Latest / The Uplifters / Episode 63: Cleyvis Natera is Going to Teach You How to Find Creative Courage

Transcript

Episode 63: Cleyvis Natera is Going to Teach You How to Find Creative Courage · The Uplifters

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hi,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Alexa Holadik and an uplifter to me is someone who encourages and brings you
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: along with them on the journey.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I am recommending an author and fabulous uplifter woman named Clavis Natera.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I met her because we worked on a story together at The Moth.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I find in every conversation with her, there is something incredibly smart, incredibly heartful.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: And every time I see her,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_02: she's working with another author,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: teaching other authors or out celebrating great art in the world.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Hey,
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uplifters,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: this is Aranzas Tavis,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: and on May 17,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: 2024,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: I had the extraordinary gift of spending an entire day live and in person with
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: almost all of our podcast guests from year one,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: as well as lots and lots of our amazing listeners and supporters.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: It was truly a dream come true and we ate and we laughed and we learned and we got
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: inspired and we fired up our own dreams and one another's.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the big highlights of the day
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: was my conversation with Clevis Natera, who you will meet on this episode.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Now,
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: this is a live episode,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: so there's going to be lots of yee-hawing and laughter and cheers and excitement
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_03: and energy in the background that you'll hear.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: But my hope is that all of that just makes you feel more like you were in the room with us.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: And next time, I hope you will be.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: So let's welcome Clevis.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: Clavis is the author of Neruda on the Park.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_03: This book is so good.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: I like devoured it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: I can't even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: But I feel like it's a book you wrote for us because this is a book about uplifters.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: a whole novel about uplifters,
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: generations of uplifters who carry all the things and who do all the things they're
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: told and are good girls.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: And then a wrecking ball comes through,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: as has happened for so many of you who have been on the podcast,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: your proverbial wrecking ball,
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: and these women emerge.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I need to bring you with me everywhere I go.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that was like the intro for a film.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then... I mean, really, it's so good.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_03: She has more copies.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all should get them.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: She went running all around New York City, too, to get copies of her book for y'all.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I just want to talk to you about...
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_03: why you wrote a book about uplifters.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good to be here.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just handed in my second book last, like 14.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I mean, not very long ago, I actually didn't think it was going to happen for me.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I got my MFA when I was in my twenties.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It might be shocking to you to hear this, but that was 20 years ago.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and I got my MFA and it's just I faced so much rejection coming out of my MFA program.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wasn't like prepared for failure.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I really was like, where's the red carpet?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a genius.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with the world that, like, my beautiful book isn't receiving the reception it needs?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I ended up putting the book away, and I started working on Neruda on the Park.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And at the beginning,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: it was really,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: a book about a young woman who,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: comes back home to Harlem,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Washington Heights area.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I grew up.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And she comes back home from college and finds a lot of changes, you know?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's gentrification and, like, her...
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Mother is very scared and her father's ready to go back to the Dominican Republic.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there's like this disconnect.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: for me,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: writing this book started as an escape from failure and like the loss of that first book,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what ended up happening is that with this second book, it also wasn't happening.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the whole time I was working a full time job in corporate America.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as you all can tell by now, I'm very accomplished.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like climbing this corporate ladder and I was getting promoted and I was
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: like making all that,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: like more money than like 10 family members combined.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so at one point I was like, why am I putting myself in a space where I'm suffering so much?
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I stopped feeling good for my friends who were getting books published.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like I started feeling a lot of pain around people who were like their dreams were coming true.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I just parked the book.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you know what?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's just not meant for me.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: This dream isn't meant for me.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I focus on making some babies.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was fun.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: You made it sound like the making the babies.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, listen, I flashback every time I'm like, that was a good time and a bad time.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, like I just focused on my career.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I became an executive.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I focused on my family.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I had two beautiful babies with a man I love.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was just kind of like,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: this is going to be writing and books are going to be something that happens later.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: I never stopped reading.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I never stopped trying, but I really put it in the back burner.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then I faced like a horrifying experience where my son was born with a rare
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: blood disorder and had to get not one,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: but two bone marrow transplants.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And when that happened, it really was the reckoning.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was the ball that came through my life.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I looked around in this hospital room and I was like,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: what have I been doing with my life?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because even though I had like all of the,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: trimmings of a perfect life and from the outside,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: everybody was like,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: oh my God,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: you're so beautiful.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, they didn't say that.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I said that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: They shouldn't.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're so successful.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's such a genius.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But people, you know, people were like, you're so great.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like your life looks so perfect.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You have your perfect children.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, like my child was born with this really rare disease.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in order for him to be cured,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: my daughter,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: who was one years old,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: had to like become a bone marrow transplant for my three year old.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just was that, you know, it was like a moment where I really looked around.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you this one quick story, because I know we have more.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: I want them all.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I was traveling home from Chicago where I used to work a lot for my corporate job.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our home office was there.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, my my child was in the hospital at the time with a second bone marrow transplant.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just was like losing.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was spinning and I was crying and I called my mother.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you've ever been to O'Hare, it's like the armpit of America airports.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're always like, you know, getting left behind.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, all the flights are canceled.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like looking very smart with my suit and like on the phone with my mom.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: My mom doesn't speak English.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just crying because I just couldn't do it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was the breadwinner at the time.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: The insurance came from my job, so I couldn't stop working.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't told anybody at work that I was going through this because then I was like
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: going to lose it at work.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just with my mom and my mom said, don't you dare cry.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: If you fall apart, your whole family will fall apart.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like for me,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: that it was like happened very close to like when I was looking in that hospital
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: room and being like,
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: what have I done with my life?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, no, like if I can cry to you, who can I cry with?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, like it was in that moment that I felt like no more.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: No mas.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm done.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just done doing all the things and being perfect.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this book that had been sitting in a drawer that had been pulling at me,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just realized there were so many lies in that book.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had never really confronted the rage that we feel when we do everything for everybody.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then people still expect more.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_03: I love Lin-Manuel Miranda.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a little bit ticked off at the Luisa character in Encanto.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because she has her moment of awakening.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_03: They take the things off her shoulders.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: And by the end of it, they put it all back on her.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: They put it back on her.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, you missed the ending, sir.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, that is what.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's what happened.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what society wants from us.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: even when we have our moments of awakening,
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: we're expected to do is to numb ourselves,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: anesthetize ourselves,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: and then go back to carrying everything.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a radical shift that happened in my life.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I went back to writing.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Really, I became very committed.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: The original intention was to publish a book.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, publish a book or bust.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came back and it was hard again.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: The world still wasn't recognizing that I'm a genius.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: What is wrong with them?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, at some point I was like, okay, so it's not going to be about...
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: publishing a book because I didn't want to self-publish.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I actually wanted a traditional publishing path.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, you know what?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to shift.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to become a better writer.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to write the book I want to write,
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: which is going to be about love and obligation and sacrifice,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: but also about rage and sex and joy and pleasure.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And let's see what happens.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I published my book, you know?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really good.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's good.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you're saying it.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to say it.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: You're a genius.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm team Clavis is a genius.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: Stop it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: Go on.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_03: But here's the thing.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Clavis isn't the only genius.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: How many geniuses were stopped because they didn't have the courage to keep showing
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: up and saying,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: no,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: I have to do this.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I have to tell you that I feel like there are so many women in my life.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: and I think this is really unique to many of us as women that I think have been so
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: demolished by expectations and have been so it's been like heartbreaking,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: to like see so many of of the people that I love,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: especially artists,
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: because I think we live in a culture that doesn't always appreciate art.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: if like the the way that our value is measured is by material wealth,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: for some of us as artists,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: it's going to take a long time to make money.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: We might never make the kind of money we could make in a corporation.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: it requires from all of us to just shift the way we think about value and worth and
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: what we're,
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: bringing to society.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: for me,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: that's been one of the things that I,
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I just sometimes...
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a teacher now,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: so I spend a lot of my time teaching new writers.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of my time talking, you know, uplifting people and being like, it's not going to be easy.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about talent, actually.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not about...
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Hard work, because at no point was I not giving it my 100 percent and then some.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So much that can impact is something else.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's really about just like arming people with what you need to know in order to
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: like really be in it for the long haul.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think like all our stories are required.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think about that all the time.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone that I know from the time I was 20 years old.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: 20 years ago to now where I'm like, you know what?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like there have been so many people that I know that are talented and brilliant and
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: just put the career away.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like those stories are beautiful and are trapped and lost.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we all have to commit to uplifting each other,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: encouraging each other,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: even in the face of failure.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: So if it wasn't about hard work and it wasn't about talent, what was it about?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me personally,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: it was really about joy because I forgot that I should be having a good time when
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you read my book, like you can't help but realize that I was laughing a lot.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I cried writing it.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I cried writing it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I don't know.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: There was a part of me,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: too,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: that I think I felt like I needed to be writing a different kind of book to be successful.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And for me,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: like success meant largely like writing a book that would appeal to people who I
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: didn't even know who I was writing for.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: For critics at the New York Times, for critics at NPR, like, I just wanted a big career.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: it's kind of crazy because I ended up with those things,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: writing the book that is the most like me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, so now, I don't know, there's something to me about authenticity.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And about the fact that,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: yes,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was writing a different book that I actually think there is something to be said
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: for an industry that is hostile to like the stories of some of our stories.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like we can't we can't deny that.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like I wrote versions of this book in my previous book that should have
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: been published,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: that should have made it out into the world.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thank goodness they didn't.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: like there's a part of me too that's like,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: but for all that suffering on all of that,
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: like I ended up in a place where this book is the best book I could bring out into
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: the world.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you feel that in the characters.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: That they are doing that same journey generationally.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you talk about...
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: releasing the notion of what success looks like I think that's really hard for a
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: lot of us and we wrestle with money makes sense to go after we know money is
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: valuable we know we need money it's important to our society yes but how did you
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: start to transition your mindset around it
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for me, a lot of it was going back to being a student.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I remember at one point when I had been out of my master's program for a couple of years,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was at a summer intensive.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my professor said to me, like, you're too advanced to be in these spaces.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you shouldn't be in these spaces.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I listened because it's someone that I really respect.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: But,
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: in that moment,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was also not listening to myself because I am someone who thrives in community.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am someone who's really inspired by other people and I'm a little competitive.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I see someone doing something that kicks ass and is brilliant,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: like I'm also like I could do better.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so like there's a part of me, too, that has like that competitive spirit.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not like I don't want to beat you,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: but like I am inspired and fueled by people who are brilliant.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like, you know, it was a compliment.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think my teacher meant it as a compliment, like you're so advanced, you could be teaching the class.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is that I am a lifelong student.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that being in isolation,
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: which I think could work for some people,
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: that they will be more insular or find more of value to say to the world from
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: looking within.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: My engagement is always with community.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the biggest questions I have about the self,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: which are explored in my book,
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: are really in relation to community and expectations and obligations.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was like a big turning point for me, was like being like,
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, I need to be around people.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I actually thrive in an academic environment because I'm a big nerd.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I like to be a student.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I don't have any shame and I get to teach and I get to be part of
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: communities where you're kind of paid to be a teacher and to be a student if you
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: engage with these academic environments.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now I feel like really inspired all the time because I feel like I'm around people who are
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Brilliant.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they make me want to be better.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you changed the goal.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think the goal in some ways, for most of us, I think we go into it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: Or you change the measure.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think both.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think the goal and the measure.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think part of it is when we go into something,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think there are some times when the goals that we have are established largely
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: based on who we were in the past.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that many of us take stock of who we are and our shifting priorities,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: our shifting talents and skills as we progress and as we grow older.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think like that,
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: what happened in my life is that it really made me reevaluate who I was and why I
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: was in it for.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do I want to write books?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I want to write stories?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it is to ensure that like the stories of my communities are not erased.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so like if you're doing something where it's like as a way to taking up space,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't matter if it's published.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think the act of writing the story and of sharing it with people by itself
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: becomes really,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: like part of gaining that goal.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that it happened, you know?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the sharing is a really big piece of this that gets in the way for a lot of us.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: Like if we can get to the point of I've created and then there's the fear of what
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: will other people think?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_03: And so how did you sort of overcome that hurdle of burying your creative heart?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think for most people who create,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: there's this kind of tug where like one day you wake up and you feel lost in the
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: work and you don't know if it's any good,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: and then other times you revise or you go back into it,
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: you become clear about what you want to do and then you can see a sparkle.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: for me,
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: part of it,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: part of the journey of being a writer and like getting over the act of sharing the
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: work is also acknowledging to myself that as important as it is for me to get
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: acknowledgement from others,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: like that's important to me for someone to read what I'm writing and to think it's good.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: That matters to me.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it also matters to me that the work that is there is the best I can make it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so it like that to me was part of it, too.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I started getting a lot more intrinsic joy out of the process of creation and
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: getting over the fear of sharing it with people was not so much like,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: are you going to give me five stars,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: or are you going to give me a brilliant review?
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: But can you engage with my work and have a reaction to it?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And whether the reaction is positive or not, then you've engaged with the work.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then also being really clear about like who I was writing for.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I think my book is really for women.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's for immigrant women.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_03: And all of us as uplifting.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's for everybody.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I really am like, you know, I think that anybody can read the book and enjoy it.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I also feel like there's a seed in this book that is really about people who
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: have done their best to be good and have done everything that is expected.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at one point have to reckon with the way that it invalidates who else you are.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's a moment in our lives,
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: and I hope that for all of us,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: we have that moment where we wake up and we're like,
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: it doesn't mean that you're not trying to do your best by your family,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: but that you shouldn't be dehumanized in the process of helping others,
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: that you should expect the people that you love and take care of to love you and
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: take care of you back.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: and I feel like I did it with the book,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: so there's like a satisfaction I get from I mean,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: the book came out two years ago and the paperback just came back,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: came out last year.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I get letters and like through Instagram,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I get DMs from people and these letters are so beautiful and they're not.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Always from what I expect, like this older man who's like in his 70s sent me a letter.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was like, I don't think your book was meant for me because I'm a white man.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in my 70s.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm disabled.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But this book helped me to think about my mother in this different way and to think
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: about my children in this different way.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote him back and I was like, you are my reader.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: My reader is anyone who wants to read the book, you know?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: but i feel like sometimes you know we we get like into these kind of narrow lanes
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: like yes i was inspired by like my community my culture my own family the women in
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: my family but i think that there's something like about being true to like our
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: singularity that then speaks to the world and speaks to like all of us who are
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: children of complicated people all of us yeah which is all of us yeah
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: I think too, this, that comes back to this authenticity.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: And there's one thing I haven't heard yet from you that I really feel like I want
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: to get a handle on,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: which is this moment in the hospital room,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: realizing that you needed to recenter.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: Did you just blow up your life?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, because I'm a planner and a type A. So blowing up my life meant coming up with a five-year plan.
• 21:12
  Oh.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, I need some financial stability.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: and at the time,
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: like I said,
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: my child was going through the second bone marrow transplant and I was the main breadwinner.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I spoke to my husband about my intention to quit my full-time job.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we shifted a little bit because I am someone who grew up with very little money
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: and money makes me very anxious.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very excited for like the...
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: conversation we're going to have later.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So money makes me really anxious.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, so I knew that I wasn't the kind of person that could just like quit my job.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And like, I have real responsibilities, you know?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the big shift that happened in my life is that I told my husband,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: writing is going to become a priority in my life.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to shift resources to invest in myself.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so even though I had been made to believe that with a master's degree should be
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: a gravy train to publication,
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I actually knew in my heart that the book I wanted to write is a book that is
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: unlike any other book that I had read.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so in order for me to actually write a book I hadn't read,
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I needed to learn from like a lot of people that were doing other things that in
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: combination would give me the skills.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so like that,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: that was tough because I was investing and I wasn't investing in like a local,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: like I went to Portugal.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very important writing retreat.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband was like, really Portugal?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yes, Portugal.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I went to Vermont and I went to like Massachusetts.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, then I activated people in my life because I had been hiding.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had been ashamed and I had been hiding because I felt like a failure.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I decided I'm not going to hide anymore.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that was another way that I feel like I had to let go of my ego.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to let go back to the people that I went to graduate school with who now
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: had Pulitzers and Booker Prizes and be like,
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: can you nominate me for a scholarship?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Can you...
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Write me a letter of recommendation for these programs.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody came through for me.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: it was another two years of me like going to workshops,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: joining writing groups,
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: trying for the agents I wanted and getting rejected before I had the representation
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I needed.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then it was another year before we sold the book.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, at no point was it like, you know, I blew up my life and it was a big payoff.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think, you know, one of the things that I learned from making a commitment to myself,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: is that it didn't get easier until it got easier.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I sold my second book without writing it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I was like, why didn't anybody tell me that I could like propose a book?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you need a first book that's successful for like a publisher to take a chance
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: on a book that is unfinished.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that that will happen again.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there's a way in which I come at my work now as a writer and
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Where I'm like, oh, it's not going to get easier.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Kate Tellers and I were just talking about, we stay hustling.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: The minute you invited me here, I was like, hell yes.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, anytime that I get to connect with people and talk about my book, like, I love my book.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I work so hard and I think it's beautiful.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to make you cry and laugh and it's going to make you a little horny.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: For people who like that, you know?
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like I'm proud of what I've done and I'm ready to do the next thing.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm never going to stop advocating for that book because I think that book had
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: to work so hard to be in the world.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like our creations want to be born.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we like our ego and and our fear getting the way of like this
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful thing that should be in the world.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm hoping to like do more of that,
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: like let that bold,
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: beautiful thing that's inside me live outside of me.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_03: What a good art mother you are.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: What a good mother to yourself.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It took a long time.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's like we all need to mother ourselves, don't we?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's my new thing in bed when I wake up in the middle of the night, I mother myself.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's so weird.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: You should be gentle, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: I do.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_03: I just say like really loving stuff to myself in the middle of the night.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Be gentle.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you said that because, you know, for so long, I would be like, you're not working hard enough.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like something is wrong with you.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: The writing is not perfect enough.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why are you falling down?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm still hard on myself because I have like really high expectations.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: But like you, I feel like more often than not, I'm just kind of like, you're sexy.
• 25:44
  Yeah.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're really smart.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a beautiful sentence.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the whole chapter might need to be revised 10 times, but this sentence is perfect.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like so much of what I'm trying to do is hard.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we're trying to confront how ugly the world is,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: when we're trying to confront and say the truth about what it means to be alive today,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: there's so much pain in the world and it's so hard to be truthful.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like just being gentler with myself, I think is giving me the armor that I need to like,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: stay awake and present to like recognize the horrors we're living through and still
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: try to make something beautiful that also reflects the horrors and the beauty.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: So here's my wish for all of us coming out of this conversation.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_03: We are all going to need the clavis magic in our lives at moments, right?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: I'm looking at all my friends who are writers, especially, and I'm like, we needed this, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: And we're going to just remember this moment.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: And when we feel afraid, when we feel self-doubt,
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_03: when we want to hide this beautiful story within us or when we want to tell
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_03: somebody else's story we're going to be like no i'm going to clavis it is that cool
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: if we if we turn that into i mean that would be great tag me
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for listening to the Uplifters podcast.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: If you're getting a boost from these episodes,
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: please share them with the Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_03: Head over to Spotify,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: Apple Podcasts,
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: or wherever you get your podcasts and like,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: follow,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_03: and rate our show.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_03: It'll really help us connect with more uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: one of these beautiful stories.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_03: Big love.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Painted water sunshine with rosemary and thyme.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Dwell in love perplexing though you find it vexing.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Toss a star and hover.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Be your own best lover.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Relish in a new prime.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: Plant a tree in springtime.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Dance with idle hindsight.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: Bring the sun to twilight.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Lift you up.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whoa!
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's that little thing you did with your voice.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right, in the pre-chorus, right?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're disturbing the peace.