myself if I think there are, because I only have Instagram left. I think if there's something where I have a specific insight, then I'll share it, if it's in any way unique to me, but the rest of the time I'll just leave it and try to do something concrete like send a text.

    Alex Heminsley:

    If I see something's blowing up online, some sort of, as happens every few months, there's some sort of publishing hoo-ha about something.

    Katherine May:

    There is, yup.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I really went, when I left Twitter, I really went out of my way to find, everyone's got an e-mail address, even if you have to go through their agent or whatever. I went through a period of specifically finding people's e-mails or numbers and messaging them and saying, instead of just retweeting something going, "I don't know you, but I want you to know that you're supported. I've read what you've said about this thing and you're not alone in thinking it. If there are concrete steps I can take, tell me," and things like that.

    Katherine May:

    That's amazing. I quite often feel exhausted by the little advocacy I do online.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yes because you-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because it's everything, isn't it.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. Is it worth it? Is it worth not doing it? Are you doing it for the right reason? We can't ever answer any of those questions completely or truthfully anyway, so the whole thing's doubly exhausting because there's no Wizard of Oz who's going to whip back the curtain and go, "Well done. You advocated for these people well." Because they're all individuals, too.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you'd consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of The Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode, and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    I do think sometimes we just contribute to noise being made.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah, and profits for people that will never share any of it with me.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. That is also true. There was a statistic that was going around recently and I've not fact checked this so I'm wary of it. But it said that something like 95% of the all the anti-vax propaganda online was generated by 12, or originated in 12 Facebook accounts.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Wow.

    Katherine May:

    All of those people have become millionaires from that storm that they've cooked up. That connection between the numbers, the concentration of it, and the economics is what I find breathtaking, really. There's a very clear motivation here.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. That's part of it in Somebody To Love, when I wrote about, the book, it's got memoir of what happened to me and then it does a back loop of my previous two books and how much I was forced to re-confront them. A big part of Running Like A Girl and the promo around that was photographs of me where there was this constant push/pull. I was writing a book that was saying, "We're all feeling so exhausted," and in Leap In, to a degree because of swimwear. We feel all so exhausted by having to look right to do exercise because marketing images will only ever use perfect colored, perfect bodied, able bodied, smiling, calm women in all that market.

    Alex Heminsley:

    This has changed a lot. I was writing Running Like A Girl 10 years ago now. The reality is, is that we're sweating, and red faced, and feel hilarious, and feel like we shouldn't be allowed in the club because we don't look right, or we've got a big, weird lolloping gait when we run, or blobby bits that you can't even see when you're in the water when you're swimming, and all of those things.

    Alex Heminsley:

    While at the same time, trying to promote the book was a series of being put into often designer running kit and having photographers who were used to taking [crosstalk 00:35:58].

    Katherine May:

    Oh, please tell this story. I related. I had a very similar experience to the story you relate in Somebody To Love, about the photo shoot with the designer clothes and the all male styling team.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah, all male. It was a different time. Nobody involved was trying to be cruel. Everybody thought this was a lovely, glamorous, and exciting opportunity for me. But the way that these things are commissioned out was that the person who'd maybe commissioned the piece had probably read the book or read some of the book, enough to know that they wanted to use me.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But the people who commissioned the photo, and the person who took the photo, and the person who did the makeup and the hair, none of them knew that it was a running book. It's a woman's running book in this fancy Sunday supplement. So they all thought they were doing me an absolute solid to send down a suitcase worth of designer running gear and put loads of makeup on me.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Then they were all just so visibly disappointed. Again, I am not in any way someone who's in any position to be bigging up about plus size culture. At that point, I probably was size 12. They were so visibly disappointed, not just in my body, but in the fact that bits of it moved up and down when I was in motion.

    Katherine May:

    It's a shock to them.

    Alex Heminsley:

    You realize how synthetic those covers, or the cover of those old school running magazines. They always, a woman's suspended on a desert track, smiling and not sweating. They never had boobs. When you run, your boobs go up in the air. If that's the point at which the photographer takes the photo, you do look weird.

    Katherine May:

    When they're in flight.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But also, it's not weird. It only looks weird because no one else in the history of space and time ever depicted anyone over size eight running. It was mortifying because they really wanted me to have these super glamorous, but also relatable shots. I felt utterly demoralized by it and guilty for being demoralized by it because that was the opposite of what my book was saying. I felt like I couldn't tell anybody because I'd be dobbing myself in.

    Alex Heminsley:

    So, I did nothing for a whole decade.

    Katherine May:

    There's the seeds of a whole Instagram culture there.

    Katherine May:

    I had a really similar experience about the same time. I had a book out and I was invited for a photo shoot at a big women's magazine, but one of the more relatable ones, not one of the glossies. It was in between, in between, more for middle aged women. Anyway, I probably positioned it exactly in the market enough for everyone to know which magazine it was now.

    Katherine May:

    But I had the same as you, asking me what my dress size was before I turned up, and my shoe size, which I provided. I was, at the time, a size 16. I'm now not a 16. I'm more than that. And also my shoe size, which was a size eight. I pointed out that I'm very tall and therefore, most clothes do not fit me even if they're in the right size. Therefore, I will bring my own clothes because I know that you won't hit lucky because I rarely hit lucky.

    Katherine May:

    Turned up and they had a rail of clothes ready for me. The jeans, we got you a size 12 jeans because I wondered if you could squeeze into them. I was like, "If I could squeeze into size 12 jeans, I would have said I was a size 12." Do you know what I mean?

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    If I fit into a size 12, I'm going to tell you I'm a size 12. I've told you I'm a size 16, which, given the economics that most women work on probably means a little bit larger than that sometimes, too.

    Katherine May:

    Size five shoes that had a four inch heel. Well, I'm six foot already. I was like, "I can't wear these clothes. I cannot put these clothes on my body. These clothes don't fit on my body." This look of intense disappointment, and eye rolling, and [inaudible 00:39:56]. Because I felt so ashamed of myself, I went on and tried to squeeze myself into the two sizes too small jeans. And hey, guess what? They didn't fit.

    Katherine May:

    So I then had to say, "I've got a bag of clothes. Can I wear these?" "Well, they're not, these are just not very fashionable," they said. I was like, "Well, I'm not very fashionable. You're representing a writer here. I'm not a fashion icon in any way and I'm not pretending to be." So in the end, the compromise was reached that I could wear my own dress, but I had to pretend to wear the size five shoes.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Oh, God, like the ugly sisters.

    Katherine May:

    Like the freaking ugly sisters. I cried. I was in physical pain but I felt so humiliated. The stylist looked at me and she said, "We had a load of women with cancer before you. They didn't make a fuss."

    Alex Heminsley:

    Oh, my word! This is a positive of social media is that it created space for a plurality of voices because the stranglehold that women's magazines run by skinny white women had for decades over what being a woman would be, and could be, and should be.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I was books editor for one of the glossies for nearly a decade earlier on in my career. I remember endlessly bringing authors to them to review or interview and then the answer coming back no once their photo had been seen, like it couldn't have besmirched the magazine. Some of the shoots, not all of the shoots, and there are always exceptions, et cetera, et cetera.

    Alex Heminsley:

    But I found the publicity campaign for Running Like A Girl in particular really demoralizing. Then I paid a photographer, and it cost me quite a lot, and I was lucky to know a photographer that I trusted, to take shots of me for Leap In. I was like, "I wish more people could understand that, that's empowering." Saving up the money to represent yourself as you see yourself as your best. It's not empowering to be ennobled by a glossy magazine who saying, "Girl Boss, blah, blah, blah," at the bottom of the caption while making you cry because your feet are too big.

    Katherine May:

    And you're literally squeezed into painful shoes.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I can be really down on social media, but it definitely let chinks of light in which are ever being widened, which industries like women's magazines were extremely reluctant to give up on. It's no coincidence to me that a lot of the generation of people that are now the most vocal anti-trans ones were 20, 30 years ago gatekeepers of that kind of journalism, and that they are not dealing well with questions being asked.

    Katherine May:

    No. Because they thought they were the ones who could claim victimhood and they were actually all along victimizing a lot of other people, but it was just very, very silent.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Don't get me wrong. I think being a journalist in the '90s, if your choice was being treated like Queen Bea at a women's magazine or having your bum pinched on a desk at one of the dailies, where all the men were out getting pissed at four hour lunches and you did all the work and didn't get the bylines. I'm not pretending that, that was necessarily an easy time to be a woman, either. But the point is, you stay curious and you don't say, "Well, it was hard for me back then so it can't be hard for you now because these small number of things have changed."

    Katherine May:

    It's so interesting. Actually, what's lovely about this conversation is, I think it's been a lot about the invisible ways that society has changed already and is changing. We have not reached the perfect state of existence by any means. But wow, the difference in power I have over my own representation now and 10 years ago is huge. That's partly because the tools are there for me to do it, but it's also because the conversations exist that allow me to find a community that will back me up if I say, "I don't want to wear clothes that were two sizes too small and shoes that didn't fit me to squeeze into an image that isn't me in the first place."

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. Definitely. I found, going through all those previously mentioned three things that are the core of Somebody To Love really, really difficult. But I ultimately found the experience hugely cathartic by the time I'd finished writing the book because it allowed me to revisit things like those photo shoots for Running Like A Girl. Which at the time, I definitely didn't feel able to articulate were painful or difficult, because I was being told, "Your book's a success. Everything must be going brilliantly for you."

    Alex Heminsley:

    But there's still this feeling of the queasy feeling sloshing of adrenaline in the pit of your stomach. It made me realize how far I've come and we'd come. Even though during the summer of 2020, when the conversations around trans lives were becoming super toxic and I was pre-publication of Somebody To Love, I was extremely aware of what the blow back could be for me personally or for our family.

    Alex Heminsley:

    There was a real struggle for me with being honest about my experiences and acknowledging the rage and the pain that I'd felt, while not making an eternal testament to the most negative feelings I've had about my family.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Then now, I actually feel quite hopeful a lot of the time about things like trans lives and the conversation around them. Because I see, I think before I was looking at it from a very UK specific perspective. Now I see globally, things are changing for the positive at quite a pace.

    Alex Heminsley:

    When I was still with my ex she, for her work, had to go to some sort of conference in Geneva. They had a conversation around self-ID and trans lives in Switzerland. The Swiss were like, "We are really far from that. That's not going to happen." It was announced a couple of weeks ago.

    Alex Heminsley:

    So, the idea that the Swiss who were four, it was just before I fell pregnant, so five years ago, the Swiss were saying, "Yeah, we're a really long way from that. Don't hedge your bets." At which point, the Theresa May government was looking like it was going to make positive changes. Although it's depressing for us in the UK, it's exciting to see that other countries, things can change really quickly. Public moods do shift. They do and they will, and that is exciting. I think that, that the ever flowing river of public opinion is not going to stop flowing.

    Katherine May:

    I think it's often an issue of what people have come into contact with. Minds change very quickly when they are presented with real life examples rather than these abstracted rants in The Daily Mail.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Whether things are presented in the context of shame, I think that's really important. I think that, that's something that's really shifted with mental health in the last 10 years. It used to be, depression was seen purely as a flaw. People like [inaudible 00:47:23] Gordon have done amazing things in that kind of area, and that it was something to be ashamed of.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I really wanted with Somebody To Love, to be really open and honest about the pain that I felt. Because to pretend that it hadn't happened would only make other people feel terrible about feeling all parts of the process. But also to acknowledge that I have a really fantastic relationship with my ex. We are amazing co-parents. We are definitely a family, even if we're not a marriage.

    Alex Heminsley:

    To acknowledge that without shame, and that I made what many would see, loads of people I've seen online have said, "How could she have not known," and things like that. Well, you know.

    Katherine May:

    Some things aren't plainly obvious.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I refuse to be ashamed for the choices I made because they ended up with a situation that I'm really proud of now. I'm so proud that I got us to where, it was my dogged nagging, and asking, and, "Are you okay? What's the problem? What's the problem," that got us to where we are now. I could have just shut up and pretended I hadn't seen anything and gone, "Being normal is what counts. As long as I can stay married and my son can have two parents, a mom and a dad."

    Alex Heminsley:

    But I didn't value those things over what I could tell wasn't the truth. I think getting rid of shame is a really important part of, I often find when you see MPs being appalled by things, I always find it quite reveling when they do a Tweet and you just think, "Wow, you really-"

    Katherine May:

    You're wrestling the shame there, aren't you?

    Alex Heminsley:

    [inaudible 00:49:12] you're saying what you think you're saying in that one, mate.

    Katherine May:

    You're telling us a lot.

    Katherine May:

    I just think it's such a redemptive book, honestly. Culturally redemptive as well as individually redemptive. I'm so glad that you had the courage to write it because I know it must have taken it.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    Along those lines, I note that you've written a novel now, which is possibly a move away from memoir because you can't face it again, but also very much to our gain. Can you tell me a bit about your novel that's coming up next year? This year, sorry. We have moved into 2022 now.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. I was supposed to write the novel before Somebody To Love. I went on a research trip. I went to Norway because most of the novel's set in north Norway. Actually what happened was, I had such an amazing time on that trip and gave up drinking for several months. It was the first moment of clarity that I had mentally. My son, I think, was two at that point. I was supposed to come back and sit down and write the novel. Actually, Somebody To Love fell out of my head first. I felt like I couldn't write around it.

    Alex Heminsley:

    So, writing the novel later was a real treat. It's about two sisters who don't know each other exist. Their shared father dies. Then the younger of the sisters, who's grown up in the suburbs without much sense of direction and not quite knowing what she wants to do, has to go and find the other sister and let her know that their dad's died. She's chosen to go off, quite understandably, and live in north Norway, up in the archipelago of islands that's up in the Arctic Circle and has completely cut herself off. It's a mutual thawing.

    Katherine May:

    Ooh, love it. You know I love a wintry metaphor. I move for this.

    Alex Heminsley:

    I wanted to write an adventure story for girls. I wanted to do tin [inaudible 00:51:14] scenes, where someone was hanging off the edge of a cliff for dear life and things like that, but to do it with an emotional resonance that you perhaps don't get in Jack London novels.

    Katherine May:

    Well, you have to dig quite hard, that's all.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. It's weird. You would think that writing memoir would be as exposing as it can get. But then, as with the MP Tweets thing, there's some lingering terror before the publication of a novel where you think, "Oh, my God. Are people going to read things that I didn't know I was writing? What have I said that I don't know yet that I've said?"

    Katherine May:

    It sounds wonderful and I can't wait to read it. I wish you all the publishing luck with it.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Oh, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    It's been fantastic to talk to you. Thank you so much. I will obviously make sure that everybody can find links to you in your various locations, in the show notes.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Okay.

    Katherine May:

    Even if you are gradually cutting down on those for very sensible reasons.

    Alex Heminsley:

    Yeah. Under this rock is where Alex is on Thursdays.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    It's at this time of year that I always think I should become a gardener. Not an actual professional gardener, but just somebody who does their garden occasionally. It's not my skill in life. It should be, by rights, but everything I plant dies.

    Katherine May:

    In fact, I'm just looking into my garden at the moment. I had somebody in to plant my garden out and to clear it in the autumn, because I knew I was never going to get around to it and I was beginning to feel overwhelmed. He dug everything up, planted new plants. Now we've had some builders in and they've put a load of wood on top of my garden, which I know didn't look like much.

    Katherine May:

    There's sawdust all over it. Full disclosure, the dog has dug up a couple of the plants repeatedly and I've given up replanting them again. I have a friend who said to me recently, "I just don't know what you do to gardens." I don't, either. I can't work out why I can't just have a garden like a normal person. It always get full of rubble somehow. I don't know. I think I'm just not very domestic. I think I was born without that gene. I was. Come as a shock.

    Katherine May:

    Well, anyway. Spring is springing and perhaps things will grow soon. Perhaps I will replant some new things to replace the ones that have been a bit squashed by the people who had to take my bathroom floor out because it was rotting.

    Katherine May:

    My big crisis this week is that my staircase has been found to have woodworm, and also that it has never been attached to the wall, or at least not for a long time. So luckily, we haven't ever fallen through it, but that has caused a building emergency this week. Adult life is fun. What can I tell you? I'm very grateful to be able to afford to have someone in to mend it. Certainly hasn't always been the case in my life.

    Katherine May:

    I hope you'll all pick up Alex Heminsley's book after listening to her. Somebody To Love comes out in paperback on the 24th of March in the UK. She's also got a novel coming out soon, too, as she talked about, Under The Same Stars, which I've not had the privilege of reading yet, but I'm sure it'll be great. She's one of our really endurable reading voices in the UK, I think. I don't know how much she's reached into the U.S. Maybe you guys are discovering her for the first time. But anyway, I really enjoyed that conversation.

    Katherine May:

    As you know, I think I run this podcast just to have a good chat with people sometimes. It's been in a bit short supply over the last few years. I'm not losing my enthusiasm, either.

    Katherine May:

    So, I want to say thank you to the producer, Buddy Peace; and to Meghan Hutchins, who looks after all the details; and to my Patreon community, who are just reeling from, I don't think they're reeling, the first ever live bonus episode that we did for The Wintering Sessions, which they were already getting once a month, but now I've started to do them live and on video so that just they can watch, and then they get it as a recording afterwords.

    Katherine May:

    I've had great fun and done a lot of thinking, answering all the members' questions. I really enjoy that and trying to provide my cultural highlights, such as they are. If you can, do join the Patreon community. I've got some really good stuff coming out, too, some changes to be made, some additional things. It's really worth being there, I think. I'm really proud of it. It helps keep this podcast running, and not just having to do short seasons, as I've done before, but to keep it running on and on, just makes it possible. It helps to do things like make sure it's accessible by getting it transcribed, every episode, which to me is really important. I hope it's something that you guys appreciate, too. There's lots of different people who find transcription to be helpful. It's not always the obvious people.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, you understand that. I don't need to tell you that. I will be back very soon with another episode and another brilliant conversational partner. But until then, take enormous care. Do what you can. Make sure you give yourself a rest, too. All right, guys. See you soon.

Show Notes

This week Katherine chats to journalist and writer Alexandra Heminsley, author of Some Body to Love. After infertility treatment, a challenging pregnancy and a sexual assault, Alex found her relationship drifting apart for reasons she couldn’t fully understand. But when her partner finally disclosed that they wanted to transition to being a woman, Alex had to come to terms with something she never expected: being part of a LBTQIA+ family. In this conversation, she explores her compassionate response to her former partner’s needs, how it has changed her viewpoint on life, and how life can be remade in the face of the unexpected.

We talk about:

  • Discovering that your partner is trans

  • Becoming part of an LBTQIA+ family

  • Fertility treatment and its complications

  • Body image and women’s magazines

  • Alex’s advocacy for trans rights and inclusion

Links from this episode:

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Meghan O' Rourke on the invisible kingdom of chronic illness

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Meghan O' Rourke on the invisible kingdom of chronic illness

———
This week Katherine chats to poet and author Meghan O’ Rourke.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hello. I'm Katherine May, and welcome to the Wintering Sessions. I've already tried to record this intro once. I normally take you outside for a little walk, but today, it is raining incessantly, and it's grey, and I took the dog with me, and she frankly objected. She did not want to go for a walk today. So my recording was interspersed with her growling at other dogs as we passed, which was a bit embarrassing. She gets so wet blast as she's really wooly.

    Katherine May:

    Then joggers ran past and cars came past. So I stopped the recording, and I've come back home. Sometimes you need a quiet afternoon anyway. You might be able to hear the washing machine running in the background. I don't know. I've lit some candles all over the house because that cold grey light can be so hard to endure. Sometimes it makes you really miserable.

    Katherine May:

    I learned in Sweden a couple of weeks ago where I was launching the Swedish version of Wintering that the warmth of candlelight on a grey afternoon does a lot of work. So that's what I've done here, and I've actually had builders in the house all week. They have been restoring my bathroom floor, which unfortunately crumbled and collapsed because there was a leak under the toilet, not very glamorous, but nevertheless true.

    Katherine May:

    So there's been people in my house all week, and it's just exhausting. I'm so antisocial. I'm really used to my own time and space. I don't like it. So I'm tired and I'm grouchy, and I'm nevertheless delighted to tell you that we have Meghan O'Rourke on the podcast this week talking about her really striking, maybe even life changing for some people book, The Invisible Kingdom.

    Katherine May:

    As Meghan will tell you, The Invisible Kingdom is all about invisible chronic illness, and when we say invisible, we don't mean invisible to anyone that's looking. We mean invisible to society, and that's because it's often undiagnosable. Meghan has a really specific story that's really interesting that we'll go into in the podcast, but I know loads of people who listen will relate to that, and I did, too, that sense of knowing that something's wrong and not being able to get any acknowledgement or help up and certainly not treatment for that.

    Katherine May:

    We talked a lot about fatigue. I have suffered from serious fatigue at many points in my life. It's really common for autistic people. I do a lot of work now to stave it off. It's quite interesting to me sometimes that I forget to make that effort. I begin to take it for granted that I'm not tired and forget that that's because I have loads of stuff in place, and when that happens, it visits me really quickly, and it visits me in ways that really surprise me.

    Katherine May:

    This week, it really has, and things go for me like I lose the power of speech. I begin to feel like my words are disappearing, like my mouth doesn't want to move. When I do speak, I can't finish a sentence. I can't find words, which as you can imagine is really unusual for me. I'm a person who lives by words, and I've been going to bed at 9:00 being absolutely shattered and various other things.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, it's really boring hearing people talk about being tired, but I don't think we have a grasp on tiredness in this society, not a common one, anyway, and we tend to see it as shameful and as a failure of energy somehow like you can marshal your own energy and we confuse it with laziness, of course, inevitably because we always find a way to blame people for the worst aspects of their experience.

    Katherine May:

    I think so many of us will be able to relate through various life experiences, and I think one of the things that's making loads of us tired this week, this month is the global situation that's unfolding around us, the terrible war on Ukraine, the way that after many, many years of watching the news anxiously, we found another thing that renews that fear and terror and sense that our vigilance is required.

    Katherine May:

    So if you are feeling that this week, I'm sending love. It's okay. You're allowed to feel what you feel. You're not betraying anyone. You're not taking up unnecessary space. Take a rest. You don't have to watch forever and have a little listen to me and Meghan talking about what it means to feel like you are so truly exhausted you can't go on, and also how she found a way through that. I think you'll really enjoy it. Take care. I'll see you the other side.

    Katherine May:

    Meghan, welcome. Thank you for appearing. No, not appearing, appearing is the wrong word, isn't it? Speaking to me today. Appearing is too grander a thing. I don't think I'm ready for the YouTube channel yet. That seems a bit more visible than I'd prefer.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Well, I'm so happy to be here.

    Katherine May:

    I was privileged to receive a proof copy of your new book, The Invisible Kingdom. I think, I mean, we share a publisher, but I think they sneakily knew that I was going to relate hard to it because it's about chronic illness, but also it's about the battles that we have to have our illness seen, and then once it's seen, to have it solve because we have the expectation that we can be well again, I suppose.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah, right. We have a lot of time tiny narratives of recovery, and it's harder for us to think about and talk about what it's like to be changed permanently, but not in a narrative way that brings a happy ending, necessarily.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, not necessarily a change that you desire. So let's set the scene here because when was it that you began to realise that you were not a well person?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Well, as it turns out, Katherine, this is one of the hardest questions to answer. I say in my book that I got sick gradually and then suddenly, which is the way that Hemingway describes going broke.

    Katherine May:

    Very similar.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right. There's something similar about it. So in this very strange way, I had small things happen to me all my life, but what I can say is that in the months after my mother died, and she died in Christmas day of 2008. So in 2009, just started to feel really off, really tired all the time and started seeing doctors in a more active way looking for answers.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Then in 2011, traveled to Vietnam, got a very strange rash on my arm and came home with a fever and really never recovered. So at that point, there was this precipice that I fell off of. So at that point, entering a true roller coaster of ups and downs, at which point it was extremely obvious I was sick.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I describe it in the book as someone walking slowly into water, who doesn't know how to swim and you're getting deeper and deeper and you know you're moving in, but you're not quite sure, and then all of a sudden the land drops out from under your feet, and that's what it felt like was, "Am I sick? Does everyone feel this way or is something really wrong?"

    Katherine May:

    "Is this what age feels like?"

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    "Is this what ageing?" I remember being on Facebook, of all things, and my former boss, it was this period in Facebook where everyone would link various apps. So he had his running app linked to his account and he would say like, "So and so just ran 7.35 miles today in a time of blah, blah, blah." I remember I had the thought, "How can he run that far in your 30s when you just stopped being able to do anything?" So that I think gives a sense of how I acclimated to my illness without knowing that I was ill until I felt it.

    Katherine May:

    Because the individual symptoms are not necessarily groundbreaking in terms of thinking, "Oh, this is definitely a serious illness." They're tiredness, they're just feeling off and aches, and that kind of thing. It's not like a big lump somewhere or something like that that would tell you that something is seriously awry. So you just roll them into everyday life and keep thinking they're normal for a while.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Absolutely. Yeah. So if so many of our illness stories start with the dramatic finding of a lump, of a scan, of a fall, mine was more that beginning in my 20s I started having strange neurological symptoms that would come and go, a lot of vertigo. I was tired, periodically just incredibly tired. I had night sweats. I had hives. I had, as I say in the book, all these "small thing". I had brain fog periodically. I was sometimes very, very tired, but the nature of my symptoms, exactly as you're saying, where they were systemic and they roamed my body. They also came and went.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So it wasn't a consistent every day this happened. It would seem to come to my head. I would feel really unwell. I would go to the doctor. My labs would look, as it turns out, not perfect, but the doctors didn't really tell me that. From their perspective, they looked pretty good except I was anaemic and I had this one autoimmune marker, but I think it was a real challenge for doctors because I showed up and I was in my 20s. I was running, I had a job, I was an editor at the New Yorker. I had a really busy life and they would say, "Well, you're probably stressed," and they were very kind. I think I was quite lucky, but they would say, "Maybe you need to do meditation, let go of anxiety, learn to live with stress a little more, make sure you get more sleep."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It's not like I was living a life where I rested all the time. So I thought, "Okay. I'm just in my 20s and not taking care of myself." Periodically, I would say to my then boyfriend and now partner, "Is this how everyone feels?" I would Google autoimmune diseases. So I had this, right? It was a quite amorphous experience, and it was really, I always say to actually my writing students that life hands you all these things that actually are quite interesting writing problems, too. I think that the writer in me just thought, "Okay. This is subjectivity, right? This is actually maybe how everyone else feels and maybe I'm just a little more sensitive about it."

    Katherine May:

    It's so hard to unpack because there's so many different narratives that fall into place about women who are sick, and I think particularly bright young women. There's this assumption that we're a bit neurotic, that we are overdoing it, that we're burning the candle at both ends, that we're over-introspecting and over-interpreting, that we're spending too much time on Google looking up random symptoms that actually are nothing. Were you believed? Were you treated with respect and dignity or did you feel that people were making assumptions about what you were saying?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Well, look, I, in retrospect, know that I had various medical conditions that are pretty verifiable at this point, and that I had them for 15 years before anyone really searched for them. So I would say that my doctors were incredibly kind. I really did have nice doctors, but I say in the book I don't believe that they believed me in the sense that I would go in and I would offer a testimony, "Here's what's going on. Here's what I'm feeling," and the answer always came back with a set of labs that looked close to normal and a, "You're probably stressed," right?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I think the reason for that is exactly as you say, which is that the stereotype of the sickly woman who's diseased that's strictly psychological is one we really live with, right? I say in the book that it's a truth universally acknowledged among the chronically ill that if you're a young woman in possession of vague symptoms like fatigue and pain, you're going to be searching for a doctor who believes you're actually sick, right?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    There's a lot of data to back up what you're saying, which is that women, especially younger women, overwhelmingly are labeled hypochondriacs in early stages of illnesses, and actually, in particular with these systemic roaming diseases like autoimmune disease, diseases that are hard to measure, whether it's pain, whether it's something like long COVID that we don't understand very well, whether it's an autoimmune disease, migraines, these diseases that are hard to measure, medicine really struggles with figuring out how to credit the testimony of patients who have them, and it's like if you're a young woman with that, you're really in trouble.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I mean, I've been through this particular mill twice in my life. I had two bouts of really debilitating illness in my teens and then in my mid 20s. I know really so well the reception you get when you take that into a stressed doctor's office.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah, exactly.

    Katherine May:

    Like you, I had the doubts and the weary like sighing, "Well, I suppose we could call it ME," which was the first label I got, and then the second label was fibromyalgia, but both times both doctors said, "Well, we don't really know what it is, but we'll give it this label because then you'll feel happier," kind of thing like it was this emotional need of mine rather than me being in terrible pain and exhausted and unable to function on a day-to-day basis.

    Katherine May:

    For me, both times they passed after a couple of years, but the impact on my life was huge, and actually, the shame, I think, is the enduring take home for me that I was ashamed that I could become so sick at such a young age, I think. It felt like a failure, and then the kind of shame that I felt having taken that to medical professionals who couldn't see it on one of their metrics and therefore found it a bit tedious. They couldn't take action and so they didn't find it at all interesting.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, there's so much in what you just said. First, I'm so sorry that you went through it because I really know firsthand what that's like. You'll maybe laugh at this, but I remember a doctor finally just saying, "Well, okay. Let's just say you have a chronic fatigue-like syndrome." He wouldn't even say chronic fatigue syndrome. He was like, "Chronic fatigue-like syndrome, okay, and that's just what it is. I can't really help you."

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow. That's [crosstalk 00:16:42]

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I was like, "All right. You really don't care," but there's so much I want to linger on for a second in what you just said, I mean, first, you talked about going into a stressed doctor's office, right? One thing I try to do in the book is really point to the system because I think that it's so easy to be frustrated with individual doctors and certainly I was at various points, but we do have, and I think the same is true in the UK, these modern healthcare systems that are set up for acute care and not for chronic illness care. Doctors don't have time. There are really mired and bureaucratic paperwork. In the States, at least, they're really worried about lawsuits, and saying things like "I don't know" to patients is verboten.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So you're absolutely right that a key part of the context is you're walking into a stressed person's very busy day and you have an unsolvable and actually maybe unnamable problem because you're living at the edge of medical knowledge, right? That's just, I think, for doctors, you're right, they lose interest because it's hard probably to be the expert who suddenly doesn't have expertise, and who also all the pressures of bureaucracy are militating against you or being able to sit and offer care and empathy. So there's that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think also they get a lot of people through their office who maybe aren't sick, and that drains the sympathy and empathy from their practice. There's so many things, but of course we are sitting here sympathising with people who didn't necessarily sympathise with us.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Sympathise with us, I know, which is ironic, but that's why we're writing this, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    She's generous.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    That's part of what makes us writers. No. I think that's exactly. Well, I found it really odd and I have to say and I will say, I still find it quite odd that, and in some ways I think it's helpful to refresh the oddness in our minds of a system in which a sick person walks into the very place that's supposed to offer care and is met with a shrug and disbelief.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Sometimes to try to get people to feel the oddness of that, I sometimes say, "Imagine that you walked into a restaurant, a highly regarded restaurant, and you sat down and you said, 'I think I'd like the steak tonight,' and the waiter says, 'Hmm,' and then goes back, and then the chef comes out and says, 'Are you sure? I don't think you do want the steak. There's no evidence here that you actually want the steak. You, in fact, look like a person who wants the salad.'"

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It's really interesting, actually, that we are in a system, and it doesn't have to be this way, where the patient's testimony is almost invaluable, I mean, almost not valued at all, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    This is not how medicine always worked. So that's one of the things I try to get at a little bit in my book, but you also talked about shame, and I wanted to go back to that, too, because you really hit the nail in the head. I felt so much shame, and I tried to talk about this in the book just about what it's like in an experiential way, what the lived experience of having a poorly understood illness really is beyond the pain, and the brain fog, and the fatigue.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    As anyone who struggled with a chronic condition knows, you're putting so much effort into surviving and getting by, and yet the world isn't validating and recognising that. So it's you who ends up internalising a sense of shame and vulnerability. It's just so ironic to me that it's the sick person who ends up feeling like she's wrong somehow.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and it's just not the illness that gets you in the end. It's the isolation and the sense of falling out of the whole of life, and not being relevant to anyone, and not being comprehensible to anyone. When you talk about being exhausted or fatigue is the medical term is, that means something very different to people like you and I than it does to somebody who hasn't experienced weapons-grade fatigue that just drains everything out of you in a few moments and renders you completely incapable.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Absolutely. We definitely need a different language. Virginia Woolf talks about this so brilliantly in her now long ago essay on being ill where she says, "When you fall in love, you have Shakespeare and Keats' words to articulate your feelings, but if you get a headache, you go to the doctor's office. There's nothing in literature to arm you."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It really is amazing that the very symptoms that characterise the illnesses that you and I are talking about, ME, fibromyalgia, in my case I ended up being diagnosed with Lyme disease that had gone untreated, and also a genetic condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, but the symptoms that most characterise these often are what we call fatigue and brain fog, which, as you say, if you haven't experienced them, those words mean nothing, right?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    You think, "Oh, I've had a little brain fog when I was hungover." Well, imagine that multiplied and then unrelenting, right? Then as you say fatigue, it was not fatigue. Fatigue is, "I'm tired. I need to sleep," or "I just ran 20 miles and my body is exhausted." This was like, and I wonder if you felt this, too, I mean, I just remember having this image that I would wake up in the morning and it was like my body had turned to sand, and I had to hold all the sand together through some effort of will that my very cells were just not functioning anymore, exactly as you say.

    Katherine May:

    Totally relate. Yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. As you say, it's incredibly lonely. I felt really, really lonely in it. The irony was that the moments when I actually tried to breach the loneliness to say it to another person, I felt worse. That was when I felt shame. When I reached out was when I then felt the most shame, which would just send me into this further cycle of loneliness. I don't know if that was just me-

    Katherine May:

    It's so grim, yes. I know it so well.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    ... or whether it was because it was just invisible and there was no way to make it legible. Really, that's why I wrote the book was that I was like, "I have to somehow make this invisible problem visible."

    Katherine May:

    How were you surviving through this? I mean, were you able to make a living? I mean, one of the, I don't know, the long term effects for me was the inability to make a living like dropping out of a career that I had trained for, that I was unable to perform anymore, and again, the long-term shame that came from that, the sense of financial incompetence.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, absolutely. Well, I racked up quite a lot of credit card debt.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah. Me, too.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. It's funny because people will say, "You seem fine and you were writing this and doing that." So I was both lucky and unlucky. I was lucky in that I had left a career working as an editor and I had started basically adjunct teaching, which I think is in a sense maybe what you were doing, but I had these one year contracts. It was a little better than adjuncting and that I had a real contract and I would have healthcare, but it was these visiting positions mostly at universities near me.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I really loved teaching. It was great, but when I got super sick became almost impossible to teach. So part of the shame was that that I would go. I would try to talk about poetry with my students and it was, again, dredging words up from the muck and just thinking. I remember at one point saying, we were reading a poem about spring and I was like, "We're talking today about," and couldn't think of the word spring, "the season. It comes after fall. There are flowers." My students were like, "Spring?" "Yes."

    Katherine May:

    You're like, "Well done. You guessed my clues."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Exactly. So I don't know if they experienced that as a form of pedagogy or what, but the thing that was lucky and I was talking about this with another friend who suffered from untreated Lyme disease, I didn't have a job where I was on my feet every day, right? I had a job I could go, I could teach. I remember I would take the train home from Princeton and I would pass out because I had exerted all my energy and I would have a crash afterward as many people do with these kinds of illnesses where if you exert yourself, you have a post-exertional crash. I would be so a conked out that the conductor would have to wake me up at Penn station and say, "Okay. We're here. You have to go." Then I would just hide for three days.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So in the world, it seemed like I was still functioning, but basically, I was making these increasingly tiny forays into the world and then recovering for an entire week, right? So yeah, it had a huge impact on ... My last book came out. My last nonfiction book came out in 2011, and this is coming out in 2022, and a reason for that is that I was really, really sick, right?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    There was a period where I think the hardest part, and I wonder if ... I hear this in what you're saying, too, was that not only was this what I had trained for, but writing was my entire identity, right? It was how I cope with challenges. So when my mother was sick, I wrote, right? I wrote poems, I wrote prose. Now suddenly, I was facing this really enormous challenge, and what I precisely could not do was write because cognitively, I was not there.

    Katherine May:

    Because actually, I mean, although it looks like we sit around all day, writing is a huge cognitive effort. It's tiring.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, yeah, no. Yeah. No, and I mean, it just wasn't there. So there was a period where I told myself, "Okay. You can write one line of poetry a day," and I did actually in my last book of poems, which came out a couple years ago. You'll see a lot of it is written as one line, almost like aphorisms that are disconnected from others because that was really all I could do at the time.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So that was actually one way I knew I was getting better was when I got treated for Lyme disease. Eventually, I took antibiotics and it was an up and down process, but suddenly, I could start writing paragraphs, and I started writing this book, and I thought, "Okay. Something has changed." So yeah, it's a real challenge. I'm really worried right now about the COVID-19 and the tremendous number of people who are being left with long-term effects from this virus.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and what that really means. I don't think we've really absorbed what that will mean for our society and for individuals because that level of dysfunction is hidden currently in our society, and it's huge.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah, and are we going to support those people, right? I mean, you and I struggled alone with this burden, and even now, we're talking about it in terms of, I don't know about you, but I still struggle with what happened and still on an ongoing way as if it's my burden, my story, my problem.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    One thing I try to really argue in the book is that this is actually society's problem, and that the loneliness I felt was society's pathology, that we don't know how to credit the testimony of those who don't have highly visible, highly measurable illnesses, that we are really uncomfortable with chronic illness, right? We want our illness narratives to be either you get sick, you battle cancer, and you recover or we even like the stories of death in which there's a spiritual succumbing to-

    Katherine May:

    There's a sense of an ending.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    An ending, right.

    Katherine May:

    Chronic illness is never ending, and it doesn't change. It's a repeated cycle that doesn't look much different from one month than next. I think it's narratively boring if you-

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right. Totally.

    Katherine May:

    I think that boredom translates into the health profession. I think they think, "Oh, here comes that person again with exactly the same unsolvable nonsense," frankly.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right, right, that, "I don't even know if it's real and I'm worried I'll be made a fool of if I believe them and then it turns out to be fake." Yeah. Right. There's the combination of ... I do think that the it never goes away is a real problem. There's this incredible quote by a psychologist or maybe he's a psychiatrist, T. F. Main, where he, I'm going to try to pull it up here, but he just says it. He says, "The best kind of patient is one who from great suffering and danger of life or sanity responds quickly to a treatment that interests his doctor and thereafter remains completely well." It's like you and I were the opposite kind of patient. We did not respond quickly to a treatment, and we did not interest our doctors formidably well.

    Katherine May:

    No, and I think I would add to that having been, and I'm guessing the same true for you, having been quite a model student at school, the kind of person who did respond quickly to everything and learnt their lessons and progress. I took it as a particular insult. I felt like I was not the kind of person who didn't respond to this stuff, actually. I was a progress-maker.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    That's so interesting that you said this because I think I don't quite come out and say this in the book, but I feel like one reason I wrote the book, too, is as a kind of apology to all of those whom I hadn't believed before I got really sick. I remember a friend of mine's mother had ME, CFS, chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic, encephalomyelitis. I was in high school. She was quite sick. I just thought, "Why didn't she perk up and just get out there?" I really didn't understand, right? I mean, the solipsism of the 15-year-old, who's a good student and still has energy.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I think part of the sting of getting sick was that I was like, "This is isn't supposed to happen to me. What was I thinking? What was I talking about?" So it was an incredibly humanising experience for me. In that sense, the experience of getting sick really, really changed me in ways that I can identify, which is that it completely altered the way I thought about other people's testimony and other people's subjectivity, and it was really humbling to just realise how clueless I had been, but also to have that moment of going to the doctor and just being like, "No, you're supposed to believe me. I'm someone who's excelled."

    Katherine May:

    "I'm good. I'm credible."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    "I'm credible." I know this is something that a lot of, I interviewed a number patients and so many people talk to me about really trying to present themselves as credible to their doctors and how much emotional labour went into that.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    There's a funny moment in the book, it's funny to me in a dark way, where I finally saw this really top tier rheumatologist who I had taken months and months to get an appointment with. He met with me. He was so nice. They asked me a million questions. They took everything quite seriously and then he's like, "Okay. I don't think you have an autoimmune disease. I'm going to narrate your case," and he started recording his patient notes in front of me.

    Katherine May:

    In front of you? Oh, my God.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    He began by saying, "Patient in her mid 30s with a pleasing effect ..."

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that's humbling.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Katherine, my response in the moment, shameful as it is, was that I was like, "Thank God he thinks I have a pleasing affect." I mean, it was so horrible.

    Katherine May:

    Still got it.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I was like, "Yes!"

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my God. That's hideous.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It was only months later that I thought, "Wow! That's part of the complexity here," right?

    Katherine May:

    Those narratives are not neutral.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just interrupting you for a moment to ask if you would consider subscribing to my Patreon. Friends of the Wintering Sessions get an extended edition of the podcast a day early, the chance to put questions to my guests, a monthly bonus episode, and exclusive discounts on my courses and events. Most of all, you help to keep the podcast running. To find out more, go to patreon.com/katherinemay. Do take a look. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    I want to go into treatment because one of the things that really clarified some thinking for me in your book, that in such a revelatory and helpful way, was the way you talked about that process of seeking what were ever more eccentric and unfounded treatments and how from the outside that might look and how from the inside that was motivated. I wonder if we can talk about that a bit because I totally recognise that pathway as a person that sees themselves as rational and evidence-based but ran out of options within that paradigm very quickly.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. So I try to characterise myself and my family in the book by just noting I come from this family of Irish-American baby boomers basically, who had full faith in not just medicine, but in experts, right? They're really of that generation. My parents, were authorities, had authority, right? Authority figures had authority, and you really didn't question, I mean, you questioned political authority, from the '70s, but you didn't question medical authority.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I think that was part of why it took me so long to acknowledge to myself that I was sick because I had really unquestioning faith in my doctors. I thought, "Well, if they say nothing's wrong, nothing's wrong."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So it was only as my life truly was falling apart. I couldn't walk around the block. I failed to recognise a colleague whom I'd known for 10 years. I just had no idea who this person was. I knew I knew him, but I was like, "Why is he in the car with me?" I mean, just truly extreme experiences that made it very clear I was quite sick.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    As I went from doctor's office to doctor's office, and as I read more and more, and as I joined patient groups on the internet, often maligned, but in my case, I found them very, very helpful often, as I read-

    Katherine May:

    Incredibly necessary if you're isolated, yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    They're totally crucial, right? As I educated myself, I realised that I really was someone who clearly was at the edge of medical knowledge. What I further realised was that medicine, as distinct from science, but medicine as a practice is necessarily conservative, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It is evidence-based, and as we are seeing in the pandemic illustrated around us, to the frustration of many, it is a slow halting process of starts and stops to acquire that knowledge, right? Some things are believed that turn out to be wrong. Well, that doesn't mean science doesn't work. That's science, right? Science is the process of acquiring and refining knowledge and self-correction, but what was really clear me was that doctors just, conventional Western doctors, were just not set up to help me as I became increasingly desperate to just not even at that point, this is now, I got really sick in 2011, this is now 2013, I'm even sicker than ever. I've been on this rollercoaster now for years.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    At that point, I turned to all kinds of alternative and integrative modalities from acupuncture to versions of what Donald Trump suggested coronavirus patients do of injecting.

    Katherine May:

    Uh-oh. We didn't know that at the time.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I did not put bleach in my veins, but I did do this ozone and ultraviolet light therapy that a lot of doctor ... It's not credited by Western medicine, right? I tried all kinds of things. I tried diets. I tried colloidal silver. I mean, I really just. At a certain point, I made what I still think was a very rational calculation that's often portrayed as credulous.

    Katherine May:

    It is. It is rational, yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I just realised, "I'm so sick. My life is pretty much gone," which it was, "I need to try things in an experimental way and I have to experiment on myself." I say in the book I wish I could skip parts of that story because I did put myself in the hands of some people I really didn't trust and I let them do things that I was desperate and I did do things with doctors that in retrospect I think, "Well, I should have listen with that distrust regardless of whether the treatments work," just that voice, not being, but I don't see that as a sign that I was credulous. I see that as a sign that I was desperate, and there was a reason.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and you have run out of choices. Yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Run out of options. Something I try to get at in the book that I think is really complicated and it's really hard for us to have a collective discourse around is that a key tenet of conventional Western medicine is fixing an acute problem that gets fixed, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yes, a permanent cure, yeah, one-off treatment that, yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right. One thing you really need as a chronically ill patient is actual care, and actual help getting through your day, and actual recognition of the illness. There's a huge amount of data that shows that empathy, and interpersonal warmth, and care, and validation have just almost eerie effects on people's health.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, being believed, being naive, being seen.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Being believed, and touched, and beauty, I mean, that these things really actually matter in a material way to a person's health. So for me, something like acupuncture, I had a wonderful acupuncturist whom I trusted, not only is there data suggesting it really helps, but just the very ritualistic experience of going to visit her, having her care so much, and having her touch my wrist and take my pulse and show interest and believe me had such a profound effect on my ability to persevere, separate from what other corporeal effects it had, let's say. So I just wanted to say that, and it's really hard for us to talk about then I think that often gets left out of the discourse of evidence-based medicine is that, again, when you're chronically ill, you need a way of living, too, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It was something I really responded to in the book because, actually, it clarified for me some of the things that I've tried out that I may be a bit embarrassed to have tried out in the past out of sheer desperation because I finally got my autism diagnosis when I was 39-ish. I can't remember.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Wow.

    Katherine May:

    After a whole lifetime of, and the exhaustion that I'd experienced now looks just dead like autistic burnout that other autistic people suffer from and that isn't spoken about and is really common within my community, but it has no validated place in mainstream medicine because it hasn't been researched yet because it's not interesting to researchers, and that's the only reason it doesn't exist in the literature.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    That's so interesting. No, I mean, really. Whoa. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Definitely, I'd done some fairly eccentric things to try and sort out my weird mental health before then because there was nothing that made an account of it for me in mainstream medicine or psychiatry. I'd gone back and back and back and been rebuffed, actually, and told that I was probably a bit hysterical like, "What am I worrying about?"

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, no.

    Katherine May:

    I'd had other practitioners saying to me, "You must have been abused and you can't remember it," literally coming out loud with that because otherwise, I made no sense to them. I mean, I tried some stuff that was in retrospect weird and embarrassing, but which really just reflected the desperation I felt to be well and to be stable, to feel stable and feel like I was understandable as a person. We don't talk about that stuff very much, but it's a key part of experience. I was thinking about the practitioners that you saw. Do you feel like they were acting in good faith or do you think they knew that their treatments weren't effective? How does that ecosystem run?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    You mean among the nonconventional practitioners, the alternative?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and the ones that you ended up not trusting, I guess. Yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. It's such an interesting question. I think that just as in conventional medicine, there is a true spectrum of good faith to actual bad faith actors in some cases, right? I mean, not hopefully too many. The same is true in alternative of medicine, right? What's different is that we don't have a system of double blind placebo-based trials to check those things and we don't have insurance companies necessarily overseeing and regulating. So I think I saw a range of people. It's impossible for me to know. The person I really distrusted was someone who seemed to need me to need him, right? Do you know what I mean?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We do have a red light there.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    That, and he just seemed to need me to be really sick, right? That I just have an instinctual aversion, too, I think, but why, and was he really in bad faith or what his ... Who knows? Right? I really don't know, but certainly, I can say there were enormous number of what are called integrative doctors and also nutritionists and acupuncturists who truly transformed my health and my relationship to my own illness narrative, right?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I credit them with giving me the tools to think of my not like a car that had different parts that were separately breaking down and needed to be fixed, and actually not as a very sick person, not that I was just somehow sickly. I had started to think, "Okay. I'm just sickly. Something's wrong with me."

    Katherine May:

    Sickly, yeah, which is such a loaded term, and unpack so many meanings. Yeah.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right. Actually, so many of them were like, "No. Your body is under stress from an infection, and it has done untold things that are affecting different parts of your body, and that's all connected, and while we may never either identify that infection or be able to get rid of it, we can support you as you try to have a life worth living."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I thought that was, it sounds so obvious now, Katherine, but it was so illuminating and transformative to experience that. So I do take that as this profound act of good faith. I thought a lot about, and I didn't end up doing this in the book, but I sort of allude to it, but there's a chapter about alternative medicine and why people turn to it, and what, and I really thought about, and I would still love to write this piece or have someone write this piece, how could we, I don't know, alternative medicine works on its own terms.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It's much more based on an individual, personalised idea of medicine, which I think is so important for these kinds of systemic illnesses. I don't think you can subject acupuncture to the same kind of clinical trials that you can subject a pharmaceutical drug. That's the whole point, but I did wonder if part of what would help us embrace the positive aspects of integrative and alternative medicine was just more transparency somehow about relative risk of different things, that there could be a rating system. Anyway, this is a conversation for another time, but it's a way of saying-

    Katherine May:

    A really interesting one, though.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. I think it's really important that we embrace a more holistic, personalised approach to medicine. I do think conventional medicine will go in that direction. I think it's going to have to because of everything we're learning about the genome and genetics, but yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I think also one of the things that we've maybe lost in our discourse around medicine at the moment is the entreaties that we used to have really commonly to recuperate, to rest, to stay in bed for a while. I mean, I think a lot of doctors still think we're doing that and we're not maybe. We're rushing back to work and therefore, we're not healing properly and things like that. We need to bring that conversation back in that says, "No. Actually, my expectation is that you're laying on the sofa watching movies for the next two weeks, not that you're feeling about with your laptop, trying to do some work and making everything a lot worse." I don't think we say it out loud, but I actually think the expectation is probably there-

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Absolutely, and I think-

    Katherine May:

    ... or maybe it's not. I don't know.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    No, Katherine, I think that's absolutely right. This was something I connected to so much in your book, Wintering. It was actually really helpful to read it at a particular moment I read it, which I was recovering from the sickness and my kids were sick and I had Omicron. I was like, "Oh, I've just got to get it all done somehow," and then I was like, "No, I don't. I can just sit here and say, 'This is horrible. It's just exhausting. It's been two years of the pandemic.'"

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    What you're saying is so important, and it's so important in this moment where as you and I have said long COVID is a major societal risk because the nature of these illnesses is that if you try to push through it, and what I mean by these illnesses are these systemic illnesses, often infection associated, where the body is desperately trying to come back to homeostasis either because there's still an infection there or because your immune system is continuing to react to a perceived infection or for whatever reason.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    One of the things that actually helps you get better is resting. One thing I thought a lot about in my book is, and one thing I argue in the book is that these illnesses, autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, aren't the signature disease of our time because they're precisely exacerbated by late capitalism, right? Not a phrase I try to use in a jargony way, but really to actually get at the sense of ... My husband kept being like, "You should take that word out. It's jargony," but I was like, "No, it's actually really important," because we are all tethered to our devices and to our jobs and to one another.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    In the 19th Century, a very different pace meant that you could be quite sick, and maybe you were the, I keep thinking of the aunt upstairs and bruised or my great aunt was very sick and she just always had a room where she would rest and it was okay. I mean, she was in the 20th century, but it wasn't as hard to be sick. I think it's really hard to be sick in the 21st century because-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and to have it truly acknowledged in its full extent, I think.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. There's no social safety net, and then also, there's just this relentless narrative of pushing through it, and of recovery and of if you push through it, you'll get better, right? We know that model actually doesn't work for ME, CFS or for many patients with long COVID. You actually will exacerbate-

    Katherine May:

    I mean, does it work for anything? Show me the thing it does work for.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It doesn't work for anything. Well, one wonders, right? Apparently, it works for cardiac rehab.

    Katherine May:

    Okay. Good.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    No. I mean, I talked to doctor and he said, "It really does work for cardiac rehab and broken bones, but it really doesn't work for these systemic illnesses. It really doesn't." I question like you, of course. My whole book about grief, which was my previous book gives the same argument, really. I just repeat myself of this.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We [crosstalk 00:50:57]

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    We need to take more time, but we really do, and it's worth asking what fear motivates and what desire to occlude. What are we hiding or what are we not wanting to look at when we encourage ourselves to endlessly press forward because I think it is fear that's behind that need to endlessly push onward.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, absolutely. I think that one of the moments that I loved in your book was when you were finally offered the antibiotic treatment that was clearly the medically researched solution to your problem. Your first instinct was to demur, really, to say "Well, I'm not sure about that at all." Where were you by then that made you feel that way?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I had finally gotten a diagnosis of tickborne illness. My doctor had said, "Look, you really have evidence of having Lyme disease and another tick borne illness. I'm going to give you antibiotics and really should make you better." I had seen so many doctors who had at that point said, "Oh, I think you have a thyroid problem," which I did have, "and that's going to make you better." Well, it did make me a little better or "I think you have this virus and doing this is going to make you better," that I had just become skeptical.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I had begun to see that every person I saw saw my condition through their own lens, and I was worried that this person who treated a lot of Lyme patients would just have said to me no matter what that I had Lyme disease. I don't actually think that's the case that he would have. I really trust him. He's very careful about that. He does a lot of work to differentiate the different signs and symptoms and lab results, and he had spent hours looking at five years of lab results, but that was my fear.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I also had really absorbed the idea that a toxic modernity was making me sick, including a processed Western diet, a history of taking antibiotics, which had disrupted my gut microbiome. I had done a lot of research into the microbiome, and this was at a moment where the microbiome wasn't everywhere. In the US now you hear about the microbiome. Basically, every other advertisement is about probiotics and microbiome, but at the time, it really wasn't there yet, but I had been very persuaded that the microbiome is at the core of our health. In fact, that's something I talk about a lot in the book as I've now talked to a lot of searchers who are really at the cutting edge of microbiome, and it's really clear that a healthy microbiome is just profoundly important.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I felt, "Oh, God! I've just done all this work to drink a lot of chicken broth, and I went from being vegetarian to a meat eater just to heal my gut and have a better microbiome," or in my case, that's what it seemed like it took, "and then now just going to take antibiotics with no clear evidence that it's going to work?" That was really scary for me. I think also, Katherine, I was probably scared to find out that I didn't have a tickborne illness, right? I was probably scared that I was going to hope that it would work and then it wouldn't.

    Katherine May:

    You couldn't face that cycle of hope again.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Right. I think I could not face hope at that point, which still makes me sad, and I still feel that a little bit, but I have to say my husband, who's really rational-minded and very unemotional about these things was just like, "Well, this is very illogical. You've done far weirder things. I think you should just take the antibiotics. You can always drink some bone broth again later."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So with his very unemotional encouragement, I thought, "Okay. There's a logic to that. I can do that," and then within five days, it was clear that the antibiotics were working, and I went from being bedridden to being able to take a three-mile run.

    Katherine May:

    It's extraordinary, isn't it?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I was not breaking any land records, but it was just an undeniable change. Since I'd been offered so many solutions before that hadn't worked, I didn't believe that it could possibly be placebo.

    Katherine May:

    It's incredible, isn't it?

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Because you get into this cycle of second guessing everything, right? So anytime something happened I would think, "Well, is this placebo?" or "Is this real?" or "Is this just the natural ebb and flow of illness?" but this was just a thing apart. It was really clear, but it means that I then found myself being in the position of being this evidence-based person with Lyme disease that I don't have a CDC positive for, center for disease control positive for. I have these amorphous test results.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    So I'm now, Katherine, that person who goes to doctors and says, "I have late stage Lyme disease that hasn't been fully eradicated," and I'm put in the position of being, by virtue of a condition that I'm pretty sure is real, I'm in the position of being someone on the margins.

    Katherine May:

    So you still sound big "one of those people" basically to certain practitioners.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Yeah. Absolutely. No, and I always have to decide, "Do I out myself to this person, to this doctor?" No, and I had a doctor clearly flipped on me recently where I said one thing too many and she just went, "Mm," and it was a doctor I really liked, but now I'm not sure.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my. Oh, you should telling people you're autistic, seriously. That flips people very quickly.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Does it?

    Katherine May:

    Oh, yes, certain people.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I'm curious. I do have one question for you, which when you were talking earlier about the burden and the fatigue and the trying different treatments, was it partly the need for finding a narrative for yourself that was exhausting?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's everything, an account of yourself because when I was growing up, there was no possibility that I've ever got an autism diagnosis when I was a child because actually, most people thought that autism was only something that affected boys.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Boys, exactly.

    Katherine May:

    I was from a working class family. We didn't have access to private assessments, which is the only way that girls and women got an assessment for a long time. There was nothing in culture that would've pointed us in that direction either. So like loads of young women, I grew up thinking I was literally an alien, literally considering I was the same kind of human being as other people because my responses to everything felt so profoundly different, and I could tell, and it was a bit like, you'll understand this, I couldn't get it across to people how strongly I was convinced that I was different, and I was. I was of a different neurotype, but I didn't have a way to make an account of that.

    Katherine May:

    So I always thought I was just a bit broken, and learning I was autistic, just honestly, I mean, it wasn't immediate. It's not like it's a magic bullet, but it let me make and build a different narrative about myself and it let me meet my own needs in a way that I wasn't doing before. That narrative is everything. I think the people that scoff at that just haven't experienced it yet, the need to be believed and understood.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, absolutely, a thousand percent. I remember a friend sent me early on, "Why are you in search of a diagnosis? Sometimes diagnosis are just restrictive and categorising," and I thought about it a lot, and diagnosis has the Greek word to know built into it. I think what I hear in what you're saying, what I relate to is that a diagnosis isn't the end of a condition, and it's not the full parameters of it, but it is a tool, I think, for building a narrative of your own, and it's actually quite freeing in that way because you start to be able to make yourself legible to other people.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    It turns out that to be sick certainly is not an individual experience. It's a social experience, that your sickness needs to be reflected back, in my case. I'm not talking about being autistic. I'm saying my own illness.

    Katherine May:

    No, but it is exactly the same. It's exactly the same.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    We need social recognition of our differences, for sure. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    The first time I went online and said I'm autistic and a couple of my followers said, "Oh, that's funny. I am, too."

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Oh, wow.

    Katherine May:

    That was the start of a thing for me. I'm actually meeting other people who were just like me and whose responses were exactly the same to the world. It was like this unleashing of magic, honestly. I can't state it strongly enough how-

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I totally connect to that.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, Meghan. I could talk to you forever. Thank you. This has been such a great conversation.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I know.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you so much for being patient.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure.

    Katherine May:

    I just want to keep talking.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    I know. Well, hopefully, we'll get to do it again, Katherine. I really hope.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, yeah. I really hope so. Yeah. I'm sure we will, actually. Yeah. It's such an important message and such a lovely book. So congratulations on it. It's not long until it comes out now.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Thank you so much. Yeah, very soon.

    Katherine May:

    All excited.

    Meghan O'Rourke:

    Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for having me.

    Katherine May:

    I've been doing a bit of light cooking this afternoon. I've actually made some chips. I love making homemade chips. It's one of those really pointless things to do. I should say for American listeners, I mean fries. I won't ever stop calling them chips. I've also made some custard, a baked custard for our pudding tonight, and I'm about to make a pavlova for lunch tomorrow. It's something I always do when I'm tired is I cook, just gentle pottering, cooking, nothing too frantic. If I've got some time, though, it's something that I find really relaxing and refreshing. It doesn't demand too much of me as long as I'm feeling up to standing, and it feels like an act of nurture to other people around me, and I love cooking. I love handling food. I love the ingredients. I love tasting it all the way because I've had a good afternoon.

    Katherine May:

    I think one of the things that struck me listening to this conversation, well, two things, really, I suppose. One is how we often see people making desperate decisions about their health without really appreciating why they have to do that. Some of the things that Meghan did seem a little bit deranged and maybe dangerous, certainly not full of the medical proof that we'd ideally like to follow, but when you're in that position, you get desperate. I think so many people are quietly desperate, and it's really worth tuning into that.

    Katherine May:

    The other thing that strikes me is how often I'm part of a system that says, "Get out. Walk around a bit. Feel some fresh air," and I know how often that's been really difficult for me to do for various reasons, and I always try to make sure I balance that, but I do think we need to think about whether the way we talk about wellness, the way we talk about good mental health, the way we talk about self-care, however you want to name it, really, and the way we talk about nature and the value of nature, whether that's intersectional enough, whether we're thinking hard enough about what it's like to bring a sick body into the world and how we can still reap some of those benefits without expecting people to be able to do everything that a fit and well person can do.

    Katherine May:

    I think COVID is going to make us all reflect on that a bit more. Hope it will. Anyway, we're certainly going to see more people with long-term illness in our society, and if we're getting it right, we will be finding ways to help and accommodate them, but I think it starts with all of us, really, all of us paying attention to what the people we know are going through and whether it's invisible. Ah, I quite enjoyed being able to talk about that, actually.

    Katherine May:

    Thanks everyone for listening. Thanks to my producer, Buddy Peace. Thank you to Meghan Hutchins, who puts everything together. Thank you so much to my Patreons or patrons, I still haven't worked that out, I will do one day, who just bring so much love and enthusiasm into this project, as well as helping keep it running. I hope some of you will consider joining, too. It's a really fun community and I've got some ideas for the future too that we'll be developing soon. So that's great. Thank you to all for listening. Take loads of care, won't you? Wrap up warm against this spring cold and look after yourselves. I'll see you very soon. Bye.

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

In a fascinating conversation with Katherine, Meghan talks about the struggles she’s endured (and endures) with chronic illness. As she mentions in the episode, there is an invisible quality to many forms of illness which makes it very hard to navigate and manoeuvre through, and we hear all about the difficulties faced when consulting with doctors, dealing with it in our heads, and living with it in the company of loved ones - but again, as you will have come to know from past episodes - silver linings and positivity floods throughout, and it’s a journey that will fill you with light and goodness.

We talk about:

  • Getting sick gradually, and then suddenly

  • The conventional narratives about women who are sick

  • The lack of healthcare for chronic illness

  • Doctors’ reluctance to say 'I don’t know' to patients

  • Feelings of shame

  • Why pushing through illness doesn’t do us favours

  • The lost art of recuperation

Links from this episode:

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To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Sara Tasker on hyperfocus, exhaustion and finding the new normal

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Sara Tasker on hyperfocus, exhaustion and finding the new normal

———

This week Katherine chats to Sara Tasker, writer, social media expert and coach.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hello. I'm Katherine May, and this is the Wintering Sessions. Today, I've come down to see a beautiful high tide. I love it when we have these spring tides. They're just so full. They just feel voluptuous. I can't swim in it today, unfortunately, because I've got a new tattoo and I've got to keep it dry for a couple of weeks, which is, believe me, extremely disappointing. It's just one of those ... it's freezing cold, but really sunny with a crisp blue sky, and the sea is just the right side of rough. Everything is golden in the light on the beach.

    Katherine May:

    There's more people out, it's really interesting. People have started emerging again after a long winter away. The dog is gamboling like a little spring lamb. I think she likes the sun, too. She gets quite depressed in the winter. She doesn't like going out in the rain and the wind. She's got very flappy ears. I think the wind plays havoc with them. Anyway, she's happy. I'm pretty happy, too. It's really nice. Oh. Sometimes you just need to breathe out a bit, you know? It's definitely how I'm feeling today.

    Katherine May:

    I keep pausing because I figure you want to listen to the waves as much as I do. Anyway. I could just record an hour of ambient sound for you one day maybe. I think you're going to really enjoy listening to today's guest, Sara Tasker. Those of you that know her will know her from her beautiful Instagram page, Me and Orla, and her writing on how to show up online, but the reason I wanted to talk to her is because she's actually just such a warm, intelligent, wise presence, I think. She works in an area, the visual world of Instagram, but a lot of people will denigrate and will think is frippery.

    Katherine May:

    I think that's why she's worth listening to, because I think she's got a lot to say about how this world, and it is its own world, as constructed as it is, has made space for lots of people to show themselves. What I find really interesting about her is the way she talks about how we construct those images and making it sound more intellectual than it is, I can't help it, it's the way my brain works, but she talks about how or why we would construct those images and why it's okay to put pretty things or beautiful things online, as long as we're being authentic behind them and not pretending they're anything else other than something you've created. They're a kind of art.

    Katherine May:

    I'm on Instagram. I'm sure loads of you are, too. I know that, too. I want to put things that I find pleasing on there without ever pretending I'm something other than exactly what I am, which is mostly a rolling ball of chaos. Anyway, we got talking about how the world should be. I really love the conversation, and I think you will, too. Loads of you know already anyway, so you'll be really pleased to hear from her. Enjoy, everyone. I'll be back a bit later. Sara, thank you for talking to me today. I'm so excited to chat.

    Sara Tasker:

    Likewise. Thank you for having me on.

    Katherine May:

    We've spoken once before, haven't we, on your podcast? I'm thrilled to invite you back. You've taught me a lot, literally as well, because one of the things I did the year before last was sign up to your Instagram course at the Insta Retreat, which helped me enormously with my own storytelling online. Thank you for that. I'd like to say that upfront.

    Sara Tasker:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    I want to talk today, I guess, about, well, maybe this is a tricky topic to talk about on a podcast, but I want to talk about the messiness of lives behind all the stuff we put out there, because you're really good at striking that balance and about talking about how you enjoy the presentational aspects of life online and that that feeds into all of your different practices, but that also you always acknowledge how complicated things are. I'd like us to riff on that today, if that's all right by you.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes. I love that. I also love, isn't it always interesting when you hear an outside perspective of your own work from someone, especially from someone you admire, like I do with you, to hear it so succinctly brought together? It all makes sense in that way.

    Katherine May:

    You know what? I find it really weird when people talk to me about my work because it's often so different from my conception of it. I also think that everyone remembers what they've read of me more than I remember writing it, so quite often I think, how do you know that? Oh, yeah, I wrote it in a book. All right, then.

    Sara Tasker:

    Have you ever had that thing where you read some advice or something you've contributed to an article and you're like, oh my God, I needed to hear that, and it was your own words.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, totally. In fact, actually, I tell you what, worse than that, I often see people putting quotes that they attribute to me on Instagram, and every now and then I think, I didn't write that, and so I look it up in my manuscript it and find that I did.

    Sara Tasker:

    I love that, though, because I always think the advice that we need the most is the advice that we find easier to give to other people. If we could only be our own coach-

    Katherine May:

    That's so true.

    Sara Tasker:

    ... we would be the best coach for ourselves. It makes sense.

    Katherine May:

    Maybe that's the thing. That's a really positive way of putting that. I think I'm just extremely forgetful.

    Sara Tasker:

    Maybe with that as well.

    Katherine May:

    Given that I've edited each book eight times or something, you'd think it would've gone in by now, but no, apparently not. I totally just forgot it.

    Sara Tasker:

    You just underestimate your own genius. I think that's what this is.

    Katherine May:

    Actually, sometimes I'm more like, I didn't write that shit.

    Sara Tasker:

    Oh.

    Katherine May:

    It's often because they quoted it in a weird way, out of context of the paragraph.

    Sara Tasker:

    That's it. It's that quote, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    They've clipped a sentence that had other stuff around it that made it mean something different. I just think-

    Sara Tasker:

    Contextually, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    ... wow, you really went hunting for that, my friends, didn't you? That was like, no way.

    Sara Tasker:

    How much it must have meant something to them, so ...

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that's true. It's true.

    Sara Tasker:

    It hits different for everyone.

    Katherine May:

    Well, okay, so let's ...

    Sara Tasker:

    Semitangent.

    Katherine May:

    Let's move on from my extreme forgetfulness, but I think tangents are what you and I do really well because you've began to talk more recently about being neurodivergent, haven't you? I'd love to talk about that a little bit because I think the world you portray is so elegant and sparse and ordered, but I think things often feel really chaotic, too, behind the scenes. Is that fair to say?

    Sara Tasker:

    Absolutely. I think that's why I'm so drawn to these moments of order and beauty. I find it very, very calming. My house, I try and keep it as minimal as possible. I like white walls, I like white everything, because my head is so busy and if my space is busy and my head is busy, it's just going to go up in smoke. That kind of juxtaposition, I think, is the balance. I would be really sorry if someone only took away from something like my Instagram the idea that my life is perfect, because that's definitely not the message I'm trying to share.

    Katherine May:

    It's a really complicated line that I think we all tread in our lives online. I spend a lot of time talking on Twitter and on Instagram and I write a newsletter and I have a podcast, and I always try and externalise the complicated bits of my own life. That's definitely a key part of my practice, but also, I do want stuff to look nice when it goes out there. I'm not as in control of it as you are. I know that I do show the tidier corners of my house when I show it and I know that I find beautiful things to put up there when I'm walking in nature. Also, I'm thinking about the words that I put in those captions really carefully, too.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think we have to acknowledge that that is completely human and also really makes really good sense. Nobody goes on Instagram because they want to look at a dirty nappy or the cat sick and old shoes in the corner. The content that resonates, the content that succeeds online is attractive or appealing or enticing or beautiful.

    Sara Tasker:

    Of course we want to share that and of course we want to create that. Humans have always done in it, whether it's painting an oil portrait of somebody that makes them look a little bit more beautiful than they really are in real life or the landscape and making it just look idealistic, or taking these photos for Instagram. It's not a dishonesty. It's the edited highlights.

    Katherine May:

    It's an aesthetic, too. I think it's really interesting to watch the conversations about this stuff go by because we often talk about the toxic ends of social media. There are definitely really clear places where that presentation tips over into something that is, if not deliberately dishonest, that certainly massaging the truth in a way that I'm uncomfortable with, but what we're really bad at talking about is why the hell we are on there in the first place and what we get from it. I do think we lack that conversation and I think we need to start having that, too, because otherwise, we get this picture of us all drifting around this space that we absolutely hate being in and that's destroying us. I just don't feel like that's true.

    Sara Tasker:

    If that was true, we wouldn't be doing it, right?

    Katherine May:

    I assume so.

    Sara Tasker:

    There has to be something [crosstalk 00:10:47]. Maybe a few people out of some masochistic urge, but the rest of us wouldn't. Yeah, I completely agree. It's unfortunate really that the headlines, the clickbait, the big things that sell are negative stories about social media, because everyone's had a negative experience, whether that's just within their own head or someone saying something horrible on Twitter. People are willing to believe that narrative very easily.

    Sara Tasker:

    Like you say, we don't always give enough air time to the opposite side of it, which is all of the good stuff. I count myself very lucky. I don't know if this is true for you, but I was an early adopter of social media. I was an early blogger. Back then, there wasn't this conversation of, this is bad for you, this is going to end the world, or we're all going to die. It was just like, here's some knitting I've done and how amazing that we're all friends.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, this is my breakfast.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah, exactly. For several years from those early days, it was purely a celebrated, joyous ... we were all just looking at each other online going, can you believe that we get to do this? This is so fun. I'm really grateful I've got that foundation because I know how it feels when it feels right, and so I'm always working to stay within that space with all of my online connections and work and anything else.

    Katherine May:

    What boundaries do you assert? What boundaries do you assert for your own behaviour that stops you from tipping over into becoming one of those people, and what boundaries do you assert for other people, too? I'm always fascinated by people's fences that they put around their social media.

    Sara Tasker:

    I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I've seen people start to add to their Instagram a highlight, a story highlight that specifically outlines their boundaries, and mine definitely weren't that defined, but they're always there by feel. I think we all have natural ... we know when we've touched the fire and that it's hard and we don't want to go back there.

    Sara Tasker:

    I have rules about, if I feel very emotional about a message or something someone said to me, I will not reply while my emotion is still very high. Having ADHD, I also have something called rejection sensitive dysphoria. You might be familiar with it because it often goes with autism as well. If I reply from that space, I'm not replying as me, the whole Sara. I'm replying from a really vulnerable, frightened, emotive place. I've done it, and I've regretted it, so I'm not doing that anymore.

    Sara Tasker:

    Things like if I am still processing something that's difficult in my life, even if it's seemingly a small thing, something like my daughter not sleeping in her own bed or something, I won't talk about that until I feel fine, until I've come out the other side. Sometimes that means I'll write it in the moment. I might write a caption or a blog post, but I won't publish it until I've totally processed all the emotions and know where I am with it because it's so seductive either way.

    Sara Tasker:

    If everyone agrees with you, you feel justified and you feel vindicated and you can completely lose perspective. If everyone disagrees with you, then it seeds all of this doubt and it's just messy. There's a beautiful quote from, I think he's called Marcus Aurelius, who was the founding Greek person who started the Stoicism movement?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that's it. Yep. That's him.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm saying these words, right?

    Katherine May:

    You are using it. All right. You're fine.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm going to quote it wrong, but the gist of it is like, we only have one life and yours is already running out, and you're giving responsibility for all of your joy and happiness to everyone else around you. That's what I'm always trying to avoid whenever I'm online.

    Katherine May:

    That's such a great way to think about it. Tell me about your ADHD. It's actually quite a recent understanding for you, isn't it?

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes, completely, which is ironic because before I did what I do now, I worked in special needs as a speech therapist.

    Katherine May:

    It's often so true. I worked with loads of autistic kids before I knew I was autistic.

    Sara Tasker:

    I thought I knew what ADHD was, but of course I had that very stereotypical viewpoint of it that it's the naughty boy that climbs under the tables and disrupts the class. Those people exist, but also there's a whole different spectrum. Especially for girls and women, it can look really, really different.

    Sara Tasker:

    For me, it was a jigsaw piece puzzle that I found by accident. I was struggling to feel productive, struggling to want to do anything. I was listening to this whole range of different podcasts, whatever came up into my search terms, and one of them happened to be about ADHD. The more they described it, the more I was thinking, hang on, this all sounds weirdly familiar. Went online, did lots of reading, eventually went for an assessment, and it now makes perfect sense, but if I hadn't seen that other side of what the diagnosis can look like, I think I'd still have no idea.

    Katherine May:

    What were the key differences? It's so interesting, isn't it? I was a trained teacher. I had done some training in neurodiversity, although not very much. I think that's possibly part of the problem. Also, part of my degree was in psychology. I'd studied this stuff and my given understanding was so inaccurate from what I should have understood about it, because actually we don't talk about the embodied state of being autistic or of having ADHD or of many, many other states of being that we're now all beginning to recognize much better. If I couldn't recognise it in myself, I came to realize that I was probably understanding it very poorly in other people, too, because I was [inaudible 00:16:37]. What were the things for you that felt like it was intrinsic to your experience that you weren't expecting to be ADHD?

    Sara Tasker:

    Even just realising that there are two elements to ADHD, that you can have the hyperactivity and you can have, they call it the attention deficit, but it's not a deficit of attention, it's much more about not being able to control and choose where you focus your attention. I don't have hyperactivity. I'm the opposite. I'm very sleepy. I have a chronic illness aside from all of this. That means I'm naturally a very sleepy person.

    Sara Tasker:

    I do have this difficulty choosing what my attention is focused on, and hyperfocus, which again is going to be a phrase that's very familiar to anyone with autism diagnosis as well, that moment when something just captures you so wholeheartedly that you don't have a choice, you're going to spend six hours reading about it on Wikipedia or making tiny doll house furniture or whatever the thing is, when it gets you, it really gets you. I'd always had that as a pattern in my behavior, but I'd always seen it as, I'm weird, there's something wrong with me. I noticed other people didn't tend to do it, but I thought it was a personality flaw and not the wiring, the hard wiring of my brain.

    Sara Tasker:

    Also, the rejection sensitive dysphoria really immediately resonated with me, but also, elements like, I remember there's a doctor called William Dodson who does some really excellent public speaking on ADHD, and he talked about how generally when he sees patients with ADHD, he asks them, "Is there ever anything that you've tried to do in your life that you couldn't do?" He says people with ADHD always say, "No. As long as I could focus, as long as I could get myself to try, I can do anything." I really like that. I was like, oh, my God, that's me. If I can make myself do it, if my brain's onboard, there's nothing that ... I fully believe I could build a house or win Strictly Come Dancing, or whatever. If I was obsessed, I'd do it.

    Katherine May:

    It's really hard to talk about that balance between the things that this neurotype gives you and the things that it takes away. I find it really hard to mediate that because the ability to hyperfocus is everything to me. It's given me everything I've ever achieved. It's completely intrinsic to my experience of what it is to exist, actually. I can't imagine existing in another way.

    Sara Tasker:

    It must be so boring without it.

    Katherine May:

    I can't imagine it. Yeah, absolutely. At the same time, I do experience the problems that come with it, too. That will be, if I want to hyperfocus, or not even hyperfocus, if I want to just focus on something-

    Sara Tasker:

    Just normal focus.

    Katherine May:

    ... yeah, just a normal level focus would be fine, I can't usher my focus towards something that I'm not interested in. It's almost physically painful to do it. I feel like my eyes are switching themselves off as I'm trying to look at something.

    Katherine May:

    I find it very hard to talk about in public in terms of finding that balance because I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me. I don't ever want to come across self-pitying, but it has caused me significant problems across the course of my life. At the same time, I want to put forward how glorious this can be when there is something that your brain is like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I will take in infinite amounts of stuff on this and we will do something with this.

    Sara Tasker:

    It is so rewarding. The dopamine is like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

    Katherine May:

    It's heavenly.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah, and that's it. Again, William Dodson talks about the ADHD brain and neurodiverse brain as being just on a completely different operating system. One's Windows', one's Mac's, and they're not the same, but then one's not necessarily better or worse than the other. Sorry, can you hear my cat doing the giant meows? It's like she's dying. A door is closed, so she's very angry.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think it is that. It's that we're just different. The problem is that the whole of society has been constructed specifically with neurotypical people in mind, and so it becomes a disadvantage, it becomes a disability in certain situations because they've been crafted for one type of brain. They've been crafted for the Windows PC, when we're over here on a Mac going like, I can't even open the file.

    Katherine May:

    Sorry. It's just corrupted, I'm sorry. I've not got access to this today.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm just going to go on Photoshop, guys. I don't know.

    Katherine May:

    My internet's down, sorry. To talk about that sometimes really offends neurotypical people.

    Sara Tasker:

    Of course.

    Katherine May:

    Even saying the word neurotypical really offends neurotypical people. To that, I would say, well, you can't just have a world where you say one group of people's weird and you're not something. Actually the truth is we're both a thing. That's why we use the word neurotypical, because otherwise it's, you're weird and I'm not. Sorry, we're not having that narrative anymore.

    Sara Tasker:

    Absolutely. I truly believe it is a spectrum that everyone is on somewhere, or it's multiple spectrums.

    Katherine May:

    It's really interesting because I'm not so keen on the idea of a spectrum that's zero to autistic and everyone's a bit on it. I think there are a distinct group of people, but I think it's bigger than we used to think it was. I actually think it's huge.

    Sara Tasker:

    I agree. I was saying to a friend the other day, everyone I know who's got a little boy at the moment, so all my friends who've had boys, it seems like nearly every single one of them is now receiving a diagnosis.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm thinking, this isn't a change in the population. I think it's a change in our level of awareness.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and how inadequate school has been for a long time for so many people.

    Sara Tasker:

    Absolutely.

    Katherine May:

    Actually, maybe we will come to a point one day when people don't need diagnoses because the world will just meet the needs of loads of different people, but right now, it's necessary to have something that gives you the right to the stuff that you basically need. That's all we are talking about here.

    Sara Tasker:

    And forgiveness. For me, it was the huge, overwhelming sense of forgiveness because my whole life I thought I was lazy, I was undisciplined. You see the difference between your abilities and other people's. I think a lot of us, especially women, we tend to internalise that and assume that it's something we need to work harder on. We need to buy more self-help books, we need to just buy more planners and then we'll fix it. I did all the right things-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my God, that was definitely me.

    Sara Tasker:

    That was one of the diagnostic criteria on the list I read of things for women. It was like, you're always buying new planners or new apps that promised to get you organised, and you've just got hundreds of them and you're still not organised. Yeah, because it's not that we don't want to. We have the same wishes. We steal the people.

    Sara Tasker:

    I always say, Hermione Granger, I would love to be Hermione Granger. She's read all the books in advance. She's done all the homework in advance. That's just not what I was given. That's not the brain I was given. The brain I was given is amazing. I'm so lucky. It does amazing things. Being able to stop resenting myself for the things it couldn't do, it was just this huge weight off my shoulders and also freed up an awful lot of energy because you stopped trying to run against the tide.

    Katherine May:

    You've talked really openly about depression quite often in the past as well. Has that diagnosis had an impact on that part of your brain as well? I always wondered that being neurodivergent and growing up neurodivergent fixed a pattern of depressive behaviour in me that I couldn't really escape, but I have found it easier to escape now than I certainly used to, I think.

    Sara Tasker:

    Is that because you are choosing the right ways now for yourself?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I think so. I'd love to say it's about because I've completely accepted myself. I'd love to claim that way.

    Sara Tasker:

    You [inaudible 00:24:46] one.

    Katherine May:

    It is not true, but what it means is that I'm meeting my needs further down the line before they become urgent now. That's the huge change for me, that I'm getting the solitude that I need, which is just completely vital to me. I'm taking walks and, yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm doing all of those things that I need without waiting to be forced to do it by making myself sick or very, very depressed.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes. It's been tricky for me to really make that distinction, I suppose, because my diagnosis came just before the very first lockdown. Like a lot of people, I've struggled with my mental health during lockdown after lockdown after lockdown. I feel like I don't really know myself out in the wild now with this information. I haven't had chance to run free with it. I had a few months, I think it's about two or three months, and the friends with me then was like, you're like Sara 2.0, because I was just so full of this newfound enthusiasm and this fresh understanding of, oh, I can make it work for me. I don't have to try and make it work the way it works for everybody else.

    Sara Tasker:

    That happens in every area of your life. It's not just about work or it's not just about study. It's even simple things like washing the dishes like, oh, if I've got a podcast on, I'm going to be much more excited about washing the dishes because I want to listen to the next episode tomorrow. It's little hacks that you need to give yourself permission for. I don't think a diagnosis is necessary for that at all, but it's a helpful way in.

    Katherine May:

    I like to talk about identification now instead, because I do think we can reach a post-medicalised world on this, actually. Some people will need professional support, but actually for loads of people, that identification is the thing that changes everything. You don't even need more than that. You just need an understanding and good information to get you to the place that you need to be, for me.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know, I think we just in lots of ways need to find ways to crack it open to people who ... because let's face it, loads of us that are diagnosed ended up going for private diagnoses because we couldn't have ever got them through the NHS, and friends in the States I know find it even harder to access. Actually, how do we let people recognize what they need to do to live comfortably and happily?

    Sara Tasker:

    Right, because none of these things are difficult to access in terms of applying them to your own life. With ADHD, there are prescription drugs-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, prescription medication.

    Sara Tasker:

    ... and that's generally the advice I give to people is, they say, "Should I go for a diagnosis?" I say, "You only need to do it if you want medication, if you're open to trying it," because a lot of people are very anti-stimulant medication before they go down that path.

    Sara Tasker:

    If you know you're never going to want to try that, you probably don't need to spend the money because everything else is available. It's out there and all you need to do is give yourself permission to need it or to try it. All of those strategies, and there's so much overlap between different neurodivergent conditions ... Conditions, is that the word we would use? Probably not.

    Katherine May:

    Honestly, the language is so hard. Everything is difficult. Don't worry about it.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm not meaning to offend anyone, but yeah, different labels, let's say, you need to just go out there and find that information. It's a shame that we weren't given it a long, long time ago, and parents aren't giving it to their children, who then grow up and don't fit into the perfect square-shaped mould that they've been told they should. They think it's their fault or they think it's their child's fault. All of that damage starts so young.

    Katherine May:

    We're still in a very complicated place with it. In lots of ways, I think the way that we school children now and the way that their social life operates is making life much more complicated than it once did. It's bringing these things to the fore. Education has become so one-size-fits-all compared to even how it was when I was a child, actually. I had a lot more scope to behave in different ways at school than my son does quite often now.

    Sara Tasker:

    As a teacher, you'll know firsthand. My husband was a teacher as well. In fact, we ended up, we put our daughter into a Steiner homeschool hodgepodge situation-

    Katherine May:

    Thing.

    Sara Tasker:

    ... because I just couldn't bear to see her squashed by the sausage factory in our village that wants to churn out identical, good little workers.

    Sara Tasker:

    That's not to say at all that the teachers out there are not doing an amazing job, because they really are. There are some phenomenal teachers, but I know the pressures that they're under and it's all about data. It's all about constantly striving for progress and there's no room for individualism and there's no room for my little girl who feels the whole world at an 11.

    Sara Tasker:

    A teacher only has to talk to her without a smile and she's like, "I think I'm being shouted at." She finds that really difficult. If there's an option for me to give her something that's more nurturing, that's more flexible, I'm really grateful to be able to take it.

    Katherine May:

    There's lots of options out there. That's a good thing. Thank goodness for options. I want to talk to you about animals because they seem to be such a big part of your life. It's interesting to me because it seems like it's a very neurodivergent thing to have a strong connection with animals, but you have some waifs and strays in your life, don't you?

    Sara Tasker:

    I really do. I saw something online recently actually that said it's common for people with trauma or childhood trauma to want to look after animals. I don't know if that's part of it, but yeah. Who have we got at the moment? Let me look. We've got four cats, all rescues from various places. We have three parrots. We have a cockerel. We thought she was a hen. He is not a hen, so he's going to have to find somewhere away from houses to live. We have a dog and a jackdaw, a tamed jackdaw that-

    Katherine May:

    Oh, I want to hear all about the same jackdaw in particular, please.

    Sara Tasker:

    He is fascinating. He's far too clever for his own good. We've called him Baddie because everything he does is with naughtiness in mind. You can see him look at you and think, uh. He has a bell above his food bowl. If he doesn't like his food or he's made his water messy, he just rings the bell incessantly for service.

    Katherine May:

    Really? Oh, my God.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes. He just designed that system himself. He does it loudly. You cannot ignore this. He was a rescue. It was through Facebook. Someone tagged me and said I could take him.

    Katherine May:

    He was found without a mother?

    Sara Tasker:

    He was found in the grounds of a primary school and he was flying onto the children's shoulders.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Sara Tasker:

    He was very, very weak. He's not really able to fly. What we think happened is someone probably had raised him and then either got bored or couldn't carry on looking after him, and probably quite innocently thought, oh, I'll just let him go, but he can't survive in the wild because he doesn't recognise wild food as food. He's got a very, very limited diet that he'll eat. I'm trying to broaden that, but he just throws it on the floor.

    Sara Tasker:

    He's not able to live with his own kind. At the moment, there's a lot of bird flu around in the UK, so I can't send him to a sanctuary or anything. He's living with us and we are best buddies. He likes to sit on my shoulder. He likes to steal keys. The window keys are a favourite. He makes the most unlikely noise. It's like a chimp chattering. Actually, they say that that whole family of corvines, those crows, jackdaws, magpies are about as clever as a primate.

    Katherine May:

    Incredibly intelligent. Oh, really? Oh, I didn't realise that. They're that intelligent? That's amazing.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah. It's a big responsibility. It's like having a young child. You don't want to keep them in a cage. You've got to get them out and entertain them.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my goodness.

    Sara Tasker:

    He's a lot of fun.

    Katherine May:

    How is the duckling?

    Sara Tasker:

    The ducklings have gone to new homes. It was two this summer.

    Katherine May:

    I was going to say, of course the duckling no longer are going to be a duckling, either. They're going to be grown-up ducks now.

    Sara Tasker:

    Massive. Luckily, because of all this school, we've got this community of equally slightly eccentric people and they have birds. The ducks have gone to two different people there and have lovely, beautiful, idyllic lives. We drive around the countryside near where we live and we're like, look, there's Cheep, there's Lucy. We're always looking out for our little rescue birds. Hopefully the cockerel's got a home coming up in the village, so we'd be able to visit him, too.

    Katherine May:

    I love that. Hopefully the cockerel's going to be okay.

    Sara Tasker:

    He's going to be okay because I'm not letting ... he's my baby, but I'm looking for the right setting for him. It's going to be perfect.

    Katherine May:

    Have you always had animals? Is it something you've grown up with or is this a thing that you've picked up as you've got older?

    Sara Tasker:

    We only had a cat when I was younger. I guess maybe that's the cat thing to blame.

    Katherine May:

    Not enough animals. That was the problem when you're [inaudible 00:34:12].

    Sara Tasker:

    Not enough animals. I'm just someone who's always had so much love, I don't know where to put it all. I think it's that thing of, I can do this. I can see a baby bird that's dying that no one knows what to do with and I can figure it out and I can pay the attention and learn how to tube-feed them or whatever they need and I can get them through it. Obviously I'm no vet. Let's be really clear, but if I can't see something suffering and not do my very best to help, it's just an instinct within me.

    Sara Tasker:

    I get such a lot out of it in return. It's really rewarding. It brings me so much joy. Also these relationships, I think there's something so fascinating about being able to have a relationship with a completely different species that has zero overlap in their conception of the world and their language in anything, and yet you know each other. They'll come and run towards you when they see you. You have a shared understanding of when they do that, it means they want this. I've never stopped finding that magical. It seems like the rest of the world just knows about that and thinks it's fine. Well, I think it's magic.

    Katherine May:

    I love that. I absolutely share your sense about that the rest of the world, how can they ignore this amazing stuff that's happening out there?

    Sara Tasker:

    If there's a rainbow, I'm jumping up in meetings going, "Oh, my gosh, there's a rainbow," when everyone else being very adult about the situation.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know how you can be adult about a rainbow. When I used to teach, there used to be squirrels that used to run past my window, and every time I'd be like, look, a squirrel, literally look a squirrel. My students after a while were like, you know no one else does this. You know they tell us off if we do that. But there's a squirrel!

    Sara Tasker:

    Nature. Look! Completely, I'm on board with that. I think they're right, quite frankly. Everyone needs to come to our school of thought.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because the world is full of all these little moments of magic and fascination that I don't want to learn to ignore. If that's what becoming a proper adult is, then I really, really don't want it because it just feels like a big shutting down was ... Before I gave up full-time work and before I really, really committed to making my own time and space to work in the way that I needed to, and that includes to make a living as I needed to, because that has always been a going concern for me, that's not something that I can ever avoid having to do, I just felt like I was constantly being squashed, really, into a shape that didn't fit. I was having to turn off aspects of my brain that were present and that were curious and excited and happy. All of those had to go in order to do more meetings.

    Sara Tasker:

    More meetings and paperwork. It's so invalidating to have your brain and your heart go, we love this, this is amazing, it lights us up, and have to go, no, stop that, we're wrong, we cannot like this. If you don't even allow yourself to be who you are, how can you ever live to your full potential in the world, or even just find your full happiness in the world?

    Katherine May:

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love the Wintering Sessions and would like to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings. The answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive, and a day early, too. Plus, you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events, and your podcast will always be ad-free.

    Katherine May:

    If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month for life. Do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to Patreon.com/KatherineMay or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. Please don't worry if this isn't for you. The regular version of the Wintering Sessions will still be free. I really appreciate your listens. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    I often talk about this and I talk in my work a lot about the need to rest and the need to step back from commitment sometimes. I find that I quite often, and I imagine you get the same pushback, which is why I want to ask you about it, quite often people say, "Well, isn't that a privilege to do that?" Not everyone can rest when they're sick and not everybody can go out and make the life that they want to or need to. The need doesn't matter. You have to live the life that other people tell you to live because that's the only way you can survive. I wonder, I'd love to know your response for that, because I respond to that all the time.

    Sara Tasker:

    I see the point. Absolutely. We're all on this huge range of this, aren't we? We're very privileged already because we live in a First World country, because we're white, because we have access to certain things. Of course, we have opportunities that not everybody in the world gets, but everyone should. Surely we can agree that these are necessary things that everyone should.

    Sara Tasker:

    I don't see how we're going to change it unless some people start trying and doing it and living that way. Also, it doesn't really feel like that much of a privilege. I know my friend Jen Carrington, she has a really well-balanced work time. She has really well-regulated weeks off. I was telling someone about that once and they were like, "Ugh, God, I wish I could do that. Sounds amazing."

    Sara Tasker:

    I was thinking, you just have no idea. She's lying in bed in pain. She would give anything to be able to get up and go work a nine-to-five job on those days, but her body is unable to. If I was not able to run my business from my bed the way I do, I would probably have to be claiming an unemployment allowance now. I don't think I could work a conventional job physically, emotionally, mentally. I just don't think I could be doing that.

    Katherine May:

    Naturally, before I got my autism diagnosis, I was in this pattern of going back into, I'm using big scare quotes here, "proper job," every few years and staying in it for ... Two and a half years seemed to be my limit before I'd get physically sick and wouldn't be able to go into work. It's never been a question of, oh, I don't really fancy doing this, although actually, now I've finally broken that pattern and I've really thought hard about how I make my living without that pattern. I do think I don't fancy doing that.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes, and that is amazing, isn't it, to have that freedom?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That's fine. I was always willingly going back into that because I wanted to earn a better living. I wanted to take responsibility for my own staff, all of that stuff that people don't think that people like me want to do. I definitely wanted to do it, but I always got to the point where I physically, absolutely physically couldn't anymore. I always worked to that point and then dropped out. That was damaging psychologically as well as physically. It's had some really long-term physical impacts, but it was never, ever about choice, actually. It was always about the world spitting me out, really.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think this is a huge issue that we're really bad at accepting people's testimonial of their experience. Especially when it comes to anything that goes against the industrial, Protestant work ethic of you get up, you work nine to five, you don't have any human needs during those hours, and anything else is morally corrupt.

    Sara Tasker:

    I saw on Reddit just this week, someone posted in a doctor's forum where you can ask advice from qualified medical doctors and said she'd been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. The top answer was a general practitioner from the US telling her to get therapy because it was in her head.

    Katherine May:

    Whoa.

    Sara Tasker:

    How are we still there-

    Katherine May:

    I don't know. I don't know.

    Sara Tasker:

    ... where we don't ... It's especially women, it's especially people with mood disorders, especially people who are neurodivergent, who get this label of avoidance or hysteria or laziness. We internalise those labels.

    Sara Tasker:

    I have believed I was lazy for such a long time. I still struggle with it now when I need to rest, but I know that my family needs me or that this work I could be doing or that the cleaning that needs doing. It's really, really difficult to let go of that. When we get it from people in authority, whether it's teachers, managers, newspapers or doctors, it's only the really, really resilient who can go, "No, that isn't who I am. I'll find a different way."

    Katherine May:

    I think also we talk a lot about what goes wrong with people, but if we don't at the same time pick apart what's wrong with work, then we're only telling half the story. Actually, jobs today are so different to what they used to be. For a start, it used to be predicated on one part of a married couple working and somebody was at home doing all of the massive work that has not gone away in that time, but is still being done by two people scrabbling around after full-time work hours.

    Katherine May:

    Then there's the issue that a whole massive chunk of our jobs don't pay for basic living standards that we once would've expected, that our parents would've definitely expected, like having a house, for example-

    Sara Tasker:

    Or being able to have childcare.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. All of those things are not possible on most wages now, which is extraordinary, even though both members of the couple are working. Then there's the fact that in middle-class jobs that maybe do allow you to actually live somewhere, shock, horror, people don't seem to be able to walk away from them the end of the working day.

    Katherine May:

    They're constantly getting emails on their phone and they're expected to be checking in and expected to be working much longer hours. It just seems to me that there's an awful lot of things that are going wrong with what we consider to be normal work that's making it completely unmanageable for what increasingly looks like the vast majority of people to me.

    Sara Tasker:

    We've created a system that is hyper-competitive, hyper-capitalist, hyper-productive, and then when people can't function in that way, because we are animals and we were not designed to function in that way, the best we can do is medicate them so that they don't notice it as much. That's our solution. We don't make any systematic changes. We don't go, oh, this seems to be creating mood disorders on an epic scale that we've never seen before. Maybe we should change it. We just go, well, drug them so they can keep working and making money for the billionaires.

    Katherine May:

    And scold them if they don't keep working.

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah, exactly. Let's shame them into forcing themselves and ignoring their own bodies. What do you say when you're levied with that question of privilege?

    Katherine May:

    Sometimes I get increasingly outraged about it. Where is your radicalism, whoever it is that's asking me that question. They ask it like it's the most right-on question to ask. I think it's the least right-on question to ask. Stop accepting this. I'm not saying that everyone can afford to walk out of their job tomorrow and take up some stupid fluffy career.

    Katherine May:

    I'm saying that people are working themselves to the point of exhaustion and they need urgently to find a different way to do that and that we need to collectively make a world in which that is possible and to start refusing the current state of affairs that's breaking so many people. So many people that we need to stay in necessary jobs, that we need teachers to be able to stay in their jobs rather than not being able to cope with their workload. We need nurses, we need midwives, we need doctors.

    Sara Tasker:

    What if the person whose brain comes up with the ultimate cure for cancer is someone with a chronic illness who can only work an hour or two a day? Right now we're not letting them into any medical fields, so we're not going to benefit from that. I think about that all the time. All the people who are being wasted, all of the human amazingness that doesn't get to participate, and I feel so grateful that I still am able to because of my business. I love paying my taxes. I get so excited because I'm contributing, and yet people will tell you that you're part of the problem or that your message is damaging or unrealistic. I just think, I never promised you I was going to be realistic.

    Katherine May:

    It just seems that the expectation at the moment is completely unrealistic. Everyone I know who is trying to work, what those people will consider a proper job are doing it for, in effect, less money every year with longer hours and are completely burned out. What happens when the last nurse drops? What happens when every teacher realises that they can do something that earns the same money for less stress and less prospect of complete burnout?

    Katherine May:

    I don't think it's realistic what we're doing at the moment. I think we have our head in the sand. I think that working towards a new way to do it is going to be a slow process, but God, we have to start thinking about it. Everyone gets to do that.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think the movement is brewing. There's a subreddit on Reddit called Antiwork. When I first joined, it was very small and much maligned. Everyone thought it was just full of lazy people, but it's grown exponentially. It is huge now. I have to say, it's mostly Americans, because Americans have it even worse than we do.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my God. Sorry, hello, American friends. You don't get much holiday, you guys. We get a lot more holiday than you.

    Sara Tasker:

    We get 28 days, don't we, pretty much, with bank holidays?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, 25 to 30 normally I think, between those two.

    Sara Tasker:

    We get maternity leave and we get sickness leave.

    Katherine May:

    Working without maternity leave just shocks me, and so many things shock me.

    Sara Tasker:

    And healthcare, you have to work in order to have healthcare because it's tied to your employment. I think America is going to be the tipping point maybe first because it is not sustainable. There are people who are dying because they can't work, so they can't have medical care. I really fundamentally believe that that has to change, and it has to change soon.

    Katherine May:

    I completely agree.

    Sara Tasker:

    Then hopefully the rest of us can carry on that wave, because COVID has sped this up I think as well. I always was such a proponent after I left my NHS job and started working from home, I was really like, why are more businesses not doing this? There's so many jobs I've done in the past I could've done from home or partially from home with an internet connection.

    Sara Tasker:

    It was very much like, oh, you're dreaming, Sara. That's never going to happen. Then along comes COVID and lots of businesses are now realising that it's not worth paying for an office and squashing everybody in together and making them waste hours on pointless commutes and live within a certain radius of that building just because it's what we've always done, for no other reason than that.

    Katherine May:

    Also, for me, it's just going back to how we used to operate, which is people didn't use to commute as far as they do now. Actually, we're now rejecting that commute that we've all been undertaking, like driving in the car for an hour each way every day, which is definitely what my husband was doing before the pandemic. Just no.

    Sara Tasker:

    That became normal, didn't it?

    Katherine May:

    Totally normal.

    Sara Tasker:

    I remember when my commute went over an hour, everyone was like, well, if you lived in London, you'd commute double that. That's what made me feel better. I was like, oh, you have got it good.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, whereas actually -

    Sara Tasker:

    Instead of going, well, maybe that's the problem.

    Katherine May:

    Maybe that's also a problem. When you actually start to name the things that we've been doing and to really think about what that means ... The other thing I think to mention is the push towards constant growth. You're supposed to constantly be earning more every year and getting promoted and taking on more-

    Sara Tasker:

    Working on yourself, evolving. The primary school targets, progress every year.

    Katherine May:

    That makes me sad, actually, an awful lot. That's a whole other podcast worth of content. I think the thing that sticks in my mind is, where are the good craft-based jobs that people used to go into very happily? Where's the learning to be the village blacksmith? I know that's a really stupid example, but learning a skill that you can reach its full extent and then just carry on doing it because you enjoy it and it's valuable and it makes you enough money to survive, all of those things together just don't seem to come anymore. You have to, I don't know, become a manager in some awful business that rides your arse around until you're 60 and then doesn't even buy you a present when you leave.

    Sara Tasker:

    A book token or you become -

    Katherine May:

    A book token, actually I'd love that.

    Sara Tasker:

    As long as it was worth enough.

    Katherine May:

    I don't want a carriage clock. I want a book token.

    Sara Tasker:

    Or you become one of those people, I suppose, who I work with, which is somebody with a passion for creative work or human-centered work, but then you also have to be a social media manager, an email replier, a marketer, a photographer. You have to do all of that other work as well. There is no just focusing on your craft, or there's very little of it.

    Sara Tasker:

    There's a friend of ours who's a joiner who lives in our village and he's probably a decade or two older than us. He's exactly what you describe. He went straight from school to learn on the job. He's spent his whole life doing it. He is amazing at his craft. He's obsessed with wood. He'll just bring us bits of trees. He's like, "Smell this," because it's in season. He's just so excited by wood. Now he's at that point in his career where he'll say no. There's certain jobs where he is like, "No, it doesn't matter how much you pay me. I don't want to do it, so I don't need to do it."

    Katherine May:

    I love him.

    Sara Tasker:

    He's built that life for himself. I keep telling him he needs his own podcast. He is a talker. I wonder, where is that next generation of those people? Because they're getting harder and harder to find.

    Katherine May:

    They should definitely have us running the world, Sara.

    Sara Tasker:

    We do. We've got a solid plan. The only thing is we're going to need a lot of naps.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, there will need to be naps, and also for about four or five months a year, I won't want to talk to anyone, which is a bit problematic for running a country. I'm so sorry about that.

    Sara Tasker:

    If we can just coordinate those months, but if we both disappear at the same time, there's going to be a lot of unanswered emails and messages.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know, though, I think the world would learn to just get on with it and wouldn't worry. I think it's fine.

    Sara Tasker:

    Do you know what this is reminding me of, though? Over Christmas, hyperfocused, I read the Unabomber's manifesto.

    Katherine May:

    What? This got dark really suddenly.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm so sorry. He was a murderer and he was insane, let's be clear, but he was very anti the way industrialisation has changed the pace of human living. He was also a very intelligent Harvard graduate. He went to Harvard at 16. I don't know, there's something even in his message-

    Katherine May:

    Sorry, I'm trying not to giggle here, because I really hope you're going to clear this up for us [inaudible 00:55:09].

    Sara Tasker:

    I think we need to bomb ... No.

    Katherine May:

    No. No bombing.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think it's a struggle that people all across the world have been identifying for a long time, but it's coming to boiling point. It really feels like that. The solution is not terrorism-

    Katherine May:

    No, no.

    Sara Tasker:

    ... but there needs to be a solution, and I hope it happens within our lifetime that something shifts, because people can't carry on like this. We're going to destroy ourselves.

    Katherine May:

    No, I do. I feel like there's a shift happening and I think it's going to take us a while to wind back from it. I think I can see the beginnings of people just wanting to live a very different kind of a life and wanting that for their kids and not necessarily thinking, oh, I need to make sure my kid is in a profession so that they can get onto that track, and instead thinking like, how can I teach the next generation to make a life for themselves?

    Sara Tasker:

    The whole concept of slow living, the slow living movement, that ties us back around to Instagram. It's easily criticised. People like to talk about it as being very pretentious or luxury, poverty porn, pretending you have to sweep up and you don't have a Hoover, but-

    Katherine May:

    Is that what it's all about?

    Sara Tasker:

    I think it can come across that way, which I can understand. Very wealthy people talking about the broom is maybe ... What I think it really starts with is this desire for slowness and this desire to be connected to just everyday life and not have to rush around, not have to be on that treadmill.

    Sara Tasker:

    I think when there's a new movement starting, when there's a change happening, this is what happens. You see it in all different places. It's like a zeitgeist. Lots of people are conceiving of it on different levels, and eventually they all come together and you've got the snowball that starts rolling.

    Katherine May:

    I think there's a desire for contact with things that feel real again, materials that feel natural. Natural is such a loaded word, but a few years ago it occurred to me that most of the things that I used every day in my life, I wouldn't have a chance of making myself. How would you even begin to make a computer? There's no way of making it, there's no way of mending it.

    Katherine May:

    Then I thought, well, hang on. How would I even make a dust pan and brush? Mine is made of plastic and the bristles are plastic. We've come so far in terms of the materials we use. I think part of that slow living movement is about moving back towards physical contact with materials that we understand, that we-

    Sara Tasker:

    Yes, which is why it seems to have such an aesthetic, but I don't think it's necessarily aesthetic-driven. I think you're right. It's much more about tactile. For me, it's so much about story. A handmade ceramic cup has humanness in it that a perfect shiny Ikea one just doesn't. The wood in our house is weathered and it's worn by the places that we walk and the places that we don't are still pristine and shiny. That's the story of living. I get such a lot from that.

    Sara Tasker:

    At the moment, as you know, we're looking for a house in France. I want to buy an old dilapidated cottage and have some fun doing it up. Every day is a disappointment. When I look online and see an amazing house with beautiful pastel shutters and it's slightly tumbled down, and inside, it's a pristine box of shiny red kitchens and every single trace of natural materials has been stripped out or boxed in.

    Sara Tasker:

    For me, I'm just like, this house has been here for 300 years. I want its story. I want to see that. I want to see the person who laid those bricks and found the perfect combination for the dry stonewall, whatever it is. That human connection is something that we've all always needed as a species, and I think it's harder and harder to get it.

    Katherine May:

    That's such a lovely place for this conversation to end. We've solved the world's problems, but-

    Sara Tasker:

    We have.

    Katherine May:

    ... we've come back to our desire for connection. Connection between people, we talk about a lot, but I think there's something to be said about connection between us and the materials that surround us and the-

    Sara Tasker:

    The nature.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and how all of those things link together and how we want to get back to this embodied sense of living in a world that we made or that was made by people in a way that we could vaguely understand at least. There's some magic there that we're all looking for, I think.

    Sara Tasker:

    I absolutely agree. Hopefully it's resonating with other people and maybe they've got other takes that they can add to our conception of it, because it's not even got a name, has it, this feeling we have?

    Katherine May:

    No. No, it hasn't.

    Sara Tasker:

    But it's so strong.

    Katherine May:

    A yearning towards things getting more basic again and to push back the tide of stuff that comes into our homes, to get back to having fewer things that we treasure more and that we physically understand, that our hands understand.

    Sara Tasker:

    And that have a finite lifespan. Not the plastic thing that will live forever, but the wicker basket that the more you use it, the more it degrades, and eventually it's time to make or find a new one.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and that that doesn't have any impact when it does degrade as well. The end of a wicker basket is a gentle, as opposed to the plastic Tupperware that you keep, even though it's scratched and awful and bent out of shape and you know that-

    Sara Tasker:

    And you've lost all the lids.

    Katherine May:

    You've lost every single damn lid, and where do the lids go? Thank you so much for this conversation. It's been really nourishing. I think I needed to have that today. I think I needed that-

    Sara Tasker:

    Me, too.

    Katherine May:

    ... sense of contact.

    Sara Tasker:

    I hope that your listeners can carry on with us. I'd really love to hear what they have to say on it, too.

    Katherine May:

    That would be really, really interesting to hear where everyone is with this, I think. I'm fascinated by that at the moment, definitely. I wish you very good things in 2022 and I hope you've got some exciting projects underway. Is it okay to hope that?

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah, I think we're allowed, aren't we? Likewise to you as well. I think we're all a bit burned by 2021 after the-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Are we allowed to plan anymore?

    Sara Tasker:

    Just please don't suck. That's all.

    Katherine May:

    What are you planning alongside your French house? Have you got some cool things on the way?

    Sara Tasker:

    Yeah. In my business, I am making this very grown-up shift to being more of a CEO and less of the founder, so getting a little bit more distance and delegating more all of the things that I do not find very natural, but it means that it frees me up so much more to do the work I really love.

    Sara Tasker:

    I'm taking on some more one-to-one clients, which I haven't done for such a long time because I've been far too busy with classes and things. I'm hoping to write my next book this year. I'm working on the proposal for that at the moment and finding out what it's going to be and that process of just feeling it out.

    Katherine May:

    Amazing.

    Sara Tasker:

    When I get my French house, we should do something there. We'll do a writing retreat or something amazing.

    Katherine May:

    Ooh, that sounds very lovely.

    Sara Tasker:

    With lots of mess.

    Katherine May:

    I just want to come to the French house, actually. I don't want to work there. I just want to have a sit-down.

    Sara Tasker:

    We'll just drink. Yeah, you're right. We'll just drink rosé in the garden. That's what we'll do.

    Katherine May:

    That will be plenty. Thank you very much.

    Sara Tasker:

    And cheese.

    Katherine May:

    And cheese, definitely loads of cheese. Ah, Sara, thank you. I will make sure all of your contacts and links are in the bio here so that people can track you down, if they don't already know you, which I suspect they probably do, but for the-

    Sara Tasker:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    ... very few people who haven't come across your world, then they will enjoy discovering you.

    Sara Tasker:

    Thank you, and thank you so much for letting me ramble on today. Hopefully we've made some sense along the way.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just walking over to stick my head under the harbour so you can hear it, too. Lovely, big thunder in here. I love sticking my head in there, basically underneath the concrete construction that makes up the key of the harbor. There's a big hollow space. It's not under the boardwalk. It's concrete pillars, rusty ones. It makes the most fantastic sound as all the water sloshes about in there and echos. When there's no water in there, me and Bert like to come along and stick our heads in and shout echo. Simple things please me, what can I say? I thought you might enjoy the sound, too.

    Katherine May:

    The dog is going wild this morning. She's running around in figures of eights on the beach and occasionally banging into me. She's a sheep-herding breed from Lesvos, the island off Greece. She does try to herd you sometimes. Particularly if there's small children about, she'll try to herd them. I think she's herding me today. I think I spent too long talking to you guys and she's fed up with me.

    Katherine May:

    I hope you got a lot out of that conversation. I felt like we could have talked on and on, and if they'd have let us, we could have just solved all the world's problems, really. Someone has to, right? It's just such a good message, really, to think about how you can go out and be yourself and, oh, God, it just sounds so lame when I say it. She says it so much better, but you're allowed to go out and be you rather than something fixed. The world is changing and we're all part of remaking it. I think that's just so exciting. We don't have to follow the path and patterns that we once had to follow. That's all going.

    Katherine May:

    I also think she's a real comfort for people with chronic illness. There's so many of us out there who struggle with very different energy levels on different days and have to measure out our spoons. I hope that offers a little bit of sucker for anyone that feels that they can't get enough done. A nice comforting podcast day. We all deserve it.

    Katherine May:

    I'm going to walk home now. Even the harbour's busy because the tide's high. The fishermen are drawing their nets in. It's easy to forget that Whitstable's a working harbour. It's always seemed as this fancy town, but there's a very real core to it. From this part of the beach, I can see the gravel works as well, which a lot of people think is ugly, but which I think is a crucial part of our little town. It shows that it's a real place and not a theme park of a Victorian fishing town. I'm watching the diggers go around it at the moment, which again, very cool for small children, trust me.

    Katherine May:

    Well, thanks for listening. Thanks particularly to my patrons who helped to fund this. If you love the podcast and would like some extras and would like to help, please have a look at Patreon.com/KatherineMay. It's really appreciated, and necessary. It's meaning that we're carrying on this season way longer than we would've done before. It's just such a brilliant effect.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you, Sara Tasker. Thank you to Buddy Peace, my producer. Thank you to Fraggle the dog. Thank you to Meghan Hutchins, my assistant on all things. I thank you for listening. I hope you have a beautiful week with plenty of spring sunshine. See you soon.

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to Sara Tasker, writer, social media expert and coach.

While you might expect a full on party-popper celebration of social media from someone like Sara - an expert within the realm, this is a very honest chat which takes many entirely relatable routes and tangents which surely many of us can relate to. Sara and Katherine also connect on matters of the neurotypical and neurodivergent, involving Sara's own ADHD and hyperfocus and how that sews its thread into the fabric of her life and career. Really it's a just a perfect non-stop whirlwind of a conversation which flows freely, breezily and easily, with uplifting and positive navigation points for all while being straight up and down to earth. With so many jump-off points and natural detours, it's hard to summarise so just leap in with confidence, and enjoy. It's a goody...!

We talk about:

  • Neurodiversity, ADHD, hyperfocus, rejection sensitive dysphoria

  • We could be our own best coaches

  • Honesty on social media

  • Scenarios crafted for certain neurotypes

  • Awareness in neurodivergence

  • Animals and nature

  • Pet collection

  • Unsustainability of normality

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Gemma Cairney on conducting energy with balance and motion

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Gemma Cairney on conducting energy with balance and motion

———

This week Katherine chats to Gemma Cairney, presenter, curator of greatness and author of ‘Open: A Toolkit...’ and more.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Hi, I'm Katherine May. Welcome to The Wintering Sessions. As you can probably hear, I'm running a bath. I quite often, at the beginning of these podcasts, take you out for a walk. But today I thought I would share my rather secret afternoon ritual, which is that I quite often take a bath in the middle of the day. I find it really soothing. But also, quite often my work extends into the evening. I'm often doing interviews in America late into the evening. And so it's really easy for me to just carry on working right through to then, with a little break to say hi to my son. And I quite often start at half past four or five in the morning as well, because that's when I write the best. And so if I'm not careful, I can accidentally be working 15-hour days without even meaning to. And so when I want to take a rest, I take a bath. I think it's probably eccentric to do that, but that's never bothered me before, for sure.

    Katherine May:

    And I do really get reset by sitting in hot water. It really clears my head and untangles all those weird thoughts that just get stuck sometimes. I find it really useful for creative work, but most of all, I've been working really hard to divorce the idea in my mind that my worth is linked to the amount of time I sit at my desk. I mean, honestly, it's just obviously not true for me and for what I do. The way I earn my living is in these weird fits and starts, it definitely isn't per hour. But, of course, I grew up with the idea that you get paid by the hour. That is your value. And it's quite toxic, really, for me to believe that. Because the longer I sit in front of my desk, quite often, the less I end up doing. But I turn up anyway, because I feel guilty. I feel like my job isn't real. I feel like I'm not real half the time, I spend a lot of time alone. Anyway, so I'm running a bath. I thought I'd share that with you today.

    Katherine May:

    And I'm so excited for you to listen to this interview with Gemma Cairney. I just [inaudible 00:03:04] you can probably tell, but I loved talking to her. She's just like a little light bulb, I think. I love people like that. But I also think she had a really brilliant story to tell, and it wasn't the story I was expecting her to tell me. I was expecting her to tell me about the time after that, actually, when she moved up to Edinburgh, but we didn't get there. We didn't get time, because she hijacked me with this really wonderful story of how it felt to be so alone in lockdown. And living embedded in a cliff, and swimming in the sea, and dealing with all the terrible doubts that... And a sense of, "What next?" that loads of people in the arts and media felt at the beginning of lockdown. Like not knowing if they'd have any work again, and everything getting canceled. And I'm sure that's relatable for lots of people who work outside of that field as well. I hope it is.

    Katherine May:

    But anyway, it was a brilliant conversation. I absolutely loved it and I didn't want it to stop. She's been such a guiding voice, really, in culture for maybe people younger than me, hand on heart. I'm not that down with the kids, I will own that. But she does way more than that. If you haven't come across her before, you're going to love her. If you have, you'll know what I mean. Anyway, enjoy hearing from Gemma and me, and I'll be back a bit later.

    Katherine May:

    Gemma, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I'm so thrilled you agreed to talk to me today, it's really wonderful. Oh, I'm feeling a little bit intimidated by someone as competent as you are in recording things. And I just hope I can get away with being charmingly incompetent [inaudible 00:05:11] be all right.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I think that people seem to believe the smoke and mirrors that I put up, that I need everything to be super slick, supremely professional.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:05:23].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Whereas really I am, at heart, quite a DIY punk. And I'm absolutely fine with charming, and incompetent is good.

    Katherine May:

    It's a wonderful thing to have a reputation for hard work and professionalism, and that's exactly what you have. That's such a great thing to project out into the world, I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh, thanks. That means that it's worth it.

    Katherine May:

    All that fronting is paying off.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I think I am a grafter, and I think there are many reasons for it.

    Katherine May:

    Would you like to shed light on those reasons?

    Gemma Cairney:

    I think that if you are a woman, I think if you are a woman that looks like me. I mean that in terms of my cultural identity, as well as the way I choose to express myself. What I wear, how my body constantly changes and reacts to how I'm feeling, or the world around me. Where I'm at in terms of my endless curious discoveries of what it means to be alive, and how I wanted to document that and frame it. I think that to be a grafter has been a true gift, and wrenched me through my growing up period, which I think is only just [inaudible 00:06:44] a little bit.

    Katherine May:

    Surely it carries on forever.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I think it definitely does. But the real painful bit, [inaudible 00:06:52] the growing pains, I hope have calmed. But I always want to grow. And I think being a grafter is super interweaved into who I am. And it's been grafting my way out of adversity, or making decisions which might not be good for me, but not really knowing why. And just keeping on going, and working, and working. And I think that if I put out into the world hard work and professionalism, then that's a really, really good, good thing. That's a great part of that complicated obsession with work.

    Katherine May:

    Definitely. Well, but also, whenever I come across a grafter, like I'm a grafter, too. And I just always see a person who's taking it seriously, and who isn't complacent about what they've achieved and where they are in the world. And that's the way I always want to be.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative), I respect that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, mutual respect.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Come on, [inaudible 00:07:52] something. I first of all had my eyes closed, because I thought it would be a nice, serene way to do this interview. But you've [inaudible 00:08:02] me up, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    You've opened your eyes accidentally.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Here I go.

    Katherine May:

    I love it.

    Gemma Cairney:

    That's not very Wintering of me.

    Katherine May:

    That's so good. Well, now you're all charged up. But you started in this world really young, as well, didn't you? I mean like you had your first success at, what, 23 or something like that?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    So yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I got my first job at the BBC when I was a child.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. What was that like?

    Gemma Cairney:

    It is everything that you would imagine it to be. It's a roller coaster with so much beautiful high times, and excitement, and thrill. And exhilaration for having the dream job when you've still got that incredible resilience, and robust energy, and love for life, and living, and meeting new people. And there I was in the centre, in the core of fun, youth culture, music, gigs, parties, fashion.

    Katherine May:

    Amazing.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was incredible.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Was it hard as well, or was it just incredible?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Definitely, it was hard. I think if you'd asked me then, I felt so thankful because it was so unexpected, that I might not have said it was hard. Because I wouldn't have wanted to admit that it was. For me, I was made to feel, by myself and from the world that I was in, the industry side of it, to feel super grateful. And I was, I rode out on that gratefulness for years. I was just so excited, like an excitable puppy. So it really does a lot, though, it keeps you moving in momentum. So that even some of the harder stuff, like you say, "Was it hard?" Yes, crazy hours.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I was doing breakfast radio for years, different time slots. I'd be given a call by a boss and told, "We're going to move your show to this." And you don't really get that much choice. And your lifestyle is changing all of the time, and it's not necessarily in your hands, but you are really thankful. I guess it's gratitude personified. And it does actually help the hardness of it all, or an injustice, or something super unfair, or cruel even. You know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Like there are all those bits attached to being suddenly in the public eye, to serving something that is systemically very patriarchal. There are issues with racism and sexism daily. There's so many hard things that were experienced.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And it's always in your face.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. But the momentum, and the thrill, and the joy. And I feel like that's very youthful as well. Like my youth, like being 23, and having a great gaggle of friends, and just having this optimism about life, it actually helped some of those harder bits roll off in the rain, like it goes. It doesn't mean it doesn't affect you. And sometimes it comes and creeps up on you a bit later, which I think it did for me, but it was hard.

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:11:27].

    Gemma Cairney:

    But did I feel like it was hard? Not necessarily. Because I was so into the moment, I was so momentously excited. And most of the moments that I was experiencing were joyful and a privilege, and I knew that.

    Katherine May:

    I don't think everyone would have that perspective, though. I mean, you're clearly an optimist, and you're clearly someone that finds the positive in the whole world. Like whatever comes at you, you're going to find the good stuff from it. And what I hear from a lot of people is a fixation on the bad side of experience, and without that counterbalancing happy side. And that is definitely a mindset, I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yes. And on analyzation, which I have given myself time to do, it's a weighty investigation. Because I'm only that, essentially, I'm only super optimistic or know how to spring myself into the light because I've had to do that to survive. And that goes back to the day I was born. I honestly, sometimes I have to move on with the subject because I think that I've been doing that my whole life. From the day I was born, I was born into bereavement. My mum had lost her mum while she was pregnant.

    Katherine May:

    Oh wow.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I don't want to make it sound overly dramatic, or sensationalised, or overshare, but we had to get out of an unsafe situation in the house that I was in when I was a baby. There are so many things that could so easily crumple my sort of spirit, which is a really rebounding one. That I think I've honestly been an eternal optimist since the day I was born.

    Katherine May:

    Since birth.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, that I've had to be like that to survive. Which, when you break down, is potentially a bit sad. And then I've had to learn to genuinely grieve, or go through the process of accepting your responsibility, all of that kind of quite hard to define sometimes stuff, let's say, [crosstalk 00:14:01].

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. Because I was talking to a friend yesterday about like I'm having to learn not to scramble. Scrambling is what I've always done, and hustling, that is my default mode. And there comes a point when you have to deliberately not do that in order to make enough space to think, and reflect, and to actually do what you're doing properly and to develop as a... Like for me as a writer. But it really is a hard skill to unlearn sometimes. Even though that scrambling is one of my key skills and I can get my way out of anything, I also know that it's not always the right thing to do. That sometimes you have to do stuff a bit slower, and you have to take the hard way around. And you have to make room for the learning that you need to do, I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I think to learn the virtues of time can only be done over time.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know.

    Gemma Cairney:

    You couldn't tell me that age 23.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I had way too many fun things to distract myself with. And good for me, good for little me. I was up for it. I was loving going for meetings, coming up with ideas, thinking about what shoes I was going to wear to an award ceremony. Preparing for an interview with Whoopi Goldberg the next morning. Co-presenting with an idol of mine, Trevor Nelson. It was an amazing playground. It was an assault course in a way, like an adventure. Physically, mentally, et cetera, it was wild and it was hard.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And yeah, I would love to go back to myself and tell myself to learn how to eat properly. And that yoga will become my best friend, rather than dabbling with it because I had a hangover sometimes. There's all these things, but at the same time, only time can teach you what you just said, can teach you to unlatch. And also, what wonderful, brilliant things to have learnt, and to have learnt them early, and to have within you. To be a hustler, to beautifully scramble. It's not like you're scrambling in utter, awful, affecting chaos. Your scrambling is brilliant for the rest of us. We're enjoying the ride.

    Katherine May:

    I love scrambling. I'm happiest when I'm improvising. And yeah, I find life very hard when I know exactly what I've got to do, and it's all mapped out in front of me, and it's all achievable. And that's the point when I lose interest. I will then make myself a scrambling kind of a situation, I think, in order to get that high.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. I try to sometimes see life visually, and it does always come back down to balance, whenever I'm overthinking one thing or the other. Like I really need to learn calm, and patience, and all of that lovely kind of meditative, brilliant Buddhist stuff. And then there's another part of me that's wanting to escape, and disco dance, and cover myself in glitter and scream. And come up with something completely different to what I thought the day before. Through conversation, and art, and rambunctiousness, and rebellion. So this beautiful discovery, for me, I think essentially is being able to healthfully, safely, joyfully, or even contemplatively pendulum-swing between the different extremes of ourselves. And it just comes back to balance. Like how wonderful to be able to learn the art of scrambling, and the art of patience, and time, and solitude. That's a pretty good course for a life, I think.

    Katherine May:

    Definitely, and there's [inaudible 00:18:08] time for both. Well, I want to talk... Because actually, you're clearly a really sociable person that is excited by working with other people, and by the kind of ideas that bounce around when you're in company. And so I wanted to talk to you about your lockdown experience, because I gather you were quite alone at the beginning of that.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. So lockdown one, the big lockdown.

    Katherine May:

    What number are we on now? I don't even know.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I don't know what anything is anymore. I've just been in isolation because I had you know what, I don't want to say the word.

    Katherine May:

    Oh man, yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I'm fine, I'm very grateful that I'm fine. And yeah, I was writing about it last night, and I was calling it the New Year ground-down. [inaudible 00:18:55] I felt like I had to just do some grounding. But I refused to call it a lockdown, or isolation, or just all of these really authoritative words that just make my toes curl. But when we were first getting our mouth around the words and the notion of lockdown, so that must've been from mid-March 2020. And I had just had my birthday, because my birthday is on the 19th of March. And it was one of the most profound times of my life. I've had really profound moments in my life, but this one was not so shiny. It was actually a bit scary, and moody, and it wasn't so dazzling in terms of profound. It was a moment to dig into myself and work out what would be right for me to do.

    Katherine May:

    So were you still in Margate at this point?

    Gemma Cairney:

    So it's all very complicated. Thanks for letting me bore you on this.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:20:01].

    Gemma Cairney:

    But I was mostly living in a rented room at two of my lovely friends' house in East London, just off Broadway Market. And it was a great pad. It was the bachelorette dream, it was near everything fun and cool.

    Katherine May:

    Nice.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And it was reminding me of my old stomping grounds, which was East London. Having moved to the seaside as part of a kind of exodus, which I think happened six years previously. And I had been living in Margate, but I'd always been nomadic in my approach. So I was doing loads of traveling up until that moment. Making a Radio 4 program called The Sound Odyssey, which was all over the world. Recorded everywhere from Colombia to Ethiopia.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I was very much in a flow, but very, like you say, like a hustling one. I was taking myself everywhere. I'd have to go and do an event in London, and then I would try and section off periods of time at my place in Margate. So I still had a base in Margate, but I had this room in London. And I was actually spending more time in London, because I was in the middle of... Which I can't be bothered to go into, even though it's sad. And I appreciate sympathy, but I had a neighbour dispute happening at my place in Margate, as well.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, [crosstalk 00:21:28].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Just to add to this very frenetic lifestyle anyway. And that was taking up the amount of time that a full-time job would. There were solicitors involved.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, God.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I was getting emails multiple times a day, if not phone calls, from somebody who had moved into the flat below me and really took a real disliking to me personally. And started accusing me of all... It got madder, and madder, and madder over the course of actually nearly two years. I couldn't believe when I got out of it all, because I had just batted it off, because I was so busy. I was just like, "Well, I'll sort this out." Anyway, it was really, really, really, really weird.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I felt safer in London at this particular point, despite having a place in Margate.

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Financially, everything was a clusterfuck, pardon my French. I was trying to get out of this situation of my Margate base. I was paying for a really expensive London rented room. It was really hardcore. And apologies, this is a warning for some, because it is particularly hard to hear. I had lost a friend of mine unexpectedly, who had decided to end their own life.

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:22:53].

    Gemma Cairney:

    And she was this hugely public figure. So I was in a public mourning for Caroline Flack, who had been a personal friend of mine, too. So everything was-

    Katherine May:

    Everything at once.

    Gemma Cairney:

    ... a tangle of the hardest things that you might have to deal with. And I was a single woman in my 30s, really trying to pride myself on being robust, optimistic, secure, et cetera, safe, happy. And I was imploding, it was really, really difficult. And then suddenly a global pandemic was looming.

    Katherine May:

    Which was exactly what you needed at that moment, presumably. Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was just surreal. I was wondering whether I was in a dream. You know when you get really sad, and you don't really feel you're on the planet anyway. And you just sort of maneuver from room to room, or talk to people, but you don't really feel connected. That had been going on for quite a while. And then I was also scrambling, let's say, to try and claw back good stuff. Like I was going to some quite hardcore therapy for the first time. I'd promised my friends that I would consider taking medication to... I was really trying. I was really thinking, "Okay, this is something that's going to have to be addressed. I have to create a framework, because I'm in trouble. This is hard."

    Gemma Cairney:

    And yeah, then this thing started to be talked about all the time. And it's just really surreal, if I'm honest, it was so surreal. I was just like, "Okay. Right, so I've got all this shit going on with myself, but this is now this thing that's about to affect the whole world." And I'm really sensitive as well. I could feel that it was going to be huge. Which is another reason I think that I was feeling so disorientated anyway.

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:25:02] pending doom thing, isn't it, [crosstalk 00:25:04]?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I remember that time when it was coming.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And then [crosstalk 00:25:04] as a human species, I think things were getting too full and fast. And all these kind of odd, or negative, or harsh behaviors that were happening around me, sometimes involving me and sometimes not. But like my neighbor being so mean and horrible, and all of these things that were happening. I do see somehow we may be connected to this kind of impending doom core, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yep.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Like I mean-

    Katherine May:

    It's those moments when you feel like everything... You're at the center of this, I don't know, like eye of the storm, and everything is happening to you.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And it feels... Yeah, it's a very particular feeling.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Weather is a really good way of making it into the metaphor that I need, I think. [inaudible 00:25:59] being in an eye of a storm, but feeling like humankind was in the storm. It wasn't just me, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was a really weird time, I'm not going to lie. And I don't want to be overindulgent either, so I don't all overdo it in terms of it all being about me. Because I think that there was a feeling in the air, I just do. And it's just like a theory that I have. And I also don't want to be too doomy, I don't want to be low. There were so many hard things happening. But all I wanted, in the way that I am, like always trying to jump for the sunshine, searching for it, was to find the ropes and the vines I needed to grab on to see me through.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And then the universe kind of asked everybody to do that, but in their own way. Everyone was suddenly presented with this time to reflect, and to grapple with our own morals as to what was right or wrong. To search for genuine beauty in confinement. To get in touch with our bodies as to how we prepared to eat our way through a lockdown. Or how we were going to express empathy for the truly vulnerable people in the world and in our society. And it was just an absolute [crosstalk 00:27:41].

    Katherine May:

    I know. There's no word for it, is there?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, like, "Whoa." And personally, it presented an opening of looking after myself, truly. Like utterly, properly looking after myself. Because I was so low anyway, and it was literally in my dreams. My dreams said to me like, "Get to the sea. You can't [crosstalk 00:28:11]."

    Katherine May:

    My dreams always say that to me.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, like the night after my birthday. I'd pretty much cried my way through my birthday, in a kind of like trying to watch a wistful film crying. I'd also created a crown from eucalyptus, from a beautiful bunch of flowers that someone had sent me. And wore my favorite designer, Mary Benson, in a velvet dress. And so I tried to make it an event, it wasn't like wrapped up in bed crying, but that was on the 19th of March, 2020. I was so grief-stricken for everything that had happened with Caroline. And I was just so sad and upset, but I also tried to make that moment poetic or something, I don't know.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I kept dreaming about the sea, and then I thought, "Okay, I have to go." So I searched online for Airbnbs. I don't know if I should be saying all of this, but I was looking for a place that would be by the sea that wasn't the place that I owned. Because I didn't feel safe there because of the neighbor dispute. And I hardly had any money. I had just a bit of money from a job, that was not supposed to be used on staying by the sea during a lockdown, during a pandemic.

    Katherine May:

    But you had to live somewhere.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. But it's really weird, because I had a base in Margate, but honestly I wasn't safe with that person [crosstalk 00:29:47].

    Katherine May:

    Well, I was going to say, it doesn't sound like that was safe. I mean, that's not a choice, is it? You can't lock yourself down in a building where somebody is being actively menacing.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Actually making jokes about you putting your head in the oven, it's just not all right.

    Katherine May:

    It's not okay, [crosstalk 00:30:02].

    Gemma Cairney:

    So I couldn't go there. And then I had this beautiful pad in London, but it was too small and it wasn't right. I couldn't see my grief dissipating, or my lowness, or the things that... Like a lot of past traumas were coming up. And I just thought, "I can't do that in this small place in the city. So gosh, I'm lucky to be in this position, but this also feels very mad and dramatic. But I'm going to go somewhere else." So I found this place that was really unique, and it was an old shop built into a cliff in Ramsgate. So it was only down the road to my Margate place, which felt good, actually. And I thought, "I will sort that situation out when I have some time [inaudible 00:30:48]." Because I'd tried to sell it three times, and each time the sale had been sabotaged because of this person.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, my God.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I just emailed. I was writing my book, which I'm still writing. And I emailed the owner, and I said, "I've only got this amount of money, not the usual amount of money that it would be to book this place for a month. But would you accept it? Because it's seeming that there's not going to be much tourism in the near future."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, in the coming weeks.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. "And can I come and can I write my book?" And then I got a cab, and masked up just before lockdown, because I wanted to have a screen between myself and the driver. Packed my stuff for three hours, and just went to live in a cliff.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:31:37].

    Gemma Cairney:

    It's this sort of really unique property that's been built in a cliff.

    Katherine May:

    That can be quite bleak. I mean, it can be very beautiful, but when the sea is raging, what was it like being in solitude in a place like that?

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was absolutely astonishingly beautiful.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was amazing, and it's exactly what I needed. I'm actually feeling emotional talking about it, because I haven't really talked about it for ages. Because so many other big things have happened that have been beautiful and lovely. And my luck did come, after praying for it. But yeah, it was amazing. I signed up, I was on a coastline that I'm familiar with. I knew that there were people close that were my people, my tribe. So I didn't feel completely alone. I thought it was important to put myself out there in terms of introducing myself to neighbors that seemed open and friendly. And said that, "I'm here on my own, I'm writing my book. I know that a lockdown is about to happen, so I'm not expecting for us to be having parties. But just so that you know that I'm next door." And they were really receptive, and beautiful, and kind. And then the journey just started, this kind of twisted adventure of learning to grieve and keying into myself.

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:33:04].

    Gemma Cairney:

    I don't know what the right way to describe it is, but like-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Sinking down, I guess. Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, and just becoming so inwards. Because [crosstalk 00:33:16]-

    Katherine May:

    I mean it's almost monastic, isn't it? I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Katherine May:

    It's like a kind of living in a cell in a abbey somewhere in the 14th century, or something.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I mean, I was lucky because it was so beautiful. So I loved the raging sea at night. The first few nights I couldn't really sleep. And I just thought, "Oh, well, I've got loads of nights to sleep. I've got days to sleep. I've got loads of time to sleep. We're going to be locked down for a while. So if I can't sleep now, don't panic." And I just remember saying to myself, I was like, "Just listen to the sea. You know the sea is your friend, or it speaks to you, at least. Or it's so brilliantly changeable, and ferocious, and big that it puts things into perspective. And this isn't just about me." And then my imagination got me through, which it does often anyway. But my imagination is so ridiculous, and epic. And where I was geographically, and how this house had been built overlooking the sea. I could open up doors from my bedroom. There was a freestanding bath. It was a really nice, special place to be. It wasn't particularly bougie, but it was really unique.

    Katherine May:

    It sounds wild. It sounds like a-

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was quite wild. It's really hard to explain, but it was very unique. And I opened up the door so I could hear the sea. And I started swimming, which I do anyway. But I was going in in the cold, and sort of doing the haka or something like [inaudible 00:34:48] to myself. In fact, the amazing neighbors who lived a few doors down, who I'd reached out to and said, "Just so you know, I'm here on my own. Will I be okay, do you think? Is this a safe place?" [inaudible 00:35:02] whatever. And they'd seen me running across the beach, literally punching the air, and screaming, and preparing to get into the freezing cold water. And I got a text saying, "We saw you. Not only did you swim, but you were doing some ritualistic dancing before you got in."

    Katherine May:

    I love that.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I loved it. It was a beautiful friend called Wendy, they've become friends. But she said, "We think you're really rock and roll."

    Katherine May:

    That's brilliant.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I just thought, "Yeah, I am." And that was helping acclimatize to cold water and having that freedom of beach every day. I also thought about the art of reaching out being really important. I've sort of became a bit obsessed with it. I wanted to connect. I knew I was on my own, but I knew that it was so important to always stay connected. Even though I was very emotionally vulnerable, I needed love and people. So I tried to show love and I tried to inhabit love.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love The Wintering Sessions and would to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture, and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings. And the answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive, and a day early, too. Plus you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events. And your podcast will always be ad-free.

    Katherine May:

    If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month for life. So do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to patreon.com/katherinemay, or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. And please don't worry if this isn't for you, the regular version of The Wintering Sessions will still be free, and I really appreciate your listens. Now back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    What did that do for you, that time? I mean, did you... Oh, I don't know what I'm asking in lots of ways. I was about to say, "Did it make you more productive?" But I don't mean productive as in like, "Were you a good little agent of capitalism turning out lots of work and a book?" But what I mean is what did it do to your creative self? What did it do to your pattern of living?

    Gemma Cairney:

    It was really unexpectedly pleasant. Because once you move through... I don't think it's rage, but almost outrage of the situation and things that just aren't fair. Like I got loads of work withdrawn, so I lost out on loads of planned money. And some of it felt really distasteful, let's say, in terms of the decisions that big organizations were making, where I clearly wasn't a priority. Firstly, I can't sit in that outrage for too long, because it's not like I don't expect certain spaces to let me down and not prioritize me. So again, you just have to like... I don't know why I was talking about this as a sort of life lesson for us all, but I had to. I had to choose where to put my energy. And I could've just been stuck in a real negative space, but I chose the opposite, I chose to learn. I see it as a learning, like I chose to learn to move through grief.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And so many different griefs at once. Not just one grief, but the loss of a friend, the loss of a home, and the whole vision that comes with losing a home. You lose that, too. The loss of work, the loss of the... Well, we all went through that loss of independence in a lockdown that felt so violent, actually.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, [crosstalk 00:40:02].

    Katherine May:

    Even though we were submitting to it willingly. Yeah, it's a lot of loss in one go.

    Gemma Cairney:

    But I learnt the motions of it in order to stay afloat. We all, like you say, have had to deal with something. I think violent is a good word. But what certain elements of my career or my life have been through, or represent up until now, was very much being controlled by the puppets of this kind of quite toxic capitalism, this patriarchal thinking. The normalization of perfectionism, et cetera, et cetera. All of the stuff that we're working through now, I think, quite openly.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Well, it began during that time, didn't it? I mean it [crosstalk 00:40:56] exploded in that time.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. [inaudible 00:40:57] that began during that time in terms of unpicking it. But in terms of the effects of all of those things, being a woman, being Black, growing up in the UK. Having dealt with all the things I have anyway, I've had to deal with that violence always. So it actually provided space and time to learn how to protect myself from that. Because actually, I'm in an industry that never gives you that.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It doesn't give you the time to think about whether saying yes to that particular campaign is going to make your back ache because it feels really uncomfortable, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It doesn't give you the opportunity to turn everything off and say, "I choose to partake in an alternative practice for five days straight." or whatever. That's so broad, but like doing stuff [crosstalk 00:41:59].

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, sure.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It doesn't let you. I don't work in a role where you're allowed to turn off. And societally, we can understand that more, all of us, it's much more resonant because we are always switched on to so many different things. But I was before everybody else was, too, because I chose to do a job that is associated with a sense of public ownership, or discussion, or-

    Katherine May:

    Well, and massive uncertainty as well. Those careers can just disappear in an instant if you fall out of favor. And it's quite a terrifying world to work in, I think, in some ways.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It's really, it's absolutely insane. [inaudible 00:42:42] it's really, really a weird world. But it's very alluring, particularly when you're young. And it can take you in amazing places, and connect you to some of the greatest thinkers on the planet. Or you can earn enough money to travel and to fill your house with things that make your heart sing. There's all these opportunities, opportunity is important to focus on. And there are so many opportunities within the industry side of my world, as well as the artistic expression side. And it's very dazzling, but it's very full-on. And it will not nurture, or protect me, or anything that I've dealt with as a human being. So I had to learn how to do that myself. Because otherwise there's many, many, many, many, many different also rigorously active grafting souls that will lead you in all sorts of different directions. And everyone has got their own prerogative, but you have to learn your path, how to lay your path. Only you can really do that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. So in the aftermath, when everything opened up again and life went a bit back to normal, although it still isn't, but yeah. Yeah, sorry. I mean it feels normal now, but as soon as I said that, I was like, "This isn't normal. What am I talking about?" I'm still sticking a cotton-wool stick five inches up my nose every two days, that's not normal. But I can do it without blinking now, which I think is quite impressive. But yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    [inaudible 00:44:28] we're really tough. We can absolutely do this. We can get through stuff, we really can. It's just about being gentle at the right times, and then tough at the other. It's really weird.

    Katherine May:

    It's knowing when to soften. But what have you brought from that time into your life now? How have you been permanently changed by it? And what bits did you leave behind in that little house in the cliff in Ramsgate?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh, what a time, what a time. Oh, well, I started to have fun. You mentioned creatively what it did for me, and actually what it did for me was to move on from despair, let's say, or all that kind of stuff, outrage, to playtime.

    Katherine May:

    That's great.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And not only was I doing my dancing on the beach and then swimming, I was activated in a really special way that politically the tides were changing. Like the resurgence of Black Lives Matter was so visceral. It opened up a space to talk and to find language about things that essentially have been oppressive for so long. And I was going with that, and it allowed me to believe in myself as a creative. I really do believe in myself as somebody that's meant to talk. I want to talk, I want to be part of the movement. So I, every Tuesday, was chatting to a friend of mine, Lola, on Instagram Live that became really weird. It became like a talk show [inaudible 00:46:22], but it was just a way of connecting, at first. She asked me if I wanted to do it. She's a journalist and a writer. And she's British and is based in New York, and has been for many years. So we would just talk every Tuesday lunch.

    Katherine May:

    Just have a chat.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And compare notes from being solo, lockdown, single women, but with the Atlantic in between us, which was really fun. And then it became a bit more serious at points because of the world around us, but-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, there was such a lot to take seriously at that point, wasn't there?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. But it was an experimentation in connection, that particular chat. And we'd get quite a few people watching [inaudible 00:46:58], "This is kind of cool." And I really felt activated in the moment. I didn't write loads of my book, because that felt very [crosstalk 00:47:07]-

    Katherine May:

    Nobody wrote loads of their book during lockdown, don't worry about it.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Well, some people did.

    Katherine May:

    I didn't either.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Some people did. But I did write, and I was active on Patreon, and I've been growing my page. And felt really responsive to day-to-day feelings and wanting to write them down and create from it. And I also started my own radio show, which I'm really proud of. And that was one of those things. You know when proper artists talk about how things come through them?

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Gemma Cairney:

    Or I've heard writers talk about it as well, where they just feel like they are doing something, but they don't even have to think about it too much.

    Katherine May:

    You just channel stuff, yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I knew that I needed to broadcast. I was gutted that I couldn't do the live radio that I'm used to, so I just created my own. And I brought together people that I thought might help me. And I self-funded it, did a completely independent show every Wednesday night between 9:00 and 11:00.

    Katherine May:

    That's amazing.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And put together the playlist gleefully, spoke to writers all around the world and got them to read live on air. Had conversations with people from motivational speakers in Washington, to a psychotherapist who's on the frontline in Amsterdam. To a Scottish poet called Billy Letford, who was on lockdown and stuck in Thailand. It was amazing. And that was just down in a bunker where I was socially distanced from two tech people. And in a nightclub in Margate that used to host-

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:48:46].

    Gemma Cairney:

    It used to host my club night when I was living there, called Gem's Jams.

    Katherine May:

    Oh.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And suddenly we turned it into a radio station. And it was so, again, an experiment in connection, and one that was so fulfilling.

    Katherine May:

    I just love that. Obviously we can't talk about the pandemic without talking about how hard it was, and how awful it was for loads of people. But at the same time, what I'm hearing over and over again is people doing stuff from the gut. Like, "I have to do this. I have to communicate this. I have to make this." But also finding new ways to do it. Because I bet you wouldn't have considered launching your own completely independent radio show before then. I love the [crosstalk 00:49:32].

    Gemma Cairney:

    I have a very overactive mind, I would think about it. [crosstalk 00:49:37], but the big difference for me is I absolutely wouldn't have the time. I wouldn't, because I'll be pulled in different directions for things that are deemed more important, more financially feasible. Have so many companies or bosses attach that [inaudible 00:49:58] that I don't have the time for that freedom, that play, that DIY momentum, and that gut thing that you described. I live by mine, I've had it always. But it's definitely been really resonant over the past couple of years.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah. Well, we've needed it because there's no road map, and you've got to follow something. And actually, I think a lot of people have tuned back into those gut instincts that they've been suppressing for a very long time. And that's good, right? That's [crosstalk 00:50:35].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh, it's so nice. I'm really relieved for that. There are so many things that have broken my heart, but then there's also been so many ingredients to mend bits of it as well, and that's one of them. People being softer, people falling in love with nature. People understanding my tribal dance before I get in the sea.

    Katherine May:

    I wish you had a video of that.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It can be recreated anytime.

    Katherine May:

    I think you should start a club, and we'll all get together and do your tribal dance before a swim.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yes, [crosstalk 00:51:09].

    Katherine May:

    I mean, I just need you to teach me this skill. I swim, but I don't dance first.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Obviously it's quite weird. It's just like punching the air and like [inaudible 00:51:17] your bottom.

    Katherine May:

    Sounds beautiful. It sounds like a beautiful thing.

    Gemma Cairney:

    My boyfriend has to be subjected to it on a regular basis. But yeah, Nightwaves is the name of the radio show, and it's on Mixcloud. And there are 20 shows there that I just think are so special.

    Katherine May:

    Ah, [inaudible 00:51:36].

    Gemma Cairney:

    So if anybody listening wants to delve into what that feeling of solitude, and grief, and sea, and journey was like, then you can actually... There was a documentation of it.

    Katherine May:

    That's just lovely. And that's how this podcast started as well, a similar instinct. Like I wanted to talk to people. I wanted to make contact with other writers, and talk about this moment and other moments that were like it. And just to produce something in that kind of free-floating time when you just weren't sure what was going to happen next, and couldn't plan. And I still feel like we can't plan, and I think that might be quite good for us in lots of ways, actually.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yes. Societally we've become so entrenched in planning and being sensible. But nobody is doing the right thing, like the right thing with a capital T.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It's really hard to know what it is. Especially when even our actual government, I mean [inaudible 00:52:42] again, words that I don't really like to say, are not posing as authoritative, solid... You know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, I know. They're not being the grown-ups.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Community-care thinking in any particular way.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:53:00].

    Gemma Cairney:

    In terms of doing the right thing, or setting the right rules and boundaries. So therefore, I mean this metaphorically rather than literally running into the streets naked if you're on isolation. [inaudible 00:53:11] like, "No, don't be ridiculous [inaudible 00:53:15]."

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:53:15] worth pointing out.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I mean, laugh about that as an idea. But [inaudible 00:53:20] as a broader, as a bigger picture, flowing with the moment, and being in the moment, and being present is a gift, I think, that this pandemic has given us [inaudible 00:53:35] yeah, and creatively that's so nice. I'm glad that you felt moved to talk to people and that people are getting something from that. Because connection is, I think I found, one of the most important things. In fact, there's a brilliant essay on connection called that. Called On Connection, written by Kae Tempest, I don't know if you've come across it.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. I know, it's extraordinary. And I read it during lockdown, actually.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, me too. And I interviewed Kae for Nightwaves.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 00:54:06].

    Gemma Cairney:

    I had a feature where I would ask artists to take me on a trip and to delve into a kind of transcendental journey. And if they could take me anywhere in the world, whilst we all yearned for travel, where would they take me? And Kae took me to Brazil on a boat.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And we had the most biblical, almost, conversation that can be listened as a standalone on my Mixcloud channel, or part of the show which we edited it to be part of, too. And I just felt as though Kae is a prophet of our modern times and is such an important voice.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah, they're amazing.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I do [crosstalk 00:54:51] and On Connection actually came out after our conversation. And I've been a fan of Kae's for a long time, but the summing up of it and the published essay on how important connection, and writing, and creativity actually is, I think is a must read.

    Katherine May:

    It really is, I would recommend it to anyone. And actually, I must try and get Kae on the podcast. That would be like the biggest coup in the world, I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Definitely.

    Katherine May:

    Love to talk to them, yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Their infinite wisdom and approach to language and expression is a real, again, another gift for us all in these current [inaudible 00:55:27] times.

    Katherine May:

    Ah. Well, look, there's so much more I'd like to ask you, but I am conscious of your time. And also the listeners, because I think you and I could just talk in this vein for like five hours and we'd still be really happy.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. Well, the quick sum-up, because there's loads of different things that happened after that.

    Katherine May:

    I love that you sum up, this is great. This is what the professionalism is, "I'm going to sum up now."

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, that's so [crosstalk 00:55:50]. But just in terms of it's quite important to say that though the doldrums were very real, and times were really hard at the beginning of 2020. And the lockdown was not only profoundly creative, et cetera, and fun to dance on the beach. There were moments of serious sadness and thought. Was falling in love, I fell in love as soon as-

    Katherine May:

    Oh. This is an unexpected twist at the end. What?

    Gemma Cairney:

    [inaudible 00:56:19]. As soon as we were allowed to actually see people again, somebody came back into my life that I hadn't seen since 2018, on a mountain in Malawi in Africa.

    Katherine May:

    Oh [inaudible 00:56:29].

    Gemma Cairney:

    And at the time, he owned an off-grid eco lodge. And I thought he was absolutely gorgeous, but I did think to try and be sensible, in the sense that he lived in Malawi. And in 2020 he found his way back to the UK, and we have been inseparable ever since.

    Katherine May:

    Oh wow. Oh, that's amazing. And so wow, unexpected outcomes [inaudible 00:56:56].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Honestly, 2020 was a very, very strange and pivotal year, but it definitely changed my life hugely in ways... I think a lot of people know that 2020 changed their lives, but a lot of it's quite esoteric and perhaps nuanced as to how.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah. You've got something really concrete, haven't you, that's come out of that?

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah, [inaudible 00:57:16]. I went on my own into a cliff, and I came out and I found the love of my life. It's just [inaudible 00:57:24].

    Katherine May:

    It's like a fairy story.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I thought I would emerge a bitter troll, and actually all the kimono wearing which I had done, which I did a lot of, by the way, as well. That was the other very important part [inaudible 00:57:42]. I wore this silk beach kimono nearly every day.

    Katherine May:

    Nice. That's a great way to live your life.

    Gemma Cairney:

    [crosstalk 00:57:49] somehow moved me in the direction of really trying to cultivate the epitome of fabulousness. And I keep trying to dance in that direction ever since.

    Katherine May:

    That's just, it's just so perfect. And I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy that that could emerge from this time of retreat, and it's like you kindle this fire that's going to take you into the next place in your life, I think.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Yeah. It's absolutely bananas, it's bonkers. And then since, I've moved to Scotland, where we both have heritage, and it's all been very... I mean one day I'll write it all down, I don't know. I'm just living it at the moment. I'm still in it. It's still flabbergasting me. And I'm still gutted by the many losses and all the injustice in the world. And I'm activated and poised to talk about all of those things. And I'm also find it really important to try and live by example. In terms of believing in healing, and believing in doing the inner work. And just really cultivating who you are, and what makes you feel good, and then good things come.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative). Gemma, thank you so much. It has just been amazing to talk [inaudible 00:59:10]. And I just want to book you in for next week and we'll carry the story on [inaudible 00:59:14].

    Gemma Cairney:

    You just need to listen... Honestly, listen to Nightwaves [inaudible 00:59:18].

    Katherine May:

    I am totally going to, it sounds incredible.

    Gemma Cairney:

    You've got music, as well, to break up the big conversation.

    Katherine May:

    I don't know if I'm emotionally ready.

    Gemma Cairney:

    It's not all really deep. I think, again, it's that balance of just the light and the shade constantly.

    Katherine May:

    That sounds amazing. Oh, well, I mean, I know that you've got legions of devoted fans anyway, but I think when you keep innovating like this, it's so exciting. You don't need to do this when you've got a profile like yours, but actually I just love that you do because you're interested in it and you want to explore stuff.

    Gemma Cairney:

    I do need to do it. I am progress-led always. I absolutely do need to do it. I think there's a lot of things in this world that need changing. And I absolutely need to constantly ask myself the questions as to whether my energy is in the right space. And innovation is completely imperative to that. And also, I would say that reflecting that out there to anybody listening. People have most likely found this free Patreon, for example, which I think is a really interesting independent platform. And I really rate and respect those who are seeking out content for themselves on it. So bravo, high-five, big up. And we all can continue to innovate in terms of what we consume, where we spend our money, how we make our money.

    Katherine May:

    [inaudible 01:00:53].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Who we spend our time with, how we get over any of the past that doesn't feel right. All of these things, all of these innovations, from personal, to professional, to public, and environmental, all of these things, we all can do it. There are so many pioneers and avenues of freedom, goodness, a better future for the next generation. So we all, we're doing it by listening to this, and going on Patreon, and making, and connecting. But it doesn't stop, and it doesn't stop at people with big voices. It's all of us.

    Katherine May:

    But it's such an important point to live by, isn't it? That you get to choose where you put your time, money, and attention. That don't let other people choose those things for you. You make those choices and you make them positive.

    Gemma Cairney:

    If you can, and it's also all right for it to feel really hard. But know that you're not on your own, and that there's some really good stuff out there.

    Katherine May:

    There's some really good stuff out there.

    Gemma Cairney:

    There's some good stuff. Love is lovely. Sea swimming is great.

    Katherine May:

    Yes, [crosstalk 01:02:08].

    Gemma Cairney:

    Moving house is stressful whilst it's stressful, and then it becomes [inaudible 01:02:12] wonderful, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Cutting cords of toxic people is a little bit bad, and then you feel great.

    Katherine May:

    Always good.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Like all of these things, it's worth it.

    Katherine May:

    Frosty mornings give me life, yeah.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh. I've been in isolation, it's my freedom day tomorrow [inaudible 01:02:29].

    Katherine May:

    Well, happy freedom day for tomorrow.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh, my God.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, thank you so much.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Thank you so much, Katherine. You've been really, really, really open and really allowed me to have a big old meaty chat. And I've talked about things I haven't talked about in ages.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, I love chats like that. I don't see the point in any other kind of chat.

    Gemma Cairney:

    Oh, it's crazy to reflect [inaudible 01:02:55] emotional, but yeah, it's also, I'm quite proud of myself.

    Katherine May:

    You are, you should be. Oh my God, you should be.

    Gemma Cairney:

    And I think we should all be proud of ourselves.

    Katherine May:

    Yes. We have all come through a lot this year. A lot [inaudible 01:03:14].

    Katherine May:

    I'm back out of my bath now. I'm as pink as a lobster. I considered recording you a podcast segment in which I was in the bath, but I felt like naked podcasting was a bit too weird. And also, I was worried about my phone. Very sensibly, given how clumsy I am. I would've drowned my phone in moments. I think they're waterproof now, thank goodness, but even so. It's funny how we have to talk about this stuff, isn't it? How we take care of ourselves. It's part of my resistance that I talk about quite a lot, to looking busy for the sake of it, I think. I do everything I can and I don't always succeed not to be busy unnecessarily, and not to say, "I'm busy." when I'm asked. That's like my reflex for the whole of my life, to reply to the question, "How are you?" "Oh, busy." Busy is not the answer to, "How are you?"

    Katherine May:

    You can be good busy, you can be terrible busy, but you can also be not busy. I've had some really grimly busy times in my life over the last few years. Some impossibly busy times where I'm busy because there are too many pressures crushing me from every direction. And I'm trying really hard to learn not to be busy. And to say, "I have enough. I have enough to live on at the moment." Haven't always, you know? I have enough work. I don't need to fill my days unnecessarily. Anyway, that's a long way round of saying that I just loved what Gemma told us about how she took care of herself when everything felt like it was getting lost. That fear of being nothing. That fear of not having a home, of not having anywhere to settle or belong, and the things you might do in the face of that. I just thought it was such a beautiful story. I hope you enjoyed it, too.

    Katherine May:

    And I wish you many hot baths, or whatever the thing is that soothes you. Not everyone likes hot baths. Not everyone can have hot baths. But they're my thing for now until the day that they can't prize me into them anymore, and then I'll have to find another thing, dammit. Anyway, thank you for listening. I wanted to say a huge thank you to my Patreons or my patrons, I still don't know what to call them. They're really lovely, though. I feel like jumping in and supporting this podcast. What that means is that I don't have to stop this season in a couple of episodes as I would've done without my Patreons.

    Katherine May:

    I still don't cover all the podcast expenses from what they bring, but it really helps. It means that I can do more and I can do it in a kind of relaxed way. It's making a lot possible, and I'm so grateful for it. It's just so wonderful to have partners in crime. I'm about to record a bonus episode where I answer loads of their questions, and I just can't imagine anything much more fun, to be honest. I hope they find it fun in return. But yeah, it's a joy, so thank you. And if you'd to support the podcast, please consider it. At least take a look around. It's at patreon.com/katherinemay. But if you can't do that, that's fine, too. I always used to worry such a lot when I heard this stuff when I didn't have any money in my pocket. And think, "Oh, I can't help. I'm not valued." You are. You really are. I love it that you all listen, so thank you.

    Katherine May:

    And thank you to Gemma. To my producer, Buddy, who untangles all these crazy ramblings about being in the bath. I don't know what he thinks of it. It's probably best I don't. And thanks to Meghan who looks after the Patreons so beautifully, and me. It's another little artefact of my self care that I never thought I deserved. And now I realise I need it to cope without burning myself out. Anyway, I'll see you all next time with more brilliant guests. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to Gemma Cairney, presenter, curator of greatness and author of ‘Open: A Toolkit...’ and more. There's a strong chance you're familiar with Gemma through her prolific radio and broadcast career, but if not - as you've surely come to notice over the Wintering podcast - you're about to meet another new best friend. Gemma's been grinding and hustling since the early days of her media work which kicked off at the BBC, and Katherine checks in with her at a point in her life where so many of the experiences along the way are truly forming some epic life chapters which have to be heard. What you'll hear in this episode is a spirit of turning lemons not only into lemonade, but an amazing lemon salad dressing as well as some incredible lemon jewellery too. From a whirlwind which synchronised around the time of the early days of the pandemic, this is a glorious and uplifting chat where we find Gemma at a reflective, wise and refreshed place. You'll enjoy it as a fan of Gemma or as a newly acquainted listener - and in either case, have a look at what she's been up to in case you've missed anything (including a ton of sea swimming of course). Wintering Sessions listeners, please enjoy!

We talk about:

  • Grafting and keeping in motion through grafting

  • Continuing to learn through life

  • Motion of gratitude, and working through hectic moments in life

  • Learn lessons of time over/through time

  • Balance

  • Scrambling over pre-meditation

  • Living in a cliff

  • Dance before swimming

  • Powering through lockdown with own brand of positivity and hard work

  • Powering through also with mind control and instinct

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Aimee Nezhukumatathil on nurturing wonder through nature

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Aimee Nezhukumatathil on nurturing wonder through nature

———

This week Katherine chats to Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of ‘World Of Wonders’ and more.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    This week, I've been trying to get down to the beach at sunset. It's not always easy to find the time but the skies have been really clear so the sunsets are spectacular. So easy to miss them. So easy to forget that they're there but these perfect, cold, frosty winter days are actually really precious. Just as I was coming down to the beach, I noticed that the moon is high over the town. It's waxing gibbous in a clear blue sky, dark blue now that the sun's coming down, it's just touching the horizon. The tide's out so I'm scratching about on the seabed, which will ruin my boots. And there are big crowds of starlings flying together, murmurating. I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a verb. Down here on the beach, it's quite busy actually. People come out with the sun, they're all taking photos. I will be too, in a moment.

    Katherine May:

    The oystermen are still harvesting from the frames. All of the houses are lit up, golden with the low sun. Two planes are crossing in the sky, leaving their vapour trails like a kiss. And the sea is the most extraordinary silver blue. And it always feels at this time in the afternoon like it's charging up with the last of the sun and after it goes down, there will be this glow as if it's luminescent. It's reflecting the big orange ball in all the puddles left on the seabed at the moment. So lovely.

    Katherine May:

    It's a really good moment to set the scene for my conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, the memoirist and poet who speaks so well of rare things, of the things in nature that are not ordinary, not small and brown like the birds that I see in my back garden, but wonderful and elaborate and kind of abundant past what even seems necessary. And she draws some very light and beautiful comparisons between that and herself as a child who seemed strange within the environment she landed in. She describes it much better than I can but I love the comparison she makes between herself and the peacocks that filled her house that almost seemed to offend her teacher when she drew them in school. And yet who doesn't want peacocks, honestly? I loved our conversation. Again, it's such a privilege to talk with these amazing writers who I could never fly out and meet. I hope you enjoy it and I'll return this to the beach in a moment, hopefully when the sun's gone down.

    Katherine May:

    Aimee, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for talking to me today. I'm really excited.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Thank you, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    We were on the same list last year, on the Barnes and Noble list, which you won. And I was curious about your book then and I managed to get hold of a copy and loved it. I've waited all this time. I've waited a year to talk to you so it's really exciting.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Thank you. Thank you. Yes, there was some formidable titles in that round. I'm just so excited to be able to chat with you because I'm sure you get this a lot but after reading your book, I just was like, I could just spend a whole afternoon in a coffee shop with her chatting. Anyway, it's great fun. This was written in glitter on my planner today.

    Katherine May:

    Oh wow. I got the glitter.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    The things that I like to do are written in glitter pens. The things that I don't like to do are just in black ink.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I am thrilled to have got glitter. Thank you so much. It's the time of year for it too. There's so much I'd love to talk to you about today and obviously I'll be focusing on your book, World of Wonders, but I wanted to touch on, first of all, you started as a poet and you've moved into very poetic prose.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    That's right.

    Katherine May:

    How was that transition for you? What was that like?

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    It was so kind of fun and liberating. I've always loved, I'm still poet. Some of my poet friends grumble, "Oh, so you're leaving poetry now." No, no, no. In fact just yesterday I was writing poetry but I think, I've given it lots of thought over the year and I think what was so liberating for me is that it was just simply the unspooling and the unfurling of a complete thought that I didn't have to worry about a line break simply. I simply didn't have to worry about a line break. And so my sentences could be really luxurious and I could play around with when I need to reign myself in with a three word sentence or a full on a sentence that was almost 75 words, things like that. It just great fun to be able in what I wanted to speak about, about nature and growing up in nature, I did not want to feel constricted by a line break simply.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And it feels like you had this kind of wellspring of things that have been waiting a long time to be said and that you maybe needed to say them quite directly. About growing up as a Brown person amongst White people and the way that your differences were marked out and that amazing comparison you make over and over again between yourself and these remarkable creatures because the animals you talk about are not mundane, are they? They're not the kind of animals we see all the time. They're special. They're fantastic.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Yeah. They are. I have very purposely chose animals that aren't normally thought of as pets really or shouldn't be thought of as pets for sure. And yet I also did want to include things like a monarch butterfly, maybe something that people have seen in the wild. An octopus, for example or dragon fruit. My cousins in the Philippines in India don't think a dragon fruit is all different. That kind of thing.

    Katherine May:

    No, of course not. No, no.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I wanted it to be a blend but definitely I wanted more animals than not to be animals that people weren't familiar with overall, animals and plants that people weren't familiar with overall. So that we could all feel like students and that we're still all students. We should be anyway. I'm no expert on these animal by no means. I'm not a scientist and I'm still learning about these animals still now. It's in print but I still find things, oh, I wish I could have added this or this.

    Katherine May:

    That's the curse of writing books, I think, that there's always something that you read afterwards. But I got the sense of nature in your book as being something that was exuberantly gifted and full of extremes almost. The fireflies that are bioluminescent, the peacocks, the narwhals, the, I don't know, all of these incredible creatures that you can't help but wonder at. Wonderlands in your lap when you read about them, you'd be a very cold person not to be completely fascinated.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I hope. That's really, that was kind of, I didn't sit down with that goal but that's kind of the end hope that I have is that it becomes contagious. I definitely didn't want to wag my finger and make people feel guilty or scare people or anything like that, because that's how it works in real life for me. I get excited about things that my friends and loved ones get excited about, even if I really have no interest at first. It becomes kind of contagious.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And I just thought, where are those? And there's definitely places and times for those books that scare me and send me into a rage, oh, I'm so mad at this injustice and things like that. At the time I was writing this, I just wanted wonder to be contagious. And that's kind of what I bet on is that I hope. I don't see a whole lot of it in the world but I hope that it becomes something that, oh, now you don't have to put down the book and change your entire life but maybe one small thing or maybe you notice something on the way to work that you didn't notice the before because your eyes are more open to wonder.

    Katherine May:

    And I was moved at so many points in the book at the way you juxtaposed your story with the stories of the animals and it was hard not to draw lines between you and them. And the first one that really hit me, I think, was your peacocks, you drawing a peacock at school and telling that story. Can you tell that story for us? Because perhaps everyone hasn't read your wonderful book yet but a peacock was kind of every day to you but it wasn't at school.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. That's right. It's funny, I'm a child of the 80s and in the 80s all I wanted to do was kind of be Madonna or Cyndi Lauper or something audacious. And to me, the peacock was that kind of a bird, something so flamboyant and yet at the same time, it didn't seem out of the ordinary to me because I had kind of grown up with them in my home. For those who don't know, the peacock is the national bird of India so we had peacock paintings and different peacock little sculptures and statues and just all kinds of wall hangings and decor in my house growing up. During a project, there was an art project where we were supposed to just draw an animal that we wanted to learn about or one of our favourite animals. I chose the peacock and it was something just so, it's one of those things that you kind of forget that it happened because I just kind of put it out my mind until I really paused.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I'm a professor now, I'm a mother and I look at that incident with fresh eyes thinking, that was really messed up and quite mean. But the gist of it is, is I had a teacher who, when she saw that I was drawing a peacock claimed that it was un-American somehow and that we should only draw American animals.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Even though that was never part of the assignment. I looked to my left, I looked to my right, my friends were just drawing cats and puppies and dogs, maybe a rabbit, a snake. And I just, the way she went about kind of singling me out, keeping me in during recess so that I could finish. I just redrew, she said she wanted something American so I redrew the whole project, started from scratch and drew a bald eagle, an American bald eagle.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And it was so, I remember just wanting to, just get it over with, get done with it. And then to make matters worse, it won first place in the school. I was just so ashamed because it's not what I wanted. And as a result, I didn't have the words for it then but it made me so, that was the beginning of me being so deeply ashamed about anything from India. I just wanted to be anything that was on MTV and if it wasn't on MTV, I didn't want a part of it. And of course it's so silly and stupid.

    Katherine May:

    Oh but how can you avoid it because children, well, I think most children want to feel like they belong and your story is a perfect distillation of being like forced to belong in a really uncomfortable way rather than finding your place in a diverse world.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Yeah. And it's definitely a different time than my children have grown up with all kinds of superheroes and even their cartoons are super diverse, things like that. But me, there was simply no Asian-Americans in the States on television, let alone just being outside. If I did see an Asian-American, they were the kind of the nerdy stereotype of working with computers and that was definitely not me.

    Katherine May:

    You knew that already.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Exactly. And it did. Again, I did not have the vocabulary for it but I could see how I was digesting, are Asians not supposed to even be in a forest? Are they not supposed to be outside? It sounds so silly now but my White husband would be the first person to say how strange it was to not grow up with any depictions of Asian-Americans in books, in TV and movies. Just simply standing outside. Or having to crush or anything kind of so called normal, that kind of thing.

    Katherine May:

    Nothing to refer to basically.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Nothing to refer to. It's funny I really was writing this just for my kids. I was not thinking, I'm going to sit down and write a book. That came much, much later. I just really wanted to remember these instances of joy and a little bit of sadness but mostly how I felt being outside because I wanted them to see that.

    Katherine May:

    Do you feel like it has changed for them sufficiently for this to be necessary? You're recording a very distinct period of time. I think we're both born in the same year actually. Which I recognise that time a lot but obviously from a really different perspective. But do you feel like it has changed a lot?

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I think there's definitely room for improvement.

    Katherine May:

    It's not a finished job yet.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    It's not a finished job yet. But I think we are moving towards, I think a society that embraces difference more than and treats it kind of like as a superpower rather than something to be ashamed of. No, definitely there are places that can be a lot better in that but I'm talking about all different. Just the other day I was talking with my youngest son of how many kids are in his school in a wheelchair or kids that are a little bit slower academically. And how are they treated in the cafeteria? Things like that where in the 80s, oh my goodness, so many of them, at least in my schools, were treated like pariahs. Kind of the outcasts. And I know that because I was friends with them.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, you hung out with those people.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I hung out with those people but I also had the bridge into, I had kind of a smart mouth and I was kind of teacher's pet. I kind of bridged. I couldn't completely be the outcast because teachers mostly, except for that one horrid one, adored me and I had a snappy mouth, so my friends kind of laughed. But I also was a noticer. I was a big noticer. I noticed when there was a quiet kid, I noticed when a kid was being teased and I tried my best to step in. And I wasn't always successful but I'm so heartened to hear from my kids that it just simply wouldn't be tolerated at their school. It just would not. They're horrified when they hear my stories, they just, how could you be eating alone in the cafeteria? That just wouldn't happen simply now.

    Katherine May:

    Wow. That's so heartening.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. That is so heartening.

    Katherine May:

    It's lovely to note that change but also imagine being in a society where you don't want peacocks.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes. I know. It is so strange.

    Katherine May:

    Why would you reject a peacock? A peacock's great.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Or have this weird sense of nationalism and take it out on a third grader.

    Katherine May:

    That's crazy.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I'm an eight year old girl. Anyway, so who was born in the States but just was taught by her parents to appreciate all differences. And I just want to say too, it's not just racial differences. It's my kids have friends who are Muslim, who are Latino, who have two mommies, things like that. And I think those things, not that this is only happening now. I think that had to be kept hidden so much in the 80s and if it was exposed, it was I think, a dangerous time.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It was.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    A totally different time. That makes me heartened that it's just nothing for my kids to say, "Oh, that's Ben with two mommies," something like that. And that's just a given, nothing strange.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Kids adapt so easily and we never realise. But there was so much shame when we were kids. You kept stuff secret. Anything.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Even things like divorce. Exactly. Divorce was a hidden thing. And I remember my friends going through it and keeping quiet, "Aimee, please don't tell anyone." And I didn't, but I just feel for those kids who felt like they had to keep it.

    Katherine May:

    Had to hide stuff.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. And to not see their lives depicted in TV or books or something like that. Or I think we were just on the bubble of that.

    Katherine May:

    Oh yeah. My parents were divorced and I remember a point in the mid 80s when a couple of our politicians were talking about single mothers as scroungers and scourges on society.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Absolutely.

    Katherine May:

    It was really politicizing. I have to say, as an eight, nine year old hearing that, I remember thinking, well, I just know that's not true. I know how hard my mom has to work for absolutely everything. And I don't think it had the effect they wanted it to have actually.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Thank goodness. But it was very much, instead of being championed, look at the strength and resilience of these single parents. It was like, I absolutely remember that. And I think that is all but gone.

    Katherine May:

    I hope so. I hope so.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    At least talking to 14 year olds and 11 year olds. That just doesn't even occur to them. Or at least they have really good friends who would never dare dream of talking like that to one another.

    Katherine May:

    Thank goodness for that. And so your parents were both working in medicine.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    They were. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    And so you had to move around fair amount for your mom's job, I think didn't you? You you were kind of going to different hospitals and things like that.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. They're both retired now. But at the time my mother was a psychiatrist and we moved around from state mental institutions to state mental institutions. About three times in my life, we had an actual home but the other times we were living on the grounds of a mental institution. You can imagine that made for at least in the beginning, the kids would say, "What's going on? Are you a patient?" The words they used then was inmate. Are you a patient? Are you a resident? Things like that and say, "No, no, no. It's for my mom." And at the time my parents had to be separated for work. And it was, talk about my mom wasn't exactly a single mom, but single mom for all intents and purposes.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And for about four years of my life, we lived on the grounds because it was safer for her to do so. If she had to get called away in the middle of the night, she also knew us being in a facility like that with a ton of security around was actually a good thing. And I was so proud of her.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, wow.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    For making her way doing this. She's Filipino. She wasn't always treated the best but the places that my parents, we were all treated the best was outside. We were. They taught me how to be just so much at peace outside. And still now that's still my happy place is being outdoors in a garden or in taking walks in the forest.

    Katherine May:

    And you talk about walking on is it Camelback Mountain with your dad?

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    He was obviously a really keen hiker but this point where you noticed that you never saw any other Asian-Americans there, that actually, that access to nature is incredibly White in general. In my country too, it's definitely there are loads of accounts of people feeling intimidated if they're not White and are accessing the countryside and often the communities around the most rural places can feel, did you ever feel kind of threatened? Or was it just more that you, again, that you didn't see that analog of yourself accessing nature?

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Thankfully I don't recall ever feeling kind of threatened like that but it was absolutely. I'm laughing not because the subject is funny but I'm laughing, as you know sometimes you get strange emails from strangers.

    Katherine May:

    Yes I do. Yes.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Just this morning, actually, just before we logged on together, someone said, "Why do you have to talk about Brown skin outside all the time? Can't you just go on a hike?"

    Katherine May:

    Well, you can't, no.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And my answer to that, I just chuckled as, why, I would love to but it was something that I just noticed. Can I not notice these things? I didn't cry about it. I didn't whine about it. And even in the book, I'm not whining about it. It's just something that I absolutely noticed.

    Katherine May:

    But when people say that that's like, don't draw my attention to an uncomfortable thing. Thank you very much.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Exactly. And it's funny, it's funnily enough, it is White people who say, "Oh, you must be Aztec with your last name." Or, "Oh, where are you? What are you?" That kind of thing. And then they say, they're the same people who say, "Why do you have to make this about race?" Well, I didn't, you did. You did all my life.

    Katherine May:

    I didn't start this.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I didn't start it.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I just wanted to look at flowers.

    Katherine May:

    That's extraordinary.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And so I think just to spin it around, I celebrate that my dad, in his early 30s, my parents traded us at one point. My dad was taking care of us for a few years while my mom had to work in places where it was not acceptable to have kids. And my parents wanted my sister and I to be stable so we stayed with my dad in Arizona, which is full of mountains and you could just be outside all day long. And it was so, so great. But my dad, gosh, it's just extraordinary looking back to it. I'm so grateful for it that he made it a point, I don't think he ever said, "Well, one day my daughter will be a poet." In fact, the opposite. He was hoping that I would be a doctor just like my mom.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    But he made it a point, no matter how tired he was, two things, either he took us to the library or he took us hiking. And I'm just so grateful for that because that's not something that I'm sure he saw other people that looked like him doing. And he did it. And I don't know if anybody muttered any slurs to him or anything like that. If it happened, he never let us know. And I just felt so safe up there with my dad and so joyful. It's so exuberant. Look at all these rocks to learn the names of and things like that. And I realized that must have been so hard to do for an Indian man by himself.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But it's obviously started this lifelong relationship for you. And I just love the bit in your book about going outside and talking to birds. Unlike your husband, not knowing about it.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Exactly. That too was from my father. And it's the silliest party trick in the world but being able to talk to cardinals is something that I learned since I was little. An angry ornithologist, please don't email me saying that my bird calls are wrong because I know I'm not a scientist but it's true. What can I say? I have proof. I have dozens of witnesses who can vouch for me but I know how to call cardinals. And it is, it's just one thing that I kind of, it just never occurred to me to share that when I was penned until about a decade into my marriage. You only get to do something like that, it just reminds me, you only get to do something like that when you have time. Time on your hands, which I know is such a luxury. And I try, I had so much time when I was a kid. And for that I'm so grateful. I could just picture my son's eyes rolling their eyes right now but I did not grow up with screens. I'm guessing you didn't grow up with screens.

    Katherine May:

    There just wasn't much to watch. There was a bit of kids' TV every afternoon but it was an hour and a half and then you were done. You had to find something to do. I sound really old saying this. I feel embarrassed for myself saying this right now. We made our own entertainment.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes. No. Oh my goodness. I think we're kindred spirits in that way. And I remember my mother saying, "Only boring people are ever bored."

    Katherine May:

    Oh, that was my mom's catch phrase too.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my goodness. And so, it's just, it sounds like I lived such a paltry childhood but I could have a whole afternoon if I found the right stick and if there was a muddy creek, I would be so happy. The things you can do. It makes you sound like I grew up in the middle ages but it truly was. I don't remember being bored. The few times that I said, "Mom, I'm bored." I was snapped back by.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, go and do something kind of thing.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Find something, find your entertainment. And that I think is something that I try, try, try to instill with my boys, that your entertainment shouldn't be connected to electricity. What happens if electricity goes out, what are you going to do?

    Katherine May:

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love the Wintering Sessions and would like to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings and the answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive and a day early too. Plus you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events and your podcast will always be ad free.

    Katherine May:

    If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month for life. Do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to patreon.com/katherinemay or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. And please don't worry if this isn't for you, the regular version of the Wintering Sessions will still be free and I really appreciate your listens. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    Actually we had a lot of power cuts when I was a kid as well. That's another thing my son hasn't experienced but the electricity went out whenever there was a storm or it snowed or high winds, we'd lose electricity. And I remember that being really magical. It was probably hideously stressful for my mom but I don't think we've ever had a power cut since I had my son.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my goodness.

    Katherine May:

    It just doesn't happen.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. It was such a magical time. Ooh, break out the candles or the fire, the flashlights. And I don't know, make games with flashlights or something like that. It was this magical time. I think most kids have that in them. It's just sometimes maybe, upon adolescence, they start hearing from their friends or I don't know where they learn it from, but oh, it's not cool to exclaim anymore over a leaf or a patch of mud or something like that. But I think we're all innately drawn to it. My hope is that this book, again, I didn't want to point fingers. My hope is that it gets us to remember that childlike sense of wonder that I think we all have and it's free. It's free.

    Katherine May:

    It's free and it's a muscle and you lose it if you don't exercise it.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Exactly. That's the point right there, Katherine is that it's a practice. And my goodness now.

    Katherine May:

    It's a practice.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    40 something mother with a full-time job, it's something that I have to work at every day. And there are times absolutely where I am just short tempered or I just feel so sad about what's going on in the world. But I'm so grateful. It's like a reset button, you kind of reset. The other day, my 11 year old, who's obsessed with baseball and football and now is kind of not the biggest reader. And that's fine. But as an English professor, that's slightly, it was a slight, it gave me pause. But I try to honor his own. And the other day he said, "Mom. Mom look, if you squint." And it was a tree that had almost all of its leaves orange and just fall away here. "Mom. Mom look, if you squint, that tree looks like it's covered with butterflies."

    Katherine May:

    Oh, lovely.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Just took my breath away. And I just thought, oh my gosh, here we were just running around doing errands. I was short tempered with him. And still and oh I haven't seen him read a book in forever. And he reminded me to take just a moment. It didn't take super long. But just take a moment and notice what's out there right in front of us.

    Katherine May:

    And it only takes a tiny pause. It's lovely.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes. Just a tiny pause. Anyway, so it just shows that kids are listening. They're observing, they're watching.

    Katherine May:

    They are.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    It just is a good reminder that when I'm feeling frazzled and stressed, to just reset.

    Katherine May:

    No, absolutely. I had a lovely moment with my son last night who a bit like your son, I think is not the keenest reader in the world. He'd rather be on his iPad and again, I feel like a bit of a failure but he came in last night and said, "Mom, have you heard of a poet called William Blake?" And I was like, "Oh my God, yes. I'm going to tell you everything."

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my I'm goodness.

    Katherine May:

    Empty my whole William Blake knowledge at you and dig out loads of books. And he went with it. I thought after a few beats, I thought, oh God, I'm just going to overwhelm him and he is going to.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Going to ruin it.

    Katherine May:

    But apparently I managed to pull it off just this once and he went off to school today with Songs of Innocence and Experiences, his reading book. And I was just so proud.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my goodness. That is a parenting win right there.

    Katherine May:

    I know. This is the high point. It's only downhill from here. But I was so thrilled. It's all these little thing.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    How lovely.

    Katherine May:

    Well, you hope that you pass something onto them. And it seems to me that so much of what actually gets passed on is on a diagonal almost. The stuff you mean to pass on, they don't care about because they're sort of averse your interest somehow in a really insulting way. But every now and then you realize there's a bit of you in them anyway. And he was fascinated by William Blake because he felt like he had found him and I was thrilled to let him find William Blake. That's awesome as far as I can say.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    That's so great. Oh my goodness. It reminds me too of just, oh, if I'm remembering this right, correct me if I'm wrong. There was a passage in Wintering for November Slumber. Just the importance of just not getting right to your phone and when you wake up and how important sleep and rest is. I feel like when I don't have sleep and rest, I'm also not noticing things. I'm too frazzled to notice. I just want to get the next thing on my to do list done.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And I really just connected so much with, not just because it's November now but I remember underlinings so many things in your book about, I think our body needs that rest and reset a little bit, especially during this time of the year, when there's everything is telling you to be busy and to buy things. And what about the people who don't have time, who are just trying to make ends meet and now they have to find time to have money to celebrate the holidays, which should be. I think there's this, I don't know. it's a nice time to reset now, right in the middle of all the advertisements of buy this thing and your holidays will be bright or buy this one thing. And anyway, I just wanted to say how much I appreciated that.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, and it's such a lie. Oh thank you. And do you know what? I've been thinking about it again this year because I'm very resistant to the kind of big Christmas buildup. I really do think it's actually quite toxic for the reasons you've mentioned and more. It's toxic because it's so financially hard for so many people to keep pace with it. It's toxic because it's exhausting. It's toxic it because it's busy work rather than beautiful living. There's all sorts of stuff.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes. Beautiful living. Oh my gosh. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And that's what we should be doing in the holidays is living beautifully, whatever way we can do that. And most of the time it doesn't require much money.

    Katherine May:

    No. And so what really surprised me this year was my son saying to me, because I always knew he loved Halloween and that's fine. He said, "You do know that Halloween matters more to me than Christmas." And I was like, "What?"

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my goodness.

    Katherine May:

    I was really taken aback by it. And he sort of said, "I just love it. I love all the stuff that comes with it." And I thought about it and I thought, so all that stuff that I put myself under pressure to provide at Christmas, thinking he needs a big pile of presents and thinking that I have to get all the right food in and we have to have all these moments over Christmas. And actually he's asking for something that's much simpler because Halloween's really simple here. He's asking for having fun and dressing up and messing about a bit for one afternoon and then it's over. And it really took me back. It really, it was kind of a lesson for me I think about my assumptions about what he's demanding as opposed to what I'm actually forcing onto him, which he finds very stressful, I think at Christmas.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And I think, oh my gosh, everything that you're saying resonates so much with me and I think kids are good litmus tests of I think they can sense when mom's stressed. I'm a little stressed, I can't relax and then they act out or whatever, that kind of thing. I think they absolutely can detect that. And that's one thing, that's a goal that I'm trying to do this holiday is to just set aside time. No screens, just to actually find the magic. This sounds like an English professor but they have a ton of books and we have about an acre of yard. Between our yard and they have a zip line and they have trees in the back but we're also Mississippi's surrounded, they call it the green, kind of little it's a little postage stamp of green. This green velvet ditch, all their friends live near kind of forest woodlands.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And I really want, I'm going to say, "Look, your gift is to," they're going to have some gifts of course, "but your gift is going to be time." I want them to look at time is such a gift. And just to mean, I won't be nagging you. I'm going to send you out for about two hours. I'm going to be nearby but in case, but just two hours. Find something to do with your mates and just run around and get dirty.

    Katherine May:

    Have a nice time.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Skin up your knees. When I go teach poetry to elementary school kids, I'm struck at how many of them, and this is during spring months and it stays warm here till October. How many of them don't have skinned knees. They're wearing short and they don't have skinned knees. Meaning, I don't know about you, but the kids and I when we were growing up, we are just falling out of trees or falling off our bikes or that was a regular occurrence.

    Katherine May:

    We were walking open wounds, honestly.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yes. I know. It would be, oh, what happened there? Oh, that scab just busted open. It was just really terrible and I'm a very, very, what I would call a girly girl. I'd be a very girly but I had skinned knees from falling off playground equipment or whatever. I just really want them to play because my eldest is 14 and thankfully he's just on that cusp of still wanting to play.

    Katherine May:

    Oh that's lovely.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I just want him to still feel like wanting to play through his teen years as much as possible.

    Katherine May:

    I want them to want to play forever. I want them to never feel like they have to give up on play.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Exactly, exactly. Because you and I know grownups, people our age who have stopped playing and it shows in their speech, it shows in their habits, it shows in how they live their life.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think that's the hallmark of writers and creative people that we just don't stop playing. But I also think that the weird thing is that often our play isn't seen as play when we're children but we have our own kind of particular play that's quite intense and quite involved and we never let go of it. If we are lucky, we never ever let go of it and we keep playing.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And the beauty is too, I do want to put a shout out for people who aren't parents who are listening to this, because I do remember so much when I was single and didn't have a kid and people would say things like, "Oh well, once I had a kid, I felt love for the planet."

    Katherine May:

    I think I felt the opposite.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, oh really? If you don't have a kid, you can't be environmentally a conscious?

    Katherine May:

    Oh I hate all of that.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I do want to say that all of this though, is something that we're, I don't know quite how it is there in the UK right now, but here in the States, we're still very much in a pandemic. A lot of people forget that we are but my youngest caught COVID last month. And we were so careful. We had not gone anywhere but that's just how contagious it is. And as a result, he's not able to get vaccinated now for a few months because he has to wait. There's so many of us, so many of my students, so many of my university students that are just kind of, they're not with their normal group of friends and loved ones and they're still feeling so alone.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    It's hard. How do you find joy? How do you find wonder when you're alone in you're flat or at home or you're not traveling, you haven't seen your friends? And I think that parking lot reminder of seeing a tree that looks like butterflies, that's something that can be done by us through our own windows, wherever we live. And you don't have to be a writer, you don't have to be an artist, but if you have a blank notebook and a pencil, you can sketch the clouds that day. You can look up, what is that weird leaf that I found? What is that? I think there's such a joy and magic in discovering names of things.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And then kind of connecting those names to other things and you can go on whole journeys.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Absolutely. And I think now in this time of isolation, once we know the names of things, you start feeling less alone. I can't explain it but you just start, instead of just, oh, yellow flower at the edge of that building, you realise, oh, that's Cecropia or things like that. You just actually feel a little bit less alone. The world feels less overwhelming when you can put names to things and that's something you can do with books or looking at your window and an internet connection. What is the name of that tree that I saw, that I pass by everyday?

    Katherine May:

    And then the next time you see it, it activates that little part of your brain again. And you build up this texture around you that is much more than flowers, leaves, plants, birds. It's specific and it's got infinite detail. Before I let you go, Aimee, I just want to return to a lovely, joyous bit of your book towards the end when you talk about your wedding. And I loved the vision. It took me right back to peacocks again, everybody in beautiful saris and bright colors and it sounded beautiful but then this image of you all dancing the Macarena together. I think what that really says is we shouldn't be precious about our joy.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Yeah. And I think I really didn't want to hit anyone over the head but I love that you made that connection, that that girl who was so ashamed of peacocks, grew up to be somebody who had at her wedding, the groomsmen were wearing barong tagalogs, which is the formal wear for men in the Philippines. And my bridesmaids were saris and only my sister was Asian. They're all White girls in saris and my Midwestern family and my in-laws all. Oops, excuse my dog.

    Katherine May:

    That's all right.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh my goodness. Haiku. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    Don't worry. It's fine.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    How embarrassing. That's my dog.

    Katherine May:

    Oh no, don't be embarrassed.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    That's my dog, Haiku is his name.

    Katherine May:

    Haiku.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    He is a little chihuahua and he has a Napoleon complex like all chihuahuas and darn mailman dropped off a package so he's trying to defend me and it's so embarrassing.

    Katherine May:

    Oh it's adorable.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Anyway.

    Katherine May:

    I love when real life intrudes on these things. I don't think we should all be pretending we're in a studio. I really like it that dogs bark and children come in and all that kind of thing.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    That's real life. Anyway, I just was saying that that girl and my Midwestern in-laws they loved it. I just loved that my very Midwestern in-laws were dancing with my Indian uncles.

    Katherine May:

    Ah, great.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    And it was the Macarena of all things. And that's the one video from MTV that I remember ever seeing an Asian-American in. I couldn't have planned it. It was not at all what I expected my vision. I don't know what I expected from my vision of my wedding but it was not that sanitised, clean, just very small, just bits of joy. It was exuberant and it was the song that I didn't want to hear at all. And everybody had the best time, even though we were still, we were using CDs for most of the night.

    Katherine May:

    Wow.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Playing CDs, I'm dating myself here now.

    Katherine May:

    I bet if your children have been there, they'd have been like.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I know. Exactly.

    Katherine May:

    I know it's really funny. We are really old. We just have to accept that we are old now. It's fine. I'm just really down with it. Well, I love this idea that the Macarena has a unifying power that cuts across cultures and time. It made me grin from ear to ear.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    I'm so glad.

    Katherine May:

    Aimee, thank you so much. It's been amazing to talk to you.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Thank you.

    Katherine May:

    And I will make sure that I signpost my listeners to your marvellous book and to all your places on social media because I'm sure they'll want to jump in and follow you.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    Oh, thank you so much.

    Katherine May:

    But it's been a real pleasure to talk.

    Aimee Nezhukumatathil:

    So lovely. I just adored talking to you Katherine, and thank you for making time from your busy week as well.

    Katherine May:

    Ah, thank you.

    Katherine May:

    The sun's gone now. I watched it become a semicircle and then the merest sliver and then it dipped finally below the horizon altogether. It always seems to speed up at that endpoint like it is in a hurry to go to bed. That's how I always feel too, the sun. Full sympathies. There's an old biplane flying overhead now and the seabed that's left behind by the low tide is a rainbow of color now. All the colors of the sky, it looks like someone spilled petrol over it. Although thankfully today I don't think they have. It's such a moment this. This point after sunset but before it's dark, it's like something suspended. Like we're in a time that shouldn't exist. There shouldn't be light in the sky, there is no sun. But there it is this lovely twilight and all the seagulls have risen into the air and I can hear a curlew by the tide line, that lovely fluting sound.

    Katherine May:

    And my feet are very muddy. I'll be cleaning my boots tomorrow morning. I just want to share this moment of peace with you really. I feel like Aimee would really like this. She would like the curlews most of all because they are so special. So hard not to notice. I want to thank her so much for our conversation. I love it when really people talk from the heart. There's so much in our world that's rehearsed and carefully controlled and choreographed and I think we writers have got a responsibility to resist that, to go out and be wholehearted, to tell the truth. We've always been truth tellers. We still carry that job. Such a great thing about running a podcast like mine and getting to the heart of things.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you for listening. Thanks to my Patreons who helped to make this possible. This week we had a Cheryl Strayed's film, Wild, watch along, which I really enjoyed. Was so nice to have some company and the company gave me the excuse to watch it. It was a real pleasure. If you enjoyed today's episode and you've got the price of a cup of coffee in your pocket spare each month, please do join us. It really helps to keep this going.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you to my producer Buddy Peace who also composes the theme tune. It's not a theme tune. I keep saying that, it's such a terrible way to describe it. The lovely introductory music. And to Meghan Hutchins who looks after all the practicalities and I cannot tell you how she keeps us on track. It's awesome. And thank you to Aimee for a lovely chat and to all of you for coming along for the ride. Tractors are coming towards me now, can you hear them getting louder? They're going home, I think. I'm going to take some photos of this gorgeous moment where the light is just receding and I'll see you next time. Bye.

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of ‘World Of Wonders’ and more. An uplifting, soulful and inspiring chat with Aimee and Katherine, beginning with a foundation of wonder and never dropping the ball once. Moving from prose to poetry and immediately feeling boundaries being lifted, Aimee has put out some truly valuable work into the world and this is a perfect opportunity to get to the heart of it all. As always, it branches out into some rich areas including the juxtaposition of memoir and nature, enforced patriotism as a child, the gradual introduction of cultural reference while growing up, seeing the restrictive attitudes of the 80’s dissolving through generations, examples of harnessing the outdoors and nature from her parents and her geography being shaped by their professions, making your own entertainment, moments of wonder and how children can help trigger them in adults through example, the luxury of time in enjoying the outdoors and so much more to enrich your day.

We talk about:

  • Moving from prose to poetry and immediately feeling boundaries being lifted

  • The juxtaposition of memoir and nature

  • Enforced patriotism as a child through classroom drawing

  • The gradual introduction of cultural reference while growing up

  • Seeing the restrictive attitudes of the 80’s dissolving through generations

  • Examples of harnessing the outdoors and nature from her parents

  • Her geography being shaped by her parents professions

  • Making your own entertainment

  • Moments of wonder and how children can help trigger them in adults through example

  • The luxury of time in enjoying the outdoors

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Elissa Altman on navigating the Motherland

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Elissa Altman on navigating the Motherland

———

This week Katherine chats to Elissa Altman, author of ‘Motherland’ and more.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine:

    I'm not sure if you can hear that. That's the sound of the dog galloping. I'm on a hillside near my home in North Kent. And I'm looking for winter chanterelles. I found a load of them here just a couple of weeks ago, which is late in the season, really. But it's been so warm. Oh, beautiful feather. I think that's a pheasant feather. That's in my basket now. I'm back to look, see if I can find more. This is a hill that me and the dog often climb because A, it's a hill. There's not many hills near me, really, not that you can walk on. I love a hill. But also, the woods are full of mushrooms here. Often not the edible ones like Porcini and things like that, the desirable ones that everyone's looking for. Well, maybe they are, maybe everyone gets there first, let's face it.

    Katherine:

    But it's full of really interesting ones. There's always something to see here, something to find. It has lots of the medicinal mushrooms like Birch Polypore and Turkey Tail, which I find fascinating. But anyway, in my experience, winter chanterelles like to grow on a slope. I think they like the drainage. I'm sure someone will correct me on this. And I don't know if this is actually a thing, but I always seem to find them near Sweet Chestnut. If I'm on a slope and I see the shells of chestnuts on the floor, the spiky kind of hedge-hoggy shells, I start to have a little look around for them. It's been so mild this year. I think they've really extended their season, but they're quite hard to spot. They're funny little things. They have a kind of brownish top, which looks, for all the world, like a leaf. So it can take a while to get your eye in with them really.

    Katherine:

    And then when you turn them upside down, they have veins rather than gills. And they're kind of an apricoty yellowy-orange underneath. And some people find that they smell like apricots too. Not everyone does. I've sometimes caught a whiff of it, but it seems to be strangely fleeting. I don't know. It seems to bring about the memory of the smell of apricots in your mind and then let go of it as soon as you start to sniff further. Maybe that's just psychological. I don't know. But the thing with winter chanterelles is if you find one, you're going to find many, there's always a load of them if there are any at all, and you have to shuffle about in the fallen leaves to really get to them. And that often means going off the beaten track because I think they're easily squashed.

    Katherine:

    I'm having a good look around here with no luck yet, but I'm by my favourite little bit of this hillside wood, which is a fallen tree, a big fallen tree. I'm not sure what kind it is, but it always has so many different mushrooms growing on it. I found all kinds. I found Jelly Ear Fungus. I found the white ones who I can't remember the name of at the moment. It'll probably come to me embarrassingly in about three hours' time. And yeah, this year loads of chanterelles. I'm going to keep looking. And actually, that makes a brilliant introduction to today's guest, the wonderful Elissa Altman, who I'm just so excited to have her on the podcast because I loved, loved, loved her memoir Motherland, which is about growing up with... Well, I'll let her explain it to you, but her very particular mother and the difficulties that brought about, but also the acceptance.

    Katherine:

    It's a really beautiful book, I think because it isn't a book about how terrible someone else was to her in a straightforward way. It's a book about understanding a character who also happened to be your mother and how you come to feel compassion about that and how that feeds into an understanding of yourself. But Elissa is also a tremendous cook and I often salivate at the things she posts on her social media sites. I won't be too ashamed to tell you that. She has a wonderful way with food and storytelling and how the two intertwine. Of course, they are inextricably linked. It feels very apposite that I'm here hunting for the last of the winter mushrooms in this rather bleak new year and about to share a conversation that I'm really proud of. And I really hope you'll love it too.

    Katherine:

    Okay. I'm just going to keep looking. I really feel like it would be for the narrative good if I could find some here that I could share with you, but you know, I may have to be sharing my disappointment in a minute. Or perhaps I can fake it really well. I think that's unlikely. All right. I'll speak to you a bit later. See you in a while.

    Katherine:

    Elissa, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. I'm thrilled to have you. I read Motherland. I was about to say The Motherland Sessions. I completely lost my mind. I read Motherland when it came out and I was just so taken by the story and by the interplay of you and your mother, but also just your wonderful writing that was so beautifully reflective and wise, but also just very poetic and lovely. I'm really, really chaff that you agreed to come on my podcast. Thank you.

    Elissa:

    Well, thank you so much. And I was so delighted and touched when you reached out because your work has meant so much to me and continues to mean so much to me. I have found it very affirming and healing and beautiful, beautiful language and beautiful words. I'm just delighted and honoured to be here. Thank you so much.

    Katherine:

    Well, that thrills me no end. And I wanted to start by asking how your winter is so far. It's pretty chilly here and I've got the fire on in my office for the first time today and I'm clutching tea with both hands to keep my fingers warm.

    Elissa:

    Well, we actually had our first dusting of snow the other day, which was really lovely.

    Katherine:

    Oh, wow.

    Elissa:

    I live in New England and where I am is not quite rural and not quite suburban. And it's sort of what they call exurban here. But I do live on a little bit over an acre. And if you look out my office window, there's this great expansive field and stone wall, and a lot of animals come through. I grew up in Manhattan and so that's thrilling to me. It's just astonishing to me every time I see a fox.

    Katherine:

    Oh, yeah. It sounds really beautiful. And for someone who is as into food as you, it must really keep you close to food production culture as well, I assume.

    Elissa:

    It does. And it's taken me a long time to realise that when I'm writing about food, I'm actually really writing about nurturing and sustenance, in whatever forms they come. And I wrote yesterday somewhere that it's not always about what's on the table, but who's around the table. But of course, we are lucky to live in an area where there are some really wonderful farms and organic farms and food producers and cheese makers and bread bakers. And they're all within earshot.

    Katherine:

    Oh, wow.

    Elissa:

    And that's such an amazing thing. We keep an oversized garden that's really beginning to just look like doom. It's just a mess. And we always overshoot in terms of our own time and ability. And it's just this massive, massive garden, but we're still picking hardy greens, which love frost and love cold weather. I find it very, very comforting and healing and, of course, I love to cook, so as you would think.

    Katherine:

    Yeah. It's one of the reasons why I'm always really drawn to you and all your feeds is I think we share a love of good food, but also of cooking for other people. That's one of my favourite things to do is to cook for a big table of people and to put big plates in front of them and feed them. I'm definitely a feeder. I can't stop myself.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. And I think that there's certainly a spiritual component to that. And nothing really gives me greater pleasure than to have people I care about and strangers around the table as well. We just had our Thanksgiving holiday last weekend. And now, of course, we're heading into Christmas and we have a very small family. My wife is an only child and I'm an only child and her parents have passed and my mother is still with us, but we have a limited group. And we're already talking about what will we do for Christmas and who will be around the table and what will be on the table. And we have a new, not so new anymore, cousin who is going on 20-months old. So he'll be at the table.

    Katherine:

    Oh, how lovely.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. And that just means everything to me, so that's great.

    Katherine:

    Everything gets invigorated again when new children come into the family, I think. Doesn't it? I found that it made me really reflect on what we are and what we want to pass on and what our traditions are. It makes you conscious of the things that you want to share with that new generation that's coming along.

    Elissa:

    Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And he's a love. I think all little ones are absolute loves, but he's a special little boy.

    Katherine:

    Ah, that's so nice. And what did you cook for Thanksgiving?

    Elissa:

    I cooked the traditional turkey, which I know that in England, that's usually at Christmas.

    Katherine:

    Yes. Well, we don't have any opportunity other than Christmas, really.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. And it's the same here for Thanksgiving? No one I know cooks a turkey at any other time of year, but we had this massive Turkey that was 22 pounds and just a giant, like the size of Volkswagen, huge, huge bird. And we're kind of kitchen traditionalist and we like what we like and we like, I guess what's expected. And my wife is a really wonderful baker and pie baker specifically, so we had that. But where we're already on to... And after four days, you're thinking, "Oh God, what am I going to do with the leftovers? How much turkey pie can I make?" So we're on to Christmas and thinking about that now, so that's great.

    Katherine:

    Ah, that's so nice. I could sit and talk about food for ages as if... I just think it's really soothing. I want to know what everyone is eating and how they serve it and how they cooked it and if they've got any recipes to pass on to me, please. You know?

    Elissa:

    Yeah.

    Katherine:

    This is a really good moment to talk about your mom. Did she come for Thanksgiving and did she behave herself?

    Elissa:

    The answer is yes and no.

    Katherine:

    Oh, dear.

    Elissa:

    Yeah, she did come. And as long as I have Thanksgiving and she's here, she will be here because I feel a sense of obligation, a moral obligation, and I'm sure, certainly my therapist will agree that there is always a hint of a whiff of hope that things will be different this time. And of course, they really never are because that's just who she is. And I think that she enjoys the food. She enjoys being the centre of attention. And even if she's not the centre of attention, by the time the evening is over, she is. She did as well as she could possibly do given her issues. And then she was here for a couple of days, and then we brought her back to New York and she's fine, but she was here and it's complicated.

    Elissa:

    And as I said in the book, in Motherland that it's complicated and there really almost is no resolution with someone like her because we have to... I think writers as a rule, and artists, as a rule, have to be comfortable with the idea of writing about ambiguity. Our stories are not tied up with nice, neat little ribbons. Our people in our lives who are difficult will almost always be difficult to one degree or another. And we have to be okay to talk about that and to say that. Life is not, as we say, a Hallmark card, in this country, that's what we say here and-

    Katherine:

    No, we have them too, don't you worry. We certainly understand that.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. I've had to get comfortable with the idea that she has issues surrounding the table, that the table is quite threatening to her. And the fact of food is very threatening to her, even at 86-years old. And this was really the first visit where I looked at her and I could actually see how much she has changed over the last year and that things are going to be likely very different this year in the coming year. And I will be called upon to respond to her in different ways than I have before and that's complicated. It's very complicated-

    Katherine:

    Sure is.

    Elissa:

    But I love her and she is my mother. She makes me want to tear my face off half the time, but there it is.

    Katherine:

    For anyone on my podcast, or listening to my podcast, who's not come across your work yet, tell us a little bit about her because she's this central person in your life, obviously, because she's your mother, but also, she sucks up more of your attention than probably most people's mothers do for loads of very specific reasons. Right?

    Elissa:

    Yes. I think that the best place to start is my mother in the fifties and here in the States, she was a television singer and she was a performer, a featured performer at the Copacabana in New York and moved in the crowd that involved people like Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee and that was her world. And she left television and performance and became a model. And my mother is tall or was tall and lanky and thin and the kind of person you can drape a burlap sack over and it looks like she's wearing hot couture, very, very fashion-

    Katherine:

    She's incredibly glamorous, isn't she? I mean, I-

    Elissa:

    Incredibly, like how is this even possible? I don't know. She is very, very thin and really just a lot of makeup. And I call her sort of hyper heterosexual. She is just over-the-top glam queen. And the best way I think to describe my relationship with her is that she did not know that she was pregnant with me for six months and she is that disconnected from her body and the workings of her body. She's not a great lover of children, sadly. And here we were thrust into each other's lives. I was very, very close to my father. He and I were really foundational to each other's lives. And probably if it had not been for my father, I would be having this conversation with you right now. He was a great... He saved me in so many ways.

    Elissa:

    And then, of course, they divorced, so that was that. But she and I butted heads, I think, would be the light way to put it from the first time I was able to say the word no to her. And children learn to say no, usually in earnest when they're about 10 or 11 years old, certainly, girls do.

    Katherine:

    My one has done it much earlier.

    Elissa:

    Yes. My friends who have three-year-olds say, "Yeah, not really. It starts a little bit earlier." But we are absolutely as antithetical to each other in every way that a mother and daughter could possibly be. She is a hyper heterosexual glam queen. I am gay. I've been married to my wife for 21 years. We look at the world from different angles. And it's always been very, very, very challenging. And as I wrote in Motherland, when my mother's second husband died while I was living in New York City where I grew up. My mother is a quintessential New Yorker. My stepfather passed away and I became my mother's primary relation and primary relationship.

    Elissa:

    And she would do things like show up at my office and show up at my apartment unannounced. And it became very, very difficult. That was our surface story. But underneath that, there was a lot of enmity and anger and resentment because my mother felt and probably continues to feel that had I not come along, she would have continued on with her performing and her singing and her modelling and her acting. And that's probably right. That's probably accurate to some degree.

    Katherine:

    That's so tricky, isn't it? I think it's something that a lot of mothers feel about their children, but of course, the job is to get over that to some extent, I guess.

    Elissa:

    It is. I've written, I think it was in my second book that I was talking about Doris Lessing who famously left... She had, I want to say, three children.

    Katherine:

    Yes, she left her son. Yeah.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. And she left. And she was living in South Africa and she left two of them behind and took the third and moved to London where she felt that that was where her career was going to be. She was made a pariah. It's something that we don't talk about.

    Katherine:

    No.

    Elissa:

    It's something that we don't talk about. But from my point of view, I've lived with that sense of resentment for... I'm 58, so 58 years.

    Katherine:

    It's a long time.

    Elissa:

    Yeah.

    Katherine:

    But I think you're really strikingly compassionate to your mom in a way that loads of people aren't towards their mothers actually. It's really common for women to... Like women and mothers, and boys and fathers seems to still be the lines of tension that we find. And it's so common for people to be a lot less kind than you are to your mom. You take enormous responsibility for her and her wellbeing and you really seem to accept and understand her and her very particular ways in a way that other people don't for much model behaviour. I think it's so admirable.

    Elissa:

    Well, thank you. I know that my mother has... I suffer and I've written about this extensively and so I'm very comfortable talking about it, that I suffer from fairly significant clinical depression. And my father did, and my mother also lives with fairly severe mental illness diagnosed. And she's really incapable of self-care and proper decision-making when it comes to her own safety. Certainly, on the one hand, she's my mother, I love her. And I do feel a moral obligation to make sure that she's safe. But I also often say that turning my back on my mother would be like turning my back on a two-year-old child running into oncoming traffic. I couldn't do that. And she has no one else.

    Elissa:

    I have no siblings. She has no siblings. There is no man in her life or anyone in that romantic role in her life. Although she lives in Manhattan and she is surrounded by people, she lives a very isolated life. I'm two hours away from her and she is getting obviously older. She's 86 now. And we're just beginning to see some memory changes. And that's very jarring to see that for the first time, but I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure she's safe. I have a friend I've known for many, many, many years, I want to say probably 40 years, and she is one of four siblings. And she has a similar relationship with her mother. And she has been able to take a significant step back because there are other people there.

    Katherine:

    It's diffused. Yeah. I'm an only child. Well, I'm an only child from my birth parents' marriage, and then I've got step siblings. My dad has other children basically, but my mom doesn't. And that relationship, it's intense in a whole number of ways. The buck stops with me, doesn't it?

    Elissa:

    Right. It does. Absolutely.

    Katherine:

    But I'm okay with that. And what I find quite hard is I talk to other people about it and quite often people say things like, "Well, you can't worry about that. People have to sort themselves out." And like you, I really don't think that's the case. I think I am responsible for her as she ages. And I hope my son will be the same about me as another only child because that's what we do. That's what we're there for.

    Katherine:

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love The Wintering Sessions and would like to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture, and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings. And the answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive and a day early too. Plus you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events. And your podcast will always be ad-free.

    Katherine:

    If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month for life. So do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to patreon.com/KatherineMay, or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. And please, don't worry if this isn't for you, the regular version of the wintering sessions will still be free. And I really appreciate your listens. Now back to the show.

    Elissa:

    I think it is the human condition. I think that that is certainly... I've known people who've had to make the decision, make the very difficult decision to step away completely. I have to be completely honest and say that certainly, there have been times in my life where I have considered doing that. And in 2000, when I left New York City, I lived... I don't know how well y know New York, but there's-

    Katherine:

    A little.

    Elissa:

    Yeah, there's the Upper West Side and then there's the East Side and there's the massively beautiful Central Park that separates the two. I lived on the East Side and she lived on the West Side and that was the distance that we had between us was Central Park. You know?

    Katherine:

    Right. Quite a good barrier. It's quite an effective barrier.

    Elissa:

    It, it was because I knew that she was never going to walk through Central Park. She saw too many horror movies in the 1970s to walk through Central Park, but which is perfectly safe and beautiful and lovely. But as I had mentioned earlier, she'd get into a taxi and come over and I'd find her. I'd come home from work, my work as an editor, I'd come home and find her sitting in my lobby, waiting for me for five hours.

    Katherine:

    Oh, my goodness.

    Elissa:

    Because I had gone out with colleagues and friends. And in a relationship that is that codependent and that is that enmeshed, it's very hard to make a break at one's own life in terms of settling down elsewhere with someone else, which is, of course, the thing that we are meant to do. And I fell in love with my partner and I knew she lived two hours away. And in 2000, I made the decision to finally leave New York City, which is my home, and move to the country. I went from a city of 10 million people to a town of 3,500 people and a single stoplight, moose walking through my backyard, that kind of thing. And it was a very fraught decision that was filled both with love and excitement and looking forward to this next phase of my life, and also having to make such a radical change and a radical break from my mother who had always been primary relationship.

    Katherine:

    And has she forgiven your wife yet?

    Elissa:

    Probably not. I suspect-

    Katherine:

    Okay, yep.

    Elissa:

    I suspect not. My mother is not great with this forgiveness thing. She grits her teeth about people who have done her wrong 50 years ago. So probably not, although they have a very good relationship and my partner is... We call her Saint Susan because she has an enormous heart and is enormously giving and kind, and is very much that way to my mother. And whether my mother understands it, feels it, appreciates it, it's not irrelevant, but that's almost a different conversation.

    Katherine:

    Yeah.

    Elissa:

    Susan is there for her and has been very, very good to her. And that's something I'm very grateful for. Yeah, no, it's been an interesting time.

    Katherine:

    I am full of admiration. I really am for Susan because my husband's mother was quite difficult. She died actually, well, 15 years ago now, so quite a while, but I could not show her the same tolerance I must say. I really found it very unbearable, but actually, my husband ended up not speaking to her as well.

    Elissa:

    Oh, wow.

    Katherine:

    And they were estranged when she died. I think that was really a very untenable relationship, but I could not find the forbearance that I know I should have done while they were still in contact, because I was so shocked by the sort of manipulation that went on in that family. Really, it took me by surprise and I didn't know how to handle it. And I do wonder now if I could have handled it better at this stage than I did because I met my husband when I was 18. I was not a grownup really. But I don't know. I don't know if I'd do it any better now honestly. It was tricky.

    Elissa:

    I think that we can only do what we can do when we can and do it. You know?

    Katherine:

    Yes.

    Elissa:

    And we're very different people when we're younger than we are when we ourselves become parents. I'm not a parent, but certainly, with the passage of time and the benefit of distance and certainly a certain amount of therapy and a certain amount of meditation and connection to other things outside myself, those things have enabled me to see my mother in a very different way. When you're in the throes of it, of the manipulation and the acrimony, it's very hard to see beyond that. It's very hard to pull yourself... I call it the swamp. It's very hard to pull yourself out of the swamp while you're getting sucked into it.

    Elissa:

    When people are your parents, they know you and they know what your buttons are. And they don't quote-unquote fight fair. And that becomes very, very toxic and it can be very abusive and often is. I'm very, very lucky and very grateful that I have somebody in my life who is the quintessential calm, reserved, love-filled person that she is. I know that this is something that you have found to be the case. I take enormous, enormous pleasure in nature.

    Katherine:

    Yeah.

    Elissa:

    And while I don't love being outside in the bitter cold and I have not gone down the swimming in bitterly cold waters yet, which I know is something that-

    Katherine:

    Even I'm a bit scared this year, I have to say. It's got really cold really quickly. I'm a bit like, whoa, I don't know.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. I really want to try and do that, but being outside, being among trees, I know that you've spoken a lot about trees and I find those things to be very, very grounding. And when I'm really in a state or experiencing a lot of difficulty and sadness surrounding my mother and work. This past year has been a very, very complicated year. Things spinning beyond my control. Being outside and we have this massively large Oak tree on our next street. And it's probably 500-years-old. And I will walk past it with the dog every morning and just lay my hands on it and stop. And the neighbours are probably looking at me and I really don't care but I feel better. I feel better.

    Katherine:

    I think there are certain trees that you can really have ongoing relationships with, in a really healing and nourishing way. They just seem to invite it. I have certain trees that I like to go and have a chat with sometimes and they do seem to listen.

    Elissa:

    I agree.

    Katherine:

    I'm not sure if I'm very good at listening back. I don't know. Yeah. I think that's one of the wonderful things about you and your work is that, I don't know, broad-minded acceptance of somebody who's unashamedly difficult and there's no other way to put it, but who you still can love and care for. And I enjoy that.

    Elissa:

    Thank you.

    Katherine:

    I would love to talk to you about music.

    Elissa:

    Okay.

    Katherine:

    Because your mum was a singer is a singer. You posted a link to her on Instagram recently with her bursting into song in the most glorious way. But I wanted to ask you about your relationship with music, because I've seen little videos of you playing your guitar, and you're a beautiful musician.

    Elissa:

    Thank you.

    Katherine:

    But I get the sense, that's something you're beginning to reclaim after a long time of it being a hidden part of you.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. It's something that I, for a very long time, didn't talk about and buried. I began playing the guitar when I'm was four years old. And it was one of those things. Certain people are artists and they're visual artists and they begin painting when they're children and they take to it. And guitar was my thing. Music was my thing. I would spend hours every day playing. I studied for a while with Eddie Simon, who was Paul Simon's brother, who was from my town where I grew up in Forest Hills, New York, which is just outside of Manhattan. And I would get lost in it in a way that I can only describe as meditational. I would get lost in it. It nurtured me, it saved me, it rescued me, it did all of those things.

    Elissa:

    And that was all through my childhood and my teen years. And I grew up as a teen in the seventies in New York. And that was a very hard time. We had a lot of not terribly, not horribly violent, but we had some very significant events in my community that were really quite jarring. And then when I went away to college, I thought, "Well here I am in college. And there are coffee houses and pubs and that kind of thing." And I became friendly with some other people who were also musicians. They were really singers. They were not pianists or guitarists in any way. I started performing with them in various places. And one thing led to another, and I started opening for people, opening shows for people who were significantly better musicians than I, and who people, your listeners might recognise their names.

    Elissa:

    And then when I left college, I came back to New York and moved back in with my mother who had moved into the city with her second husband. And I started working as an editor for Random House. And I stopped playing. I played less and less and less with every passing year until I discovered that I had a family member, a young cousin who was... there's no other way to describe who he was beyond calling him a prodigy. He's 11 years my junior. He was a classically trained violinist, but anything that he touched that had strings, he could master in a way that was beyond my comprehension.

    Elissa:

    The violin became fiddle and that became... He loved British music. He loved, loved, loved British music. He played in Nashville. He became a studio musician in Nashville on the side. He had a full-time job, and that's what he did on the side. He and I became very close and he became my playing partner. And I started to pick up the mandolin and I started to pick up the banjo and we would get together and pass instruments back and forth. And we would, both of us, move into places that were sort of almost otherworldly. And meditation was really the only... It was just playing with him was a spiritual experience.

    Katherine:

    That total absorption and flow, it sounds extraordinary.

    Elissa:

    Complete absorption. And in 2008, he was very, very ill. And he took his own life in 2008.

    Katherine:

    I'm so sorry.

    Elissa:

    I put my instruments away and I latched the cases and I didn't go back to them probably for, I would say more than a decade. I couldn't look at my guitars. I couldn't look at the mandolin. I couldn't look at the banjo. And it's only been in the last year or so that I've returned to it or returned to them as really a part of the grieving process. I think that there was an enormous amount of shame in my family surrounding his health and his illness and how things unfolded for him. He was a wonderful, wonderful man, very kind, incredibly talented, very giving, emotionally giving. The message was, don't talk about it. Don't grieve. Don't just get on with your life and keep moving forward. And the way that affected me was I stopped doing the one thing that saved me over and over again.

    Katherine:

    Isn't that extraordinary? Don't we hear that story over and over again, how we so often let go of the thing that suits us in a shame? Or I don't know what, as adults, we so often lose those extraordinary talents we have and those creative practices that we need the most.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. And the things that will really ground us and rescue us and save us and nurture us. As a food person, and as someone who's written about food for so many years, I write less about the practical aspects of food and how to cook things. My friends Diana Henry and Nigella do that much better than I do. But I've realised all these years that I was really writing about nurturing and sustenance and the things that heal the heart and heal the soul and the spirit. And that's also what music did for me. And to have not had that for more than a decade since Harris died was enormously problematic for me and-

    Katherine:

    It's a huge loss.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. It was a huge loss. And the problems manifested personally for me in many, many other ways, including addictions and things like that, that are too complicated to chat about in one place.

    Katherine:

    Sure.

    Elissa:

    But little by little, I hear the phrase, "Something cracked something else open and the light came through." And it was really about a year ago that I realised with the pandemic and the quarantine that I could take advantage of my music again, to try and bring me through this terrible time. And it has, so I've returned to it in fits and starts. And if I close my eyes, I can hear Harris saying, "Yes, do it, do it."

    Katherine:

    I love the.

    Elissa:

    Yeah.

    Katherine:

    Is it coming back to you in the same form that it was before? Or are you a changed musician now? Have you moved on?

    Elissa:

    It is coming back to me in a way that I... I played a very specific kind of music back then, much more, like Harris was, inclined towards British music and folk music and American folk music. I have a natural ear for it. I don't know why, but I have a natural ear for it. And I find it very soothing and interesting and historical. We call it roots music in my country. It's something that I'm very, very connected to. That's really how it's coming back. I do love classical music enormously, but I don't play it. I do read music, but I've just never considered myself so technically proficient that I would go down that road. But I listen to music differently now. I hear music differently. I'm inclined to listen to things now that I never would've listened to back then. Things like John Cage and Philip Glass. I was talking to someone recently about the joy of making art for just the sake of it, making art just for the joy of it, rather than as a means to something else.

    Elissa:

    And I think that we are the making species, whether it's music or food or writing or poetry or sculpture or visual arts, and when we don't do that, that means that something's gone off.

    Katherine:

    Yeah. I think for people with a practice that becomes professional like published writers is a really good example of that. I think often we need an extra secret practice or private practice if you like that we're allowed to screw up in and that's less fraught than our writing becomes when we know that we've got to show it to an editor and we know that people have got expectations of us. It takes some of the joy out of that, I think after a while. I think it's really good to have an extra thing.

    Elissa:

    I think you're absolutely right. I think that we are a species of perfection. And certainly, when you're a writer and you're a brilliant writer and writing is something that I knew in somewhere in the recesses of my brain, that that was the thing that I was ultimately going to do, we have to have something in our lives that that is private, and that is ours. And that perhaps we don't have to be perfect at it. I think that perfection is the devil. As my friend Anne Lamott likes to say, "Perfection is doom."

    Katherine:

    As with many things, she's so right about that.

    Elissa:

    She is. She is, absolutely.

    Katherine:

    Also, I just think you have to keep something for yourself, something that belongs to you and that is, I don't know, it's almost like having a glorious affair with something and nobody else can interfere with that or intervene. It's none of their business to do that. It's you and your relationship with this thing you're passionate about. I think it's so important to have that. And if you don't have it, to find it. I feel like I could do it a bit more of that in my life right now, actually. I have to say, yeah, I need a thing.

    Elissa:

    Yeah. It's a funny thing. This is where issues of social media become murky because we're inclined, people who are in the public eye or who are writers or artists, and we have books and we have a presence, we want to share what we're doing.

    Katherine:

    Yes.

    Elissa:

    So how do you balance that? That's a question for me that I ask a lot.

    Katherine:

    Oh, it's such a big question. And I quite like the idea of leaving that open at the end of the podcast. Thank you. That seems like a perfect reflective note to end on. And hopefully, everyone will be tracking you down after this. I'll make sure that all of your links are in the show notes, but I just wanted to say, thank you so much for such a lovely conversation. It was brilliant to hear your thoughts about such a wide range of things and just such a pleasure to talk to you. So thank you.

    Elissa:

    Thank you so much, Katherine. It's really just a pleasure and an honor. I've gone through two copies of your book already. I wore them out.

    Katherine:

    Oh my goodness.

    Elissa:

    The first one fell apart. It's just your work has meant so much to me. And I know it means so much to so many. It's just been, The Wintering affected me in a way that few books really do so truly, truly grateful for it and for you and your story.

    Katherine:

    It makes me very happy to help.

    Katherine:

    I'm beginning to lose hope a bit. The chanterelles are not forthcoming today. There's a load of other really good things, though. There's some quite old Turkey Tail that's turned green and some full Turkey Tail. Look them up if you don't know them. Turkey Tail are really pretty. They're like these blueish fans of mushrooms that really do look like the tail of a turkey. And the full ones are orange, bracket mushrooms, both of them. And I just lifted up a log and found this amazing stretch of white mycelium underneath it, which is always such a thrill. I find it a thrill. There's some little tiny, tiny, fine white mushrooms poking up through the leaf mulch, like little ghosts. They're so bright.

    Katherine:

    And as I've walked, I remembered the name of the mushroom I was trying to think of earlier. I was trying to think of porcelain fungus, which I found on my favourite mushroom growing tree. They're these beautiful ethereal white mushrooms that grow out of... I can't remember which tree. I should probably know that. They do look like china. They look like bone china, pure white, but they're also a tiny bit slimy, which means I never much feel like eating them. I know many people do. I'm sure they're fine. I'm not the world's greatest mushroom hunter. And I'm not the world's greatest... I don't know what's being shot over there. I think they're scaring the crows away. Sorry about the noise. The countryside, eh?

    Katherine:

    But yeah, I'm not the world's greatest mushroom eater either because I don't like the ones that taste of almonds. I'm really suspicious of them. I know it's not reasonable, but some things just don't meet your palette. My lovely friend, Hannah, picked me a load of Hen of the Woods recently. And I couldn't eat it because it smelled of almonds. I didn't trust it as food. I told her that cyanide smells of almonds too. And she laughed at me. But maybe that survival instinct will save me one day or maybe I'm just missing out on some really good things. I don't know. Either way, I didn't eat them. I probably don't fully belong in the mushroom bro universe. But I do love looking. It's the looking that I do this for. But often yeah, you have to accept that you look and you don't find. That's part of the deal. Sometimes they seem to talk to you rather than you finding them, they seem to present themselves to your eye when you're not even searching.

    Katherine:

    Other times, they're so elusive. It feels like they're hiding today. Maybe they don't want to be picked, but there is something about that quality of attention that you sink into when you're hunting for food like this. I'm not hunting for food because I'm hungry. I'm hunting for food because I'm greedy. But there is a different way of being that you find when you sink into that level of concentration and just look gently walking all the while. It's very peaceful. I like to think that life was once like this for at least some of us, such a pleasure. Anyway, enough mushroom ramblings for me. I want to say thank you so much to Elissa for just such a wonderful conversation. I always want to sit at her dining table with her and yak for hours. That was just wonderful all.

    Katherine:

    And thank you to Buddy, my producer, to Meghan who helps to source out everything always for me. Everyone wonders how I get so much done. The answer is Meghan straightforwardly. And to Fraggle the dog who sometimes finds the mushrooms on my behalf. Has refused to do so today. We will be having words afterwards, don't you worry. And thank you to you all for listening. My Patreon community who have jumped into this space that I've made and just given me so much joy the last few weeks, I'm so grateful to you. Thank you. It's really brilliant to be making things, to share with you. Yeah. I'm optimistic about 2022 for all of us. There's good things coming. See you soon.

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to Elissa Altman, author of ‘Motherland’ and more. Katherine finds Elissa in that pre-Christmas zone, which serves as the perfect jumping-off point for a very upfront, candid and fascinating conversation on family. Specifically, Elissa's relationship with her mother. Like every family, it's a relationship which is unique and comes with its own inimitable history, and as such, informs where the two find themselves this present day, and it's a wonderful thing to hear Elissa talk openly about all that is contained within this box of memories and present moments. In addition, Elissa catches up with Katherine about the New England Winter, being a feeder, her relationship with her father, mental wellbeing, getting out of the 'swamp' via nature and its grounding properties, rediscovering and reprocessing her musical proclivities, and all with a real glint and sparkle.

We talk about:

  • The New England Winter

  • Appreciating the art of gardening

  • Being a feeder of people

  • The joy of new relatives in the picture

  • Her intricate relationship with her mother

  • Her mother’s flamboyant performing past

  • How her wife fits into the greater puzzle

  • Grounding through nature

  • Learning guitar with Paul Simon's brother

  • Conflicted relationship with music, stemming from tragedy

  • Living with mental illness in family, and her own depression

Links from this episode:

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To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Maggie Smith on the mutual reflection of poetry

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Maggie Smith on the mutual reflection of poetry

———

This week Katherine chats to Maggie Smith, poet, writer and editor from Columbus, Ohio.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Apparently there's a storm brewing today. There were really dramatic red skies this morning. I had a look at the forecast, and this afternoon, there's going to be some winds. One of those things that is very enjoyable if you're indoors, but you don't want to be out at sea. It seems like the dog can sense it too. She's really tipped over about the whole thing, just seems very timid. I wonder if they feel the changes in air pressure more than we do. So I'm getting ready to batten down the hatches. I wonder if my Christmas lights will fall over. I suppose at least they'll take themselves down, right? The lazy person's way to get the Christmas lights down.

    Katherine May:

    But we're out enjoying the scenery while we can. I remember once taking my son to the woods just as a storm was coming up. I hadn't realised, and as we got between the trees, you could really feel the wind shaking them. And then they started creaking in this really worrying way. I'd never heard that before. It was really obvious that something or other was going to come down. So I said, "Right, we've got to get straight out of here. That's it. We're going." It was really scary.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, don't go into the woods when it's blowing a gale, kids. That's fairly obvious advice. I know you come to me for these nuggets of wisdom. Ah, so good to get out today. I felt like I really needed it. Everything feels really chaotic and disrupted. You get to this point in winter, and everything feels kind of stale and dirty. Even I get ready for the sun to come back a little bit. I'm always busy lighting candles to fight against the gloom. It's worth it. It makes a difference. We make what difference we can.

    Katherine May:

    I'm really excited to welcome the poet, Maggie Smith, onto my podcast this week. She is the author of one of my favourite poems, and I'm sure many of you will feel the same, which is called Good Bones. If you've never read it, Google it. It has a way of speaking to everyone about how we confront a world that's full of terrible things and still feel hope. I don't think many people can balance that in the way she does. So I was thrilled when she said yes, and I want to talk about her book, Keep Moving, as well, which has been so helpful to so many people going through big changes in their life, and to get a chance to explore her new collection, Goldenrod, which again is full of dark beauty. Anyway, I know you'll enjoy hearing from her, and I'll see you again after the podcast.

    Katherine May:

    Welcome, Maggie Smith. I am so thrilled to have you on The Wintering Sessions, and I'm... Well, I'm a really big fan of yours anyway, but I'm really looking forward to talking to you about the ways you've dealt with the darker side of life. It comes up so consistently in your work, but it's balanced with hope all the time, I think. Is that true to say?

    Maggie Smith:

    I think so. I mean, I try, right? We try.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    And I find one of the sort of key ways I process the sort of harder, darker, colder side of things is by writing. You get that. And I think as a poet, metaphor is the place I naturally go, so I find myself in difficult times, and I do this a lot in Keep Moving, looking for metaphors that help me see perhaps how temporary this situation is, or maybe metaphors that might help me reframe it for myself, as okay, it looks like this, sure, but also, maybe it could be this other thing. Maybe I could look at it from this other angle. I find that to be super useful to me.

    Katherine May:

    Like how do you switch perspective? I think you look for the concrete, like what is this thing that I can use to understand this other thing? I mean, that for me is a real pleasure of being a writer, that you get to go seeking those artefacts that help you to understand.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. It's sort of like an imagistic shorthand for experience, right? I mean, it's like experience feels so big, and amorphous, and abstract, so to be able to say, "But it's like this," and to have something concrete, and relatively small and sort of contained, to sort of compare it to, makes it feel more manageable and more understandable to me.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and then, I mean I think also, you then pass that image onto other people, and you watch it light up in their mind as well. I think that's just such a nice exchange of gifts in a way. It keeps that flow, that keeping moving that you talk about. It's that kind of circulation of ideas that we can pass onto other people.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah, I love that. I mean, sometimes it seems very specific to me, I'm having an experience, and I write something down that's an image, or a metaphor, or something, and I have this really particular association with it. Then I put it in a poem or an essay, and then other people reach out and say, "Oh, this absolutely reminds me of this one time," or, "This was exactly what I needed to read," or, "This was exactly the way I was feeling, but I hadn't quite articulated it for myself yet," and that... I mean, the idea that these really, really specific things can at the same time be universal, or at least portable in ways that you can pass them onto others, I find that magical, because that's what I get from reading too. It's like, oh, I feel like someone wrote that just for me. And I know they didn't, but it still feels that way in the moment.

    Katherine May:

    What kind of reading do you tend to turn to in darker times? Is there something that you reach for particularly?

    Maggie Smith:

    You know, I tend to read mostly poetry, and then like right behind that, memoir and essays, and then behind that, fiction. So I think my reading is opposite to most, at least Americans, which is most people read novels as their sort of-

    Katherine May:

    Yes.

    Maggie Smith:

    And then maybe they read some nonfiction, or some essays, or memoir, and then last is poetry, and perhaps only when assigned or on a greeting card. So I kind of read in reverse, and poetry, for me, is always the go-to. I love being able to dip into a book, and I can keep it on my bedside table, or I have stacks of them just all over my house. And I can pick the thing up and flip to any page, and find some incredible marvel.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    You know? And it's just like this little gem. And if I don't have more than five minutes, I can shut the book and carry that with me for the rest of the day, and I don't have to remember, "Where was I in that novel?"

    Katherine May:

    It's so portable.

    Maggie Smith:

    "What's happening?" It is. It really is.

    Katherine May:

    But actually, and I think there's a sense with poetry that you almost don't want to read more than one or two poems at a time. It actually begins to degrade the experience. You actually want to just keep that very intense, singular relationship with one poem. A long time ago, I was researching a book that never got published, and I got to interview an art historian about what you should do when you go into a gallery, like what were the steps you should take to understand the work? He said to me, "What people don't understand is that you should never try and see the whole gallery. You should see a maximum of five paintings in it, and spend some time with them, and then after that, you're exhausted, so go and have a cup of tea and have a look in the gift shop and you're done."

    Katherine May:

    I thought that was so wise, because actually, it's often our insecurity that leads us to try and look at every single painting in every single room. I actually begin to think that's true for poetry too. Like, we need to have the confidence as readers to have that encounter with one, or two, or three, rather than trying to galumph the whole book down like we might do with a novel.

    Maggie Smith:

    I love that. I mean, it's a savouring kind of experience, I think, and I think poems are built to be savoured. They're not really built to be skimmed, you know? Even though they're often short, and they perhaps could be, I think of every poem as an invitation to really spend a lot of time with that poem. I actually have a friend who has a practice where every month, she reads the same poem every morning, and so-

    Katherine May:

    Oh wow.

    Maggie Smith:

    She just says, "This is the month of this poem," and then she reads it every day, and every day, it's a different poem, because you're different, right? The day is different. The weather's different. Your stress level's different. You're bringing different things to the page. It's offering you different things that maybe you didn't see in your previous 28 readings, and I love that idea of the going into a gallery really savouring a few paintings, or photographs, or sculptures, and maybe going back and spending more time with those pieces, because you're bringing a different version of yourself to that piece of art every time you go back to it.

    Katherine May:

    You know, part of what he said to me was, "That means that you need to spend some time before your visit thinking about your visit too." You know, like what is it that you want to see? What is it that you want to have a relationship with today? Yeah, it's really changed the way I go to galleries. I've stopped punishing myself for getting jaded halfway around, which we all do.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. Yeah. Well, and sort of like drinking a few deeply, rather than just having little tiny hummingbird sips at every single piece of art, and then leaving and being like, I don't actually remember anything about that. It was just sort of a blur, because I didn't actually spend a significant amount of time processing any of those things.

    Katherine May:

    Things, yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It's a lesson for life, as is everything.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah, so there's a metaphor in everything.

    Katherine May:

    There really is.

    Maggie Smith:

    As my kids say, "We know. We know, Mom. It's a metaphor." I mean, every time I try to say something, they're like, "We know. We know. You're going to give us a metaphor. We get it."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, whatever.

    Maggie Smith:

    Like okay, well that's because they're everywhere. It's not my fault.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I mean, I think the gift of finding metaphors is not one that should be suppressed.

    Maggie Smith:

    Thank you. I'm going to write that down, and put it on a small calling card, which I will hand to them whenever they complain.

    Katherine May:

    Tattoo it.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yes, indeed.

    Katherine May:

    Look at the tattoo, kids. I wanted to talk a bit about your collection, Goldenrod, which came out earlier this year. Is it earlier this year in America as well as the UK, or was that just here?

    Maggie Smith:

    Yes, July. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, July. Congratulations on it. It's wonderful, and it's got some of your... Like, your customary refusal to look away from the dark parts of life. It's like you seem to be a person who has to stare into the darkness rather than try and avoid it. I sort of noticed that you talked a lot about America actually, and what is it? What is this country that you live in, and what's it become in these troubled times? I guess that's at the front of a lot of people's minds at the moment.

    Maggie Smith:

    It is. It is, and it's actually sort of interesting. I've never really written so directly about what people might call political issues, but I don't actually see them as political. I just see them as sort of like I'm a human being living in this place, and seeing these things happen around me, and as a mother, and as a citizen, and as a writer, I don't know how to not confront some of those things anymore. And yet, at the same time, something happened in the past five or six years in this country, that's sort of made it impossible for me to just write about trees.

    Katherine May:

    Right. Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    I just felt like if I'm writing from my life, so much of what I'm trying to process is not just domestic, as in in my home, or in my community. It's so much bigger. We're feeling the ripples of these bigger things, and yet, for all of the strife and sort of horror of the past five or six years in the United States, it's not really new.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Maggie Smith:

    It's not, so to say, "Well, suddenly, this country is a really dangerous place if you're a person of colour," or, "Suddenly, this country is a really dangerous place if you're a woman of childbearing age," or, "It's a dangerous place if you're a child of colour. It's a dangerous place if you're a schoolchild of any colour." It's not necessarily true, because it's always been an unsafe place for plenty of reasons.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We've kind of lost the luxury of looking away, I guess, at the moment.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yes, we have. I think we have.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Again, I noted down a quote from you, that was, "America, you're grand in theory, poor in practice."

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. Right? I mean, not what I learned in school, and I think growing up in a public school system where we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, and stood with our hands over our hearts, and the way that we were taught the Thanksgiving story, and the founding of this country, and the Civil War. I mean, just everything we've been taught, looking back on it now and thinking, "Wow, we sure spackled over a lot, didn't we?" And how now, as a parent, are my kids being taught? And what has changed, and yet what really hasn't changed, and how-

    Katherine May:

    And has that changed?

    Maggie Smith:

    You know, in some ways it has, and in other ways, unfortunately it really hasn't. I mean, there's still a lot of... I think we like to think of ourselves as the good guys.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    I mean, I live in Columbus, Ohio, which is named after Christopher Columbus, so even going back to that story. I think we just really want to think of ourselves as being freedom, and equality, and democracy, and fairness, and those are all great things in theory, but how are those things being implemented, and how were they being implemented all along, and who gets them? Because they're-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    ... not resources freely distributed among people.

    Katherine May:

    And you know, we're going through a similar thing, but in a slightly different way, in that our reckoning is with this narrative of empire that we have all been brought up with, and about the way we were told that things were heroic, and adventuring, and exciting, and that we brought civilisation to these countries. I mean, that is unfortunately what we were told when we were at school. I mean, what we did learn about was your history of slavery, you know? So we looked at other countries in a very critical way, but we didn't look at our own. You know, there's huge gaps in all of our knowledge, and it's painful. I mean, I think it's more painful for some people than others. I think there are some people clinging very, very hard to those colonial narratives, those narratives of empire, and it's incredibly painful for them to have them wrenched away, but it's the truth, right?

    Maggie Smith:

    Right. Right.

    Katherine May:

    It's time to look really hard at it.

    Maggie Smith:

    Agreed. I mean, there's not really a way around that, or shouldn't be a way around that, although it sure seems like the truth is kind of up for grabs more than it should be.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, apparently so, yeah. Yeah, in a really distressing way, and I don't know if any one of us has got a handle on that, and how it works, and what we do about it, because there does seem to be a very strong contingent who are saying, "But I want to believe this. This is the story I choose to believe, and therefore, I choose what truth is." I don't know if that's new or not. It feels new. Maybe we've always done it, and it's now visible. I just don't know, and I can't ever seem to come to terms with it.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. I think it's more public now. You know, seeing whole factions of... And not just a few odd family members who seem like they want to cling to something, but whole factions of people, and whole media outlets, frankly, clinging to this version that doesn't really exist, in a sort of childlike way. Like, "Well, this is what I want, so this is what it is." It's like, well no, you're an adult, so you actually have to live in the real world with the rest of us.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. But apparently, people don't actually.

    Maggie Smith:

    No, apparently not.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We thought they had to, but no. No, they don't. Just carried on. No.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yes, they can.

    Katherine May:

    But you're often right about that in the context of being a parent. You know, and about how you talk to your children about this stuff and what they bring back to you, these terrible knowledges. You know, I'm really moved by your poem, Half Staff, about sending children into schools after high school shootings and famous acts of violence in schools, and how we are constantly wrestling with the ways that we give our children to the world and how we hold them back from it.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in Good Bones, I wrote about not telling my children things, and I could do that then, because when I wrote that poem, I had a toddler and a preschooler, so it's different now. I mean, I do have to send them into the world, but I'm also sending them into a world that they're much more aware of. You know, they hear news. They're learning things in school. Their friends know things. I mean, my daughter is going to be a teenager this year, so the idea that I could shelter them from things isn't realistic anymore, but it's also not desirable in a way for me anymore, because again, we have to live in the world as it is, not in the world as we wish it were. And it doesn't actually do them any favours to not know the world they live in, to not be able to see it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, and even if you wanted to, you can't hold it back, because it's changed, and that's part of their growing up, is their growing political awareness and their growing critical awareness too. Yeah, I share your instinct for wishing that my son didn't know about some of the stuff he now knows about, but it's a ship that will sail with or without my control over it, and the best I can do is talk to him about it, I think.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah, and having us be part of that conversation, so they're not getting all of their information from some other kid in the classroom, or from overhearing a bit of television, or radio, or whatever, being able to have sensitive, informed conversations and answer their questions. And I've been really heartened, honestly. I mean, my daughter is in seventh grade and is so much wiser, and more aware, and just frankly more empathetic and a better human than I was when I was in seventh grade, just a better person, you know? And-

    Katherine May:

    We talk to them differently though, don't we? I think anyway. We talk to them in a very different way. Like, we don't hold much back, I don't think anymore, and maybe they grow that critical awareness from knowing more about the world, and being able to turn it over in their hands and examine it a bit more.

    Maggie Smith:

    I think so.

    Katherine May:

    But then that's hard, because yeah, it's that kind of conflict. And like I often think that my son is more innocent than I was over some things, you know? He's like horrified by swearing, which I used to think was this thing that I wanted to get right into, as soon as I could. And also, I always wanted a little sip of whatever alcohol my parents were having too. Like, I was always really curious about that, and my son is absolutely like, "No, that is wine. I am not interested in that," you know? And I think, wow, that's so different. It's a change that's happening. Like, on one hand, there's an innocence that I don't think I had, but on the other hand, there's a knowing-ness that I definitely didn't have. I'm really sure that I didn't understand so much about the world, and he's less fearful about difference than I was, without a doubt.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. Yeah, well and how beautiful is that?

    Katherine May:

    Oh, it's great.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, he adapted right away to wondering what people's pronouns were. Like, I never had a conversation with him about that. That's something that is absolutely instinctive to him, and not assuming people are straight, and wondering what is racist, like questioning every... It's so... We didn't have that. We didn't have the opportunity to think like that, but they have taken to it with no pain whatsoever. It's not hard on them to do that. They're delighted to, it seems.

    Maggie Smith:

    Oh, I agree. My son was playing with a sort of wind-up toy the other day, that's a butterfly. You sort of twist it up and let it go, and it flies and flaps around the room. I said something like, "Oh, that little guy fell under the dresser," whatever, "you can go grab him." He goes, "How do you know it's a boy?" And I was like, "I don't know. I just called it a little guy." He was like, "Maybe we should use they/them pronouns, because it doesn't... It's not like we know." And he's nine. I just thought, you know, that never would have occurred to me. That was not a discussion happening in the '80s, when-

    Katherine May:

    Uh-uh (negative), no it wasn't.

    Maggie Smith:

    ... I was his age.

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Maggie Smith:

    And the fact that they really have seamlessly... You know, and it's the same thing. They don't mind wearing masks. It's part of what helps keep them safe, and their teachers safe, and their friends safe, and their grandparents safe, so I think we can learn a lot from looking at the people who are-

    Katherine May:

    Kids.

    Maggie Smith:

    Kids, yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    Kids and teenagers. They're all right. Like, I feel like we're handing a lot of messes off to them, and I wish they didn't have to clean them up, but I trust them more than I trust the people my age and older to do it.

    Katherine May:

    Well, we're clinging to all sorts of things that actually, we don't even like ourselves, and yeah, I do feel optimistic. But I also, like I refuse to not feel optimistic. I feel like pessimism is a kind of luxury that I don't have. I can't be pessimistic for him. There's a UK poet, Salena Godden. I don't know if you know her-

    Maggie Smith:

    I do. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    ... but she has a poem... Do you? Yeah. "Pessimism is for lightweights," she says, which is just so perfect.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    But I also think that pessimism is something that I can't afford myself. It's not something I can wallow in, because I've got to make everything as okay for him as I can.

    Maggie Smith:

    Oh, I agree. I mean, I think I would be probably more comfortable wallowing if I weren't a parent, but I can't. I mean, that's the thing. It's like not just because they can't see it, but because I can't be in that head space and pass hope onto them that I don't have. I need to be able to create that for myself, so that I have a reserve to share, because frankly, they need it more than most of the other things I have to offer them. I'm not that great at helping with the math homework. I'm a decent cook, but the hope, you know? A sense of optimism despite all of this madness that they're seeing, that, I feel like is my... That's my core job, is to make them feel like it will be okay. Maybe not in an easy way, and it will take a lot of work, but that it's redeemable, and that there are things that we can do together to make this world a better place.

    Katherine May:

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love The Wintering Sessions and would like to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture, and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings, and the answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive, and a day early too. Plus, you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events, and your podcast will always be ad free. If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month, for life, so do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to patreon.com/katherinemay, or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. And please don't worry if this isn't for you. The regular version of The Wintering Sessions will still be free, and I really appreciate your listens. Now, back to the show.

    Katherine May:

    Which leads us neatly to talk about Good Bones, which I think it would be very hard not to talk about in this context. I expect you're probably fairly tired of talking about it, but-

    Maggie Smith:

    No.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I mean, this is a poem that's been called the poem of 2016, you know? That's quite a thing, to have written something that people just want to keep and pass on like that, isn't it?

    Maggie Smith:

    It's so strange. I mean, it's the strangest thing, because I wrote that poem like I write any poem. I think my most recent poem was from about two weeks ago, and I don't think anything amazing is going to happen with that poem. Maybe someone will want it. Maybe it'll be published in a journal. Maybe it'll make it into a book at some point, but I just write poems. That's what I do, so to have one that came about in the same way that any other poem comes about, to take on this life of its own, and travel to places I will never go, and meet people I will never meet, and be translated into language I will never be able to read. In some ways, that poem's life is a lot wider and more exciting than my own. I'm still here in Ohio. But like, what an amazing thing? I mean, it's a complicated thing for me, just because the poem is shared when terrible things happen, so whenever it's shared, I have like a twinge. Because I'm glad that people are sharing it, because perhaps they get some comfort from it, but at the same time, it will always be, I think, associated with suffering in some way. That, for me, is a little odd.

    Katherine May:

    And you can kind of get hijacked by it on any given day, I'm guessing, that you can log into your Twitter feed and find something tragic that you're linked to passively, through no will of your own.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. I've called that poem a disaster barometer, because if I do log into my social media, and I have tons of mentions, you know? If my social media mentions are just through the roof, and it's because of-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, you know that-

    Maggie Smith:

    ... Good Bones-

    Katherine May:

    ... something bad's happened.

    Maggie Smith:

    ... something bad has happened.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    So my first instinct is okay, what happened? Not like, oh, people are reading something I wrote. It's oh no, what happened? That's a weird sensation to feel when you're being widely read, is oh no, what happened?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's a very-

    Maggie Smith:

    But it is what it is.

    Katherine May:

    ... mixed blessing, isn't it? To have a-

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    To have written something-

    Maggie Smith:

    I think so.

    Katherine May:

    ... that people lean on in hard times. On one hand, I'm always really genuinely happy to help, on a really basic level, but I get that same feeling, really, of discomfort sometimes, that people text me, or send me messages, or tag me in to posts when they're at this moment of absolutely terrible loss, and I often feel inadequate in the face of it. You know, what on Earth can I say to that person, that I... I feel like I can only let them down in those moments, and yeah, it's a tricky one.

    Maggie Smith:

    I understand that completely. I think that happened with me with Good Bones, and continues to happen, and it happens all the time with Keep Moving. Like, I was joking with a friend the other day, that I've sort of become like a divorce whisperer somehow.

    Katherine May:

    I was about to ask about that, yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    Or I mean, and not just divorce, but really, any big sort of life change, when people are going through some big like oh no, what now moment, which because of the pandemic, it's everyone. We're all going through a big life change and a what now moment. Mail, and DMs, and emails, and being tagged in Instagram posts, and tweets, and it really is people finding some hope in the words, which is always pleasing, for me to see that, but at the same time, I don't know what to say.

    Katherine May:

    No. I know exactly

    Maggie Smith:

    Like, I'm so sorry for your loss, or I'm sending love and strength. It feels that sort of like I don't want to answer someone's message with a platitude. So I agree. I always feel inadequate. Probably, I shouldn't say anything, because they already found something in something I've written that was useful, but I feel like it's terrible to ignore when someone reaches out to say something meant something to them.

    Katherine May:

    I know.

    Maggie Smith:

    It is strange.

    Katherine May:

    Sometimes, I wish I was capable of being a little bit more mysterious, but I'm apparently not. I just have to go in there and like blunder in, and going, "Oh, I'm so sorry."

    Maggie Smith:

    Me too. We're in that together.

    Katherine May:

    You want to be nice, but yeah. I mean, let's talk a bit about Keep Moving, because I love the idea of you as a divorce whisperer. I do have a friend who is a divorce lawyer, and funnily enough, she passes on Good Bones to her new clients. She doesn't pass on Keep Moving, but I did

    Maggie Smith:

    Oh, that's so funny.

    Katherine May:

    Well, I don't think she knew about it, so I've now thrust it into her hands, to say I think there's something a bit more appropriate, actually. Writing about a divorce, I mean, you don't write about it in detail, you know? You don't write about the arguments and the comings and goings, and I fully respect that, but I wonder what it's like airing that particular kind of laundry, because there's a lot of hope and promise that gets lost when a relationship breaks down, and a lot of kind of public-facing polish, I think maybe, that you have to let go of, to say, "Okay, well actually this wasn't working."

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    How did it feel to write about that?

    Maggie Smith:

    It felt really vulnerable. You know, until that book, I'd only published books of poems. And in a poem, even if it's in first person, even if there's an "I" in a poem, and even if it's relatively close to you as the poet, there's still some sort of artistic difference between the "I" in the poem and you, and even then, sometimes I would write a poem in third person, and I would ascribe to this "She" things that I was processing or going through in my own life, as a way to sort of hold things at arm's length, and not have to come out and say, "This happened to me," or, "This is something I, Maggie, and struggling with." No, it's in a poem. It's not me.

    Maggie Smith:

    So, to write personal essays, and to go on social media also and just say, "Okay, so this is just me. There's no speaker of a poem. There's no metaphor. There's no persona. There's no this is a, no no no, it's Persephone. It's told through this other myth," you know? I mean, I'd been doing that for years, finding ways to sort of have a little bit of cover in what I was saying, and both with Keep Moving, and actually even in Goldenrod, I've dropped persona completely, and-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's very direct.

    Maggie Smith:

    ... I dropped third person. It's very direct, and I think in some ways, writing those books basically at the same time, an overlapping time, one gave me the courage to write the other and vice versa.

    Katherine May:

    And do you think you'll ever do that again, or have you put yourself off of writing prose in such a direct way?

    Maggie Smith:

    No. I think I'll do it again. It's-

    Katherine May:

    It's addictive, isn't it, in a weird way?

    Maggie Smith:

    It is, and it's a challenge too, and as a writer, I'm always going to, I think, feel most comfortable I'm poems. That's sort of my home genre, but also, genre, when I think about it, is really sort of a construct, made so that people know how to sell books and shelve books.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Maggie Smith:

    Some of the books I love best are sort of half-poetry, half-nonfiction, half something else. I like, as a writer, just pushing myself and challenging myself. I would like to try all different kinds of things, because I think really, most of the time, the content sort of requests the form, or requests the container that is best for it, and Keep Moving couldn't have been a collection of poems. Just, I couldn't tell those stories.

    Katherine May:

    No. No. It-

    Maggie Smith:

    I couldn't process it in verse. It just wouldn't have worked. And so-

    Katherine May:

    But I think that's the charm of it, isn't it? Like, the directness. I mean, I know they're notes to self, and that they're ways of you talking to yourself to help you get through what was obviously a devastatingly awful time, but at the same time, I think that as a reader, that feels like you're urging me directly on. You're like saying, "Right, okay, come on then," you know? "Yep, this is awful. What are we going to do next? What now?"

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. I mean, I think part of that is I was talking to myself, so it's all written in second... All of those quotes, at least, are written in second person, and I didn't even really say, until further in, that the "You" in all of those quotes is me. I'm just sort of pep-talking myself through this really dark time, and there was an element of sort of fake it until you make it of that, where in the very beginning, I'm not sure I felt very hopeful, or felt that when something burns down, oh, there's also a space there where something new can be built. But I was grasping for those metaphors and grasping for those feelings, because I just believed somewhere deep inside that if I told myself a different kind of story about my life, eventually I would get to that place organically and authentically. And it worked, which surprised no one more than me.

    Katherine May:

    Well, and I'm very glad it did, and you talk about kind of doing positive, like positive is an action. I mean, it's definitely a choice, but it's also something that you perform, I guess, until it sticks.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. And I mean, now later, having done sort of those daily posts every day, not knowing really what I was doing, and just knowing that it made me feel better. Then later, I realised, oh, there's actually science behind that. There's science behind repetitive positive action, actually rewiring your brain to be more hopeful. So I sort of stumbled into something real on accident. You know, and writing too. There's science behind not typing, but writing, like physically pen or pencil to paper, that you sort of process things more deeply, hold on and retain things in a different way when you're writing, physically, and so it's funny, like finding out like, oh, I was on to something with some of these things, although I was really just sort of flailing in the dark, feeling along the wall in the dark room for a light switch, just hoping to hit plastic at some point, and there it was.

    Katherine May:

    But I mean, sometimes that's the way that we make our best leaps, I think, is to just practice, just to keep doing a thing. Like, whatever that thing is for you, you just keep doing it and trying to find what your gut's telling you, because I think it sometimes takes a long time to even know what your gut's telling you if you're in a kind of flailing state. And like slowly, slowly, you begin to glimpse things.

    Maggie Smith:

    Right? And following the feeling. I mean, that for me was always like what feels good? Like, does running feel good? Then I'm going to do more of that. Does writing feel good? Then I'm going to do more of that. What, especially in a time where I felt like I was losing a huge part of my identity, and my narrative, like what can I do today that makes me feel like me? Not me, somebody's wife, not even me, somebody's mother, not me in relationship to all of these other pieces, but just at a core level, me, and if it's taking a long walk, or writing, or dancing like crazy by yourself in your kitchen, with music turned up that you love. Like, whatever that thing is, follow the feeling, because you can't intellectualise that, you know? You just know.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And that's the root back into self, really, or to find a new self that maybe you've never been allowed to have before. That's the great gift of those moments. Talk to me a bit about the seasons, and what they mean to you, because actually, it comes into your poetry a lot, doesn't it? The kind of shifts in the year. But also, there's this real sense of movement in Keep Moving. Like, obviously, but there's a sense of time as a sort of healing track, really.

    Maggie Smith:

    Yeah. I mean, part of it was that my marriage ended, and things really got hard in the fall. I remember walking around and seeing the leaves change, and seeing all this beautiful colour, and its truck me that all of this beauty is actually coming from decay, you know? Like, this is all... It's sort of a death, but look how gorgeous this decay is, so trying to sort of, again, reframe change for me. And then, a couple months later, in the middle of the most difficult winter, literally the most difficult winter I've ever had, and looking up and seeing all these bare trees, with no leaves, and realising, but look how much sky I get to see now. Like, look at the view through all of these bare branches. Maybe there's something to that too. Like, maybe there's something to that, and what's going on underneath the ground? Like, stuff is waiting to come back-

    Katherine May:

    Really good stuff.

    Maggie Smith:

    ... out. Right? Really good things, so everything that we celebrate in spring started in winter. Like, that stuff's just been waiting to come out, so just reframing things for myself, and I think really seasonally because I live in a place where the four seasons are very distinct, and I spend a lot of time looking out the windows, because my writing desk is in a room completely surrounded in windows. It's all windows, and I spend a lot of time walking in my neighbourhood, walking my kids to school and back, walking my dog, so I'm looking at trees and sky all the time, and I don't really know how. Just, the metaphors are always just right there for the picking. Thank goodness.

    Katherine May:

    They're just offering themselves to you like low-hanging fruit.

    Maggie Smith:

    I don't even have to search. The stuff's just right there. Thank goodness.

    Katherine May:

    Well, Maggie, it's been amazing to talk to you, and thank you so much for sharing so much so generously. I'll put loads of notes in the show notes, where people can connect up to you and find you, and I'm sure they'll be delighted to come and find you if they've not met you already, but yeah, just thank you. Your work has given so much to me and so much to loads of other people, and I'm really glad you decided to chat to me today.

    Maggie Smith:

    Oh no, thank you. I'm such a fan, and this has been a real treat.

    Katherine May:

    Ah, lovely.

    Katherine May:

    It amazes me, even at this time of year, that there are the last few leaves still clinging to the trees. Every gust of wind and a few more fall down. And of course, as I write about in Wintering, now that the trees are bare, and if you look closely, there's a bud at the end of every little branch and twig. I never knew they were there until I did my research for Wintering, and now it really thrills me to see it every time. The tree's all ready already. It's really busy at this time of year, doing all the hard work in the woodland. Love to see it.

    Katherine May:

    But I also love those amazing, stark lines that the trees make against the sky. It's a pure white sky at the moment, and the trees are reaching up against the whiteness, making these perfect silhouettes, reminding me of capillaries. One of my favorite sights of the year, let alone of winter, and you can really see that crown separation happening, the idea that the trees avoid each other just by a little margin, so that you get, rather than trees kind of intermingling their branches at the top as you might expect them to, just politely keeping their own personal space. And every time the wind blows, they sway, just a little. They're not creaking. It's okay. Won't be long until they're in bud. No, I've just said they're in bud. [inaudible 00:46:19] Won't be long until they're in leaf, and it all starts again. But for now it's okay.

    Katherine May:

    I just wanted to says thank you so much to Maggie Smith, being a brilliant guest. I loved talking to her. I love it that this age of Zoom allows me to talk to anyone around the world on my podcast, but also, I quite often feel a little bit sad that we're not having a cup of tea together. There are benefits and drawbacks. Maybe one day, eh? If you enjoyed that, please do take a look in the show notes. There are links to Maggie's books and her social media presences, as we all have there, so do check them out. She's really worth tracking down.

    Katherine May:

    And thank you to the patrons on my Patreon, who are making this possible. I think I'm getting used to the language now, patrons, Patreon. I hope that's right. Such a weird turn of phrase somehow, but thank you. It's been really brilliant meeting the first beginnings of this community, which I hope will grow, and it really supports this little podcast, which I have very much enjoyed doing, as you might be able to tell. And thank you to my producer, Buddy Peace, composer of the theme tune, very talented human being all round. Do check him out. He does lots of really interesting things. And thank you to Meghan Hutchins, who supports me and the podcast wonderfully, always. Ah, and thank you to you, dear listener, for putting up with my ramblings while I walk through the woods with an increasingly muddy dog. I'll see you all really soon. Back in a couple of weeks. Bye.

Show Notes

This week Katherine chats to Maggie Smith, poet, writer and editor from Columbus, Ohio.

You may know Maggie's tremendous work via her poem 'Good Bones', which she has a difficult relationship with. The poem is often referenced in times of crisis, which she thinks of as a 'disaster barometer' - she break downs this fascinating dissonance in her chat with Katherine, which reaches a wide range of topics including metaphor, the 'tasting' approach to culture, her own range of published works, America's history of being unsafe for many, being honest with children, how younger people understand pronouns so well, the divorce whisperer, prose, how the content dictates the container, the act of physically writing on paper, seasons and the beauty in the decay of Fall. So much to inspire and invigorate. A delight.

We talk about:

  • 'Good Bones' poem as a 'disaster barometer'

  • Gravitating toward metaphor

  • 'Tasting' approach to culture

  • America's history of being unsafe for many

  • How younger people understand pronouns so well

  • The divorce whisperer

  • The beauty in the decay of Fall

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Cheryl Strayed on walking through the wilderness

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Cheryl Strayed on walking through the wilderness

———

This week Katherine chats to Cheryl Strayed, author of ‘Wild’ and so many more.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May (00:08):

    I'm out in Blean Wood. It's really wet underfoot. There comes a point every winter where the whole wood just gets covered in water at one end, it's extraordinary the way it happens. The wood itself is full of little channels that presumably were once dug a long time ago, but which now drain the wood really efficiently. But there comes a point when the rain gets too heavy and everything is absolutely underwater for acres of woodland. It's amazing how the wood adapts.

    Katherine May (00:54):

    We're approaching mid winter now, the darkest time of the year and increasingly my favourite time of the year. I love that pause at the end of the shortest day. That moment when you feel the year turning and something else coming through. Is this beautiful quiet at moment in the year, if you let it happen, if you notice it. I never used to notice it. And now I know it's here. I look forward to it. I'll be lighting a fire, spending some quiet time with some friends and the next morning I'll get up and watch the sunrise, and feel that peace. Anyway. I love the woods at this time of year. All of that water fills them, fills the gaps between the trees with these enormous puddles that are black because of the quality of the soil underneath, years and years of leaf mulch, all gathered up together. And so the woodland becomes full of black mirrors, perfectly reflecting the trees. It's so beautiful. I don't know why more people don't talk about this stuff.

    Katherine May (02:23):

    So I'm so excited this week to have Cheryl Strayed on the podcast, one of my writing heroes. I was so thrilled when she said yes when I asked her. It's just, some writers just really touch you, I think. She's a walker like I am. I read Wild before I embarked on my big walk that I undertook for The Electricity of Every Living Thing. But it's not just that. I love the earthiness that she writes with, the sincerity, the commitment, the rawness. I just feel like she's a writer that you get contact with unquestionably.

    Katherine May (03:18):

    I was rereading some of her Dear Sugar letters in advance of this. I always like to read people just before I talk to them. And if you haven't read them, do pick them up. But there's something extraordinary about the way she addresses these people who come to her for help. And I just sat there crying, tears streaming down my face. I just love the way she dances with language. Anyway, that's enough puff from me. But I hope you'll enjoy the interview. So thrilled to have been able to do it. And I'm just walking past some beautiful chestnut trees covered in white lichen. The whole wood feels almost monochrome today. It's such a pleasure to come out here at this of year and to think. So I'm going to do some thinking. Hope you enjoy the interview.

    Katherine May (04:40):

    Cheryl, welcome. It's amazing to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for agreeing.

    Cheryl Strayed (04:45):

    Thank you. It's so wonderful to be here.

    Katherine May (04:48):

    It's great. I'm, been a huge fan of your work for a long time, but I don't know if you know, my previous book to Wintering was called Electricity of Every Living Thing. And it was me taking a long walk. And when I was planning the book, I picked up Wild again and then got this terrible fear because it's like, "Oh, God, she finished the walk and I didn't." A, it was a harder walk.

    Cheryl Strayed (05:17):

    Oh, that's interesting. I haven't read that book. I didn't know about that book. I'm going to race out and get it after we're done talking. But that's funny though, Katherine, because I think I feel when I read Wintering I was like, "Okay," we're kindred spirits. I identify with you a lot. But here's the thing, there really is no such thing. I finished quote unquote, you didn't finish quote unquote, but I think that a walk is an ongoing process and there's no such thing really-

    Katherine May (05:48):

    Definitely.

    Cheryl Strayed (05:48):

    ... as finishing or not finishing, it's one foot in front of the other and come what may.

    Katherine May (05:53):

    It's all you can do. And you merge with your walk. You are the walk after a while. It's not about destination, it's not about miles. It took me a long time to figure that out though, that actually it's the process of... It's the rhythm almost, of keeping going, that's all the walk is.

    Cheryl Strayed (06:11):

    Absolutely. And I think that there are so many reasons why I love walking, not just in my own life, but as an activity in the world that lots of people get to do, is there is that, you're always running your own race. In fact, it's not a race. I've had so many conversations with people who of course have gone and hiked some long wilderness trail after they read Wild, they were inspired to take some big journey. But more importantly, I have talked to people who said, "I didn't dare walk a mile or a kilometre by myself before I read the book-

    Katherine May (06:44):

    Wow. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (06:44):

    ... and now I do." And so that can be as wild and adventurous, that first time you go on a walk alone as any wilderness trek.

    Katherine May (06:55):

    Yeah. Totally. And it's funny, actually. There was this thing that happened to me just before I started Electricity that never made it into the book, but it inspired the book, which was that I'd gone for a little walk one day, just a little stroll after work. And I parked my car at the edge of the woods and there was an older guy parked in his car, in the car park. And as I got out, he wound down the window and called me over. And very naively, I went over and said, "Oh, hi, you're okay?" And he said, "If I were you, I wouldn't do that." And I said, "What? Sorry." And he said, " A girl like you," a girl like me. God, I was like 40 for God's sake. But, "A girl like you on your own."

    Katherine May (07:34):

    And it was so creepy. And there was a bit of me that wanted to defiantly just go into the woods anyway and walk because it was my place to walk in. But of course I couldn't, I just obediently got back in my car and drove off because I was scared. And I think there is, I mean, ah. I know you had a really intimidating incident along the trail as well. And actually one of the things I want to say is it's unusual, isn't it? Most of the time when I'm walking alone, I feel completely unthreatened. I don't know if that's the same for you.

    Cheryl Strayed (08:07):

    Yeah. I mean, the scenario that you present, the experience you had, it really is complicated because in so many ways, obviously he was creepy and I would have been afraid too. I would need back up. And yet he's in so many ways speaking with the voice of the culture. We were both raised in cultures that said women shouldn't do things alone, women shouldn't certainly venture into the wilderness alone or walk alone. I mean, that really is one of the first messages I think girls receive when they-

    Katherine May (08:41):

    Oh, absolutely. Yeah, loud and clear.

    Cheryl Strayed (08:42):

    ... figure out... Yeah, don't go by yourself in the world. And I thought about this a lot when I decided to take my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, because I knew from step one, I was breaking a deeply, deeply held code of the culture or rule for girls and women because, don't go alone because something bad could happen to you and then it's your fault. And I rejected every layer of that. And I decided that I had to really reckon with my fear and confront that thing you had to confront, "Do I go? Or do I get back in my car and drive away?" And of course there are many times that I've said, "No, I am too afraid I won't do it."

    Cheryl Strayed (09:28):

    But in the case of that summer, when I decided to hike the PCT I just decided I wasn't going to let fear be the thing that ruled me. And part of the way I kept myself safe is another thing you say, which is once you're out there, you feel perfectly safe. And the scary times, the scary places honestly, are the places that we encounter men. And I hate to say this-

    Katherine May (09:53):

    Yeah. That's so true.

    Cheryl Strayed (09:53):

    ... it's the parking lots, it's the intersections. And of course I love men, I know a lot of men would never harm anyone.

    Katherine May (10:00):

    No.

    Cheryl Strayed (10:00):

    But it is also true that-

    Katherine May (10:02):

    There's a percentage. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (10:04):

    Yeah. There are men who harm women. And it's scary. It's a complicated thing about going alone.

    Katherine May (10:09):

    It is. And as you say, you're quite right, it is the parking lots that are the scary bits. When you walk through those little pieces where everyone's parked and maybe there's a tea hut or a pub, they're the bits when you have your hackles up straight away. And I mean, over and over again, what struck me, I was on the South West Coast Path in Devon, was that I saw so many women walking alone there and it was glorious and we'd nod to each other as we passed. And that would be it. Nobody wanted to stop and talk. Everyone was there just to walk and to be alone in their own heads. And my guess is that everyone was processing something different. I certainly was.

    Cheryl Strayed (10:51):

    Yeah. I mean, do you find... Sometimes I'll go on a walk when... Well, I walk every day. But sometimes I'll go on a walk when I'm trying to work out a problem. But even when I'm not, and by problem, I don't mean a trouble necessarily. Sometimes it's really just in my writing life. Actually walking is part of my writing life. I find that I'll write something and purposely say, "Okay, now I'm going to walk for a half hour because I know that new ideas will come to me." But even if I go out there, just because I want to get some exercise, what inevitably happens is I start to think about things that I need to think about, that this is the way that I think walking is so healing, is you don't even really have to try.

    Katherine May (11:37):

    No.

    Cheryl Strayed (11:38):

    In Wild, I very much, anyone who has read the book or seen the movie knows that I really did go on that hike because my life was in crisis. And I needed in some ways to try to heal myself or find myself again. But what I always say is, you could also go hike that trail not looking for any kind of transformation and you're going to get it anyway.

    Katherine May (12:00):

    You'll get it anyway.

    Cheryl Strayed (12:01):

    Even if you're not seeking it.

    Katherine May (12:03):

    I know. I think it opens up this incredible space. And I mean, like you I walk every day, but I take short walks. But it's those longer walks that I need to really empty my head. I think the thing about walking is it gives you those revelations, but it gives you them slump wise. You don't get them directly, you don't get to think it through really deliberately. They drop into your head after about three hours and when everything feels empty. And I don't know anything else that does that. I'm a meditator, but walking takes me somewhere further than that, sometimes I think.

    Cheryl Strayed (12:41):

    Yeah. I mean, I've never succeeded at meditating and perhaps because I've hardly tried. I tried it but I'm not drawn to it. It's funny because when people read my work as Dear Sugar, which in case you or your listeners don't know, it's an advice column, a very unorthodox advice column that I write.

    Katherine May (13:01):

    Oh, we will be talking about that in a minute. Don't you worry.

    Cheryl Strayed (13:04):

    Oh, okay. And people, all of the advice I give, it's very often suggesting mindfulness practices essentially. And so I think people have this image of me that I'm always, every day I sit and do my meditation. But what I do is walk in meditation. And that to me, and the reason I have never been drawn to meditation is I just hate the idea of having to just sit there and say, "Okay, I'm going to empty my mind." But somehow can do that if I'm moving.

    Katherine May (13:36):

    No you're doing it. You're doing it already. I mean, and meditation is so different to what I thought it was. And I rarely sit and meditate anymore. I used to do the whole thing of 20 minutes, twice a day. I was absolutely religious about it. And that broke for loads of reasons. And one of those was motherhood. I mean, my son's nine now, I still don't get 20 minutes twice a day of the peace that I would need to be uninterrupted and to be able to shut myself in a room. Somebody would come in. I would love to say that they [inaudible 00:14:11]. But I find loads of different ways to just make some space, I think. And I actually prefer it that way. I like the improvisation of it, I like the informality, I like that feeling of going with what your gut wants on that day. I think it's taken me all my lifetime to tune into my gut. And I cling to that now.

    Cheryl Strayed (14:34):

    Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I'm always struck by what a difference it makes if you can do even micro mindfulness, I guess, where even just when you were talking just now I was listening to you and I consciously took a deep breath and even just that I was like, "Oh, I feel better. I feel better." I took a deep breath. I took a moment to pause and tune into my body. And I think that that is the goal of mindfulness. And it really gives us so much if we just spend a tiny bit of time on it each day.

    Katherine May (15:08):

    It's amazing how easy it is not to breathe, isn't it? That endlessly-

    Cheryl Strayed (15:11):

    Crazy.

    Katherine May (15:11):

    ... fascinates me, how often I think, "Oh, I'm not breathing right now. I'm just slowly asphyxiating in my own fear."

    Cheryl Strayed (15:19):

    Yeah. Have you read that book, Breathe? Maybe it came out a year or so two ago.

    Katherine May (15:24):

    I haven't. It's on my list. Yeah, no, it looks great. James Nestor.

    Cheryl Strayed (15:28):

    Me too. It's on my shelf.

    Katherine May (15:30):

    Ah.

    Cheryl Strayed (15:30):

    Yes. It's right here, I'm looking at it right now and I've been meaning to read it, but I'm too busy to breathe, so how can I read a book of everything?

    Katherine May (15:40):

    I'm a bit scared of it though, because I went to see a heliotropic breath work person once. Have you ever come across one of those?

    Cheryl Strayed (15:48):

    No, I have no idea what you're talking about.

    Katherine May (15:51):

    Well, okay. So what they do is they, oh, my God, I can't believe I'm admitting to this. What they do is they make you lie down on a couch and essentially you breathe in this pattern that's a bit like hyperventilating. And the idea is that eventually your body takes on the rhythm that you force on it. And it's supposed to be almost like psychedelic, it's supposed to bring around revelations. It's supposed to heal-

    Cheryl Strayed (16:16):

    Wow.

    Katherine May (16:16):

    ... trauma. It's supposed to release health stuff. Okay. I was the worst subject he's ever worked with. You could just feel this guy getting more and more frustrated because... And after a while he made me put the top end of a bottle that he cut off in my mouth to try and help me to hold the foam. And still I couldn't. And then I just realised that I was basically dribbling out of this bottle. Anyway, an hour in, I was like, "I don't think this is going work." And I had to leave. But since then-

    Cheryl Strayed (16:50):

    Oh, my gosh.

    Katherine May (16:50):

    Yeah. I hated the feeling. All of my friends have been to see him and thought he was just a magician and he'd released all this stuff for them. And I came in resistant and I went out resistant again.

    Cheryl Strayed (17:03):

    Is it like... I mean, it sounds like it's a bit different, but sometimes in yoga, there's this-

    Katherine May (17:10):

    Oh, like Pranayama.

    Cheryl Strayed (17:11):

    ... I'm forgetting the name of it now, but you have to go [inaudible 00:17:13]. It's like you're forcing your breath out really hard in a rapid fashion.

    Katherine May (17:19):

    Yeah. It was like that. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (17:21):

    And I find it to be, it's like fire breathing or something. I find it to be really uncomfortable. I'm like, "No, that's just not for me."

    Katherine May (17:28):

    Yeah. I did not like it.

    Cheryl Strayed (17:29):

    I'll do it, but I'm like, "Let's get this over with." Yeah. Okay.

    Katherine May (17:33):

    And ever since then, don't ever do it. I'm not recommending it.

    Cheryl Strayed (17:35):

    I'm never going to do it, but I will read the book. I will read the books. Is it breath or breathe? I don't remember.

    Katherine May (17:42):

    I actually don't know. And I'll check it and put it in the show notes because I think it's published by my same publisher actually. So they're probably listening to this, rolling their eyes. But yeah. So ever since then, any hint of breath work, my body's like, "No, no we are not doing that again. No way. Uh-uh (negative)." Oh, oh. It's making me breathe funny, just saying that. Isn't that weird?

    Cheryl Strayed (18:04):

    Yeah.

    Katherine May (18:04):

    I'm going to take a breath. But yeah, actually, talking about this, it takes me back to that idea of when we walk and how we walk, there's something about gut instinct for women, when you choose to do that and when it feels safe and when it feels okay and maybe that's no bad thing, maybe having a practice that tunes you into when you are safe and when for whatever reason you don't feel safe is better than marching through life and not ever knowing.

    Cheryl Strayed (18:38):

    Yeah. I mean, I think absolutely that those mindfulness practices contribute to our sense of wellbeing in part, because I guess it's about reading your body, trusting your intuition, all those senses that are hard to define or express. Another thing for me though, and I think this was really actually key in my life. Well, first of all, I grew up in a rural environment. And so I wasn't somebody who felt like the wilderness was a scary and dangerous and forbidding place. I actually felt that way about the city, when I went to college, I was terrified. I was like, "I'm going to be stabbed on the street on the first day," or something. I was scared about that. And so some of that is to familiarise yourself with the landscape that you want to walk in, whether it be city or country or wilderness.

    Cheryl Strayed (19:30):

    But the other thing too is I have never been drawn to scary movies, scary stories. I've really seen very, very few of those kinds of things. And I actually think that that was a good thing when it came to me, deciding to walk alone because I am the type of person who's like if I've seen a million movies where some woman is alone in a tent and then suddenly some terrible beast comes slashing through, that's going to play in my mind when I'm alone in a tent. So it was really helpful to me.

    Katherine May (20:02):

    I am exactly the same.

    Cheryl Strayed (20:05):

    So I'm like, "Be careful of what you expose yourself to." And of course there are all these people out there listening who will be like, "Oh, I love scary movies." My daughter, for example, just loves scary things. But I do think that you have to, if you're going to take that stuff in, find a way to really put that aside and realise it's fiction, not that scary things don't happen in real life, but that you can-

    Katherine May (20:28):

    No.

    Cheryl Strayed (20:28):

    ... play those movies in your head in a way that keeps you from doing things.

    Katherine May (20:32):

    Yeah. And I feel like I don't want to dwell on that side of life. And in fact, I don't know, about 10 years ago, I realised that watching TV drama before bed was keeping me awake. Not just because I was scared, although sometimes it was because I was scared, but other times it was just overstimulating. I was so excited by the story or my head was still in it and I couldn't sleep. And so I stopped watching it. And then after that, there was no real reason to watch TV much, to be honest, because I wasn't really following anything. And so now I don't watch TV very much. And when I tell people that they're a little bit affronted, like I'm judging them. And there's no judgment there, it's literally that I realised that it really wasn't all that good for me to watch those series that everyone else finds so compelling. I don't think I can quite handle it. It's just I'm a bit of a flower about it, really. It just gets in my head.

    Cheryl Strayed (21:28):

    And you find that that doesn't happen with books that are really capturing your interest, is that right?

    Katherine May (21:34):

    Every now and then. I mean, I do read nonfiction more than fiction and I think probably that's easier to set aside mostly. I mean, every now and then there's a novel that I have to sit up and see the whole thing through. I just can't ever put it down. But yeah, no, it's something about TV. Do you know what it is? I think I don't understand how the storytelling works. And I'm always trying to figure out, my writer's brain can't leave it alone. I'm like, "Well, how do they make this work? Because I don't really get what a script does. And what's this character doing?" And I'm still trying to unravel it at 2:00 in the morning when I really, really need to be asleep.

    Cheryl Strayed (22:12):

    Yeah. I'm constantly struggling with that particular issue with sleep. Not so much in relation to television, but really anything that sparks my interest or that I have on my mind, I just really... And I think that that this is a common plight for women in middle age, just the shutting off. There should be an off button on our brains and-

    Katherine May (22:36):

    If only.

    Cheryl Strayed (22:38):

    ... I don't know, if you find it, please let me know because I would really like to press it each night at about 11:00.

    Katherine May (22:42):

    Cheryl.

    Cheryl Strayed (22:42):

    Yeah.

    Katherine May (22:43):

    I have not found it. That's not a plot spoiler.

    Cheryl Strayed (22:48):

    Well, if we found it, we would get very rich very quickly.

    Katherine May (22:52):

    We would. Yeah. There must be something. I mean, actually I've been writing about this lately because like everybody else I've suffered really badly from brain fog this year. And part of me was paranoid that it was my old lead pipes I had replaced, but everyone had a different explanation and some people said it was COVID and some people said it was menopause and I'm sure it was all of those things. But I can't help but think that as a middle aged woman, I'm holding so much in my brain all the time and it's no wonder it's all foggy because I've got this stupid minute to-do list that never goes down and never diminishes and yeah, everything's got jumbled.

    Cheryl Strayed (23:39):

    Yeah. I think one of the things I said, I used to do a podcast called Dear Sugars with Steve Almond and we were discussing the emotional labor that's put on most women in households, especially with kids. And I was telling a story about how my husband, who's just an incredibly... I mean, we have this very egalitarian marriage and he does more of the cleaning than I do, and more of a lot of things. We're very equal. And yet it's still true that I'm the one, all the information is in my brain, all the necessary information. And he will go to the grocery store and text me, constantly from the grocery store, "Do we need this? Do we need that? Should I get this? Should I get that?" And I got angry with him at one point and he said, "Well, just give me a list. I just need a list." And I said, "That's the difference between you and I, you need a list and I am the list."

    Katherine May (24:35):

    I'm the human list. Yeah. I know.

    Cheryl Strayed (24:37):

    I am the list. And people had t-shirts made for me that said I am the list. And I think that that is it, is of course some men listening to this will relate to it as well. So I don't mean to be excluding.

    Katherine May (24:51):

    Sure.

    Cheryl Strayed (24:52):

    But I do know a lot of women, especially women who are also mothers who feel this way, who they carry around, you and I have big careers that keep us very busy and yet we-

    Katherine May (25:04):

    Oh, we're fairly busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.

    Cheryl Strayed (25:06):

    Yeah. Yeah. Just a wee bit. And we still carry around, when do the kids need to go to the dentist, the doctor, when do they need to do their school-

    Katherine May (25:16):

    Oh, definitely.

    Cheryl Strayed (25:16):

    ... stuff. When is this? And what do we need? And did you get the boots for this? And then the all the gear and the food and social calendar. All that stuff.

    Katherine May (25:24):

    I know.

    Cheryl Strayed (25:24):

    It feels overwhelming. So it's interesting when people talk about brain fog, you say you had brain fog. And what I can't tell for myself is if, either, A, I don't have brain fog, B, I have brain fog, but my brain is so foggy I don't even know I have it. Or C, it's I've all always been this way. Maybe I was born into a constant state of brain fog. I have no idea, but I don't feel that my brain feels different during this pandemic. I feel utterly exhausted and overwhelmed. And so maybe that's the same thing as brain fog.

    Katherine May (26:09):

    I'm just taking a pause to let you know about my very exciting new Patreon feed. If you love The Wintering Sessions and would like to help it grow, you can now become a patron. Subscribers will get an exclusive monthly podcast in which I talk about the books, culture and the news that are currently inspiring me. You'll also get the chance to submit questions to my guests in advance of recordings. And the answers will go into a special extended edition of the podcast that only patrons receive and a day early too. Plus you'll get discounts and early booking links to my courses and events. And your podcast will always be ad free.

    Katherine May (26:51):

    If this sounds like your kind of thing, I have a special offer. The first 30 patrons will be able to join at a discounted rate of $3 a month for life. So do get in early and help to build the community from the foundations. Go to patreon.com/katherinemay or follow the link in my bio to subscribe. And please don't worry if this isn't for you, the regular version of The Wintering Sessions will still be free, and I really appreciate your listens. Now back to the show. Tell me, what has the pandemic period been like for you? How's it been?

    Cheryl Strayed (27:37):

    It's been awful. It's been honestly a very difficult time in my life because when the pandemic hit... I have two teenagers. My daughter was 14, she's 16 now, my son had just turned 16. So they're teenagers. They're in ninth and 10th grade now, they're really in the-

    Katherine May (27:55):

    That's so hard for them.

    Cheryl Strayed (27:56):

    ... heart of their teenage years. And they were moving from middle school into high school at the time that the pandemic hit. And now it's been long enough that they're like, "Okay, it's couple of years later." And to watch them struggle and to struggle with them, to have them during the time in their lives that they're really meant to be out and about with their peers and having all kinds of social experiences and-

    Katherine May (28:17):

    That incidentally involved touching each other too. That's such an important-

    Cheryl Strayed (28:21):

    Exactly.

    Katherine May (28:21):

    ... part of being a teenager. Yeah, yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (28:23):

    Exactly. Really. And yeah, exactly, like sexual experiences. I mean, your first kiss or whatever, that didn't happen because you had to always be six feet apart from somebody. I mean, they... And they had online school for more than a year and then now they're back in school, but they have to wear masks all day, which I agree with, I'm pro, wear the masks and be safe. And yet I think, "Okay, well, what's it like?" They're so glad to be back in school, but they have half of their faces covered. And this is just really, I think this pandemic has been most difficult on adolescents and probably people in the young 20s too, but certainly teenagers, that's already a hard time in life. And so to put that on them.

    Cheryl Strayed (29:06):

    And so, yeah, there have been all kinds of struggles that have happened with my kids that I've had to parent in such an intensive way. It's like having toddlers again in a strange way, in terms of the time I've needed to take to really mother. And so that's been hard and sad.

    Katherine May (29:25):

    And helping them to process something that we are all struggling to process ourselves. How do you put it into context for them? I mean, my son's younger, he's nine. And he said to me a couple of months ago, "I don't remember life before the pandemic. I've got a vague idea, but this is normal to me." And it broke my heart. What does that mean for him? What effect does that have in the long-term and what developmental stuff has been missed? And ah.

    Cheryl Strayed (29:57):

    I think we don't know yet, but it's going to be something. And the way too that it's now, it's just going on and on and on. I was just, before we started this conversation, I was doing a little bit of online Christmas shopping, my daughter sent me a list. And one of the things on her list were these really cute masks that she found on Etsy that I was buying for her. And I realised, "Oh, okay. Masks now are just like yeah. You need a shirt and you need pants and you need socks and you need a mask." This way of life has gone on long enough now that it's become strangely normalised, which is-

    Katherine May (30:34):

    It really has.

    Cheryl Strayed (30:36):

    ... heartbreaking to me.

    Katherine May (30:37):

    And what does that mean? I mean, I also think that they've showed own incredible resilience and they've had the opportunity to show resilience that they would maybe not have been called for before. And I do think it's done some really good things for my son. I don't think that's true for all kids, but he has, as an only child who's maybe used to getting a lot of attention and used to being the centre of every story, it has made him more aware of other people. And I think there are some positives, but I am not willing to pretend that this is a good outcome for anyone. It's just grim. And the fact that it's all kicking off again at the moment is even grimmer.

    Cheryl Strayed (31:17):

    Yeah. Let's pretend that's not true. Just for another day or two.

    Katherine May (31:24):

    Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, by the time this is broadcast though we're going to be deep into it again or maybe not. Maybe it'll all-

    Cheryl Strayed (31:31):

    Maybe not.

    Katherine May (31:31):

    ... blow over and we'll be fine.

    Cheryl Strayed (31:33):

    This is all just a dream we're waking up from a dream. The brain fog is lifting.

    Katherine May (31:39):

    Oh. Do you know what? My brain fog is finally lifting. I have to say it was a very distinct period. And as life has got more normal again, the fog has cleared, but there was a long time when I couldn't read, I couldn't focus on anything. I was just constantly distracted and looking over my shoulder. And that just felt like a huge loss amid all these other losses. It was like I didn't need to lose reading as well. Thank you very much. My comfort was gone. It was a funny time. So I mean, you are an advice giver, that's what you are completely amazing at and that's your... I mean, would you see it as a calling? It feels like it from the receiving end.

    Cheryl Strayed (32:21):

    That's interesting. Well, I think of writing as my calling. And what happened when I took on the Dear Sugar column and found that wow, I can do this. This is something that I committed myself deeply. I gave full throttle to that endeavour. And it what surprised me is it did seem, yes, okay so writing is my calling, but then this particular style of writing, these epistolary exchanges I have with people who write to me for advice and then my responses, aren't just, do this and do that, the typical agony aunt style, but rather essays on life and essays on what it means to be human. Yeah, in some ways it's almost like a crystallised or distilled form of my writing, which I think in my other work, in my other books, you can, I mean, I'm not writing them to give people advice, but you can find truth and meaning and inspiration the way we do on reading any book, really.

    Katherine May (33:21):

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (33:21):

    But I guess, in some ways in Tiny Beautiful Things, my book that is the Dear Sugar collection, yeah, maybe it's my highest calling. That's a good way to put it.

    Katherine May (33:32):

    Well, what I love about it, I think is, I mean, A, the earthiness of your voice, it's so human, it's never superior. It's never coming from a place of knowledge that's being handed down, it's co-storytelling, which always feels to me like how we give advice in real life. We exchange it, we flow it between us. But I think that's in lots of way, what your writeriness gives you, you tell a story and those stories have you in them.

    Cheryl Strayed (34:03):

    Yeah. Well, and I started doing that because story is the thing that has been most consoling to me, most transformative to me when I have felt the lowest or the most confused or the most alone, I turn to books and I find myself there or not necessarily myself, I find that meaning there, the human experience. I find myself feeling connected to people across all divides. And so I try to offer that via telling stories about myself in the Dear Sugar column.

    Katherine May (34:35):

    Yeah. But that seems to me where your mindfulness resides as well. You are truly listening to people, but you are also unashamedly giving a response. You're not doctoring it to sanitise it or make it feel safe or make it feel like it's done by committee. You tell it fairly straight.

    Cheryl Strayed (34:59):

    Thank you. Yeah. I mean, yeah, if you write to me, you're going to get it intimate and raw. And by raw, I don't mean... I mean, obviously I labor over every sentence and every word and think deeply about it all, but I mean raw in terms of unvarnished. That is simply my style. It's my style as a person, and it's my style as a writer too, in whatever I'm writing. I've always found it most important to be as direct and plain spoken as possible. Also poetic, but in a pretty straight way. Yeah.

    Katherine May (35:37):

    Truth telling. Yeah. And that directness. And so, I mean, have you had an upswing in people writing over this time? Are people reaching out or is it about the same as normal? Do we run a standard level of crisis whatever is happening?

    Cheryl Strayed (35:56):

    Well, I think that's a great question. My sense is this, we are always having problems. We always will have problems and they are very... It's funny, if you look at my inbox, my Dear Sugar inbox, I make these little sub folders. And it's just, we have a pretty standard set of troubles. We have love and romance and sex problems. We have parenting problems. We have problems with infertility or with dysfunctional families or boundary setting, all that stuff. There's only a finite number of problems we have, but of course we experience them all originally. And it is true that specific problems arise in relation to the times.

    Cheryl Strayed (36:42):

    So I wrote the Dear Sugar column for a website called The Rumpus and those columns were collected in my book, Tiny Beautiful Things. But about this time last... And then I did a podcast, as I mentioned with, with Steve Almond, Dear Sugars. And then now a little more than a year ago, I decided to restart the Dear Sugar column as a Substack newsletter. So I do one Dear Sugar column a month. And what's been really interesting is, first of all, one of the reasons I restarted the column is that people were writing to me, even though I wasn't, at the time-

    Katherine May (37:14):

    We just like, "I need advice still."

    Cheryl Strayed (37:15):

    ... writing the column, they were just like, "Dear Sugar, bring the podcast or the column back, please." And so they were writing to me and it's interesting because of course you would think, "Yeah, this is all about the pandemic." And I certainly have questions that are COVID related, without question, but in the United States, and I do have readers all over the world, but my letters from the United States, so many of them were about Trump and about-

    Katherine May (37:43):

    Oh, really? Wow.

    Cheryl Strayed (37:44):

    Yeah. And about the stress and the turmoil that really the political divisions that have really become so much more volatile here in the US. The impact that that was having on people's families. People were saying, "I love my mom, but she voted for Trump and how can I love her?" All those things. But also then just people feeling psychologically exhausted from feeling like that they have to fear for our nation because they're adults with... So it was really interesting. And that, now that Biden's in, those kinds of letters have simmered down.

    Katherine May (38:23):

    Oh, have they? Well, that's really good though.

    Cheryl Strayed (38:25):

    They have. They have. And now it's like a lot of the COVID stuff. I've had also some interesting letters about COVID because you mentioned that there are some silver linings to this pandemic, and one of the most interesting letters or a category of interesting letters I've received are from people who are differently abled in different ways. And actually the new way that we're communicating and having events and having gatherings, the new way that we're doing so many of those things online has allowed a lot of people to be included, who had been previously excluded, people who could never-

    Katherine May (39:05):

    Yeah. Absolutely.

    Cheryl Strayed (39:05):

    ... travel to some retreat centre and take a writing workshop with so and so can now register, because it's all online or people can access and communicate in ways. So I think that that's pretty interesting. So one of my favourite letters, which I haven't answered yet is from a woman who's saying, "My life got a lot better because of the new ways we're communicating. And I don't want the pandemic to end. I'm sad people died." She wasn't saying she was-

    Katherine May (39:31):

    Yeah, sure. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (39:32):

    ... glad that... But she was-

    Katherine May (39:32):

    It's so brutal.

    Cheryl Strayed (39:32):

    ... saying, "Can we please not all go all the way back to the way it was before because I have a better life?" Which is pretty interesting, huh?

    Katherine May (39:41):

    I agree. And I've heard it a lot from readers of Wintering who write to me and say very similar stuff, like actually during this time, I feel like I've finally had the rest I needed. I've cut down on a social life that in retrospect I can now see was destructive. Lots of people have stopped drinking for example or noticed addiction patterns that were maybe not visible because they were hidden by social life. Working from home has given them more time, they've walked more, they've been in more contact with nature. They have spent more time with their kids. And I think there's a huge number of people who either are using this in a really positive way as a springboard to affect change that they probably needed to make for years. But I think lots of other people are feeling a lot of fear at this point that they don't want it to end because the changes have been positive and they don't know how to carry that on into the future.

    Cheryl Strayed (40:38):

    Right. And yeah, I was just listening on the radio the other day to this story saying basically so many people who had been going to the office five days a week now they're just saying, "I won't. I won't do that anymore. I'm not going to commute every day. I might commute one or two days, but the rest of the time I'm going to stay home." Which is pretty interesting. I mean, I do think... I'll be fascinated to see, 20 years from now if we'll look back and say, "Okay, this is when our relationship to employment changed around the globe."

    Katherine May (41:11):

    I mean, I'm a world optimist and I can't help myself, but I'm excited by a lot of it. I think even the really terrible stuff has maybe been good for us a little bit. Not in like a oh, there's a silver lining in every cloud, because I hate that stuff. I'm really grumpy about that stuff. But in the sense that actually it's brought us in contact with death and what death means and the inevitability of it and the sheer monstrous rock face that it actually has always represented in our lives.

    Katherine May (41:47):

    And I don't think that's a bad thing for us to confront that because we've been able to avoid looking it in the eye for such a long time. And I think that, yeah, we've done some reflection as a society about what life is and how we want to live it. And I really think that's going to express itself in work. And that's why lots of people-

    Cheryl Strayed (42:09):

    Yeah I do too.

    Katherine May (42:10):

    ... in government are sounding so anxious about trying to get people back into the office. I mean, I don't know if that's the same discourse for you guys, but our prime minister is obsessed with it. I don't know. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (42:21):

    Absolutely. But you and I like that. You and I, we have both always... I mean, I'm just reading your book again, like I said, when I read Wintering, this time last year, I recognised you as a kindred spirit in a couple of ways. As I mean, a woman, a mother all that stuff. But somebody who really finds the glimmer in the darkness and that there's so much that grows. I mean, we think we need light to grow, but we also need darkness to flourish. And there's so many treasures that can be found there. And I do think that part of that is obviously I write about this all the time is Dear Sugar. I'm constantly saying like that there are so many important, beautiful lessons we can learn from the dark times, from the dark experiences.

    Cheryl Strayed (43:14):

    I even, I refer my father who's dead now. He was not a good father. He was an abusive person, a really menacing figure in my life. But I really, I call him my dark teacher. I value what he gave me in his darkness. I wouldn't have asked for it. I didn't want it. I don't wish it upon anyone, and yet I can also acknowledge that it's part of what formed me and made me who I am.

    Katherine May (43:41):

    I mean, it seems to me that in a very real sense, you couldn't do what you do now without that incredibly traumatic past that you lived through. So many different traumas, but without saying, "Oh, that was fine though," because that is not the same. Instead, the thing is that it lets you go out and give service in a way that is extraordinary and which obviously thousands and thousands of people are really, not just grateful for, but dependent on, they need it. And when you stopped that they felt the lack of it. I mean, that's quite an extraordinary thing to offer to the world, I think.

    Cheryl Strayed (44:20):

    Thank you.

    Katherine May (44:20):

    In beautiful prose, incidentally.

    Cheryl Strayed (44:22):

    Yeah. When I was younger, and I've always been a political activist and so forth, but when I was younger, I felt like, "Okay, I'm a writer, but I'm also, I've got to do all this activism to actually make an impact." And as I've moved into middle age again, it's not that it's all or nothing. I do some activism, but what I've realised is the positive impact I can actually have, that does have in the end, I think political consequences is to write and to write books that make people see themselves and others with more compassion, to see themselves more clearly, to be more honest and transparent about who they are and what they want and what they fear.

    Cheryl Strayed (45:07):

    And I think that that, I know that that changes the world because I've been changed by literature. And I do think that that's my contribution. And as far as it... And you're right, I think that some of the... I've had traumatic experiences and to turn those dark things into things that offer other people light has been a very powerful act for me. It's been healing to me to do that as well.

    Katherine May (45:33):

    Yeah. Yeah. It deepens our experience of this life. Ah, Cheryl, it's so lovely to talk to you. I want to ask one final thing, which is the classic question, what are you working on at the moment? What are we going to see next from you?

    Cheryl Strayed (45:47):

    Well, I have been... I mean, that's another thing, the pandemic, I do a lot of public speaking. I travel, give talks. And suddenly all of that came to a screeching halt, which I took a financial hit for that, but I was also-

    Katherine May (46:01):

    Oh, sure.

    Cheryl Strayed (46:01):

    ... like "Okay, get back," I mean, it's not that I had stopped writing. I was not writing as much because I was busy doing so many other things. And what's been really cool is to just have done a lot of new projects during the pandemic. I was hired to write a screenplay. I can't say yet-

    Katherine May (46:22):

    Ooh.

    Cheryl Strayed (46:22):

    ... what the screenplay's about, but it's about a famous woman we all know, she's dead and I'm right now writing the last revision of that, and it's going to come into the world and then I'll able to announce it, I hope. And so I've been really learning a new form, which has been really cool to really... I had written some scripts before, but I was pretty new in that whole world. So I've become a screenwriter over the last year and-

    Katherine May (46:53):

    Well, congratulations.

    Cheryl Strayed (46:56):

    ... I'm working on my next book. Thank you.

    Katherine May (46:57):

    Wow.

    Cheryl Strayed (46:57):

    And I'm working on my next book, which is a memoir and really, ugh, just feeling so much. I'm like, "I got to get it done." It's way overdue. But I'm trying to do all the mindfulness things and not get freaked out and feel terribly ashamed and full of self loathing which is a challenge.

    Katherine May (47:14):

    I don't think anyone's been on time with anything this year. I really think it's okay. If there's ever been a time when you can be late with stuff, it's now. How can you get stuff done? I don't know it's hard.

    Cheryl Strayed (47:25):

    I don't know. Brain fog.

    Katherine May (47:28):

    You're going to have to stop blaming brain fog, if you don't have it.

    Cheryl Strayed (47:29):

    But you've got to tell me, see, how do I know? So is it one of those things if you... I mean, how do I know I have brain fog? I don't...

    Katherine May (47:37):

    I think it's not being able to access the thoughts that you're meaning to have. For me, it feels like there's a veil between the front end of my brain and the back end and I've lost access between them.

    Cheryl Strayed (47:49):

    So it's like you've had three glasses of wine?

    Katherine May (47:51):

    It is. Honestly, sometimes it is like being really drunk, like maybe three Martinis instead, not just wine. And that classic middle aged woman thing of walking into a room and not knowing what you're doing, but writ large and-

    Cheryl Strayed (48:07):

    Right. Okay.

    Katherine May (48:09):

    ... I still get halfway through a sentence and I'm like, "Oh, no, I can't remember what I was saying." I've become the world's worst anecdotalist. I am embarrassing at dinner parties now. I start talking, I'm like, "Oh, it was a book written by this person. I can't remember the person or the book. And actually, now I think of it. I don't know what they said, but oh, it was really interesting. I was dying to tell you about it guys."

    Cheryl Strayed (48:33):

    Okay. So maybe I'm the only middle aged woman who has escaped brain fog.

    Katherine May (48:37):

    Well, this is great. This is what you should be writing about. How I did it.

    Cheryl Strayed (48:45):

    Yeah. There we go. We ended up talking about brains a lot, for the button, the off button and then the fog button. We need a little.

    Katherine May (48:55):

    There's an innovation brewing somewhere, isn't there? Oh, if only we could figure it out.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:02):

    Oh, it's really great to talk to you. And I'm such a fan of your work.

    Katherine May (49:06):

    Oh. And obviously it's mutual.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:08):

    And we haven't... Here we are on the cusp of winter we talk. We're about to-

    Katherine May (49:12):

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:13):

    ... officially enter into winter.

    Katherine May (49:16):

    It's just begun. Meteorological winter starts today. We're talking on the 1st of December. So yeah, this is the day. This is the day it all happens. I'm excited.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:26):

    Perfect. Me too.

    Katherine May (49:29):

    I'm thrilled by it, but yeah, no. Well, I think probably everyone's heard enough of me talking about winter for a while. So I think that's probably okay. I've heard enough of me talking about winter. Cheryl, thank you so, so much. And I'm looking forward to talking to you again really soon.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:45):

    Yes. Thank you, Katherine. It's such a pleasure to chat with you. I could talk to you for hours. We got to go on a long walk together someday. I hope that happens.

    Katherine May (49:54):

    We absolutely have to. We have to introduce each other to each other's landscapes. That would be amazing.

    Cheryl Strayed (49:59):

    Amazing.

    Katherine May (49:59):

    A bit into the woods now. Hopefully I won't see too many more dog walkers. There's so many people about today. It's the time of year when we're all trying to drink in light. My dog is slightly intimidated by the whole thing. All these other dogies running around. I'm really late with all the Christmas stuff this year. Rather foolishly I've been having some work done on my house really needed doing, before the bathroom floor fell through. I think I needed to avoid that. But it means that, whereas I normally try and have a lovely, quiet December, my December has been really busy and really chaotic. I don't deal well with chaos. I don't deal well with not being able to sit quietly at my desk and be in my own head. That's so important to me. So it's been quite challenging.

    Katherine May (51:08):

    And what it means is that I'm late with everything. My tree isn't up, my decorations aren't up. Everything feels very unfestive. But then actually I'm quite looking forward to getting them all set up late in a way. I know lots of people don't bring their tree in until mid-winter or until Christmas Eve. I've always got mine up at the beginning of December to maximize the benefit and justify the effort that it takes. But this year I'll dress the house for Christmas and we'll have Christmas. And probably take them down again on 12th night. I'm curious about what that'll be like. I sometimes think the feverish build up to that big celebration is too much. You're exhausted by the time it comes. I know it's true for my son. It's too much for him, too much for me too. So anyway, I'll let you know how I get on.

    Katherine May (52:08):

    I want to say a massive thank you to Cheryl. As you could tell, I really enjoyed that conversation. Hope I didn't sound too much like a fan girl trying to be like a grown up on a podcast. But it was great to talk. And if you haven't come across all of her many wonderful presences online, you've been missing out and there are links in the show notes. And do read Wild. It's brilliant. I've yet to watch the film. I didn't want to, because I love the book so much. That's why, don't spoil it for me, but I hear it's very good. Maybe we need a watch along in the Patreon community. That could be quite fun, actually. I will make that happen.

    Katherine May (52:54):

    Thank you to my producer, Buddy Peace, who also composed the lovely theme music and who puts up with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing from me while I mis-record introductions and things like that. And thanks to Meghan Hutchins who holds the whole thing together, not just the show, but most of my life, it seems. And thank you for listening. If you love the podcast, do check out the Patreon link. I would love to build a really strong community there. We're having fun already and you get a little bit extra from me should you enjoy ramblings like this. Take care of everyone. Keep warm. There'll be a new podcast in just a couple of weeks and I'll see you then. Bye for now. (Silence).

Show Notes

Welcome to the Wintering Sessions with Katherine May.

This week Katherine chats to Cheryl Strayed, author of ‘Wild’ and so many more.

A luxurious chat from the beginning til the end, this is a wonderful chance to get to know Cheryl a little better and hear the voice behind the books. It’s a true comfort, which folds in everything from the power of walking and what it can do to you, the unfinished walk, the male narrative and damage on all sides, finding the ‘off’ button for our brains and whether such a thing is achievable, brainfog, her ‘Dear Sugar’ advice columns and discovering the human ‘standard set of problems’, and not being scared by the wilderness in which she grew. Lovely, and nourishing too.

Quick note: Katherine mentioned heliotropic breathwork, which she immediately noted was 'holotropic' - just in case you pick up on that!

We talk about:

  • The power of walking and what it can do to you

  • The unfinished walk

  • The male narrative and damage on all sides

  • Finding the ‘off’ button for our brains and whether such a thing is achievable

  • Brainfog

  • Her ‘Dear Sugar’ advice columns and discovering the human ‘standard set of problems’

  • Not being scared by the wilderness in which she grew

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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Katherine May Katherine May

Jennifer Pastiloff on the power of 'I Got You'

 
 
 

The Wintering Sessions with Katherine May:
Jennifer Pastiloff on the power of 'I Got You'

———

This week Katherine chats to Jennifer Pastiloff, a speaker, teacher, and author of ‘On Being Human’. In a warm and honest chat with Katherine, Jennifer perfectly lays the table for where she finds herself at this point in time, as a yoga instructor, public speaker and best selling author.

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

 
 
 

Listen to the Episode

  • Katherine May:

    Well, hi everyone. Welcome to the new season of The Wintering Sessions. We are ringing the changes a little bit this season. I'm going to talk to you a bit more, because well, I thought it would be nice to take you out with me. I'm on the beach at the moment. The tide's low. It's early afternoon. The sun's low already. I know you guys all love to hear the seagulls, but actually out by the tide line, there's a couple who are feeding seagulls for reasons I don't fully understand and the seagull are mobbing them. So it's quite entertaining to watch. Anyway, rather them than me, they're vicious, the seagulls - never cross a seagull.

    Katherine May:

    So, I'm thinking this week really about how to make it through the winter. It's been really dark and cold quite suddenly, very windy, quite tricky to make it through those days without feeling a bit dreary. That's a really loud seagull. So I've been doing my thing that I do to manage those dark cold days. I've been getting ready for the rest of the season. I've started pickling a few things and in fact, quite excitingly, I've made a fermented cranberry sauce ready for Christmas. It's looking very pretty in the jar. I don't know if it will taste disgusting. I'll let you know. I've also made membrillo, the quince paste that goes really well with cheese. Turned out the wrong color. I don't know why. Anyway, I did it. And with the peels and the cores of the quinces, I'm trying to make quince vinegar, all of which makes me sound incredibly homely. And I should really tell you that my house is a complete tip amid all of this.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my God. The people being attacked by the seagulls are screaming now. I really don't know if I should rescue them. But yeah, I'm not a domestic goddess, but I do find it very soothing to cook, to process things, to bring in all those really beautiful winter vegetables and to spend some time chopping them and simmering them and stewing them down. I don't know. I find it really comforting. So that's what I've been up to. And also, I keep reminding myself to drink in this light while it's here. The sun goes down so early and it comes up so late. The nights are really long now. So I'm reminding myself to get out. It's so easy to not leave my desk. I have a little note above my desk on a post-it note that says, 'go for a walk'. And sometimes I remember to look at it and get out like this.

    Katherine May:

    Anyway, I want to tell you about this week's podcast. I'm talking to the brilliant Jen Pastiloff, who I think you'll love. She's so warm and wise. And we had, what for me was a really interesting conversation about the link between shame and the fear of not being understood, which she understands because of her deafness and I understand because of my autism. I think it's a different perspective on those things than maybe we hear sometimes. Anyway, I'm sure you'll let me know what you think. And I'll be pausing in the middle of the podcast to tell you about a new phase for this podcast, I suppose, which is that I'm starting a Patreon to support it. I'll tell you all about it in the middle. So please do listen up. It'll definitely help us to carry on just doing interviews that with such brilliant people. Anyway, enjoy.

    Katherine May:

    Jen, welcome to The Wintering Sessions. We tried for this one last time, but I have a little introduction for you in mind because I've slightly altered this season of the podcast. I used to get people to talk about a time in their life when they'd wintered and I want to make it bigger this season. I want us to talk about how to survive winter and just share what we know, like this amazing toolkit for life people have. I mean, I still want all the anecdotes. Absolutely. But I just want it to get bigger in terms of what we are talking about. So I wanted to tell everyone in case they haven't met you yet that you are a writer, a public speaker, a yoga teacher, like a kind of master of the retreats. And I watch your retreats come past on Instagram and I think they look amazing.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    You forgot weirdo. Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    I was going to slowly get round to that.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Okay. Okay.

    Katherine May:

    And get it politely under the carpet later.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. You're British. I know. It's like, we'll get that in later.

    Katherine May:

    We're not very direct. But also, your book on being human is about so many different winters, isn't it, I guess? It's about losing your father. It's about being deaf. It's about anxiety and depression and eating disorders and being a waitress, but it's also about you as like a holder of people. I think that's-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Ooh, I think I like that. I'm going to write that.

    Katherine May:

    That's kind of what you are, isn't it? You are a holder of people and you are a very heart on sleeve, no bullshit person. And that's what I'm saying by way of welcome. Like anyone who's those people is welcome to my podcast.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's funny, lately I wonder if my Prozac isn't as effective anymore because I notice usually I'm emotionally constipated. I can't cry. And lately I well up. So it's a good thing. It's a good feeling.

    Katherine May:

    I think that is a post-pandemic thing. I think I want to cry about everything since the pandemic. Like kitten-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Do you cry easily?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Kitten videos and I'm off right now.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I just, I miss it. It's like, it's not that I don't feel it. It's just part of the meds, and it's fine. It's the, what do you want to call it?

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Look, I can't function off them, so this is what I deal with. But I can't emote, but I miss that. I get envious when I see someone who can just cry so easily.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But being seen, and I think you understand this, I've read your books, there's nothing like it to really feel like you're seen.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And so thank you, because I feel like you've seen me. You get me. I think that's why we get on. From, I don't even remember how we first... I don't know.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. We were doing an event. I can't remember what it was for though. I was trying to think of that. I did so many events, but I remember talking to you, but I don't remember who we were-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    First, okay, I was a fan girling. Your book came out and blew up over here, Wintering. And it became, I think unexpected, right? Like big.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And it was just the timing. Of course you planned the pandemic so that the book would work, and well done.

    Katherine May:

    Sorry, everyone. Sorry about the pandemic.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And so I knew and I was like, oh, like that book just called to me because all my life I've been a depressive. All my life has been like, oh, you're so serious. In winter I've always felt a darkness. And my birthday's in December. I just associate it and I was like, oh, this book is calling to me. And I read it and it's a poem. It's a poem. It's just so beautiful. And so of course I was in awe of you. And yeah, I stalked you online and then I got asked to do a thing for One Grand Books. I think that's what it was through the Soho House, which sounds fancy. It sounds like, okay.

    Katherine May:

    That's what it was. Yes. Yeah. It was really fancy because there were breakout rooms and stuff. It was really well organised, and yeah. And we got to have a chat while everyone was in a breakout room, which was really cool.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And it was short. And we started talking and I was like, oh, we need to talk more. And I also saw a lot of myself when I was reading Wintering, the ways you speak about motherhood. And I was like, oh man. And there was just a lot of you're definitely smarter than me, and you have a cuter accent and I think you're more organised, but there's so many similarities that it's such a feeling. I know it's tricky sometimes when we read someone's book and we're like, we'd be best friends. I'm sure you get that all the time.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And don't know where to put it.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But if you read something and you go, oh. Like, oh, I feel like I'm reading, I'm again, that feeling of being seen.

    Katherine May:

    I think that really straightforward people are really attracted to each other. What I find very difficult about people is when they dance around a subject and they don't want to talk about anything face on. And you're constantly wondering about what you shouldn't say to them and what can't be mentioned and-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    Whatever. You and I are both people that are like, right, here we go. We're not going to do small talk. We're going to straight into this. It's like, I love-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. And I don't know, I just fell in love with you when I read your book, and then when I met you. And I'm like, oh yeah. Yeah. She's my people. And you're weird enough, like I'm so weird.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, I say that so lovingly, because really I don't trust anyone that's not weird. But you-

    Katherine May:

    I only like weird people.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    You own it. And your memoir, which I believe you wrote before Wintering?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah, before Wintering. Electricity of Every Living Thing. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    A reckoning with like-

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And owning it.

    Katherine May:

    A reckoning with the weirdnesses you know about and the weirdnesses that you can only perceive from other people's reaction to you.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    That's what it was like writing that book. But anyway, my UK audience would be vomiting right now because we're being too nice to each other. So we've got to start being a bit meaner to each other. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They won't be able to handle this.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So I was going to say this before we recorded and I said, let me wait. So right now I'm alone with my son. And he's actually being amazing, I think because I told him I was talking to Santa later.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But he still sleeps with me. And my husband's not here. And so normally I sleep without my hearing aids in, which means I'm deaf. Now I don't worry because my husband wakes me up. Human alarm clock. Thank you, Robert. But when he is not here, it's stressful because I have to sleep with my hearing aids in.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And here's an aside, I just partner with a hearing aid company, which is very exciting. Yeah. I got a free pair of hearing aids-

    Katherine May:

    wow.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Which are like $7,000 and getting paid.

    Katherine May:

    Oh my God.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, I'm an influencer.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But it's really, it's a dream. So these are loud. But sleeping with them is not comfortable. It's like when my head touches something and there's feedback.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's like sleeping with your glasses on or whatever.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. I never want to sleep with them, but sometimes I have to. If I'm alone, like in a hotel room, I have no way to wake up. The alarm clock, it streams through my hearing aids. So if I'm alone with Charlie now he doesn't have school this week. But I looked, I thought our thing was later and it was eight o'clock in the morning. And I thought, shit, because I would have to sleep with my hearing aids. I mean, it's a whole thing, but it's not even that I couldn't get up. It's the anxiety around the idea of it, right?

    Katherine May:

    I have exactly the same thing if I've got to get up. Yeah. I will wake all night if I know I've got to get-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    I mean I get up early every morning, but if I know I've got to get up, I'll be awake every half an hour. It's terrible.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, I knew you did because it'll be nine o'clock here, we're texting. I'm like, why is this wacko up so early in England? But anyway, so I'm grateful that you switched it and I was able to sleep without my hearing aids, which makes it a lot easier to sleep. Yeah. So back to the Wintering, I mean, I just love that as a verb too, I guess. Is that a verb? Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It's always good to invent a new verb. Why not? Let's just bring new verbs in. While we're there, let's talk about your deafness because it took you a long time to realise and accept that, didn't it? What was going on in your mind in those weeks and months when you knew really that you were deaf, but you didn't really want to go there? What was that like for you?

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's so great you're asking. I just haven't been writing. I guess I've been in a wintering mode in that. And there's a lot of shame around that. And I started writing again and I wrote a piece yesterday. I don't know what's going to happen with it, but talking a lot about that, these new hearing aids, Katherine, I could hear my son's voice. I never heard it before.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, so it's really moving and it's bringing up a lot to think back on this. I created a movement. A movement, I sound so arrogant. I created a movement folks called shame loss instead of weight loss, let's talk shame loss. And the reason is because so much of my life was spent hiding from shame. I was so ashamed of my hearing loss. And what I want to say to people is do not try to rationalise shame because I've had people be like, I don't understand. Why would you be ashamed of that? It's like, shame isn't rational. Okay.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    When I was a child and I used to concentrate, colour or write or whatever, I'd make this awful sound, like a droning noise. And people made fun of me, so I stopped doing it. I was like, ugh, and I never talked about it. As I got older and I began to really notice my hearing was going, I began to get, I was really terrified. And a few things happened. I thought one, if I don't talk about it, if I don't acknowledge it, it'll go away. Friends listening, that doesn't happen.

    Katherine May:

    No. Deafness famously doesn't tend to go away.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    No, but I still as an adult, a grown ass adult, I still grapple with that.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Maybe if I avoid this, it'll just disappear. So anyway, I was like if I don't name it, it'll go away. And I was scared. I was scared if it's like this now and I'm 20 or whatever, then what's it going to be like when I'm 40. And I thought I was broken. I already had a narrative in my head that I was a bad person because my dad died when I was eight after I yelled, "I hate you," to him. And he said, "You're being bad." I said, "I hate you." He dropped dead. I said, "Oh, it's my fault. I killed my father."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So I'm a bad person and now I'm broken. So there's all this stuff, right? So I'm in acting school in my early twenties. And that's when I really started to notice it. Now it's funny, because if I think back at NYU, I always sat in the front. I always had to sit in the front. And I think-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Gosh, there's all these things I did. And people are always like, "You don't pay attention." There's all this lifetime of stuff. And I'm like, oh my God, that's because I couldn't hear.

    Katherine May:

    Those links that we make are so, I mean, it's so interesting to me because I think it's really similar to me discovering I was autistic and the idea that, oh, I can maybe just try covering this up for longer. I can cover up my profound difference and the profound ways I'm struggling in life. And when I read back Electricity now, I can see some of the stuff that I was still concealing in there that I didn't want to say at the time because I felt ashamed of it. And it's only after looking up other autistic-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I think that's really important though.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Now you can see it's really important that you documented that because that's how we see... I have chills right now. That's how we go, wow, that's growth. And wow, I'm human. And it gives other people, I don't know, hope, right? Go, oh look-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I was still grappling with shame there.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's amazing. But sometimes you don't even realise you're ashamed.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    Like it's so ingrained and it's so, I feel like modern life is like a training ground for shame almost. Everybody is ashamed of something and it's rarely that they've murdered someone and the body's buried in their backyard. It's like-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Katherine May:

    They're ashamed because their feet look weird or it's stuff.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    That's it, right? And that's why I say it's not logical, so don't even try. It's funny because as we're speaking, I'm like, oh, my next round of shame loss, usually it's like three. I want you to be a guest. I pay you. I had Paulina Porizkova come in April with me, she's a supermodel, and talk about shame around ageing and stuff. But definitely now that I'm talking to you, it's about deafness and autism. And so I hope you'll say yes.

    Katherine May:

    Of course I'll say yes.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. It's great, and really it's generative, it's collaborative. It's really a beautiful-

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:17:23].

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Beautiful people who show up. In my twenties I was an acting class and I was like, oh my God, I started noticing I couldn't hear. And I started panicking and again, denying it. And I remember one Thanksgiving in my twenties, I was at a friends. We were doing a Friendsgiving, whatever you call it. And in the States, when you get together with your friends and not your family. And my friends basically had an intervention with me.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    They were like, "You need to go to the audiologist, Jen." And I was crying and they were like, "We'll go with you." And I finally was like, "Okay." And then we never followed through. I blew it off. Yeah. And it, and it kept getting worse and worse, and I just denied, denied. Finally, after waitressing 13.5 years at the same joint and I did the yoga teacher training, when I was in yoga teacher training and the teacher would say close your eyes for this meditation, the panic would set in. And I finally-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, because you weren't sure you could hear it to... Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I admitted it. I was like, I can't hear. And the way my shoulders shut down, the relief of that, I was like, wow. And it was the first time I said it out loud. And then the teacher started really taking care of me, making sure...

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I thought, oh, wait a minute. Oh my God. Look how much easier my life could be. So I finally wrote a blog. I had been so ashamed and I was like, I would never wear hearing aids. When I was a kid-

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    They were huge and there was such a stigma. And I think there still is. I wrote this blog, a silly blog. I basically was like, okay, finally, I'm over the shame. If only I could afford them. And somebody that took my yoga class read it and got me a pair of donated. When I went to the audiologist, I realised first of all, it's like, okay, you have no hearing. And it's way worse now. This was when I was, 11 years ago now. I mean, I was in my mid thirties when I got hearing aids. But when I went and I realised I have tinnitus. I have terrible tinnitus, which is ringing all the time. I never do not have it. So going back to that sound I made as a child, it broke me when I realised, oh my God, I've had it whole life.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, that it was already there.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I was mimicking the sound in my head and I got shamed for it. So I never talked about it. I never said like, "Hey, does anyone..." I just got used to it. And I'll say now, sometimes it still gives me terrible anxiety. I've gotten pretty used to it. My threshold for pain is really high. I'm not so proud of that, but part of it is learning how to deal and live with something like-

    Katherine May:

    You cover stuff up. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I'm going to shut the door, like tinnitus, because it's maddening, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's maddening.

    Katherine May:

    It is. But do you know what I mean? Because I've had tonight all my life as well. I had hearing problems when I was a child and now I have Ménière's disease, which-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    It causes constant feedback in my ears.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    And if someone slams a door across the other side of the building, I feel it vibrate. And there are [crosstalk 00:20:29]-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So you get it.

    Katherine May:

    That are painful. I absolutely get it. I mean, obviously my hearing is not as effective as yours. But the parallels for me with getting an autism diagnosis, there's two things that link deafness and autism. And one is, it is the thing that you don't want to have as a younger person. Like it's not going to go on your dating profile. You're terrified that people won't love you or find you attractive or find you interesting or fun because you're burdened with this thing. But the other thing is it affects something that I think is really important to you and I, which is listen to people and hearing them and conversing with them. And the huge fear for me when I learned I was autistic was that I didn't want people to think that I was not a listener, not like an interactive person because-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I know it's awful, right?

    Katherine May:

    That awful stereotype is out there and it's not true. And yeah, it's that idea that you might be someone who doesn't hear and doesn't listen and isn't fully present in the conversation, which is so important to me. And I found that idea devastating, and it wasn't true. That was a stupid thing. I knew.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    You're preaching to the choir because, oh man, we could talk so much about this. This is why I'm excited to have you in shame loss, now that we're really getting into this. That was always what people said to me. And I'll tell you what, the irony now is I've built a career out of listening and I'm really proud of that. Like I'm deaf, small D deaf.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    A bit different than capital D deaf, which is deaf culture. Usually there's no sound. They communicate with ASL and sign language. I've made a career at a listening as a deaf lady. That's really cool.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But I've always been really good listener. And so the fact that people had that perception of me that either I wasn't a good listener or a snob or entitled, or all the things. And people are human, we all do it. We make up stories. I don't present as a deaf person. They don't look at you and think of the idea we have of what autism looks like, right?

    Katherine May:

    No, that's right. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Oh. So they're like, she's just elitist or she's just-

    Katherine May:

    Well, arrogant, aloof. They're the stuff that I used to get when actually, my social cues were just different. And it used to just devastate me because I was always the person in the room trying the hardest to be nice and make everyone feel welcome. And still, it was being read as standoffishness and it drove me crazy.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's hard. And it's like, I was writing this essay yesterday and talking about again, I feel like you and I have so many overlaps here, but I always felt like I'm on the outside, just slightly.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I still do. I still do if I'm telling the truth.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Not right now and not when I'm the leader, which is why I'm really fucking good. I am. But when I'm vulnerable, when I'm in a group or I'm not... So if I'm the leader, if I'm leading a class, maybe you'll come to my workshop in London, you'll see people share. And I will scoot in really close. I won't get too close. I won't touch you, but-

    Katherine May:

    We've already had that negotiation.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. But I know your boundary and I'm serious. Like I won't make you uncomfortable.

    Katherine May:

    Same. I have promised you a truly awkward half hug, and I just think that's great. I think you should go with that offer.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    No, for sure. But I just mean like, I'm going to respect your boundaries.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But I have to get in close to hear.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I don't want to do that if you're leading a class. I don't just get up, but when I'm leading the class, I could do whatever I want.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But like in a group dinner or any, I find myself so often excusing myself or looking at my phone, not because I'm a snob, not because I'm addicted to the phone, which I am, but because I can't keep up. I can't navigate, and it's exhausting. And then the how stupid I feel all the time. What? Huh? Huh?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    What are you talking about? And it's exhausting.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. And you have to do the big social act around making other people feel okay with your disability.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes. Oh my God, yes.

    Katherine May:

    You have to feather bed it for them because I can often only, particularly in busy environments, I can only often hear out of my right ear. So I often have to turn to one side and I think some people think I'm turning away from them, but I'm trying to trying to hear them.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's funny too, like constantly the example I always think of is coffee shops where they're taking your order and they'll say something and I'll go... They'll say like, "What's your name?" And I'll say, "Pardon?" And they'll say, "What's your name?" As if I was just checked out. And granted, sometimes I say it to kind of go, grr. I go, "Oh, I'm deaf." And a lot of times I apologise, which I hate, but I'll go, "Oh, I'm deaf. I read lips." They have a mask on, let's say. And then they go, "I'm so sorry." I go, "It's okay. You wouldn't know." And then it's this whole weird apology. Now, I do think there's a, I won't say lesson. That sounds sort of preachy, but I'm always reminded of just compassion and patience. Like we don't know. We don't know. And it's easy to just assume, oh, this person, oh, this person.

    Katherine May:

    It's so true. And do you know what, actually? I've become more compassionate for understanding how I'm received actually. It makes me often just deliberately stop and think, oh, maybe this person isn't being rude.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Right.

    Katherine May:

    Shall I tell you as story that will make you really laugh? I did an event the other week, a live event and it was like living through an anxiety dream. Check in with all of this and see if it makes you anxious just hearing it. So we go online for the sound check and they say to me, "What we want you to do, Katherine is have one earphone in to listen to the interviewer. And then we want you to have your phone on speaker, so we can talk to you at the same time." And I was like, "I'm not going to be able to handle that. I'm not going to be able to handle two people talking to me at once." And they were like, "Well, TV presenters do it." And I was like, "Yeah, but I'm not a TV presenter."

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Exactly.

    Katherine May:

    And I said, "So anyway, won't that feed back?" And they were like, "No, no, it won't feed back." And I was like, "Because if it feed feeds back, I have this problem with my ears and it'll be really, really painful and I will not be able to deal with it." "It won't feed back. Please try it." Turn the phone on, you can just imagine the feedback loop from this two.... It was hideous. So I turned it off and I was like, "I can't do this. I can't do this." And they're like, "Okay, fine. So when we dial in, we won't do it like that. And I guess we'll just have to text you."

    Katherine May:

    And I felt terrible for I had to really assert my needs.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Right, like you failed.

    Katherine May:

    And they were like, "The other writer was doing it earlier." And it was really dreadful. They were being so nice, but they didn't realise it was mean. Anyway, so we log on later and they immediately text to say, "Can you put your speakerphone on?" I was like, "No, I can't. We've already agreed." "Well, we'll try and text you stuff." I like, "Okay." Got 20 minutes into the interview and their end internet started cutting out. And for the final 25 minutes of the live broadcast, I had to just present alone with them texting going, "Keep going. It's fine." Is that not like an anxiety dream that's come down?

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. That literally is like my dream I have every night of I'm still in school failing my math test. Yeah, total.

    Katherine May:

    So I'm just pausing mid podcast to tell you a bit about my new Patreon, which I'm really excited to launch. I've been trying to think for a long time how to make this podcast sustainable, and this will really, really help us to keep making more episodes. I am always telling other people how it's really good to let everyone else help them. And so, I guess I'm taking a bit of my own medicine here.

    Katherine May:

    The brilliant thing that the Patreon feed lets me do is to make an extra special bonus episode just for subscribers once a month, which will go out on the Patreon feed. And in that you'll get a bit more of me. If you're sick of the sound of my voice, then maybe this isn't for you. But if you're not, then I'll be talking about the things that are inspiring me at the moment, the books I'm reading, the culture I'm absorbing, the news stories. Everything that I'm taking in, I'm going to share with you on that. It'll be really chatty and fun, but I'll also be inviting questions from the Patreon community that I'll answer in the podcast. So it'll give you the chance to, I don't know, tell me stuff, ask me questions, give me problems to solve. See if I can help. I'm a bit of an advice giver. It's maybe not my most endearing quality, but some people seem to like it.

    Katherine May:

    The other amazing opportunity for my Patreon community will be that you'll be able to ask questions of my guests in advance and you'll receive the answers to those questions in a special subscriber only version of the podcast that's extended to include the Q&A. So it's going to feel really, really exclusive and cool. And you'll be able to get your voice into the podcast, which will be really amazing.

    Katherine May:

    You'll get the podcast a day early and it will always be ad free. I haven't added ads yet to the widely available version of the podcast, but I may well do in the future, but your version as Patreon subscriber will always be ad free. And there'll be special discounts on my courses and events, early booking links, chances to get signed copies of my books, all kinds of special community bonuses for the people who have already hugely supported my work. It's my chance to give you some extras.

    Katherine May:

    So in return, I also get help from you with the costs of producing and transcribing and administering this podcast, which I love doing, but it's quite difficult to keep it up sometimes. So I'd love your help if you can afford to. If you can't, don't worry, it will always be the same podcast available free wherever you get it right now. And you should not feel bad about that. That's absolutely fine.

    Katherine May:

    But for the first month that the Patreon is open, I'm going to be offering a year's subscription for half price. So just two pounds 50 in UK money a month for the first year of your membership. It will only be for that first month. After that, it will revert to full cost, which is five pounds a month. So if you're keen, get in early and help me to get this going and I will be letting you know straight away about the first bonus episode, which is due very soon and also the chance to ask questions of my next crop of guests. Thank you for all your support so far. I love it. I love talking to you all and I love your enthusiasm. And now back to Jen.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, yeah. I'm thinking of different things I've done with photo shoots or anything where-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I can't hear them if they're over there or if the camera... And then I panic. And it's just, all I know now is I, and this can be exhausting too, but what I say is I lead with the thing that caused me shame. And I don't mean that everyone has to tell everyone everything. I think that's a bullshit-

    Katherine May:

    No.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    No, but I won't hide anymore. So as much as I can, I will immediately disclose that, "Oh, I read lips." It just saves me. It's purely like, first of all, it's so much less anxiety inducing for me than pretending I can keep up.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, faking it. Seeing how long you can keep up the fake act of understanding.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes. And then the other person could be more aware to look. And then I take all the story away. There's no story. It just is what it is. I read lips. I'm deaf without-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Where before it was just so much shame around it. And now I'm like right there. Now, it does get exhausting. It's like every single moment of every day, it's constantly being like, "I'm..." But you know how it is. It is like everyone has something. Yeah. It's exhausting.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I'm tired all the time from working so hard to hear, which is why I'm grateful for these new hearing aids. They're a lot louder, a bit too loud in fact.

    Katherine May:

    Takes some

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But the constant effort of trying to hear.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, it's exhausting. It must be exhausting.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And not only that, because a lot of times it's not even that I can actually hear, but after a moment it lands in my head and contextually, I can put it together. So it's like puzzles, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting to talk about this and talk about the fear of not being loved or liked or accepted or heard, or all of those things. And it strikes me that as well as your movement for shame loss, which I'm absolutely right behind, but you also talk a lot about holding other people. Your tattoo, which is I got you, right? Is that right? I got you. There it is. Are you going to show me? Can I see? Can I see it now? Yay. There it is.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's the only one I have. Yep.

    Katherine May:

    Can we talk a bit about that? I'm really interested in that because I'm interested in, I don't know, the interconnectedness that represents, but also about-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Can I tell you something?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I talk about, it's funny because I was a little bit late for you because I'm on an app called Mined. So everyone listening, it's M-I-N-E-D and it's like a self-help app. There's all these different people that do videos, and it's just great. I talk about it's about embodying that energy, and you embody that. I think about how a couple things about you that I really like, that I love. You're so obviously like you want me to win.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. That's I got you. And I think about a couple weeks ago, whenever that was when I was working on my new book proposal and I sent you some stuff. And right away, you were like, "Here," boom. You helped me with it. There was no, just completely like, "I got you, Jen." You didn't say that, but that's what you were being. That's it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    That's what you were being.

    Katherine May:

    Well, helping is a privilege, isn't it? It's a privilege to help people.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, absolutely. I think so too. And I mean, I think there's so many layers though. I think first of all, having a parent yanked away so young, it makes sense that I have a bullshit story as I call it that there's not enough. And that, I don't know when I was a kid, I thought God hated me, which is so sad. I know.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. That's really sad.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, my son's five. And last night he was like, "I miss daddy." And it kills me because my sister was five when my dad died. And I think it's... So the not enoughness was a place I came from for most of my life. Everything was from a place of lack. And when I started as an every day, putting that belief down and doing things that reinforce the opposite, such as there is enough.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So if anyone follows me on social media, let's say, one of the things I'm really good at and I do a lot is support other people, promote other people, lift other people up. And I do that for them, but also for me to remind myself there is enough. You don't have to hold onto the story that there's not. Just because Katherine's book is a success, or this or that doesn't mean-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And that is like, I got you. It's the reminder that there's enough and that we're supported. There also is a tendency, I think for a lot of people to be like, "No one has me and I'm not..." And it's bullshit. It can be one person, it could be a bunch of people. And I think the other thing is when we allow ourselves to be this supported, we realise, and I'm really good at asking for help. I just gave a talk on that. And I get a to of yeses and I get a ton of nos, friends listening. And the thing is I don't let that shut me or I let it shut me down for a short period of time as opposed to going, well, they said no. I'm worthless. I'm never going to ask again. I'm going to stop writing. I go, all right. And I, you know?

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And we ask for help and we allow ourselves to be supported, and it's about reciprocity and how I got you can look so many different ways. So for example, in the beginning of the pandemic when I had kind of a breakdown because I lost all my work, my income and I'm the breadwinner.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. God, I can't imagine it.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I turned to Instagram and I was like, I did a post. I said, "Do you have enough food to eat?" This was before you followed me. I said, "Do you have enough food to eat?"

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And it wasn't because I thought like, I'm going to buy everybody groceries. I didn't have any money. And to be clear, full disclosure, I've lived in my apartment 19 years and my rent is very cheap. I'm very blessed. So my overhead was low. So I lost everything. And thank God I lived in a dorm room. Thank God I lived in a 500 square foot rent controlled apartment. Okay. So I posted, "Do you have food to eat?" because I knew that, not that I would like personally feed all the people, but this community I've cultivated, this energy of I got you, that they would step in and that's exactly what happened.

    Katherine May:

    They would step in. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So someone would be like, "I lost my job." And another person would send money or groceries. And this started happening and then I stepped in, and this other woman helped me. And we were like, let's do this. And basically, I created a movement and we raised $150,000 to get people groceries and feed people. And I was doing Instagram Lives and raising money. And that was I got you. And it wasn't necessarily me pulling money out of my pocket. It was me-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I have a platform. I hate that word. But I got you can look like so many different things. It can look like what you did helping me with the writing. It can look like checking in on someone. It can look like listening. It can look like giving your elderly neighbour a ride. It can look like whatever, right?

    Katherine May:

    And it's often tiny, just letting people feel cared for. But can I ask about the opposite of that? Because actually-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes.

    Katherine May:

    Boundaries have to come in at some point as well. And that's something that I find very, very hard, because I always want to help everybody.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes, yes.

    Katherine May:

    And I have to find-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Ooh, I love this.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah. I'm always having to find ways to remind myself to stop because otherwise I get completely burnt out. And when you write a book, like the Electricity of Every Living Thing, people read it and they realise they're autistic just the same as I did. And I'm the person they want to come to. And I can't help everybody on their individual journey on that. And I find that really painful-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Me too.

    Katherine May:

    Because I would deeply love to. I'd like to physically walk every single person through that journey and hug them as virtually or not virtually as they want, but I can't. And I find that really hard. How do you cope with the boundary setting that you must have to do at the other side?

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I find it hard and I get lectured by a lot of my friends, especially my friends who aren't as open as I am. They're like, "Jennifer." I've gotten a lot better. I've gotten a lot better since I have a kid. And I know you understand that, right?

    Katherine May:

    Right.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I've gotten a lot better at it because of experience and just going, oh, I'm completely depleted. I find it really, really hard. And especially after my book came out, then it became even greater. But-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's exponential, isn't it? Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah, because more people then knew my book. And think about this, my tagline is I got you. So anytime then I can't, it's like, yeah, but you're the I got you lady. I mean, okay. And then also consider the fact that I've developed a reputation as you need money? Ask Jen, she raises money.

    Katherine May:

    Right. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So think about those two things. It's really hard and I can't help everyone. And so I'm really discerning and I also am really clear now that sometimes I got you, the way that my I got you looks is like, you can sign up for my retreat or my workshop or my yoga class or read my book. I can't be best friends with everyone. I can't. So I got you is within boundaries, and it looks different for every single person.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    The session I just did, actually was called On Having Your Own Back.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I think having boundaries is about that, right? So me having my own back is knowing I can say no to someone and the world won't collapse. It doesn't mean that everyone will hate me just because one person may be disappointed, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    No, we absolutely cannot help everyone. And I struggle with that like nobody's business, but I'm really, really clear that also I got, you cannot be a manipulation. Like people cannot use that at me, or I'll say, "Don't apologise." And what I mean is don't apologise for taking up space. Don't apologise for having autism. Yeah, apologise if you're a jerk.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. There are definitely some things some people should apologise for.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Absolutely.

    Katherine May:

    Like let's be really clear.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But people go, "But Jen, you say never to apologise." I'm like, "Oh, wait a minute. No, no, no."

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    The art of apologising is really important, but don't apologise for being you or for asking for salad dressing. Yeah, right? Women, like I used to wait tables, "I'm sorry, can I get salad dressing?" I think having boundaries and being able to know that we can't help everyone. I can't raise money for everyone. I can't say yes to everyone. I can't blurb everybody's book, but shame loss is a way of I got you. And me sharing of myself without hiding anymore, I think is a way of I got you because yeah, it can help someone else who maybe is ashamed and terrified of their own depression or hearing loss.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And I think a lot about how, I mean, whenever I see your tattoo, I think how it's a message to yourself as well. Like, I've got your back too, like I've got my own back. I'm going to look after myself too, because we can't help if we're not well cared for in the first place.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I want to model that behaviour. It's important to me to have role model behaviour. And I don't always. I'm human, but it's important to me. And that's why recently, especially this month I'm really proud of myself because I've been doing that. I've been keeping commitments to myself. I've been saying, no more. I've been modelling what it looks like to say I got you to myself instead of just everybody else.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And that's been the huge transformation in my life is keeping acres of my diary free, because it turns out that's what I need to stay well.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Same.

    Katherine May:

    I mean, it's not a luxury, it's really-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Same.

    Katherine May:

    Survival for me.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Same.

    Katherine May:

    And I was shortening my life. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. And you have to, yeah, I can help as much as I can help, but I can't always help personally. And so I do stuff like have a podcast. That's often the best way that I can help.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I think it took me until my mid forties. And so I think, oh, maybe someone listening is 30 and they're going to get it a little younger. And I don't regret anything. I mean, that's fib. I do. I regret saying, "I hate you," as the last thing to my dad. And I regret not getting my degree from NYU, but I try to have a life as with as little regrets as possible. I don't regret anything. I am where I am right now. It's beautiful. But man, had I gotten here a little younger, it would've saved me a lot of grief, right? Like not trying to please everyone all the time and worry that they're going to like me, and all that exhausting nonsense.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So yeah, I got you, but I just think it's a beautiful way to be. And I think we're so-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I love community. I don't know about God. That's where I find God and connection. And it doesn't even have to be like a lot of people necessarily, but deep connection. That's God to me. So yeah-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. [crosstalk 00:45:30].

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I got you is everything.

    Katherine May:

    It's lovely. It's such a beautiful phrase and it doesn't really work in my English accent, it works much better in your accent.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So there's so many things like that. I don't know. It does work.

    Katherine May:

    [crosstalk 00:45:41] I've got you.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. Yeah, because it's like your proper. My mother-in-law, she would say, "I've got you," Charlie. Yeah. She's coming for the first time in two years. We haven't seen her in two years.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, wow.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I know. Since I bought a house. So she'd always stay with us in our one bedroom on our sofa. And so it's going to be like a whole, talk about wintering. I'm in a small town now. I imagine my life is... You're near the water. I'm about 12 miles from the water, but it's a similar, just cozy, kind of energetic. I feel really good here in my body. I think that's how you are where you live, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. It's the right place for me.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. So I bought a house, which I've kept a bit quiet and it's in my happy place where I had been leading retreats forever. And I never allowed myself to [inaudible] fantasise that I'd own a house or even really leave my apartment, which is depressing when I think about it, just how small I kept myself because of fear. And I always was like, this is my happy place. Maybe one day I'll have a weekend home there. I never imagined living here full time. Now, I can't imagine anything else. It's the best thing I've ever done besides having my son.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I do not miss LA. And I think about your book a lot, because it feels like wintering. I feel like I'm nesting and like...

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative). The good parts.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. It's funny, my street doesn't have street lights. It's dark and you could see the stars.

    Katherine May:

    That's nice.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I just feel really connected to the earth and I feel grounded and comfortable, and I don't want to travel as much.

    Katherine May:

    You just want to be home.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yes. Yes.

    Katherine May:

    You found your place. Oh, that's so lovely. So before we go, I want to ask you finally about inner assholes. Another thing that doesn't sound as good in my accent.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    No, it sounds better when you say it. Asshole.

    Katherine May:

    No, no. We elongate it too much. It's too, yeah, asshole. It becomes too much about the ass rather than about anything else. Anyway, but I want to ask you finally about, because you do yoga to quiet the inner asshole. And I love that concept. But can you share with the listeners who the inner is and what we do about them?

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, first of all, I believe, I mean I think. Look, I'm not in your mind, but I think everyone has one. And let's talk about seasons, right?

    Katherine May:

    Oh, hell yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    There's seasons of our life where the inner asshole runs a show. There's seasons of our life, days where quieter, sometimes it's louder and it depends. Like I think I'm going through peri-menopause, so hormones are wacky and my inner a-hole is louder. When you're tired, when you're not sleeping, when you're hungover, when you've just been rejected, your inner asshole is going to be louder. I think the work of our lives is, and this is a really fairly recent epiphany, I've always been like, huh, okay. That's my inner asshole. Examples of things I've said, like you're not a real writer, Jen.

    Katherine May:

    Mm-hmm (affirmative).

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Or I don't know, like you're always going to be broke. Just things that your inner asshole says that, I don't tend to use words like negative or positive. They're so binary, but things that open you up rather than things that shut you down, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yep.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So I think recently I realised, oh, so it's not just about quieting the inner asshole. Well, I used to think it was killing it and I go, oh no, no.

    Katherine May:

    That's quite violent.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, yeah. But not only that, then you wake up and it's in a bed with you again. You're like, okay, I guess I didn't kill it. So let's quiet it, so that it's not the loudest voice. So I realised recently it's about offering it compassion. So it's like, okay, I see you. I get you, and I don't need you. Not today, Satan, because I think ultimately the inner asshole, whatever it's saying to us, and this is very probably psychology 101, but it's trying to protect us. So the inner asshole's like, you should be quiet, because it thinks it's like we're going to get hurt.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And so we offer compassion and go, I don't need you. Not today. And it's every single day, because I don't think it's like, well, I got rid of my inner asshole. It's never coming back, because something will trigger it, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. It's always going to be a practice. It's like so many things. We can't solve this. You can't kill it, but you can learn to live with it in a way that's a bit more constructive than many of us have experienced. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I'd say the biggest thing for me these days is levity and humour. I think life is hard and we take ourselves so seriously, and the world is shit. And so if you can't laugh and have a sense of humour about things, you're screwed. So I'm always like, find the funny and the levity. And especially with the things our inner asshole says, start to laugh at them. Laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. I think that's really true. And I mean, sorry, this is probably a bit darker than we were, but I used to have a lot of suicidal thoughts as a teenager and into my twenties. And I learnt to live with those by mocking them. That was the only thing-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    That's exactly what I'm talking about, Katherine. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

    Katherine May:

    That ever killed them. It was this little voice that didn't know when to shut up, and I realised it was a habit rather than anything very real.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Boom. Boom. You just hit the nail on the head. Boom.

    Katherine May:

    I learnt to say like, oh, there you are again. Of course you're going to pipe up.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I'll ask people, because I coach people. Less these days, I'm really discerning. But one of the things, I ask them a bunch of questions and I say, "You don't have to answer all of them, but I just want to get a feel. What are some of the things your inner asshole says to you? What are some stories you want to work on? Does your inner asshole have a name?" And usually I ask that because I think it makes people laugh, but it makes them personify it a bit.

    Katherine May:

    Personify it. Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. My friend Marley Grace calls hers Roger.

    Katherine May:

    That is the perfect name for an asshole, incidentally.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I know, it is. It's so funny. But you hit the nail on the head with the habits and that's why with my next book, I'm talking about daily practices because when I had that breakdown at the beginning of COVID and the beginning of the pandemic, I was like, how did I get here again? I've done all this work and I wrote a bestselling book and blah, blah, because it's about daily practices. It's not like you killed the inner and that's it. It's not like you reach enlightenment and that's it. It's not like you get happy and that's it. It just doesn't work that way. It's like, what are you doing every day to-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    To shift the habit, to put down the shame, to quiet the inner asshole? Whether it's meditation, whether it's whatever it is.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But every single day, the habits that we create, and they can be really hard to break these patterns.

    Katherine May:

    And once you start paying attention to them and you notice their behaviour, it's quite shocking-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah.

    Katherine May:

    The idiot stuff they say to you. I mean, honestly, like mine would pipe up. I'd had a slightly snappy interaction with somebody serving me coffee, and it would be like, you're worthless. And after a while, I started to notice it and think, are you kidding me? Someone was rude to me in Starbucks that does not count as worthless. And it's so interesting-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And I think-

    Katherine May:

    Applying consciousness to it.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Again, I'm in my forties and I'm like, man, if only it was like this in my twenties because I'm so sensitive. Like if someone's mean to me or, or whatever, it's like, oh my God. I'm like, I don't even deserve to be a person. And a lot of that is because I had that narrative of I'm a bad person. And so I'd look for validation anywhere. And it makes sense for you. Think about you didn't have your diagnosis. You're trying to figure out-

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    You're like, where do I fit in? Who am I?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    How come I'm not like everyone else?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. And your experience is often of interactions going wrong. There's some research damning to autistic people that our timing is different, like our conversational timing is different to neurotypical people. And the way you experience that is interactions failing over and over again. And you can really take it to heart, of course you can. But having that self knowledge just really helps to be able to say, oh, that went wrong again. That's all you have to say about it, like that interaction went wrong.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It makes me want to cry though, because having this conversation with you, I mean, we had no idea where this was going to go today.

    Katherine May:

    No, no.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    But the overlaps. So I am excited about the shame loss thing because I have that same experience all the time, and especially before I started being honest about my hearing loss. And I remember when I finally started telling people, especially at the restaurant when I was waiting tables, this was the reaction I got. "Oh, that makes sense." Or, "Oh, yeah. We thought you were just an error..."

    Katherine May:

    I hate that.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I know, but I realise how I was occurring to people, holy shit. And it's like you said, it's the exact opposite of how I wanted to occur. No, I'm someone who pays attention. And I was occurring like, it's because I couldn't hear.

    Katherine May:

    And that's such a simple thing. Like so much shame unpacks from it on your side and so much judgment on the other side, and that would be because of their shame and their anxiety about who they are and how they're received. And that becomes this big ball of horrible shit.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Yeah. So how coming together, you and I together, it's going to be really beautiful. And I think a huge way that I've discovered is just talking about it, is naming it, right?

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It really is. It's why I lead with the thing that caused me shame because once we talk about it, it's like, oh, it's not so big, bad and scary anymore and it's less awkward, and we realise we're not alone.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's so tough.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's wonderful. And maybe one day, maybe, maybe not, we can make art from it or something, right?

    Katherine May:

    That's what we do. We've already made art from it.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I know.

    Katherine May:

    Quite pleased with that. Jen, thank you. It's been so amazing to talk to you. I feel like we could talk for three hours and I need to not do that.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, we will. I cannot wait to be with you.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I mean, I'm a little bummed you don't watch TV because I'm obsessed with this show right now and I wanted to talk to you about it. Damn you.

    Katherine May:

    I don't mean to not watch TV, but I don't-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    On accident.

    Katherine May:

    I can't imagine when people get the time.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, it's the only way I get myself to exercise on my silly elliptical.

    Katherine May:

    Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's why it's-

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I watch it.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Because otherwise it's depressing just to be on there. It's not like walking in nature. It's different, but just being on the machine.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah, yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Anyway, there's a show called Borgen. It's Danish. It's political. But all the shows I love are British and take place around where you live. And so, yeah, I'm always like, we're going to talk about our British, but no. You don't watch them.

    Katherine May:

    I'm so hopeless. Yeah, no I am really hopeless. I've missed, I don't know, I've now missed so many major TV series that everyone loves that I've given up hope.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    It's not like you've missed. My friend, streaming. Look, you can-

    Katherine May:

    Oh man, I can't catch up. I can't catch up. It's too late.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    Well, you don't need to catch up.

    Katherine May:

    It's too late for me. You have to leave me behind.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    So I'm excited to be with you in London and Nigella, which is random. And you asked me how we connected. I said Instagram, where I've made a lot of my friends.

    Katherine May:

    Yeah.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    And she's just lovely and I love her. And so I was like, "I won't make you cook for us." She was like, "I quite enjoy it." I was like, "Great then." But I can't wait to be with you in person and I haven't been there in two years.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I'm really looking forward to it. My mother-in-law lives there and my brother-in-law and I have so many friends. And I feel, I just am really looking forward to being there, and especially in the winter. We don't really get winter here. So we'll winter together, Katherine.

    Katherine May:

    We will. You will be mid-winter. It'll be the grimmest shortest miserablest days.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I love it.

    Katherine May:

    Thank you you lovely person. It has been so great to talk to you.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    You too. Thanks for having me.

    Katherine May:

    And yeah, I look forward to meeting you in person. Great.

    Jen Pastiloff:

    I can't wait to be with you. It's going to be the blink of an eye.

    Katherine May:

    I know. It's going to be really soon. Christmas first and then that.

    Katherine May:

    Tide's coming in. I don't know if you'll be able to hear it, but I can. It changes noise when it turns around and you start to hear it coming back towards you. I love that sound. The seagulls seem to be calming down a bit, for which we can all be thankful. We're only, I don't know, two or three weeks away from mid-winter now from the moment when the days stopped getting shorter and start getting longer again. I started marking it for the first time when I wrote Wintering and I've done it ever since. Can't wait to do it this year.

    Katherine May:

    It's normally around the 21st of December, I get out onto the beach because actually, I get a really brilliant view of the sunset in Whitstable. And I just spend some time out there. I light a fire, have a couple of friends who join us, but it's a quiet affair. It's not a party. I only want to be with people who are happy to fall into quiet contemplation at those moments. And we light our fire. We watch the sun go down and we notice how far the sun has traveled across the sky. It's really remarkable. I never realised it even happened.

    Katherine May:

    So we watch it set over the marshes at Seasalter and just enjoy that feeling of change coming through the year. I try and get up early the next morning before the sun rises. I'm normally up before sunrise anyway in the winter, but I try and make sure I'm outside for the sunrise as well. And that's a moment that I like to spend on my own, sometimes light a little candle out there. I like a candle. Sometimes it's that opportunity to feel change happening, to feel those transitions, just to sense them. They're really important to me. Anyway, I don't know if any of you celebrate mid-winter. I'd love to hear if you do. Do tell me.

    Katherine May:

    So that's quite enough mid-winter rambling from me. I just wanted to say a huge thank you to Jen for such a wonderful conversation. I loved talking to her. I always feel like I want to spend hours in her company, yelling stuff at each other. I love those kind of conversations where your voices overlap because you're so excited to talk to each other. If you, like me think she is a wonderful, warm wise soul, do pick up her book. It's great, On Being Human, available everywhere. It's just so open and vulnerable, full of things that you can't stop yourself relating to so hard and just full of wisdom too. She has this way of spinning out phrases that are massively memorable and comforting. I think you'll love it. Do check it out.

    Katherine May:

    And thanks to my producer, Buddy Peace, who also composes the theme tune to this podcast. I feel really lucky to have a bespoke theme tune. It's ridiculous, isn't it? How cool am I? (Not very cool). Buddy is, so he does that. Thank you, Buddy. And thank you to Meghan Hutchins who holds everything together, not just for the podcast, but for most of my life. And I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Do check out that Patreon page, do have a look in the show notes to connect up with Jen, and keep warm and well. See you soon.

Show Notes

This week Katherine chats to Jennifer Pastiloff, a speaker, teacher, and author of ‘On Being Human’. In a warm and honest chat with Katherine, Jennifer perfectly lays the table for where she finds herself at this point in time, as a yoga instructor, public speaker and best selling author.

With an attitude of ‘I Got You’ - extended to a community which she has cultivated with care over time - she has learned to transform her own feelings of shame towards her deafness, and earlier moments of trauma in her life. It’s an episode which offers effective solutions within, and inspiring thoughts on behaviours, being misunderstood, and ‘silencing the inner asshole’, as well as overlaps with deafness and autism, and being a founder of a movement known as ‘Shame Loss’.

We talk about:

  • Shame loss movement

  • I Got You

  • Overlaps with deafness and autism

  • Being misunderstood

  • Dealing with shame and trauma

Links from this episode:

Please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing to my Patreon where you’ll get episodes a day early (and always ad free) along with bonus episodes and more!

To keep up to date with The Wintering Sessions, follow Katherine on Twitter, Instagram and Substack

For information on Katherine’s online writing courses, including her programme Wintering for Writers, visit True Stories Writing School 

 
 

Wintering is out now in the UK, and the US.

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