Glynnis MacNicol

Author Glynnis MacNicol is living her dream! Over 40, single, childfree, enjoying her freedom, and living life to the fullest, and she's written a memoir all about it!

The author, journalist, and podcaster joins Sophia to chat about her new book, "I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself," which chronicles her time in Paris in pursuit of pleasure! She reveals what led her to leave her life in New York for Paris, how her experiences challenge societal assumptions about women of a certain age, why she thinks her book is resonating with readers, and the satisfaction of claiming your freedom and finding joy in aging!

"I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself: One Woman's Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris" is available for purchase now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to work in Progress Whip Smarties.
Today we are joined by one of my writing crushes.

(00:20):
I'm so excited that she's here. I may have to
take a deep brother or two before we get into
this interview. Today's guest is none other than Glynnis McNichol.
She wrote the incredible memoir No One Tells You This
about turning forty, and as you know from many of
the stories I share, it's pretty fabulous. And her forthcoming
book called I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself is absolutely unbelievable.

(00:48):
The book is about one woman's pursuit of pleasure in Paris.
She is determined to take pleasure in everything and everyone
that she encounters, most importantly, including her self. The book
is joyful, subversive, honestly singular. In it, Glennis really upends
all the assumptions that we have about women and age.

(01:11):
She says at one point, what no one prepares you
for as a woman is for everything to go right,
but sometimes it does. I cannot wait to talk to
her about her career as a journalist and a writer,
and about the books that she has written that I
just find to be the most inspiring battle cries for
a joyous life. Let's hear Glennis. Hello, Hi, Hi, how

(01:46):
are you.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm good? Thank you so much for doing this. It's
a fun thing.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Well, I'm just so excited that you're here. I Before
we dive in, I have to say I was just
on a trip. I went to a really inspiring conference
I had to go to France for. And then my
partner's mentor had her birthday, turning fifty nine, just like
the most fabulous, amazing, inspiring woman, and we bopped to

(02:13):
like meet her and her family on this once in
a lifetime family trip they were taking for her birthday.
They were in Greece. I was like, wow, if this
is a sign for me of what's to come at
fifty nine, Like, sign me up. I'm so into this.
And we were sitting around talking and your New York
Times article had just had just come out, and I
was like, I am interviewing this time that she just

(02:36):
posted this up. But it is so amazing, and I like,
I literally sat by this beautiful pool, oh you know,
benefiting from the success of my older friend's life and
reading people quotes from your article.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Oh so good.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, it was so fun.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
I have to say that that article, I mean, going
viral the New York Times is its own sort of
intense experience. But so I woke up that morning and
I thought, well, this is going to be an interesting day.
You sort of brace for the comment section or people
who go and find your email and write to you.
And I have to say I was the most surprising
thing about that was, with one exception, all the feedback

(03:13):
was positive, Like it was why it was much different
than a couple of years ago when the feedback was
sort of very predictably angry. And but this I was like,
and you know a great deal of it for men too,
who are like I see myself in this, And I
just think that that is something that more people should
who are in charge of storymaking sho maybe take into consideration.

(03:36):
Is like the way stuff like that resonates and not
as a source of I'm so angry at you, Like
it was really interesting.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well there's something it's both I think very inspiring and
very confronting to be mirrored by someone who's chosen to
be free. And I'm friends with this and credible non
binary artist and they talk a lot about how incredibly

(04:06):
overt queer expressions of freedom, yeah, confront people who feel
trapped in a binary yeah, and make them say, well,
who do you think you are to live this way?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:17):
And it's the projection of the self hatred. It's the
projection of the way people make themselves feel small.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
I also think that if you've spent your I think
about this in different scenarios, including the one you're referencing,
is that, like, if you've spent your whole life being
rewarded for living a certain way, and you've built your
self worth on these particular rituals because they were the
only ones available to you, and then suddenly the world
comes along and is like, actually, all of this is

(04:45):
constrictive and meaningless. I'm sympathetic to how destabilizing, not sympathetic
to rage that manifests and you know, violence in any way,
but I'm sympathetic to that sense of like everything's been
destabilized and I don't understand myself in this new way,
and that the most immediate reaction is I'm going to
be angry at you for making me have to think
about the fact that the decisions I have been rewarded

(05:09):
for by the entire culture for so long, You're suddenly
telling me you're meaningless. Like, I think, it's a lot,
that's a lot to deal with.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
And yeah, I particularly see that in the way we've
seen this backlash with men toward women about you know,
quote changing the rules around the way they're allowed to
speak to us. Oh, you can't take a joke, and
oh you're so serious, Oh yours those sensative and it's like, no,

(05:38):
we're just sick of being harassed and touched and killed
and yes.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So I imagine for like centuries, women were sick of
all of those things if they had no agency to
respond to it or not engage with it, and that
some of that age is like, oh, I'm choosing not
to be here because actually this is awful and I
have a better version. And then it's like, what do

(06:03):
you mean like that, that sense of that absence of control,
I think is rage inducing for a lot of pretty
awful people.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Well, and what I don't know if sympathize with is
the right word, but what I can see must be
difficult is if you because listen, we know that these systems,
they're certainly bad for us, as you know women sisgendered women,
they're very bad for queer people, and they're actually very
bad for cisgendered men too, right, like patriarchy hurts men,

(06:32):
And so I bet it is really hard to be like,
I've done this thing my whole life. I'm absolutely miserable.
I hate my fucking job. And everybody told me that
if I made enough money and got old enough, I
could fuck a hot twenty five year old, and now
you're telling me I can't. And I'm like, ah, I
wish that it wasn't that gross, but yeah, it must
be a bummer if you've hated your whole life and

(06:54):
now you've gotten to a point where the thing you
thought would be your reward you don't get to have.
Like maybe your reward should be something for you or
like a cookie and not a person. But we can
talk about that later, you know. I think to your point,
there has to be this willingness to inspect, no matter
our moral feelings about the feelings or reactions, we have

(07:17):
to expect inspect people's feelings and reactions to change, because
if we just yell about it, we can't create anything better.
And I think, coming totally full circle, that that's why
the article that you wrote, and that's why your book
I think they're resonating so intensely with people because you

(07:41):
are simply modeling personal freedom and joy and say you
could just change.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Your life too if you want, or here's one version
of what it's like a pleasurable life looks like that.
I see a lot of women in my life living,
and I don't see it reflected in culture. I think
a lot of what motivates my writing is this sense
of like being a lifelong reader and being so attracted

(08:10):
to these narratives and then reaching a point somewhere around
age forty where I sort of disappeared culturally and constantly
being made to feel sort of like not invisible in
a way, but then seeing around me so many people
living similar lives, and then never seeing that reflected in

(08:31):
the culture, and that that feels gas lady and enraging
and bad storytelling. And I'm like, why are we so
confronted with all of this nonsense? It's not serving anyone.
So I often think of like I'm observing my own
life and just being like, here's another way to be like, actually,
none of the stories have served me well, And here's
how I'm experiencing it, Because it's like witnessing almost in

(08:54):
a way where it's like, these are things that bring
women pleasure, these are things that bring me pleasure. I'm
not speak I can't speak for an entire gender, obviously,
but I'm like, these are things that bring me pleasure.
They were not the things that I expected or was
told should be pleasurable. And I have access to all
of these opportunities I was told were not going to
be available to me. And actually I feel more powerful

(09:15):
than I've ever felt, and the horizon feels more wide open.
And I just feel compelled to tell you about that
because no one else is and I see everyone so
many other people experiencing this, and it's a little crazy.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Making yes, and I feel the same. And I to
have gotten, you know, in my own way. I guess
you could say in the patriarchy, or you could just
say in like the pursuit of a life. You know,
I did everything I was supposed to do. I checked
all the boxes, I built the life, I did the thing.
And I looked around and I was like, I'm fucking miserable. Yeah,

(09:49):
And I don't think this is what it's supposed to be, right,
I don't think Sobbing at the kitchen table every night
and begging to be talked too, seen or in ltimately
considered is like the best and highest use of my time.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, like what is this? Or how you even want
to sign your time? Yeah, it's all but and then
you look at I think too, is that you Narratives
are so important because narratives impact are like legal structures, right,
Like when we prioritize marriage as a financial, legal way

(10:26):
to live, you are punished in ways outside of social,
socially and culturally for living outside of them. And it's
like it's enough to say I don't want to live
like this, but I do feel like we are compelled
to then say the different ways we're doing it, because

(10:47):
how else do you shift? Like the financial infrastructure of
America is in so many ways pegged to marriage, which
is why all these men, even the progressive ones, are
keep writing like the solution to these problems or that
women should get married more. That is literally like what
Nick Christoff keeps writing, And you're like, I'm pretty sure
there are other solutions. It's probably not it, right, this

(11:09):
is probably not it, but like there are other ways
to be, but you're financially punished for being outside of them.
And then you really think about who's providing the I
really think capitalism runs on like the labor of women.
I'm certainly not the first person to make that observation,
but when you really think of these structures that we're
all promised or be satisfying, there is a gas lady
element to it, because who is benefiting from us participating

(11:32):
in it. It's never us. It's never us. It's like
the entire economy of the country is benefiting from it.
And when you to think of it in those terms,
you're like, wait a second, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
It's so crazy. And then you understand how in the
modern era we live in, a Supreme Court justice in
the United States could write the terms, quote a domestic
supply of infants. Oh my god, when I know we're
turning a rule that texts our literal healthcare that make
sure we can live. And it's wild because you go, oh,

(12:07):
they need us to provide a workforce. They don't actually
care about our quality of life understood. And so you know,
my girlfriends and I have been talking about this, and
I do want to be clear, you know, for anybody
at home, because I realized when you start talking about this,
how we deserve to have other options. Some people who
like their traditional choice of option feel perhaps attacked. That's

(12:34):
not it. Like what was very illuminating for me was
looking at my life and the boxes I ticked, and
then the lives of my friends and their wonderful marriages,
and going, oh, one of these is not like the other,
Like this is not correct that I see that what
I admire in others is not what I have understood.

(12:56):
So to be clear, I'm a fan of any that
brings you joy, happiness, fulfillment, whether that's moving to Paris
in a pandemic, I can't wait to talk about the book,
or which, by the way, was my plan in twenty twenty,
and then you know, the world shut down.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
I was like, what the.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Or you know, marrying your high school sweetheart who's the
love of your life and being together for sixty five years,
like whatever it is, I want you just to be happy.
But I find you know now, I get kind of
excited because I've got a bunch of girlfriends that are like, well,
should all the friends just start marrying each other? Should
we build a commune? Should we like get a ranch

(13:35):
and build some cabins, Like it feels so fun to
say Oh, if this is the system, we could probably
subvert it for us.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
RAINA. Cohen just did a great book on Front on
rethinking partnership around centralizing it around friendship versus romantic relationships,
and the degrees to which that would practically shift in
better ways the way we function in the world. I
do think it's it's useful to separate, Like I have
plenty of so called good marriages. I think the older

(14:04):
you get, the more you realize our definition of good
marriage is also misleading and that partnership is individual. And
I have plenty of friends in satisfying marriages, and it's
important to separate that from sort of how marriage is
structured within this country. It's the institution of marriage, and

(14:26):
think of them as two separate things. And I do
think women in particular have a very hard time experiencing
the stories of other women as as something someone else
is doing and not as a judgment on their own actions.
And I really think that that is the result of
most of the variety of stories we get about women's
lives directed at women come from women's magazines and are

(14:49):
rooted in by this it will fix you, there's something
wrong with you. Do this thing that this person did
and you will be better. And we really still struggle
to read anything by any woman, and our immediate reaction
is just, oh, well, I can't do that. And there's
still a sort of binary between married and not married,

(15:10):
and like one is a judgment on the other art
when in fact, like we are allied together. I am
a support system from many of my married friends and
they are a support system for me. And then midnight
you feel satisfied in your marriage with your partner, does
not negate that the institution of marriage is not you
are not benefiting from it necessarily, you know, in practical ways,

(15:33):
and being.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
Able to separate out that critical thinking I think is
so important and can be the thing that saves us
from that reactionary judgment. Like I always call it the
Clinton cookie syndrome, Like in nineteen ninety two when Hillary
Clinton was literally trying to pass universal child healthcare to
take care of everyone's children's in America as the first

(15:55):
Lady of the United States, and people were like, well,
why are you doing that? And she said, well, what
am I supposed to do here? Big cookies? Like yeah,
I E I have this opportunity to advocate for every
mother in America and she got shot on for it,
and I was like, oh boy.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
I remember that. I mean I think I was seventeen
or eighteen when that happened, and I was a Canadian,
so I was still in Canada at that point. I
remember that news story and actually thinking that Hillary was
in the wrong. It's very hard to like interesting, yeah,
I think in hindsight and certainly where we are now,
it's sometimes hard to emphasize like the degree that that

(16:32):
narrative was not that narrative, I know, was like shocking
to you know, feminists who were writing in the space,
not shocking, but that it was angering. But like as
a general cultural thing, I don't remember thinking how dare they?
I just remember thinking like, oh, yeah, you know, Hillary
is like not likable. That was my teenage response to that,
as like as a person who had a teenager would

(16:54):
have called him a feminist. So it's really I think
about Hillary a lot. I covered the two thousand and
eight campaign for Playboy magazine. Funny enough, but she was
She's of that generation similar to my mother, who like
every decade they had to be a different person, right,
Like they were rewarded in each decade for he embodying
a different idea of women. And so by the time

(17:17):
Hillary reached the place where she's running for president, it
sounded like she was a hypocrite or contradicting herself, when
in fact, you're just like, no, she's changing at she
was changing with the times as best she could. And
it's like, that's what makes me, I think, have more
empathy to when I hear from women, and it's generally
women who are a little older than me, and they're
just like, you know, there's I feel that anger, and

(17:40):
I think, I don't know, I didn't have to iterate
to the degree that you've had, and I wasn't. You know,
I recognize the rewards you get. So it's like I
do try and come to it with empathy. And also
I really I like so many of my married friends
are married to men who are good books, and that's great.

(18:00):
I benefit from them.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I absolutely love that one of my best friends, my
girlfriend Sky, is about to marry our friend Edwin and
he's such a great cook. And I'm always like, Hi, Mom,
h Dad, I'm coming over exactly exactly, cook for me,
make me mistake please.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right, And I think that too gets lost to a
lot of narratives where you sort of see like the
single best friend who's like sort of sad and like
a little like Aunt Jackie and Roseanne, you know, like
a little incompetent, and I'm like, no, I'm fully caught.
Like it's a mutually beneficial arrangement, But we don't credit
women with competence who've made sort of decisions outside of

(18:38):
what is still considered a bit of the normal. Although
that is definitely shifting, it feels like it's shifting in
both ways simultaneously. It feels like it's shifting for progress
and at the same time the trad wife movement is
sort of like it's both happening at the same time.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, it's like we have you and we have that loser,
the kicker for the Chiefs going viral in like the
same two weeks. Yeah, I'm saying women have been lied
to because they want to have careers and pursue their
passion and have a life like and then you know,
you're out here going viral on the New York Times
talking about how the world told you you would become

(19:13):
invisible and you're more visible than ever. And my best
girlfriend and I my friend Hillary, we did our first
TV show together, and we talk about it so much
because when our show started, we were playing sixteen year
olds and the women who played our moms were our
age now, and they were treated as these very secondary characters,

(19:33):
and the focus was all on the kids and who
they were having sex with or losing your virginity to,
and what the drama was in high school. And we
always joke that, you know, for ten years we did
like but I love Him on TV, And now I'm
going I want to see a show about those momsy.
My life is more interesting than ever, more layered than ever.
My career is deeper and more exciting. I travel the

(19:55):
world as a speaker and an advocate. I am the
most myself i've and my friends are the most themselves
they've ever been. And my intimacy is the best it's
ever been, and my joy is the best it's ever been.
And like I thought turning thirty was amazing, I had
no idea how great everything was going to get when
I turned forty. I had no idea that I would

(20:15):
finally take the checklist the world gave me for myself
and rip it to pieces and say like what do
I want? Yeah, And I'm like, have we just been gaykeeping?
How great this is? So I'm so excited that you're
out here telling us.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
It's so funny thing good. I'm glad I do it's
funny too, because I do think like when I look back,
I'm like, as a kid in the eighties, I had
when I think I mentioned that Nod Times off that
it's like I had Murphy Brown and Designing Women, and
they were all these incredible shows. And it's like, just
when we got to the point that we're talking about
right now, it sort of ended and hurls backwards. And

(20:53):
it does feel like every generation gets quite to this
point and then it disappears and so and then we
have to I was was talking to the writer Liz
Lens about this the other day, this sense of rage
where you're like, I'm not the Like we walk around
thinking this idea of like I'm the first. I don't
want to be the first of anything. It's very that's
lonely and and and I'm and I know better, but

(21:16):
it's like the rage of even having the space to
wonder if you're the first just speaks to like how
we've memory hold all of this progress and it's always
on like a weird restart button every twenty five to
thirty years, and it's like, yes, have we been gatekeeping this?
And you're like yeah, because what happens is we get
to this point like designing women for instance, or Murphy

(21:38):
Brown like the men to use the you know, sort
of parlance of younger people, like the men become minor
character energy, right, And I think that the rage we
saw from some corners towards Barbie of the treatment of Ken, who,
by the way, was you know, got the Oscar nomination
and the song and all that other stuff, so nearly
did fine, But like the rage against oh we've sidelined Ken,

(21:59):
is what happened when culturally we get to this point
where it's like, oh, this is fantastic. How come no
one told me? And then it's like a restart.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
It's like, oh no, no, they're going to amass too
much power. Come back into the cave and let them
crawl out all over again. And I'm like, what what
is this? And by the way, I mean, I know
you know this, but I think about this a lot
that we know and I mean this is like this
stat that has been burned into my brain is probably

(22:30):
twelve years old, so it's probably even more now. But
like if I snapped my fingers in poof America had
full pay equity, just pay equity for men and women
the GDP, And again this is a decade old stat
so I'm sure it's more would increase by twelve points.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Oh yeah, like everyone would be richer. Yeah, Like it's
not even just.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Morally imperative or like, oh, you're such a liberal that
you want women to have all the it's like it
would be better for you too, sir.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
So it's so weird to me.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
It's like it's not just a moral thing, it's actually
like to the betterment of society, it's to the betterment
of the economy. It's like conservatives and liberals should all
agree on this.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
And yet but it would level a power structure, right,
like it would when we look at who's in charge
sort of the state of the country is less shocking,
but like it would level the power structure in a
way that I think is terrifying to the people who
hold power. Is the truth, Like what if you had
to share the power? And I also think even if

(23:31):
we just had like universal being in countries where there's
socialized medicine and how that shifts how women are able
to behave, how everyone is able to behave is shocking.
I mean to the most punishing thing in this country
is the absence of health care. In my opinion, I
think there's no conversation that can be extricated from that.

(23:52):
And who is punished the most from absence of health care. It's,
as we know, women, because we are in need of
it at a much younger age, way more complicated things.
And I don't know if you've reached this point, but
I turned fifty at the end of the summer, and
in the last two years, if I go to the
doctor and I'm like this, I don't know, like is
this thing is? What's the source of this thing? Like

(24:13):
I can't sleep so well? Or like this this thing
is hurting, and the doctor will be like it might
just be your age, like maybe it's paramenopause, And I'm like,
how do you not know the answer to a symptom
like as an experience than half of the population for
all of time has gone through and it's really just
like this nebulous like well mine, I'm thinking like oh
my god.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, And now for our sponsors, well and This is
what's really interesting, right to me, is when you start
to pull on the thread, you realize how long it is,
You realize it's all connected, you know, subjucation, economic restriction, healthcare,
all of it. And I'm sure there's people that are like,
oh my god, does everything have to be so political? Well, yes,

(24:56):
because everything is political. Everything is political. The politics is
it's personal, it's how we live, it's where we live,
it's the structures we live in. And if you'd like
things to change, you should elect people who don't hate women.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Also, I really think the people who are like, why
does everything have to be so political are never the
people who are suffering from the politics of the situation?

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, or they don't know they are yet.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yes, exactly precisely. But you're just and I look at
them and I'm like, you don't It doesn't have to
be political for you because you either, as you say,
don't know that you're suffering, or you're not suffering as
much as everyone else. It's sorry to interrupt. I'm always
when people say that, I'm like, that's just a sign
to me that you are living in a different world.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
You're either privileged or not awake yet. And either way,
good luck to you. I like I am yes, yes, yes,
I feel like I'm your personal like cheering section here.
What fascinates me about this? And I do feel like
you and I could talk you know, policy system, global
structures all day, which I love. I can't wait to

(25:56):
someday have a meal with you.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
It was just like this kind of st to be
greater over like some of Martinez, I.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Know, you need like a glass of wine and a
nice bola pasta. But the thing that amazes me about this,
and like one of the things that I love about
really smart women is that even us talking about how
we'd love to be having this conversation over a meal
is because there's actually pleasure in knowledge, and the root

(26:22):
of this, even though these systems can feel overwhelming, the
root of it is to know, to grow, to change,
which to me is all rooted in pleasure. And your
whole project is pleasure. The article is about realizing you
still have it and that you have more of it

(26:42):
than ever. The book you know, which I'm sitting here,
I'm like so excited. I'm like the book it always
makes me feel so cool. It's full of dog ears
and notes like.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh, that's nice to hear. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
I want to know how from this place you know
you're in rewind a few years. You know, you're in
your mid forties, you're living in New York, everything shuts down,
and then you say, get I'm going to Paris, Like,
can you walk us all through? I mean, I guess,
I guess for our listeners, maybe give them a little

(27:15):
overview of your work, because as you said, you know,
you're you're covering and writing, and you publish books and
you you write articles, and then I want to talk about,
like how we got to this, we got to the
naked cover because I know someone's at home listening being
like Sophyeah, I know you've read everything.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
This person's ever written, but I haven't.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Tell me more about her. So I should have done
that twenty nine minutes ago.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
But here we are, Yeah, exactly. I do find my
conversations these days. It's like we immediately are like not,
I know, I know, I know, it's a lot. It
is an intense time to be in this on earth,
I guess, But in this contra I am a writer
and Hawka and I did a big podcast, but I've

(28:01):
been a writer and a journalist for I guess twenty
years now. I started out in politics and sort of
moved to culture and then did a memoir about turning
forty and to write in a variety of things on
like New York City or culture. At this point you're like,
you take the assignment. And I did a big podcast
for iHeart the last two years on sort of reckoning

(28:22):
with Little House in the Prairie and Loura Engels Wilder,
which I was obsessed with as a kid, and we
got to go on a road trip, which is unusual
and fantastic. So when lockdown happened in March twenty twenty,
I live in this where I'm talking to you from
tiny studio apartment in Manhattan, and the whole city vacated
more or less, but I was alone in this apartment

(28:42):
for in this I was alone. Like it was a
very intense period of solitariness for like a little over
a year. You know, New York was very as La
was too restrictive. We really went into a strict lockdown.
It was intense. So and I always say during that time,
all of us sort of got the most extreme version

(29:06):
of our life choices, Like friends of mine who were
married with kids, were like, I wouldn't sign up to
be this married and this much time with my children,
And I was like, wow, I am not like when
I said I'm happy, Like by myself, I was not
like solitary confinement for sixteen months. So it was, as
it was for everyone, really intense. But I really the

(29:27):
isolation of it and the lack of you know, just
as we said, this would be more fun if we're
in person, Like the lack of physical touch, the lack
of being responded to by another person or even smelling
another person, or just like that sense of community was overwhelming,
and it was really overwhelming. And by the end, I'm
not even sure I recognized how overwhelming it was because

(29:50):
we all had sort of been there for such a
long time, and right after the vaccines rolled out in
sort of the spring early summer of twenty twenty one,
there was that brief period of time time where everyone
was like, and it's over and we can like emerge
from our houses and we can have fun again this summer.
And then sort of the delta variant rolled in and
everybody was like boiled again. But in that brief window,

(30:10):
I had spent summers past in Paris. I had a
friend group there and I had access to an apartment
to my email to the owner of the apartment, and
I just said, like random question, just on a whim,
is do you want could I take this for August?
Like do you want to leave? And he said I
think it could work. So I bought a plane ticket

(30:31):
in May, thinking like, who's to say, what's going to
happen in the next seven weeks, like you just I
was just like any We've been living in a shifting world,
so I'm just going to do it. And I got
on the plane at the it was July thirty first,
and just to sort of Delta was rolling in and
the plane took off and I was like, Okay, here

(30:51):
we go and I bye, exactly like I don't know
what's going to happen. But at that point I was
like I can't. I can't do more of this, Like
the risk of leaving was outweighed by the risk of
even more time alone and sort of what it was
doing to my mental state. So I landed in Paris.
My friends were there. Paris was empty because it was

(31:13):
empty of tourists, and it was also August, so many
Parisians go the way for the month of August, and
I was not that empty because I like proceeded to
just hurl myself into like every pleasurable experience I could find.
I was like so much food, so much I mean
wine and cheese, and just so just so happy to

(31:35):
be with my friends and like just like not like
wanting to like it could not get enough of like
hugs or being touched or being together. And then you know,
so much sex too, and so much like how quickly
can I get my clothes off? And I think you
don't think. I mean, it was amazing, But those five
weeks there was not like the rational intellectual part of
my brain had just shut off completely and I was

(31:58):
just like I wasn't thinking like I'm shocked all of
this is available to me necessarily. I was just thinking
like more, more, more and more, and it was really,
I mean, it was pleasurable. Uh it shifted. That was
sort of my doorway into so called middle age. I
was forty six turning forty seven that summer, and so
this is sort of how I entered these years, being like,

(32:20):
oh my god, everything I've been told about age is
a lie, Like I keep these twenty five year olds
just can't seem to get enough of me. And I
was not prepared for all of this, like youthfulness, and
so just the small moments that I'm not sure get
it as much weight in narratives as they deserve. Which
is the pure joy of sitting around a table with

(32:41):
people who know you and love you, and the joy
of just like the sensation of good food. And this
was written before sort of the ozembic era was upon us,
which is I think shifted our conversations around food to
some degree, and like the joy of just like biking
and movement and all of these small things. And it
was really I had craved during the pandemic. I had friends,

(33:04):
not just friends, like people on Twitter who were like,
I'm going to take this opportunity to read Tolstoi and
were in peace, and I was like, I'm not. I
don't want to read any I don't want to read
Russian literature. I want to read about people having a
good time. And when I got back, I was like,
there's no good stories. As a person who is sort
of a memoist by nature, I was like, there's no

(33:25):
good stories about women enjoying themselves that aren't tied to
pursuit of partnership or pursuit of parenthood. Even though they
exist in real life, they don't. They do not exist culturally.
And I was rereading my JOURNALM been kept journals since
I was a kid, rereading my journals a few months later,
and I was really enjoying rereading my own journals, and

(33:46):
I thought, oh, and I had just read Deborah Levy's
The Cost of Living? Have you read that?

Speaker 1 (33:52):
I'm actually halfway through it.

Speaker 2 (33:54):
Oh, I love. I mean, I think, like, yeah, all
three of her Living out of Our are incredible, but
that's my favorite. And then Annie or No had not
won the No Bell yet, but I was familiar with
her and even Rachel Cusk, and just like this sense
of like a smaller book with a sort of maybe
not a narrative arc we recognize. And I said to

(34:16):
my agent, I think I want to do this. Well.
I really wanted to capture just I wanted to capture
that experience because I feel like, as you say in
Beauty and Pleasure is it's it's radical and transformative on
a much larger scale. And I think that it's transformative
in ways that we generally only connect to protest or

(34:40):
rage and actually it is as transformative and as powerful,
and evidence to that is how we attach frivolity to
women's enjoyment, or how we try and diminish it as selfish.
It's actually extraordinarily I mean, as you like, powerful, And

(35:00):
so my goal with this book was really just to
be like, this is what pleasure looks like for me
at an age when I was promised that I would
have very little access to it, and this is how
powerful it allows me to feel. And also I recognize
that sort of on the scope of human history, the
rarity and fortune of being able to access this and

(35:25):
have this agency is sort of a miracle. And the
current state of the world suggests that it might be
a temporary one, although I'm not a pessimist, so I mean,
I think it should go either way.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
And now a word from our sponsors that I really
enjoy and I think you will too, But I think
the current state of the world speaks to perhaps the
better way to phrase it is offers proof of what
you're saying. Yes, we have more agency than ever, and

(35:58):
they are trying harder than ever to legislate it away.
They are so terrified of our power, of our fiscal power,
of our political power, of our enjoyment, of our choices,
and I I take the threat seriously, but I also

(36:20):
take great pleasure in knowing that that's true, in knowing
how afraid of us they are. And I think if
our pleasure and power could be embraced, I think the
world could change. And I think it's why so many
people resonate with your work, because you are saying something. Yes,

(36:44):
it's unique to you, but you are saying something we
understand to be universally true as a concept. And I
think it rattles people when they realize that something in
them says, oh, this is true for me too. I
might not be moving to Paris as a woman at
four forty six, mid pandemic, and you know, hooking up

(37:04):
with hot twenty six year old Parisian guys. But there's
something about this claiming your worst freedom and joy that
I understand. Did you know when you left that you
were on this journey to pursue radical enjoyment or did
you figure it out in real time as it was happening.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
I think it was. I think it was after. Actually,
I think when I left it was an act of
like a combination of desperation and sort of frenzy of
just like I really was just like get on the plane.
I was not. I think it's sometimes hard to remember,

(37:43):
maybe not for everyone, but like the pandemic, if I
hadn't written it down, it's almost like when you experienced grief,
like if you don't it rewires your brain in a way.
That's if you don't write down what's going on in
your brain at the moment, you don't remember it and
it's very hard to conjure it up again. But by
that in the pandemic, this idea of looking ahead felt
like our brains had been trained out of like looking

(38:06):
ahead for you know, the five year Plan or whatever
it was. And so it wasn't a sense of like, oh,
I'm gonna it was. I was literally like the tickets here,
the plane is leaving, I'm getting on the plane. I
don't know what's gonna happen to me when I get
off the plane. It could be Paris shuts down, it
could be I have to come home, it could be
that I'm trapped there. I sort of was just like
I don't know, and I don't have the capacity to

(38:27):
think about it. And then when I was there, it
sort of was. It was like I thought just the
act of movement and going there and seeing my friends
would just be more satisfying than I could possibly conceive of,
and it was. And then on day two I was like,
and now I want more of this. So every day
it was just until it like this ball was rolling

(38:49):
and it was just I moved into this sort of
I mean, I guess the Internet phrase for it is
abundance mindset, and the most basic way, I was just
literally like, oh my god, I can have everything. I
was just like there was a day where I was like, wait,
literally so far, it's just it's like that Leonard line
from Leonard Cohen song, like why not ask for more?
I was just like, why not this for more? So

(39:11):
far I keep getting more? And so it was literally
just in like a kid, like like a deluge, and
I just wanted more and more and more. And so
when I finally came home came home, the world had
then sort of remember, we sort of locked down again
for the following months, but I was very much on
a high from it and very much it shifted my

(39:33):
way of thinking about things. And then as it began
to sort of as I began to look back at
my journals. I began to sort of have a better
understanding of my own actions and the significance of them.
At the there's a moan in the book where the
middle time, I'm walking with a procession across Paris and

(39:55):
there's like a there's no one else in the city.
But it was a Catholic holiday, and so there was
a procession of and then it was a day that
Kabul fell and there was terrible news, and I thought,
my God, like I'm sandwiched between these two versions of
being a woman right now that are so punishing, and
here I am walking alongside this procession and like, I'm

(40:15):
experiencing something fundamentally different that's so new and rare. And
that's sort of when I started rearranging my thinking around.
This was not just like a frenzied how quickly can
I take my clothes off, which it was, It was
also the significance of being able to do that and
against the backdrop of what was happening in the world.

(40:35):
But I really I didn't really start thinking about I
didn't really sort of have a grasp on things until
a little bit later. And when I say a little
bit later, I mean like six weeks, so it's not.
But I think the processing of that I was so
in the moment in a way we like to talk about, Oh,
it's so great to be in the moment. I really
was so in the moment, and part of that my
ability to be so was really just desperation that had

(40:58):
preceded my arriving.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Yeah, yeah, I understand that. I mean it sounds like
you were you know when when researchers talk about how
after an animal experiences trauma, it shakes, and how we
don't have that so we store all this trauma anxiety
in our body, like it sounds like you went to
Paris to shake it, you know.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
Literally, yes, for sure, without even realizing to feel like truly,
I look at my journals or I think of my thinking,
and I think, I just this was not a cognitive
thought of I'm not okay. It was really like the
door opened I ran through it. Yes, you know, like
that sense of I'm and I was so in action.

(41:41):
It was like a like a figure in action. Yes,
and I just ran. And I also, I think it's
hard to, you know, disentangle this whole conversation from the
fact I've been a writer for a very long time,
and my way of understanding the world is through that.
That's why I have journal all the time, like I
put it on the page. So it was me sort

(42:03):
of coming back from this and trying to understand just
a total joy of this experience was how I started
to sort of work through it as as something I
just wanted people to know as possible.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
That I didn't know that I'm out in like as
you say, when you're like, oh, this, you know that
sort of the rage of discovering, like why didn't I
know all these other people were doing it? I just
felt like I'm angry that this is not a story
that we all get to have, Like when you say,
like this has been gatekeeper, like the gatekeeper on this,
I'm like, it does feel like that where you're like,
I'm so angry that I didn't know this was available

(42:41):
to me. Who how dare you keep this information from me?
Like this is not like a specific thing that only
I tapped into. This is like yeah, and not in
exact scenarios, but just generally when you talk to women
over the age of forty, so many women are like, God,

(43:04):
I'm just having the best time the best to the
best time. Yeah, you know, which isn't to say our
lives are not complicated or with challenges, or with grief
or all the other things. But like the best time
and the fact that's a surprise sometimes it makes me angry.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
It does for me too, and especially because you know,
if I learned anything last summer, you know, going through me,
me and a group of women in my life all
got divorced at the same time. And what I began
to understand about how courage is deeply contagious for us.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
That's a great phrase of youse that that's a wonderful
that's a wonderful line.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
I'm working on an essay about it.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Yeah, courage is contagious is both a wonderful dead line
and and something that you could put on it.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
It's wonderful, and it for me, I realized that there
is there, really is, and has been generationally this idolization
of female martyrdom, sacrifice everything. She's so selfless. Oh so
she doesn't exist? Like what does that mean? Yeah, we
don't talk about how men are selfless. We talk about

(44:15):
how they're heroic or strong, or good dads or good
businessmen or whatever. And you know, I like Glennon writes
about it and untamed, And when I really started to
pull it that thread, like why are women expected to
murder ourselves? It took me so long to stop turning

(44:37):
my back on myself to make sure other people were happy,
and I don't know, like I know that. I got
to a point where I was like, well, if I
do this for one more day, I'm going to die
and that's not an option. So I'm going to kick
the door open and then I'm going to run through it.
And my best friend was doing it, and I think

(44:58):
I was so inspired because I was like, well, if
she can do it with a two and a half
year old, I can do it with no kids, you know.
And then other friends were going through it, some with kids,
some without. And what I began to realize was the
more we were honest about how like this can't be
all that it is, the more we also all got
honest about like, oh, I just really hit the point

(45:20):
where if I did it for one more day, I
think I would have died. And I was like, is
this what we've been cultured to become? Women who'd rather
be dead than live in our houses? Like this? What
are we doing. And so when you talk about how
you're frustrated that these examples haven't been set your courage

(45:40):
is contagious. You're saying there is another way. And by
the way, again, it's not to say being partnered as
bad or being married is bad, Like I actually think
it's amazing, as long as you're not doing it to
check a box. You know, even subconsciously, do you have
freedom and pleasure in your life or not? And if

(46:04):
you have to pretzel yourself into a smaller version of
yourself so you're more palatable for someone else, I don't
think you do. And so it excites me when you
talk about this, because, yeah, I'm sitting here going same,
I'm having this experience. No one told me how great
it would be. My best friend that I came up
on a TV show with that we started at twenty one.

(46:26):
We are forty one, and we're like, what the We
are cuter, hogher, having better sex, smarter, funnier, like everything
about us is better than it was when we were
twenty one. Nobody told us, Yeah, Like I want more
Murphy Browns, I want more designing women, I want more
of us doing whatever. The twenty twenty four version of

(46:47):
Sex and the City in Paris is like.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Let's go yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean even the fact
that we so reference Sex in the City because we
have nothing else do we have nothing else? Like, it's
again so like people will be like eight prey it.
I'm like, both of these are fine comparisons, and they
were wonderful in their own right, but they're both twenty
five years old, and the fact that we're still returning
to them, to me again is evidence of the absence

(47:11):
of like any storytellings to suggest to us that things
might be. And even the new Sex and the City
is still like, you know, a little problematic in ways,
but it's just like it's like we're still referencing these
old examples because we haven't been like no one has
sort of opened the door to new examples. And then
I mean, we know who holds those you know, who

(47:33):
runs the doors? I think is yeah, but it is
it's so much more. I feel so much more powerful.
That's the thing too, I feel really powerful. Maybe that's
the terrifying thing to some people too. It's like I'm
not only am I just like, you know, I'm more
And it's funny to be like I'm more attractive because
I'm like the by the metrics we were raised with.

(47:54):
Nothing looks the way it did when I was twenty five,
but like I am ten times more attractive. Everything is
more enjoyable, smarter, I'm a better friend. Like the sex
is the better. Of course, the sex is better. I
don't know what twenty five having great sex, but like
that feels like a given. But I was just like,
it's like, as you say, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't

(48:16):
be the surprising. It shouldn't be the surprising to all
of us.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Yes, but you know you said something in your book
and it really resonated with me. I was having a
conversation with one of my best friends around you know, Pride.
The really amazing thing for me was like, if you
give yourself permission to keep growing and be curious, the
older you get, the closer you get to yourself, and

(48:43):
the more myself I am, the better friend I can be,
the more I can support my friends in becoming more themselves.
And then I read this bit in your book, and
I hate to be like the person who reads you
to yourself, but I'm going to because if you people
at home need to hear it. But on page eighty
eight in the book, you said something about building quality

(49:06):
friendships and later in life seems to fascinate, which has
always puzzled me. The older I get, the better I
know myself, the less distance I must travel to figure
out whether to include someone in my life. The closer
I am to me, the closer I am to other people.

Speaker 2 (49:23):
Yeah, and I was like, that's it. Yeah, Yeah, I
do think, like it's fun to talk about the sex
and the cheese, but like, the friendships are my friendships
are the most fundamental source of pleasure I have, and
they are fundamental as this book. And I do find

(49:44):
sometimes that people who've been in long term relationships or
have kept their same friend groups since college. Because of this,
I'll say, how do you make friends in later life?
And I just think, oh my god, how do you
not make friends in later life? Like I just feel
like the hurdle is so much lower for this exact reason.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
Yes, because you're.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Like, I don't have to you. First of all, you
recognize you recognize who's not a friend so quickly that
you don't find yourself in the situation. You could sometimes
find your or I would sometimes find myself in my twenties,
which is like your year into a friendship and you're like,
why doesn't this feel good? Like what if I Whereas
now at this age, I'm sort of like, that's a
problem coming my way, this will not go any further.

(50:24):
But contrast to that, and much more powerfully and importantly,
is like I immediately have intimacy, emotional intimacy with people
because I have it with myself right like I don't
I know myself all the way through right now? And
when you when that, when you, I mean hopefully and

(50:46):
probably I think I do. And then ten years from now,
you know, we'll have another conversation, I'll be like, oh,
I thought that I had this at age. For you,
let me tell you what it's like. It's sixty my friends.
But it's like when you have it with yourself, it
sort of comes with a fearlessness where you're like that
sense of oh, will they find this out about me?
Or I feel insecure just disappears so entirely that you're like, yeah,
I don't. And when you talk about or not you

(51:07):
in particular, but when we talk about sort of like
younger men being attracted to older women, that's at the
core of it. It is the it's not just younger men,
it's younger women. It's like attracted to the sense of
solidary with self. Yes, And you can be told that
in your twenties and it doesn't resonate because there's nothing
in the culture to suggest to you that being comfortable

(51:28):
with yourself is actually the way to be rewarded. But
in real life it is just so great.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
It's so cool. And now a word from our wonderful sponsors.
Can I ask a question, because here's boring. I think
we are the real love story, like women and our
friendships and our intergenerational friendships, and the way we advocate

(51:56):
for each other, the way we show up is activists,
all of it. Yeah, And you know you've mentioned and
I would imagine so many people do want to focus
on like the sex and the stories and the French
dating apps and whatever. That's all in the book. But
is it As a woman as bold as you are,

(52:17):
do you ever do you ever have a moment where
you go, like before you share some of that before,
Because even earlier, when I was rattling off all the things,
I feel like nobody told me about how amazing my
forties were going to be. I was like, you know,
I'm having the best sex of my life. And then
I was like, oh my god, I can't believe I
just said that out loud. And then I was like,
I'm fucking forty one years old, Like, yeah, am I
supposed to be ashamed of that? I don't think so. No,

(52:38):
But I'm even now I'm like, I'm a little anxious
saying it to you. And so from this from your
vantage point, are you like, oh, I get nervous and
I just have to do it? Or did you at
forty six did you light the nervousness on fire? Like
what do I have to look forward to?

Speaker 2 (52:57):
I think you get more. I mean I start conversations
about paramenopause with complete strangers at this point. I'm like,
so's your body doing this? Because I'm always like on
a search for more information and like there's so little
of it. But in terms of sex, I quite at
this point. And to be clear, I make a living
off of writing about myself. But I literally start conversations

(53:18):
about this with almost anyone like and if I sense it,
they're uncomfortable with it. It's not sort of like in
an exhibitionist way. I'm not like, but if the conversation
goes that way. I'm very frank about it because it doesn't.
I'm like, I don't. I don't feel embarrassed about it.
I will say, though, like when I started writing this book,

(53:38):
I was in that first draft. You're like alone in
a room by yourself, and I thought, oh my god,
these sex scenes, Well, I know I just have to
write them out now. But they don't have to go
in the book, right, Like I could just write it.
There's no nobody has to see this. I can just
write it out and I do. It's not a live
reading on that right, I'm not like sort of improvising it.
But from that point to this point, what happens is

(53:59):
like the right part of you starts to take over, hopefully,
and you start seeing the whole story of a piece,
and you want it to be the best version of
the story possible. And the more revisions it goes through,
and the more eyes that are on it between your
editor and other readers, it's not like I feel distance
from the story, but I begin to see it sort

(54:21):
of a little outside of it. But I will say
I did. I recorded the audiobook for this, and I
went into the studio thinking, well, this is going to
be interesting to read this. I really, I said to
the director was a woman. She was delightful. I mean,
she was amazing, and we both sort of laughed her
way through the beginning of it. When we got to
the sex scenes, I was like, oh, this is fantastic.

(54:44):
I want to be back in this Like this, I
was like, I was enjoying my own pleasure in a
very very amusing way. And then I got it and
I was like, you know, I could have put in
one or more two details that were probably good to like.
I actually had that moment of like, no, because sucks
should be enjoyable, like sex should be pleasurable, and I

(55:07):
and I want people to enjoy sex. Everyone, like I
wanted to be a pleasurable experience, and I just I'm
not like a sex therapist or like sex positive, but
it was just like, oh, I just want you to
know that I was having like what this good time
looked like, and also like sometimes it was less enjoyable
or sometimes the enjoyable part wasn't actually the actual sex.

(55:29):
It was you know that it was available to me
when I wanted. It's like there was all these different
ways of approaching it, but no, So at this point
I think I've overcome the hurdle that wouldn't have been
true ten years ago. But in promoting a book where
there's a bear bum on the cover, I think I
had to just sort.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Of had to figure it out.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
Muscle it through, and just be like I wrote it,
I did it here.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I am here, I am Yeah. So interesting that you
can say ten years ago you might not have been
able to be so present in your story, and you are.
Because you've also talked about how you turn fifty at
the end of the summer. Yeah, so you can look
back at forty and then you're also looking forward at fifty.
What what are you excited about? What are you looking

(56:18):
forward to in the next decade now that you know
how amazing your forties were? Like, what do you think
is coming for you at fifty?

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Yeah, it's very I may have set this in the
off ed and the reason I say might have because
I think I feel like I'm writing so many things
right now sometimes, but I think feeling that's good against
a backdrop of so much darkness essentially is a strange
sort of thing to navigate. So I I in terms

(56:48):
of me individually, I'm only excited to see how much
better my writing gets, how much smarter my brain gets.
Like what else I'm like, what else is going to
be available to me that I'm not prepared for? Like
I am approaching it with like sort of enormous sense
of optimism and at the same time an awareness of

(57:09):
like really, I'm like, like, what's the image I'm looking more,
almost like when you see a pig in med like
just literally like leaning into it as far and immediately
as possible, with the sense of not just it will
be available in the world, but like your health and
fifty the different you know, like it starts to become
you start to have friends, and you know, both of

(57:31):
my parents died in my forties, and that was a
lot of caretaking. Like there's a lot of sort of
an awareness of the mortality of your body. If as
I have, you've generally experienced good health till the age
of fifty, there's this sense of like, oh, mortality is present,
and like it seeps it, it casts a different light
on it. But I just feel powerful and like excited,

(57:55):
and and this sense of like just what I said,
like what else don't we know about? Like what else
might becoming my way that could be like so much
fun or so great or like that I'm not prepared
to experience. And then counterbalancing that with I do think
a sense of responsibility of we are not in the
best moment, and how do I leverage both the platform

(58:18):
but more almost like my individual sense of power in
ways that are useful in yeah, holding a like I
always think your job is like if you get through
the doors, you got to hold that door. Figure out
a way to keep that door propped open for everyone
coming behind. And so what does that look like in
the current state of world. I'm not sure I have

(58:40):
the answer, but that's sort of where my head is at.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I love that, I really think, especially for those of
us who love to write, love journalism or train journalists.
I think in times like this being sort of more
embodied and happier than ever for me, at least, like
you said, with this backdrop of things being so tense

(59:04):
and traumatic and us being on the precipice of a
lot of really bad I go, Okay, if my capacity
for the good has increased so much, I have to
I have to hold myself accountable to have as much
capacity for what isn't and and show up with my
critical thinking and my linguistic ability and my passion for

(59:26):
us and figure out how to continue to hold both like, ye,
it's part of it's part of the job.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
I think like it is part of the job. And
I think something like that, like there is resilience and joy, right,
joy gives us resilience. The idea that suffering people who
are suffering in various scenarios do not simultaneously experienced joy
is not true to the human condition, and so finding

(59:57):
joy is destabilizing to power structures just as much as
anything else. And it also is when you say courage
is contagious, like there is a strength in joy and pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
That and it's the joy we're defending.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yes, yeah, it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
We're not trying to get to an absence of suffering.
We're trying to get to joy for everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Yeah, yeah, I mean yes, yeah, I think a little
less suffering. Yes, I mean it's.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
I mean, yes, of course we will.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Of course. And it's like, you can't fix the world either,
And it's like, what is that in your small way
that you are capable of shifting and what strength can
you not just partaken but in part, Like what is
the strength you can impart. And yeah, then also the
sense of responsibility that comes with like we are people
in the world. And I really tried to There was

(01:00:49):
a knee jerk reaction when I was writing a book
where I kept wanting to be like, here are all
the things that I do that I want you to
know about so that you know I deserve this pleasure.
And I made myself take all of them out. I
was like, I just a deserve pleasure for pleasure's sake.
I'm not in here to justify what I'm doing. I'm
telling you other stuff. But that doesn't mean that we
are not all obligated by being present on the earth,

(01:01:10):
to being responsible to our communities, whatever those communities happen
to look like, small or large.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Yeah, I love that. Does that does figuring out how
to hold space for yourself and the world? Does that
maybe feel like you're work in progress right now or
a little bit?

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Yeah, I think it's part of this is like I've
sort of sometimes remind myself on like you writing this
all down is part of this product, like just because
I mean, it's so funny how we internalize all this,
but it's sort of honestly witnessing these things so that
we have this like evidence of possibility. And then also

(01:01:49):
I think, particularly as like a white woman of some privilege,
it's I always think that your responsibility is in every
room you're in to ask who's not in the room
and why they're not there like it. That can be
in a little small room or a much larger room.
But just moving through the world with awareness is a
very basic way to operate that I try to, you know,

(01:02:14):
hold to myself too at the same time. So, I mean,
I'm a writer and my writing is observational, and so
where do I direct that talent next? And the most
useful way, I guess is the question when I get
to the other side of this at the end of
the summer. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:36):
Yeah, where And I love the ownership that comes in
that there's actually a claiming of pleasure in the language
you chose. Where do I direct this talent?

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
For you to own your worth and merit and self
and want to give of it is that's like a
pretty cool both right there. No, we're not.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Well. I'm glad because I feel like at this point,
hopefully you know what you're good at and having and
there's a difference between modesty and sort of self recrimination
or limiting and can be you know, I know, I
know where my strengths lie. It's like, how do I
put them to use for all of us?

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
I love it. Yeah, thank you so so much for
coming to two more hours. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:20):
This was delightful. I'm so grateful for your time. Thank you.