June 26, 2023 • 51 mins
How do we live in a world that’s at least half terrible, and that is a conservative estimate?
If you recognize that line, you already know Maggie Smith. This week on the show, we’re talking about writing, marriage, divorce, and why you didn’t need whatever happened to you in order to become who you’re meant to be: as Maggie says, “trauma does not give you a “glow up.””
If you’ve ever wanted to write the story of your life - including the messy, difficult parts like divorce, miscarriage, and the loss of identity - this episode is for you.
In this episode we cover:
- Why it’s ok if your story doesn’t have a happy ending (or even a happy middle)
- Do kids really need to learn about resilience?
- Does anything remain after devastating loss?
- What’s it like having your personal story out in the world for other people to talk about?
- Divorce, miscarriage, and why sometimes the lemonade isn’t worth the lemons
Get the best selling Writing Your Grief course and join over 15,000 people who’ve explored their grief - and their identity - through writing. All the details here.
Related episodes:
Kate Bowler on the difference between transactional hope and functional hope
Aubrey Hirsch on the power of storytelling
David Ambroz on “A Place Called Home”
About our guest:
Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, and more. You can follow her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.
About Megan:
Psychotherapist and bestselling author Megan Devine is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. She helms a consulting practice in Los Angeles and serves as an organizational consultant for the healthcare and human resources industries.
The best-selling book on grief in over a decade, Megan’s It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, is a global phenomenon that has been translated into more than 25 languages. Her celebrated animations and explainers have garnered over 75 million views and are used in training programs around the world.
Additional resources:
Get the best selling Writing Your Grief course and join over 15,000 people who’ve explored their grief - and th
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
One thing that would evaporate really quickly would be what
does not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Woof gone?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is it's okay that you're not okay? And I'm
your host, Megan Divine. This week, how do we live
in a world that's at least half terrible? If you
recognize that line, you know the special treat we have
in store. My guest is poet Maggie Smith. Maggie is
the author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful and
the poem from which my opening line comes Good Bones.
(00:45):
Today on the show, we're talking about writing and marriage
and divorce and why you did not need whatever has
happened to you in order to become who you're meant
to be, Settle in friends. All of that and more
coming up right after this first break. Before we get started,
(01:08):
one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
relational territory in our time here together, this show is
not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental
health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Hey friends, I met Maggie Smith the same way millions
of other people did through her poem Good Bones. Now
(01:31):
you probably know this poem, but if you need a
reminder or a refresher, it begins Life is short. Though
I keep this from my children. Life is short, and
I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill advised ways,
A thousand deliciously ill advised ways I keep from my children.
The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's
(01:53):
a conservative estimate. Though I keep this from my children.
I bet you recognize that just from the opening lines.
Right in this episode, you're going to learn the backstory
to that poem, good Bones, and why, as Maggie says,
it's a barometer of the grief in the world, a
sign that something terrible has happened, like when that poem
(02:14):
goes viral again. And how weird it is to have
professional success based largely on something that broke your heart.
Maggie and I also discuss her new book, You Could
Make This Place Beautiful, which details the dissolution of her
marriage and the creation are really like the resurrection of
herself as a writer. We get into so many things
(02:36):
in this conversation that made my writer heart deliriously happy.
I was a fan of Maggie Smith before this conversation,
and she means so much more to me having had
this chance to connect. So I hope you love this
episode and love Maggie. Be sure to let me know
what you think. And speaking of letting me know what
you think, please leave a review of the show wherever
(02:58):
you get podcasts. I haven't seen any new reviews lately,
and that is one great way to tell me how
this season's guests are affecting you. All Right, on with
the show with the stellar Maggie Smith. Okay, So I
have been following you on social media and reading your
books and using lines of yours as starting places for
(03:19):
my own writing and also when I teach writing. So
I feel like I've known you for a long time,
even though we just met. So I'm just this is
my way of saying, I'm ridiculously happy to be here
with you today.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Ah same.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I want to address something right off the bat because
it is one of my absolute favorite things about you.
I feel like ninety nine percent of memoir writing is
like finding beauty inside terrible times.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Like I grew so much as a person.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It was difficult, but I love it and I hate
that stuff. I kind of knew this before I started
reading You could make this Place beautiful, But I as
I was reading it in a coffee shop, I actually
yelled various things, various variations of like Amon's sister Yea,
absolutely out loud so many times in crowded coffee shops.
(04:11):
When you write your personal story, it does not have
to be about being worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I think we have a sort of cultural obsession
with before and after, like like the before and after
photo of the made over kitchen, the before and after
images of the haircut, the before and after really of anything,
and same with same with storytelling. Right, It's like before
(04:38):
I was this, and then I figured it all out,
and after I was this. And so I feel like
the traditional narrative expectation of a memoir that that you
write out of a painful crisis in your life would
be like I was a caterpillar and then I wrote
this book and figured myself out, and then I emerged
at the end of the book Butterfly. But I am
(05:01):
still a caterpillar. I am just a more fully realized,
more self aware, more whole and boundaried caterpillar.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
One of the most popular memes on my own social
is like this picture of a chrysalis and it's like,
you know, standing outside the chrysalis shouting you're a butterfly
does not hasten anything. It just pisses off the goo
or something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Oh yeah, because it's actually liquefied and so yeah, so
maybe I'm actually just the goo at this point. But
I do think we put a lot of pressure on
ourselves to metabolize experience in a way that makes us
quote better, as if just surviving it is not enough.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, there's that second half of the sentence of you
needed this because who you were before this happened wasn't
good enough.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh gosh, you needed this. That is just that's really something,
isn't it. I Mean I write about in the book
the sort of idea of material, and I have had
this said to me. I have friends who have written
about pretty traumatic things who have had this said to them,
which is, at least you got a book out of it,
(06:15):
or at least this experience wasn't wasted on someone who
isn't a writer, an artist, a filmmaker. You know, whatever
you do that you make things from your experience. And
I've been thinking a lot about that and how well
meaning I think that statement is, but also how offensive.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I find that offensive.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And I was thinking about it recently and thinking, actually,
I don't think of myself as I didn't get a
book out of my life imploding. I made a book
out of my life imploding. And it's a very just
pretty subtle verb shift there, but it feels a whole
(06:59):
lot like a verb shift I find helpful, which is,
oh gosh, my life imploded. Now I have to reimagine it.
I have to rebuild it, as opposed to oh my gosh,
my life imploded. Now I get to reimagine it. I
get to do something different, not that I wanted to,
(07:21):
but sometimes reframing it that way from myself is helpful.
If I see the like little hidden gifts inside the disaster,
it doesn't make the disaster worth it necessarily, you know, don't.
I don't think I needed this. I certainly didn't need
it as writing material. I could have written a book
about anything.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
My kids didn't need this. None of us needed this.
We are not better or stronger because of it, not
in any way that makes it worth it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, this need to put a value, judgment, a transactional
value on what you do with what happens, right, Like,
I love that you wrote what did I not get
to write? Because this was what was mine to write.
I love that Like literally the night of my partner's funeral,
more than one person came up to me and said,
(08:11):
this is going to make you such a better therapist.
You're going to get to write. And also like I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Angry on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Thank you, thank you. So I got the like because
I was a writer before he died, and because I
was a therapist before he died, like those twin things
of this is going to make you so much better.
You're going to be such a gift to the world.
And I feel like you know this is this is
related territory that you write so evocatively and so beautifully.
(08:40):
But what did you not get to write? Because this
was yours to write? And I just like, I love
that so much. You also said you mentioned your kids
in here, and you said I would rather they not
learn to be so resilient. I would rather they learn
more about security and safety and be a little less resilient.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, I don't want resilient children. If resilience is what
we call it when we put kids through things, yeah,
or you know, because of the laws in this country
refuse to protect them adequately, and then we're supposed to
pat ourselves on the back because our kids are so
strong out of just sheer necessity.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's not a gift.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I mean that resilience and it's not like that resilience
narrative is like what we push on everybody who is
experiencing something they should not be experiencing. But instead of
looking at that, I mean, right now, I'm thinking about
the black maternal health crisis, right and like how much
we raise black women for being resilient instead of dealing
(09:41):
with the fact that our systems put them in harm's
way for which they need to become more resilient so
it doesn't crush them. Like this whole resilience thing. I
was talking with a guest earlier this season about what
we applaud as resilience is actually the imprint of trauma.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Oh that's real.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Actually, my daughter said, you know when and she's fourteen,
and she said, you know, when people say kids are
old souls, it's because they've experienced trauma and I thought
that's right, Like when you have to grow up fast,
it's not a compliment that you can talk like an
adult or function like an adult. It's not a compliment
(10:19):
if you are eight and helping to raise your three
younger siblings because this country has no real support, especially
for single parents, but for working people period. Like, that's
not that's not a gift, that that's trauma.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, I wonder what would be different if we framed
it as that, Like how many words of support or
platitudes or condolences, Like how many of those phrases would
just evaporate if we understood that what we are celebrating
the things you create because this happened to you. What
(11:00):
a gift was hidden in that pain? Like if we
understood the mechanism that was actually happening, Like so so
much of our our ideas, our vocabulary around caring for
each other would disappear in favor of something else.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, one thing that would evaporate really quickly would be
what does.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Woof gone?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I think you're absolutely right about that, So that whole
we get impacted by the things that happen to us,
right like that which does not kill you makes you
stronger is such biological, relational, mental, emotional trash. But there's
a section in your book, and I'm totally going to
bring this back around, but there's a section in your
book about your miscarriage, and I think that section encapsulated
(12:04):
such a gorgeous example of what you just said about
what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. You talk about,
you know, being pregnant with your son, having lived through
two miscarriages previously, you can't un know what you know.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, it completely colored my experience of being pregnant with
him because the entire time I just thought, at any minute,
this is going to end. It just gave me, and
it gave me not the kind of joyous, expectant, happy
pregnant experience I had with my daughter. It was a
(12:41):
very anxiety filled, cortisol soaked pregnancy experience because I just
kept waiting for the other shoe to drop until the
very very end.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And that changes you.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, we get changed by the things we experience, And
I think in this culture, we don't think we should
get changed by the things we experience unless the only
the only change that's acceptable is like stronger, bigger, better
than right, like this whole positive trajectory, which is just
not what life is.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, you know, trauma does not give you a glow up.
That's that's the takeaway the tld R.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Trauma does not give anyone.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
A glow up. I love that. That's perfect. I feel
like that should be tattooed somewhere or like. That is
a motivational that's a motivational thank you. That is a
motivational poster that I could get behind. Trauma does not
give you a glow up.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You feel free. I gift that to you.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I mean if the lemons to the lemons to
lemonade thing. You know, when I wrote keep Moving, someone
really in a well meaning complimentary way, said, wow, you
really took those lemons and made lemonade. And then I
think she said and then added m F vodka to it,
And I.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Laughed because I knew what she meant.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah right, I knew what she meant, Like she's she
meant you took straw and spun it into gold. You
took something terrible and made it into something that helped
you and your kids during a possible time. And yes,
I mean that is true, like there's there's no lie there.
That is absolutely true. But the other thing that is
(14:22):
true is that I didn't want that lemonade.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I could have had some other drink.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Right, we go back to that what did you not
get to live? Because this is what you had to
live and the fact that you are a writer like
writers have to write. Yeah, right, Like, this is how
we understand the world. This is how we metabolize what happens.
This is how we understand things. So it's not that
you get to write this because of what you lived.
(14:49):
It's that I am living this and words are how
I know to consume it or to be in it.
I'm speaking of words like I like word a phase
right there? But yeah, does that feel accurate?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It does.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I mean I don't often know what I think or
feel clearly until I've written it down and then I'm like, oh,
that's what it is. Somehow my processing really works through
my right hand and my pen onto paper, which makes
this a challenge. Right, I have I'm thinking on the
fly here, I'm I'm not writing, but yeah, I don't.
(15:24):
I don't often know how I feel about something. And
for me, this particular book felt like a large armoire
parked in front of a doorway. And it's not so
much that I wanted to write this book. It was
the book I had to write so I could write
other books, almost like a clearing, you know, like I
(15:47):
had to move this giant piece of furniture away from
the doorway so I could go through it. And I
don't think I could have. I could have just busy
myself with other things while living the experiences that I
write about in this book without processing them on paper.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
One of those things that I super love about you
is where I started write, like your work is not
the typical transformation narrative right where I learned some lessons
I grew as a person. Everything's good now I can
look back and say thank you to it and be
grateful for like all of that stuff, the power in
(16:30):
your work, in your stories, in the ways that you
speak about your life. For me, one of the one
of the big things is that you don't make lemonade
is that you're able to traverse that both and yes
and territory that people try to rush out of so quickly,
or insist that we rush out of so quickly, Like
(16:50):
that both of these things can be true. That I
am so thankful for my family, for the person I am,
for the words that I say, and none of this
is awesome, Like this isn't anything that I wanted. We
just spent a whole bunch of time talking about, Like
this is not a transformation story. This is not a
thank you letter to my pain for teaching me who
(17:13):
I really wanted to be. Like all of this stuff,
And at the very same time, there's something very cool
about seeing the impact of your words and your story
and the way that you tell it, seeing the impact
on the world. So I want to take a scene
from your new book, if I might, where you describe
(17:33):
watching a character on Madame Secretary read your poem good Bones.
I know you know what I'm talking about here, But
you knew your poem would be in there, but you
didn't know how or where. But what you expected was
really different from what happened. Can you tell me about that?
This is my favorite scene in the whole book.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I thought, because Good Bones traveled really via internet, right,
I mean, it was something that went viral online, So
all I knew was that it.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Was going to be in the episode.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I had no idea who would say it. I didn't
know how it would appear. And I think part of
me expected, first of all, a woman to be sharing it,
because it is a poem spoken by a mother's speaker.
And I also expected it to be read off of
a phone or a computer screen, like oh, here, look
at this tweet or here's something that is someone sent
(18:23):
me on Facebook. And so in the scene, a male character,
the chief of staff, opens his wallet and pulls out
this piece of paper and at that time, I think
I'm watching it, and I'd had a little champagne. At
that point, I think I'm watching it, and I'm thinking,
is this Wait? Is this the scene? Every time someone moves,
(18:47):
I'm thinking, is this it?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is this it? And he pulls this piece of.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Paper out of his wallet and unfolds it and says
something like, you know, this reminds me of this poem
by Maggie Smith called good Bones, and he reads the
poem from this piece of paper from his wallet, and it,
I mean, I just balked. I just absolutely cried, because
first of all, it was a man, which I did
not see coming. Second of all, it was something that
(19:14):
was not living on a screen. It was something he'd
thought to print and cut small and carry with him,
you know, like a little talisman, the way I carry
things that mean, you know, like a little note from
my son, or an acorn he might find, or something
that was so unexpected and so touching to me. I'm
(19:38):
still not over it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, yeah, Like there is an intensity there of like
knowing that your words, like this little pocket of your
life is carried around so intimately, like that your words
make survival for someone. Can we talk about that, because man,
(20:00):
it's intense.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It is intense.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I have such a strange relationship with that poem.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
In general.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's kind of a disaster barometer, kind of a grief barometer.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Really.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's like the grief bat signal on the Internet, where
if my social media mentions ramp up really high, there's
a good chance something bad has happened in the world
because people are sharing my work as it's sort of
like a sense of community or solace or comfort or
(20:36):
hope or here we are again, particularly if it's that poem.
And so for years, every time people shared that, I
would get this sort of pit in my stomach and
immediately go to some news network to find out what
it happened. Whereas if I had written a poem that
(20:57):
was celebrated and shared widely when babies were born or
people got married, or you know, it would have given
me a different feeling when I saw it being shared widely.
But when a piece of work that you've made is shared,
you know, after every school shooting, it's hard to be
(21:18):
happy about expanding your readership via your own nation's refusal
to enact gun control, for example. And then now for
people who have read the memoir, you know that palm
also had an impact on my marriage because my career
(21:39):
sort of like overnight, my readership just became much wider,
and I was asked to travel and do more things
in a really unexpected way, not in the way that
you would be able to plan for tenure, or plan
for a promotion, or you know, even plan for a
second child. You know, there are things that we can
plan for in our lives when we know a big
(21:59):
che is coming, and a poem going viral overnight is
not one of them. And the growing pains from that
had a big impact on my life. So I've had
a weird relationship with that poem for a long time,
and I guess my hope with the memoir is that
there might be people because the title you could Make
(22:21):
This Place Beautiful is from the poem, there might be
people who find the poem via this book and have
a completely different relationship with it that has nothing to
do with grief in that way. In some ways, titling
the book the line from that poem was a kind
(22:43):
of reclamation for me because I am proud of the poem.
It's just a hard thing to sort of have traveling
in the world with my name on it. Given why it.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Travels, I had not thought of that.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's a blessing.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I do understand that people are sharing it because it
gives them a sense of hope and comfort.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
So there's that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I do get that, But it is still hard, particularly
to have your I mean, success feels like a strange word,
but to sort of like it's like our having a
hit radio song, right to have your hit radio song
be taps, you know, something that is shared because of
(23:29):
shared collective grief.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, And it's it's interesting because like you just articulated
that in a way that through my whole career I
haven't quite put into words like how weird it is
to have such professional success, because that success means that
(23:54):
people are in pain right when they reach for your words,
because the worst has happened. Yes, you know, one of
the things that that I will say sometimes to people
is I hope you never need me, right, because if
this work is settling into your heart, it's because your
your heart has need. Yeah, you see you're seeking it,
(24:18):
and it's it's a very it is a very strange profession.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, it's really weird.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And glorious and wonderful because we know that unsurvivable things happen.
We know that people get sick, and this country will
always value guns over children, and we we just we
know all of this stuff and if there is something
that we can offer that lays down beside that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Oh I like the way you put that. Thank you. Yeah,
you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We do weird work.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I know, And I mean in my case, its and
and largely unwittingly.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, mine is on purpose. Yours was not on purpose,
not at all.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I mean, just you know, Hey, I'm a mom in Ohio.
I wrote a poem thinking about what it is to
bring kids into a world that, in my words, is
at least half terrible in a concern And how do
I And that's the conservative estimate and getting you know,
sometimes more conservative by the day, and what is that like?
(25:23):
And really not speaking for anyone other than me, And
so yeah, I'm very unwitting that it has had the
life that it's had.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, before we get back to my conversation with Maggie Smith,
I want to talk with you about writing, specifically writing
from something that broke your heart the way Maggie and
I have been discussing. Over the last eight years, more
(25:54):
than fifteen thousand people have used the writing prompts in
my Writing Your Grief course to explore not just their
grief but also their identities, their beliefs, their relationships with themselves. Now,
I'm definitely biased because I created it, but I do
truly believe that this thirty day course will help you
inhabit your grief in a new way. It's not going
to fix anything, but writing does make things different. This
(26:18):
self guided Writing your Grief course is always available wherever
you are, whenever you're ready, whenever you're actually not ready,
but you want to explore things anyway, check it out,
Visit refugegrief dot com backslash WYG. That's WYG the initials
for Writing your Grief, or just check the link in
the show notes. All right, back to my conversation with
(26:41):
the stellar Maggie Smith. It's interesting that you said, you know,
I'm a mom out here in the Midwest talking about
something very intimate. And one of the things about writing
intimate things on the public stage is that people think
they know you because you've written these pieces. I remember
Cheryl straight saying when Wild came out that people thought
(27:02):
they knew her because of what she wrote in that book,
like they thought they were friends. So we write these
intimate things, but we are not intimates. It's a strange thing,
right have you found that, like while you while you're
becoming more and more visible, that like, oh.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yes, yeah, my friends call me now the divorce Whisperer, and.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I'll tell you it's to a whole lane of T shirts.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I know, like where's my lifetime show? Yeah, And I
have to say, it doesn't feel like a burden. It
really kind of feels like a gift. And do I
respond always no, but I do respond a lot. I mean,
people will slide into my dms with stories or saying
this released you know, this was, this book was my
divorce bible, or I give this book to everyone going
(27:51):
through the thing, or my situation is so much like
yours and I feel so seen, or my situation is
so different from yours, but the emotions you expressed are
so like mine, and I feel so seen. And to me,
that really is a gift. It doesn't feel like a
burden because what I go to books for, and music, frankly,
(28:16):
and art and film is to sort of interpret my experience,
to sort of translate my own life vis a vis
these other people's made things. And so if people are
able to do that through my made things, it just
(28:39):
makes me feel like I'm part of some strange cycle
of experience, metabolize make, experience, metabolize make, and.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I'm taking in things all the time.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
You know, there are books that have saved me. There
are records that have saved me. I don't always slide
into people's dms, but I definitely have a lot of
people out there that their work has meant something critical
to me has just sort of floated down into my
hands at just the right time. So to be that
(29:13):
for someone else when I know what it feels like
to be the receiver of that gift is like really humbling.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yes, yes, even after all of the years of doing
this work and all of the dms and all of
the comments, Like my assistant knows to save the really
like the really good ones or something that we haven't
seen before and collects them and sends them to me,
because there's just there is something about that knowing that
(29:42):
something I said or something I created is a life
raft for somebody else right now, matter like it mattered,
it changed something, it made something survivable, It set off
some chain of thoughts like that. You know, It's like
the great ping pong game of life, life with multiple
balls in a never ending arena right like there, We're
(30:03):
always impacting each other and picking up things and carrying them,
knowing how impacted I've been just what you just said
like that, Knowing how impact I've been by other people's words,
and how much the right sentence can arrive and change
the world.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Oh my gosh, it's everything.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I have a post it note that I can see
from my desk that's on my wall or on my
office window. So what's beautiful about it is that I
can see, like scene behind it, and it's my neighbor's
magnolia trees. But it's realca let everything happened to you.
Beauty and terror just keep going. No feeling is final.
(30:44):
It lives on my window. It's lived there for years.
I see it every day and it means something to me,
and it means something different to me every day, because
some days are beauty days and some days are terror days,
and some days toggle you know, but just yeah, I
carry words around me, you know, with me like a
(31:06):
talisman all the time. So to think that somebody might
carry mine, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, it really is amazing. I love that there's a
social media post you did. You shared that somebody has
your words tattooed on their arm, and I feel like
I feel like there's like a rite of passage for
rat authors there. Like the first time you see your
work tattooed on somebody else's body, it's like, what just
happened here?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, book tour has been wild. I've seen like three
so far in the past ten days, and that is
wild for me. I mean just absolutely wild to have
someone come up into your signing line with your book
title on their arm, as someone whose arms are covered
(31:50):
in tattoos, but not the words of other people. I
know the amount of thinking that goes into and weighing.
You know, a post it note on the wind there
was one thing, but uh ink on the skin is
something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I love that real Quo quote too, and I'm not
even gonna dissect it because there's so many different ways
we could go with that, but it makes me think of,
you know, no feeling as final. It also points to
there is a foundational bedrock of self that is experiencing
all the things that is unchanging. And something that I
(32:31):
love in this book is like finding yourself is the
through line, not finding yourself, not the act of finding yourself,
but that you, yourself are the through line through all
parts of your life.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, that's honestly, as someone who was not a therapist,
I find writing like this. I'm often asked questions, particularly
by journalists, like what advice do you have for people
going through hard times? And I'm always like, I don't
feel qualified. I am not a social worker, i am
not a therapist. I'm a poet. I'm not sure you
(33:09):
want the advice of a poet on these large life matters.
But for me, the thing I tell my friends or
people who reach out to me or slide into my
DMS and they're saying they're going through it, you know,
whatever it is. It might be divorce or pregnancy, loss
or lost job or you know, whatever the thing is.
(33:31):
My biggest impulse is always to think, like you you
predated whatever this trouble is. And you are talking to
me from maybe inside it or maybe just on the
other side of it, but like, you predated this thing.
Like imagine the history book timeline. There's a dot for
(33:55):
you that is the beginning of the timeline in your life,
and you're you're going to outlast whatever this is, you know,
and it is that continuity of self.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
It's continuity and it's not stop feeling so many things
about what's happening right now, because you survived this and
do you know what I mean? Like it's not no,
you don't feel never the feelings. Yeah, you never use that.
You never use any of your work, but you never
use that you predated this experience. You never use that
as a like bypassing gloss over. I remember, I remember,
(34:29):
oh my gosh, poor people. One of Matt's uncles took
me out to breakfast about maybe two months after he died,
and we're sitting there at breakfast like I'm still a
complete wreck. And his partner at the time they're both therapists, right,
And his partner at the time looks at me and says,
what did you want to be when you were a kid?
What did you want to grow up to be? With
(34:50):
that like therapist head tilt? And I was like, excuse me,
and she was like.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Maybe tad tilt.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Maybe you get to be something now, wow that you
didn't get to be before. So who were you before
you met Matt? Because I bet that person would like
a chance to live. And I'm like, what the fuck?
So when I hear people other than you, people other
than you, talk about things like yourself predated this experience,
(35:18):
like you are not talking about the noneness of what
you're experiencing right now, Like you don't say that as
a way to get over this, but no, Like it's
not a bypass, it's not a bypass. I read that
I hear you as an excavation, Like I'm talking a
lot about myself here, which tells you how much your
work affects me and intersects with me. But like when
(35:40):
my partner died. I was completely obliterated, completely obliterated, and
it took a couple of years for the core parts
of me to resurface. And I just remember being so
thankful that that core self survived. I have no idea
how it did, but it did, and being so thankful
(36:03):
for that and so thankful for that through line of self.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I don't know if we talk enough about the sort
of identity hit or at least sort of identity shift
that loss inevitably, whatever kind of loss it is, you know,
whether it's pregnancy loss or in my case, the loss
of my marriage, but certainly any kind of loss, like
(36:30):
because one of the questions is like, well, who am
I now without this? Who am I now without this person?
Who am I now?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
What now?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Right? Because what you also lose is not the person.
What you lose is the future that you had imagined
having poof.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
One of the gifts of writing through the worst, I think,
is the sort of gift to being able to contextualize.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
In a way.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You go to a country in Europe and then you
come back and you look at a map and you think, oh,
I was that close to all these other places. I
had no idea where I was in relation to anywhere else,
And the act of sort of writing over years of
your life and thinking about things in this sort of
big picture way, in some way, I think, is an
(37:27):
invitation to think about how the different pieces of us
are interconnected.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I was really.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Thinking about the mother piece of me, and the partner
piece of me, and the writer piece of me, but
also others like who was I as a daughter? Who
am I as a daughter? Who what kind of friend
am I? And also how are all of these things interconnected?
I'm only one person? How do I integrate better? Maybe
(37:59):
going forward and sort of compartmentalize less.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
M Yeah, like this continual process of excavation and assessment
is the wrong word because it sounds really cerebral, but
I don't know what to work the.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Right word, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I was talking to someone the other day and she said,
I think memoir in particular has two essential components, and
I was like, oh, no, there's a recipe I was
not aware of before writing mine.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Here I am thinking.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
It's like when it's like when you make cookies and
they're like every cookie has two essential ingredients, and you're
sitting there thinking, I hope these cookies have those two ingredients.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
And she said.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Self assessment and societal interrogation.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Ooh, And I said, oh good, I have both.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You do.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
On accident again.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
All the best things happen when you don't know you're
doing it well.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
With those two requirements, I'm writing memoir all the time,
So that's good without actually writing one.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I love this for me because we can't assess ourselves
outside of our conditioning, outside of what we're culturally rewarded for. Yeah,
those two things actually do travel together, and I think
to get honest about our lives, we have to look
at both. Nobody exists in isolation.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
And writing this way, speaking this way, talking about this stuff,
like refusing that transformation tell all narrative thing in a
meta sort of way, like that is a social confrontation,
a social whatever that is because we're allowing we're allowing
other people to access their own questions about what are
(39:45):
the constructs that I grew up with? Do I have
to transform from this loss? Am I allowed to be
both things?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Right?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah? And am I allowed to ask these questions? And
I feel like the are you always listening to you?
On a Kate Bowler's show, and I love her. Isn't
she the best?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
It's the best?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Fricking love her three seasons into this podcast and her
episode is still our most listened to. I just adore her.
But anyway, she I can't remember which one of you
said it, but something like there are years that ask
questions and years that answer oh yes, Hirston right, And
you were like, and then there are years that keep
questioning and won't stop questioning or whatever you said, and
(40:26):
I was just like that, this isn't this work that
we do of taking intimate personal experiences and showing our
hand in our way, right, like putting your hand into
your pocket, coming out with something and showing it to
me in its best form. It encourages people to ask
(40:48):
questions about their own lives.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yes, yes, it should be permission giving. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I think I think.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
For me, the the best writing, the best art for
me is permission giving, whether in content or inform. Right,
something about the way that someone has disclosed something to
me or described something to me, or built something for
me to move around inside of gives me permission either
(41:21):
to make my own thing however I see fit like, oh,
they took some risks now, I guess I can take
some risks too, or to just say the thing I
didn't think could be said. I read so many books
preparing to write this one, in which usually a woman
(41:43):
said something about her life and herself that I thought, well,
if she could say that, I can certainly say what
I want to say, you know, and just talk back
to the fear.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
You might know this one who said this one? That's
something like what would happen of one woman to the
whole truth about her life? The world would break open.
I just butchered it.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
But do you know that, No, I've heard it. I
don't know who said it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I'll look it up and make sure it's in the
show notes.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
But it's such a when you look it up, when
you say, and then Maggie remembered and put that in
the show notes.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yes, just lie totally. I'll totally. I'll totally lie about it.
Or I remembered I quoted it correctly.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I cited both of those quote correctly quoted and attributed.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
We really did. We did proper citation and props and respect.
We totally did. But it is that it is this
like I remember reading or receiving that line. You know,
thirty years ago when I was a young undergrad, right,
and like, what would happen if you told the whole
truth about your life? Or in what you just one
(42:47):
exactly I was just going to say, like one sentence
of the truth, what would happen? And that is so
much in your work, that permission giving on so many
different levels, and we could seriously talk forever, but I
want to get into our very last question for today,
for our time together. Knowing what you know and living
(43:09):
what you've lived, and knowing that there is a whole
life that we don't get to live because of the
lives that we have. Throwing that in there, what does
hope look like for you today?
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Taking responsibility for my own life, that's what hope looks
like to me. I'm making better decisions for myself. I'm
asking better, harder questions of myself. And one of the
biggest things for me, I think for years, I know
for years I made a lot of decisions based on
(43:45):
fear and even what I would call like lowercase f fear,
you know, like what if they don't like me, what
if they judge me? Just silliness. Really, what I see
now in my mid forties is silliness. Really trying now
to make decisions from that core of what do I want?
(44:08):
What do I visualize for my life? What do I
want for my kids? How can I help get us there?
And if the fear voice starts to speak up, as
it often does, it gets so loud, Like, I don't
know why, of all the little voices inside me, the
fear voice is the loudest. Such a yammorer. I'm just
(44:30):
really doing my best to talk back in action, you know,
to talk back in action.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love that your working definition of hope right now
is fully within your power. Right. It has nothing to
do with whether the world is beautiful in this moment
or not.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yeah, there's a lot I don't have control over. So
I don't want to leave. I don't want to sort
of conflate hope with any sense of luck.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
That makes me nervous.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So I'd like to think about what can I do
that is in my own power. Joy Harjoe has written
about writing as a form of sovereignty, and.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I just sit with that.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I guess need to look on your face, just sitting
with that, like, I want to think more about sovereignty
and less about chance. What decisions can I make for myself,
taking responsibility for myself and my own happiness.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Sovereignty and agency, man, I that is what hope is
for me these days, is like what yeah, yeah, sovereignty
is where it is at all? Right, I am going
to carry around what you just said in my own pocket,
probably not printed because I don't know where my printer is,
but written out and stuck in my pocket. So I'm
(45:52):
going to be I'm going to be carrying your words
around with me in my pocket, and they're also in
my bag and on the night stand.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Well, I'm going to be carrying this conversation around with me.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
You.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
I am so glad. Okay, we are going to link
to all of your books in the show notes, but
could you let people know where to find you and
anything else you would like them to know.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I am findable as Maggie Smith poet on the Internet,
which I lovingly call al Gore's Internet.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
There's a subtweet for those of you who know what
she's talking.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
About, So yes, to not get confused with the Dame. Right,
I get a fair amount of Downton Abby and Harry
Potter fan mail that I do not deserve. So I'm
Maggie Smith Poet on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Maggie Smithpoet
dot com on the Internet. I'm on substack at for
(46:53):
dear life. That is, that is my substack. It is
how I hold on in this world for dear life,
and also how I like to think of myself as
living for this dear life. And yeah, that's pretty much
how I can be located.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Excellent, all right, we will link to all of that
stuff in the show notes. Maggie, I'm so glad to
have you here in this world and in my life.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
So glad.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Okay, friends, stay tuned for your questions to carry with you.
We will be right back after this break in which
I go weep a little bit with happiness at this conversation.
Be right back each week. I leave you with some
questions to carry with you until we meet again. You
(47:46):
know what, My favorite part of this conversation was the
part where Maggie and I talked about what it's like
to know that people are carrying your words around with
them like a talisman, something grounding and nourishing in the
face of whatever impossible thing you're living. Maggie and I
have this sort of random, obscure thing in common. We've
(48:07):
both received photos of people who had our words tattooed
on their bodies. Like Maggie was telling me how she's
received a lot of tattoos where people have like had
you could make this place beautiful tattooed on their flesh.
It's just it's really powerful to connect with someone whose
(48:29):
words have been used in that way. It just felt
really special to me. All of this conversation felt special
to me. I was telling Maggie that reading her work
lit up a desire in me to write more and
to say more, which is a creative spark that's felt
kind of dormant in me for a long time. That
felt really hopeful. How about you, friends, what stuck with
(48:52):
you from this conversation. Everybody's gonna take something different from
the show, but I do hope you found something to
hold on to. If you want to tell me how
today's show felt for you, or you have thoughts on
what we covered, let me know. Tag at Refuge and
Grief on all the social platforms so I can hear
how this conversation affected you. And please remember to leave
a review. The season's guests are truly next level, and
(49:16):
reviews are a good way to let me know how
these guests are affecting you. Follow the show at It's
Okay Pod on TikTok and refuge Grief everywhere else to
see video clips from the show, and use the hashtag
It's Okay pod on all the platforms, so not only
I can finde you, but others can too. None of
us are entirely okay, and it's time we started talking
(49:38):
about that together, right, It's okay that you're not okay.
You're in good company. That's it for this week. Everybody,
remember to subscribe to the show, share it with the
people you know. Coming up next week, Rachel cargol I
tell you this season's guests are stellar. Follow the show
(50:01):
on your favorite platforms so you do not miss an episode.
Want more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As
my dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief
that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about
all that without accidentally grief, gasolating somebody or gaslighting yourself.
That's an important skill for everybody. Get help to have
(50:23):
those conversations with trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book,
It's Okay that You're Not Okay. Plus the Guided Journal
for Grief at Megandivine dot Co. It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. The podcast is written and produced by me
Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by
Elizabeth Fozzio, with logistical and social media support from Micah,
(50:45):
Post production and editing by the ever patient Houston Tilly.
And next week we have a new intern to announce,
So if you are one of those people who listens
all the way to the closing credits yay, you're the
first to know that we have a new addition to
our team. As always, music provided by Wave Crush and
background noise provided by these sounds of summer break happening
(51:08):
in my neighborhood
One thing that would evaporate really quickly would be what
does not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (00:06):
Woof gone?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This is it's okay that you're not okay? And I'm
your host, Megan Divine. This week, how do we live
in a world that's at least half terrible? If you
recognize that line, you know the special treat we have
in store. My guest is poet Maggie Smith. Maggie is
the author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful and
the poem from which my opening line comes Good Bones.
(00:45):
Today on the show, we're talking about writing and marriage
and divorce and why you did not need whatever has
happened to you in order to become who you're meant
to be, Settle in friends. All of that and more
coming up right after this first break. Before we get started,
(01:08):
one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
relational territory in our time here together, this show is
not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental
health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Hey friends, I met Maggie Smith the same way millions
of other people did through her poem Good Bones. Now
(01:31):
you probably know this poem, but if you need a
reminder or a refresher, it begins Life is short. Though
I keep this from my children. Life is short, and
I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill advised ways,
A thousand deliciously ill advised ways I keep from my children.
The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's
(01:53):
a conservative estimate. Though I keep this from my children.
I bet you recognize that just from the opening lines.
Right in this episode, you're going to learn the backstory
to that poem, good Bones, and why, as Maggie says,
it's a barometer of the grief in the world, a
sign that something terrible has happened, like when that poem
(02:14):
goes viral again. And how weird it is to have
professional success based largely on something that broke your heart.
Maggie and I also discuss her new book, You Could
Make This Place Beautiful, which details the dissolution of her
marriage and the creation are really like the resurrection of
herself as a writer. We get into so many things
(02:36):
in this conversation that made my writer heart deliriously happy.
I was a fan of Maggie Smith before this conversation,
and she means so much more to me having had
this chance to connect. So I hope you love this
episode and love Maggie. Be sure to let me know
what you think. And speaking of letting me know what
you think, please leave a review of the show wherever
(02:58):
you get podcasts. I haven't seen any new reviews lately,
and that is one great way to tell me how
this season's guests are affecting you. All Right, on with
the show with the stellar Maggie Smith. Okay, So I
have been following you on social media and reading your
books and using lines of yours as starting places for
(03:19):
my own writing and also when I teach writing. So
I feel like I've known you for a long time,
even though we just met. So I'm just this is
my way of saying, I'm ridiculously happy to be here
with you today.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Ah same.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I want to address something right off the bat because
it is one of my absolute favorite things about you.
I feel like ninety nine percent of memoir writing is
like finding beauty inside terrible times.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Like I grew so much as a person.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
It was difficult, but I love it and I hate
that stuff. I kind of knew this before I started
reading You could make this Place beautiful, But I as
I was reading it in a coffee shop, I actually
yelled various things, various variations of like Amon's sister Yea,
absolutely out loud so many times in crowded coffee shops.
(04:11):
When you write your personal story, it does not have
to be about being worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, I think we have a sort of cultural obsession
with before and after, like like the before and after
photo of the made over kitchen, the before and after
images of the haircut, the before and after really of anything,
and same with same with storytelling. Right, It's like before
(04:38):
I was this, and then I figured it all out,
and after I was this. And so I feel like
the traditional narrative expectation of a memoir that that you
write out of a painful crisis in your life would
be like I was a caterpillar and then I wrote
this book and figured myself out, and then I emerged
at the end of the book Butterfly. But I am
(05:01):
still a caterpillar. I am just a more fully realized,
more self aware, more whole and boundaried caterpillar.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
One of the most popular memes on my own social
is like this picture of a chrysalis and it's like,
you know, standing outside the chrysalis shouting you're a butterfly
does not hasten anything. It just pisses off the goo
or something like that.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Oh yeah, because it's actually liquefied and so yeah, so
maybe I'm actually just the goo at this point. But
I do think we put a lot of pressure on
ourselves to metabolize experience in a way that makes us
quote better, as if just surviving it is not enough.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, there's that second half of the sentence of you
needed this because who you were before this happened wasn't
good enough.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Oh gosh, you needed this. That is just that's really something,
isn't it. I Mean I write about in the book
the sort of idea of material, and I have had
this said to me. I have friends who have written
about pretty traumatic things who have had this said to them,
which is, at least you got a book out of it,
(06:15):
or at least this experience wasn't wasted on someone who
isn't a writer, an artist, a filmmaker. You know, whatever
you do that you make things from your experience. And
I've been thinking a lot about that and how well
meaning I think that statement is, but also how offensive.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I find that offensive.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And I was thinking about it recently and thinking, actually,
I don't think of myself as I didn't get a
book out of my life imploding. I made a book
out of my life imploding. And it's a very just
pretty subtle verb shift there, but it feels a whole
(06:59):
lot like a verb shift I find helpful, which is,
oh gosh, my life imploded. Now I have to reimagine it.
I have to rebuild it, as opposed to oh my gosh,
my life imploded. Now I get to reimagine it. I
get to do something different, not that I wanted to,
(07:21):
but sometimes reframing it that way from myself is helpful.
If I see the like little hidden gifts inside the disaster,
it doesn't make the disaster worth it necessarily, you know, don't.
I don't think I needed this. I certainly didn't need
it as writing material. I could have written a book
about anything.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
You know.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
My kids didn't need this. None of us needed this.
We are not better or stronger because of it, not
in any way that makes it worth it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
No, this need to put a value, judgment, a transactional
value on what you do with what happens, right, Like,
I love that you wrote what did I not get
to write? Because this was what was mine to write.
I love that Like literally the night of my partner's funeral,
more than one person came up to me and said,
(08:11):
this is going to make you such a better therapist.
You're going to get to write. And also like I'm.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Angry on your behalf.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Thank you, thank you. So I got the like because
I was a writer before he died, and because I
was a therapist before he died, like those twin things
of this is going to make you so much better.
You're going to be such a gift to the world.
And I feel like you know this is this is
related territory that you write so evocatively and so beautifully.
(08:40):
But what did you not get to write? Because this
was yours to write? And I just like, I love
that so much. You also said you mentioned your kids
in here, and you said I would rather they not
learn to be so resilient. I would rather they learn
more about security and safety and be a little less resilient.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, I don't want resilient children. If resilience is what
we call it when we put kids through things, yeah,
or you know, because of the laws in this country
refuse to protect them adequately, and then we're supposed to
pat ourselves on the back because our kids are so
strong out of just sheer necessity.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's not a gift.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I mean that resilience and it's not like that resilience
narrative is like what we push on everybody who is
experiencing something they should not be experiencing. But instead of
looking at that, I mean, right now, I'm thinking about
the black maternal health crisis, right and like how much
we raise black women for being resilient instead of dealing
(09:41):
with the fact that our systems put them in harm's
way for which they need to become more resilient so
it doesn't crush them. Like this whole resilience thing. I
was talking with a guest earlier this season about what
we applaud as resilience is actually the imprint of trauma.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Oh that's real.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Actually, my daughter said, you know when and she's fourteen,
and she said, you know, when people say kids are
old souls, it's because they've experienced trauma and I thought
that's right, Like when you have to grow up fast,
it's not a compliment that you can talk like an
adult or function like an adult. It's not a compliment
(10:19):
if you are eight and helping to raise your three
younger siblings because this country has no real support, especially
for single parents, but for working people period. Like, that's
not that's not a gift, that that's trauma.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, I wonder what would be different if we framed
it as that, Like how many words of support or
platitudes or condolences, Like how many of those phrases would
just evaporate if we understood that what we are celebrating
the things you create because this happened to you. What
(11:00):
a gift was hidden in that pain? Like if we
understood the mechanism that was actually happening, Like so so
much of our our ideas, our vocabulary around caring for
each other would disappear in favor of something else.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, one thing that would evaporate really quickly would be
what does.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Not kill you makes you stronger?
Speaker 2 (11:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Woof gone?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Right? Because what if what does not kill you actually
causes you a lot of pain and anxiety and you
have to carry that around and find ways to endure it.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
I think you're absolutely right about that, So that whole
we get impacted by the things that happen to us,
right like that which does not kill you makes you
stronger is such biological, relational, mental, emotional trash. But there's
a section in your book, and I'm totally going to
bring this back around, but there's a section in your
book about your miscarriage, and I think that section encapsulated
(12:04):
such a gorgeous example of what you just said about
what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. You talk about,
you know, being pregnant with your son, having lived through
two miscarriages previously, you can't un know what you know.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, it completely colored my experience of being pregnant with
him because the entire time I just thought, at any minute,
this is going to end. It just gave me, and
it gave me not the kind of joyous, expectant, happy
pregnant experience I had with my daughter. It was a
(12:41):
very anxiety filled, cortisol soaked pregnancy experience because I just
kept waiting for the other shoe to drop until the
very very end.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And that changes you.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, we get changed by the things we experience, And
I think in this culture, we don't think we should
get changed by the things we experience unless the only
the only change that's acceptable is like stronger, bigger, better
than right, like this whole positive trajectory, which is just
not what life is.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Yeah, you know, trauma does not give you a glow up.
That's that's the takeaway the tld R.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Trauma does not give anyone.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
A glow up. I love that. That's perfect. I feel
like that should be tattooed somewhere or like. That is
a motivational that's a motivational thank you. That is a
motivational poster that I could get behind. Trauma does not
give you a glow up.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You feel free. I gift that to you.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Yeah, I mean if the lemons to the lemons to
lemonade thing. You know, when I wrote keep Moving, someone
really in a well meaning complimentary way, said, wow, you
really took those lemons and made lemonade. And then I
think she said and then added m F vodka to it,
And I.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Laughed because I knew what she meant.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah right, I knew what she meant, Like she's she
meant you took straw and spun it into gold. You
took something terrible and made it into something that helped
you and your kids during a possible time. And yes,
I mean that is true, like there's there's no lie there.
That is absolutely true. But the other thing that is
(14:22):
true is that I didn't want that lemonade.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
I could have had some other drink.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Right, we go back to that what did you not
get to live? Because this is what you had to
live and the fact that you are a writer like
writers have to write. Yeah, right, Like, this is how
we understand the world. This is how we metabolize what happens.
This is how we understand things. So it's not that
you get to write this because of what you lived.
(14:49):
It's that I am living this and words are how
I know to consume it or to be in it.
I'm speaking of words like I like word a phase
right there? But yeah, does that feel accurate?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It does.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I mean I don't often know what I think or
feel clearly until I've written it down and then I'm like, oh,
that's what it is. Somehow my processing really works through
my right hand and my pen onto paper, which makes
this a challenge. Right, I have I'm thinking on the
fly here, I'm I'm not writing, but yeah, I don't.
(15:24):
I don't often know how I feel about something. And
for me, this particular book felt like a large armoire
parked in front of a doorway. And it's not so
much that I wanted to write this book. It was
the book I had to write so I could write
other books, almost like a clearing, you know, like I
(15:47):
had to move this giant piece of furniture away from
the doorway so I could go through it. And I
don't think I could have. I could have just busy
myself with other things while living the experiences that I
write about in this book without processing them on paper.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
One of those things that I super love about you
is where I started write, like your work is not
the typical transformation narrative right where I learned some lessons
I grew as a person. Everything's good now I can
look back and say thank you to it and be
grateful for like all of that stuff, the power in
(16:30):
your work, in your stories, in the ways that you
speak about your life. For me, one of the one
of the big things is that you don't make lemonade
is that you're able to traverse that both and yes
and territory that people try to rush out of so quickly,
or insist that we rush out of so quickly, Like
(16:50):
that both of these things can be true. That I
am so thankful for my family, for the person I am,
for the words that I say, and none of this
is awesome, Like this isn't anything that I wanted. We
just spent a whole bunch of time talking about, Like
this is not a transformation story. This is not a
thank you letter to my pain for teaching me who
(17:13):
I really wanted to be. Like all of this stuff,
And at the very same time, there's something very cool
about seeing the impact of your words and your story
and the way that you tell it, seeing the impact
on the world. So I want to take a scene
from your new book, if I might, where you describe
(17:33):
watching a character on Madame Secretary read your poem good Bones.
I know you know what I'm talking about here, But
you knew your poem would be in there, but you
didn't know how or where. But what you expected was
really different from what happened. Can you tell me about that?
This is my favorite scene in the whole book.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I thought, because Good Bones traveled really via internet, right,
I mean, it was something that went viral online, So
all I knew was that it.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Was going to be in the episode.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
I had no idea who would say it. I didn't
know how it would appear. And I think part of
me expected, first of all, a woman to be sharing it,
because it is a poem spoken by a mother's speaker.
And I also expected it to be read off of
a phone or a computer screen, like oh, here, look
at this tweet or here's something that is someone sent
(18:23):
me on Facebook. And so in the scene, a male character,
the chief of staff, opens his wallet and pulls out
this piece of paper and at that time, I think
I'm watching it, and I'd had a little champagne. At
that point, I think I'm watching it, and I'm thinking,
is this Wait? Is this the scene? Every time someone moves,
(18:47):
I'm thinking, is this it?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Is this it? And he pulls this piece of.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Paper out of his wallet and unfolds it and says
something like, you know, this reminds me of this poem
by Maggie Smith called good Bones, and he reads the
poem from this piece of paper from his wallet, and it,
I mean, I just balked. I just absolutely cried, because
first of all, it was a man, which I did
not see coming. Second of all, it was something that
(19:14):
was not living on a screen. It was something he'd
thought to print and cut small and carry with him,
you know, like a little talisman, the way I carry
things that mean, you know, like a little note from
my son, or an acorn he might find, or something
that was so unexpected and so touching to me. I'm
(19:38):
still not over it.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, yeah, Like there is an intensity there of like
knowing that your words, like this little pocket of your
life is carried around so intimately, like that your words
make survival for someone. Can we talk about that, because man,
(20:00):
it's intense.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It is intense.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I have such a strange relationship with that poem.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
In general.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
It's kind of a disaster barometer, kind of a grief barometer.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Really.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's like the grief bat signal on the Internet, where
if my social media mentions ramp up really high, there's
a good chance something bad has happened in the world
because people are sharing my work as it's sort of
like a sense of community or solace or comfort or
(20:36):
hope or here we are again, particularly if it's that poem.
And so for years, every time people shared that, I
would get this sort of pit in my stomach and
immediately go to some news network to find out what
it happened. Whereas if I had written a poem that
(20:57):
was celebrated and shared widely when babies were born or
people got married, or you know, it would have given
me a different feeling when I saw it being shared widely.
But when a piece of work that you've made is shared,
you know, after every school shooting, it's hard to be
(21:18):
happy about expanding your readership via your own nation's refusal
to enact gun control, for example. And then now for
people who have read the memoir, you know that palm
also had an impact on my marriage because my career
(21:39):
sort of like overnight, my readership just became much wider,
and I was asked to travel and do more things
in a really unexpected way, not in the way that
you would be able to plan for tenure, or plan
for a promotion, or you know, even plan for a
second child. You know, there are things that we can
plan for in our lives when we know a big
(21:59):
che is coming, and a poem going viral overnight is
not one of them. And the growing pains from that
had a big impact on my life. So I've had
a weird relationship with that poem for a long time,
and I guess my hope with the memoir is that
there might be people because the title you could Make
(22:21):
This Place Beautiful is from the poem, there might be
people who find the poem via this book and have
a completely different relationship with it that has nothing to
do with grief in that way. In some ways, titling
the book the line from that poem was a kind
(22:43):
of reclamation for me because I am proud of the poem.
It's just a hard thing to sort of have traveling
in the world with my name on it. Given why it.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Travels, I had not thought of that.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's a blessing.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I do understand that people are sharing it because it
gives them a sense of hope and comfort.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
So there's that.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I do get that, But it is still hard, particularly
to have your I mean, success feels like a strange word,
but to sort of like it's like our having a
hit radio song, right to have your hit radio song
be taps, you know, something that is shared because of
(23:29):
shared collective grief.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, And it's it's interesting because like you just articulated
that in a way that through my whole career I
haven't quite put into words like how weird it is
to have such professional success, because that success means that
(23:54):
people are in pain right when they reach for your words,
because the worst has happened. Yes, you know, one of
the things that that I will say sometimes to people
is I hope you never need me, right, because if
this work is settling into your heart, it's because your
your heart has need. Yeah, you see you're seeking it,
(24:18):
and it's it's a very it is a very strange profession.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Yeah, it's really weird.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
And glorious and wonderful because we know that unsurvivable things happen.
We know that people get sick, and this country will
always value guns over children, and we we just we
know all of this stuff and if there is something
that we can offer that lays down beside that, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Oh I like the way you put that. Thank you. Yeah,
you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We do weird work.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
I know, And I mean in my case, its and
and largely unwittingly.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah, mine is on purpose. Yours was not on purpose,
not at all.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I mean, just you know, Hey, I'm a mom in Ohio.
I wrote a poem thinking about what it is to
bring kids into a world that, in my words, is
at least half terrible in a concern And how do
I And that's the conservative estimate and getting you know,
sometimes more conservative by the day, and what is that like?
(25:23):
And really not speaking for anyone other than me, And
so yeah, I'm very unwitting that it has had the
life that it's had.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yeah, before we get back to my conversation with Maggie Smith,
I want to talk with you about writing, specifically writing
from something that broke your heart the way Maggie and
I have been discussing. Over the last eight years, more
(25:54):
than fifteen thousand people have used the writing prompts in
my Writing Your Grief course to explore not just their
grief but also their identities, their beliefs, their relationships with themselves. Now,
I'm definitely biased because I created it, but I do
truly believe that this thirty day course will help you
inhabit your grief in a new way. It's not going
to fix anything, but writing does make things different. This
(26:18):
self guided Writing your Grief course is always available wherever
you are, whenever you're ready, whenever you're actually not ready,
but you want to explore things anyway, check it out,
Visit refugegrief dot com backslash WYG. That's WYG the initials
for Writing your Grief, or just check the link in
the show notes. All right, back to my conversation with
(26:41):
the stellar Maggie Smith. It's interesting that you said, you know,
I'm a mom out here in the Midwest talking about
something very intimate. And one of the things about writing
intimate things on the public stage is that people think
they know you because you've written these pieces. I remember
Cheryl straight saying when Wild came out that people thought
(27:02):
they knew her because of what she wrote in that book,
like they thought they were friends. So we write these
intimate things, but we are not intimates. It's a strange thing,
right have you found that, like while you while you're
becoming more and more visible, that like, oh.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yes, yeah, my friends call me now the divorce Whisperer, and.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
I'll tell you it's to a whole lane of T shirts.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
I know, like where's my lifetime show? Yeah, And I
have to say, it doesn't feel like a burden. It
really kind of feels like a gift. And do I
respond always no, but I do respond a lot. I mean,
people will slide into my dms with stories or saying
this released you know, this was, this book was my
divorce bible, or I give this book to everyone going
(27:51):
through the thing, or my situation is so much like
yours and I feel so seen, or my situation is
so different from yours, but the emotions you expressed are
so like mine, and I feel so seen. And to me,
that really is a gift. It doesn't feel like a
burden because what I go to books for, and music, frankly,
(28:16):
and art and film is to sort of interpret my experience,
to sort of translate my own life vis a vis
these other people's made things. And so if people are
able to do that through my made things, it just
(28:39):
makes me feel like I'm part of some strange cycle
of experience, metabolize make, experience, metabolize make, and.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
I'm taking in things all the time.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
You know, there are books that have saved me. There
are records that have saved me. I don't always slide
into people's dms, but I definitely have a lot of
people out there that their work has meant something critical
to me has just sort of floated down into my
hands at just the right time. So to be that
(29:13):
for someone else when I know what it feels like
to be the receiver of that gift is like really humbling.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yes, yes, even after all of the years of doing
this work and all of the dms and all of
the comments, Like my assistant knows to save the really
like the really good ones or something that we haven't
seen before and collects them and sends them to me,
because there's just there is something about that knowing that
(29:42):
something I said or something I created is a life
raft for somebody else right now, matter like it mattered,
it changed something, it made something survivable, It set off
some chain of thoughts like that. You know, It's like
the great ping pong game of life, life with multiple
balls in a never ending arena right like there, We're
(30:03):
always impacting each other and picking up things and carrying them,
knowing how impacted I've been just what you just said
like that, Knowing how impact I've been by other people's words,
and how much the right sentence can arrive and change
the world.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Oh my gosh, it's everything.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
I have a post it note that I can see
from my desk that's on my wall or on my
office window. So what's beautiful about it is that I
can see, like scene behind it, and it's my neighbor's
magnolia trees. But it's realca let everything happened to you.
Beauty and terror just keep going. No feeling is final.
(30:44):
It lives on my window. It's lived there for years.
I see it every day and it means something to me,
and it means something different to me every day, because
some days are beauty days and some days are terror days,
and some days toggle you know, but just yeah, I
carry words around me, you know, with me like a
(31:06):
talisman all the time. So to think that somebody might
carry mine, what a gift.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, it really is amazing. I love that there's a
social media post you did. You shared that somebody has
your words tattooed on their arm, and I feel like
I feel like there's like a rite of passage for
rat authors there. Like the first time you see your
work tattooed on somebody else's body, it's like, what just
happened here?
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, book tour has been wild. I've seen like three
so far in the past ten days, and that is
wild for me. I mean just absolutely wild to have
someone come up into your signing line with your book
title on their arm, as someone whose arms are covered
(31:50):
in tattoos, but not the words of other people. I
know the amount of thinking that goes into and weighing.
You know, a post it note on the wind there
was one thing, but uh ink on the skin is
something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
I love that real Quo quote too, and I'm not
even gonna dissect it because there's so many different ways
we could go with that, but it makes me think of,
you know, no feeling as final. It also points to
there is a foundational bedrock of self that is experiencing
all the things that is unchanging. And something that I
(32:31):
love in this book is like finding yourself is the
through line, not finding yourself, not the act of finding yourself,
but that you, yourself are the through line through all
parts of your life.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, that's honestly, as someone who was not a therapist,
I find writing like this. I'm often asked questions, particularly
by journalists, like what advice do you have for people
going through hard times? And I'm always like, I don't
feel qualified. I am not a social worker, i am
not a therapist. I'm a poet. I'm not sure you
(33:09):
want the advice of a poet on these large life matters.
But for me, the thing I tell my friends or
people who reach out to me or slide into my
DMS and they're saying they're going through it, you know,
whatever it is. It might be divorce or pregnancy, loss
or lost job or you know, whatever the thing is.
(33:31):
My biggest impulse is always to think, like you you
predated whatever this trouble is. And you are talking to
me from maybe inside it or maybe just on the
other side of it, but like, you predated this thing.
Like imagine the history book timeline. There's a dot for
(33:55):
you that is the beginning of the timeline in your life,
and you're you're going to outlast whatever this is, you know,
and it is that continuity of self.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
It's continuity and it's not stop feeling so many things
about what's happening right now, because you survived this and
do you know what I mean? Like it's not no,
you don't feel never the feelings. Yeah, you never use that.
You never use any of your work, but you never
use that you predated this experience. You never use that
as a like bypassing gloss over. I remember, I remember,
(34:29):
oh my gosh, poor people. One of Matt's uncles took
me out to breakfast about maybe two months after he died,
and we're sitting there at breakfast like I'm still a
complete wreck. And his partner at the time they're both therapists, right,
And his partner at the time looks at me and says,
what did you want to be when you were a kid?
What did you want to grow up to be? With
(34:50):
that like therapist head tilt? And I was like, excuse me,
and she was like.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Maybe tad tilt.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Maybe you get to be something now, wow that you
didn't get to be before. So who were you before
you met Matt? Because I bet that person would like
a chance to live. And I'm like, what the fuck?
So when I hear people other than you, people other
than you, talk about things like yourself predated this experience,
(35:18):
like you are not talking about the noneness of what
you're experiencing right now, Like you don't say that as
a way to get over this, but no, Like it's
not a bypass, it's not a bypass. I read that
I hear you as an excavation, Like I'm talking a
lot about myself here, which tells you how much your
work affects me and intersects with me. But like when
(35:40):
my partner died. I was completely obliterated, completely obliterated, and
it took a couple of years for the core parts
of me to resurface. And I just remember being so
thankful that that core self survived. I have no idea
how it did, but it did, and being so thankful
(36:03):
for that and so thankful for that through line of self.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I don't know if we talk enough about the sort
of identity hit or at least sort of identity shift
that loss inevitably, whatever kind of loss it is, you know,
whether it's pregnancy loss or in my case, the loss
of my marriage, but certainly any kind of loss, like
(36:30):
because one of the questions is like, well, who am
I now without this? Who am I now without this person?
Who am I now?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
What now?
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Right? Because what you also lose is not the person.
What you lose is the future that you had imagined
having poof.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
One of the gifts of writing through the worst, I think,
is the sort of gift to being able to contextualize.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
In a way.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
You go to a country in Europe and then you
come back and you look at a map and you think, oh,
I was that close to all these other places. I
had no idea where I was in relation to anywhere else,
And the act of sort of writing over years of
your life and thinking about things in this sort of
big picture way, in some way, I think, is an
(37:27):
invitation to think about how the different pieces of us
are interconnected.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I was really.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
Thinking about the mother piece of me, and the partner
piece of me, and the writer piece of me, but
also others like who was I as a daughter? Who
am I as a daughter? Who what kind of friend
am I? And also how are all of these things interconnected?
I'm only one person? How do I integrate better? Maybe
(37:59):
going forward and sort of compartmentalize less.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
M Yeah, like this continual process of excavation and assessment
is the wrong word because it sounds really cerebral, but
I don't know what to work the.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Right word, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I was talking to someone the other day and she said,
I think memoir in particular has two essential components, and
I was like, oh, no, there's a recipe I was
not aware of before writing mine.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
Damn.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Here I am thinking.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
It's like when it's like when you make cookies and
they're like every cookie has two essential ingredients, and you're
sitting there thinking, I hope these cookies have those two ingredients.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
And she said.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Self assessment and societal interrogation.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Ooh, And I said, oh good, I have both.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You do.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
On accident again.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
All the best things happen when you don't know you're
doing it well.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
With those two requirements, I'm writing memoir all the time,
So that's good without actually writing one.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
I love this for me because we can't assess ourselves
outside of our conditioning, outside of what we're culturally rewarded for. Yeah,
those two things actually do travel together, and I think
to get honest about our lives, we have to look
at both. Nobody exists in isolation.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
And writing this way, speaking this way, talking about this stuff,
like refusing that transformation tell all narrative thing in a
meta sort of way, like that is a social confrontation,
a social whatever that is because we're allowing we're allowing
other people to access their own questions about what are
(39:45):
the constructs that I grew up with? Do I have
to transform from this loss? Am I allowed to be
both things?
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Right?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah? And am I allowed to ask these questions? And
I feel like the are you always listening to you?
On a Kate Bowler's show, and I love her. Isn't
she the best?
Speaker 3 (40:04):
It's the best?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Fricking love her three seasons into this podcast and her
episode is still our most listened to. I just adore her.
But anyway, she I can't remember which one of you
said it, but something like there are years that ask
questions and years that answer oh yes, Hirston right, And
you were like, and then there are years that keep
questioning and won't stop questioning or whatever you said, and
(40:26):
I was just like that, this isn't this work that
we do of taking intimate personal experiences and showing our
hand in our way, right, like putting your hand into
your pocket, coming out with something and showing it to
me in its best form. It encourages people to ask
(40:48):
questions about their own lives.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yes, yes, it should be permission giving. Yeah, yeah, I
mean I think I think.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
For me, the the best writing, the best art for
me is permission giving, whether in content or inform. Right,
something about the way that someone has disclosed something to
me or described something to me, or built something for
me to move around inside of gives me permission either
(41:21):
to make my own thing however I see fit like, oh,
they took some risks now, I guess I can take
some risks too, or to just say the thing I
didn't think could be said. I read so many books
preparing to write this one, in which usually a woman
(41:43):
said something about her life and herself that I thought, well,
if she could say that, I can certainly say what
I want to say, you know, and just talk back
to the fear.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
You might know this one who said this one? That's
something like what would happen of one woman to the
whole truth about her life? The world would break open.
I just butchered it.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
But do you know that, No, I've heard it. I
don't know who said it.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I'll look it up and make sure it's in the
show notes.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
But it's such a when you look it up, when
you say, and then Maggie remembered and put that in
the show notes.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
Yes, just lie totally. I'll totally. I'll totally lie about it.
Or I remembered I quoted it correctly.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I cited both of those quote correctly quoted and attributed.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
We really did. We did proper citation and props and respect.
We totally did. But it is that it is this
like I remember reading or receiving that line. You know,
thirty years ago when I was a young undergrad, right,
and like, what would happen if you told the whole
truth about your life? Or in what you just one
(42:47):
exactly I was just going to say, like one sentence
of the truth, what would happen? And that is so
much in your work, that permission giving on so many
different levels, and we could seriously talk forever, but I
want to get into our very last question for today,
for our time together. Knowing what you know and living
(43:09):
what you've lived, and knowing that there is a whole
life that we don't get to live because of the
lives that we have. Throwing that in there, what does
hope look like for you today?
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Taking responsibility for my own life, that's what hope looks
like to me. I'm making better decisions for myself. I'm
asking better, harder questions of myself. And one of the
biggest things for me, I think for years, I know
for years I made a lot of decisions based on
(43:45):
fear and even what I would call like lowercase f fear,
you know, like what if they don't like me, what
if they judge me? Just silliness. Really, what I see
now in my mid forties is silliness. Really trying now
to make decisions from that core of what do I want?
(44:08):
What do I visualize for my life? What do I
want for my kids? How can I help get us there?
And if the fear voice starts to speak up, as
it often does, it gets so loud, Like, I don't
know why, of all the little voices inside me, the
fear voice is the loudest. Such a yammorer. I'm just
(44:30):
really doing my best to talk back in action, you know,
to talk back in action.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I love that your working definition of hope right now
is fully within your power. Right. It has nothing to
do with whether the world is beautiful in this moment
or not.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yeah, there's a lot I don't have control over. So
I don't want to leave. I don't want to sort
of conflate hope with any sense of luck.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
That makes me nervous.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
So I'd like to think about what can I do
that is in my own power. Joy Harjoe has written
about writing as a form of sovereignty, and.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I just sit with that.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I guess need to look on your face, just sitting
with that, like, I want to think more about sovereignty
and less about chance. What decisions can I make for myself,
taking responsibility for myself and my own happiness.
Speaker 2 (45:30):
Sovereignty and agency, man, I that is what hope is
for me these days, is like what yeah, yeah, sovereignty
is where it is at all? Right, I am going
to carry around what you just said in my own pocket,
probably not printed because I don't know where my printer is,
but written out and stuck in my pocket. So I'm
(45:52):
going to be I'm going to be carrying your words
around with me in my pocket, and they're also in
my bag and on the night stand.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
Well, I'm going to be carrying this conversation around with me.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
You.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
I am so glad. Okay, we are going to link
to all of your books in the show notes, but
could you let people know where to find you and
anything else you would like them to know.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I am findable as Maggie Smith poet on the Internet,
which I lovingly call al Gore's Internet.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
There's a subtweet for those of you who know what
she's talking.
Speaker 1 (46:32):
About, So yes, to not get confused with the Dame. Right,
I get a fair amount of Downton Abby and Harry
Potter fan mail that I do not deserve. So I'm
Maggie Smith Poet on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Maggie Smithpoet
dot com on the Internet. I'm on substack at for
(46:53):
dear life. That is, that is my substack. It is
how I hold on in this world for dear life,
and also how I like to think of myself as
living for this dear life. And yeah, that's pretty much
how I can be located.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Excellent, all right, we will link to all of that
stuff in the show notes. Maggie, I'm so glad to
have you here in this world and in my life.
Speaker 1 (47:21):
So glad.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Okay, friends, stay tuned for your questions to carry with you.
We will be right back after this break in which
I go weep a little bit with happiness at this conversation.
Be right back each week. I leave you with some
questions to carry with you until we meet again. You
(47:46):
know what, My favorite part of this conversation was the
part where Maggie and I talked about what it's like
to know that people are carrying your words around with
them like a talisman, something grounding and nourishing in the
face of whatever impossible thing you're living. Maggie and I
have this sort of random, obscure thing in common. We've
(48:07):
both received photos of people who had our words tattooed
on their bodies. Like Maggie was telling me how she's
received a lot of tattoos where people have like had
you could make this place beautiful tattooed on their flesh.
It's just it's really powerful to connect with someone whose
(48:29):
words have been used in that way. It just felt
really special to me. All of this conversation felt special
to me. I was telling Maggie that reading her work
lit up a desire in me to write more and
to say more, which is a creative spark that's felt
kind of dormant in me for a long time. That
felt really hopeful. How about you, friends, what stuck with
(48:52):
you from this conversation. Everybody's gonna take something different from
the show, but I do hope you found something to
hold on to. If you want to tell me how
today's show felt for you, or you have thoughts on
what we covered, let me know. Tag at Refuge and
Grief on all the social platforms so I can hear
how this conversation affected you. And please remember to leave
a review. The season's guests are truly next level, and
(49:16):
reviews are a good way to let me know how
these guests are affecting you. Follow the show at It's
Okay Pod on TikTok and refuge Grief everywhere else to
see video clips from the show, and use the hashtag
It's Okay pod on all the platforms, so not only
I can finde you, but others can too. None of
us are entirely okay, and it's time we started talking
(49:38):
about that together, right, It's okay that you're not okay.
You're in good company. That's it for this week. Everybody,
remember to subscribe to the show, share it with the
people you know. Coming up next week, Rachel cargol I
tell you this season's guests are stellar. Follow the show
(50:01):
on your favorite platforms so you do not miss an episode.
Want more on these topics, Look, grief is everywhere. As
my dad says, daily life is full of everyday grief
that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk about
all that without accidentally grief, gasolating somebody or gaslighting yourself.
That's an important skill for everybody. Get help to have
(50:23):
those conversations with trainings, professional resources, and my best selling book,
It's Okay that You're Not Okay. Plus the Guided Journal
for Grief at Megandivine dot Co. It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. The podcast is written and produced by me
Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by
Elizabeth Fozzio, with logistical and social media support from Micah,
(50:45):
Post production and editing by the ever patient Houston Tilly.
And next week we have a new intern to announce,
So if you are one of those people who listens
all the way to the closing credits yay, you're the
first to know that we have a new addition to
our team. As always, music provided by Wave Crush and
background noise provided by these sounds of summer break happening
(51:08):
in my neighborhood
Host
Megan Devine
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