Latest / The Other 22 Hours / Lindsay Lou on rebuilding the self, generational visibility, and 1am baby sets.

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Lindsay Lou on rebuilding the self, generational visibility, and 1am baby sets. · The Other 22 Hours

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is important if a woman wants to have a career, a woman wants to have a creative or artistic or spiritual vocation that that is available in a possibility, lots of intention goes into it because of how all consuming motherhood is, but then when a child sees their mother investing in themselves and taking care of themselves and being creative, it's good for the whole system.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: We often define artists by their outlook, their records, books, movies, and the times they're on stage.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But the art is made in the quiet, the struggle, and the mundane, the hours that no one sees.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm McKinna Ann.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Aaron Kray for Hayes.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the other 22 hours.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: An exploration of the creative life lived in between.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: This week we feature our conversation with singer, songwriter, and front woman Lindsay Lou, who's front of the bluegrass band, Lindsay Lou and the flat bellies for over a decade and then started releasing her own solo records a few years ago.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lindsay Lou is a staple on bluegrass festivals everywhere, joining guests such as Inesky Bluegrass and Billy Strings as well as highlighting her own sets and being a member of
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she just has a new record out featuring a cast of women from top to bottom from engineers, producers, to musicians, to songwriters, all featuring a project of visibility.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: As she says, featuring some past guests of this show, including Courtney Hartman, Sierra Hall, Molly Toggle, as well as Allison Brown, Sarah Geros, whole cast of incredible musicians.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this conversation as you find out quickly, Lindsay is a new mother, and as happens on this podcast, motherhood becomes a main central part of this conversation, especially what it means to be a mother who's touring.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: She has a hilarious torture.
• 2:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, best of all time, early flight toddler who won't sleep.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great conversation that also just goes deep on when you see something missing, create it.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what she did with her new record.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And without further ado, here's our conversation with Lindsay Liu.
• 2:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We like to start every episode the same way with how are you?
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you doing today?
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: How are you really?
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And where are you physically and creatively?
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm doing pretty good.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, I have night wind a few months ago.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm ready to leave Bart for the first time for like a week.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: It went like way better than I thought.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we're still like, we still start nursing around, like right before the sun rises, like around 530, so I'm trying to like,
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: push that now to try to get it to be like okay now the sun is really we can really see the sun now we can now we can start nursing again just kind of try to push that push it back and we're still just right before five o'clock around five o'clock he's like okay let's go
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, and so starting around five o'clock this morning.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, it's still dark.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's still dark out the window.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's just snuggle, come snuggle with mom.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll go back to sleep and I'll go back to sleep.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I'll go back to sleep for like an hour, but this morning or the last couple mornings do.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like every 20 minutes or so.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He gets up again and it's like, okay, is it time it?
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I was between Kyle and Bart, and my hair has gotten so long.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I kept getting stuck under Kyle, and then Bart does this thing where he throws his head at my face.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think to try to be closer to me, but that started around 5 a.m. and then finally at 8 o'clock.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, okay, I'm going to go make my tea.
• 4:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And once I do start nursing, I'm healed.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just keep going back to sleep, and he's been sleeping in pretty late.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: He slept till 10, 30,
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whoa, what?
• 4:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like a nine or so today.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's time to see go to bed.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Between eight and nine.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So that's like his 12 hours, you know?
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mm-hmm.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: This morning I was watching this primal child gal talk about relearning how we think about potty training.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because that's another world that we're living in right now.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's 15 months old and he's super with it.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's always been very cognizant.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's not talking yet, but he understands everything I say.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll be like, boy, I'll get me the shoes that you want to wear today and he'll bring me back one from his basket of shoes and I'll say, okay, I'll get the other one that's just like this one and he'll go grab it and bring it like yesterday we walked to the end of the road.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We got almost to the end and ran into our neighbor talked for a little bit and then he turned around to start walking back and I was like, no, we didn't get quite to the end yet.
• 5:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to go to the end and he understands me so he just turns around and starts walking.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: then we get to the end and we start walking back and he's like obsessed with the moon so he sees the moon and he just like sits down and pats the spot next to him and he's like mm-hmm sit down now we're just gonna moon gaze for a second yeah you know and he like every time he goes to the bathroom he points to his diaper he's like gone on the toilet but we're like in this world I'm like very much in this new parent zone where we know
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: We had it from this hour to this hour in the house and you go into like all the details that nobody wants to hear it forces you to shift like obviously Like wow there are 24 hours in the day and I experienced all 24 of them.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know It's like well like two o'clock.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: We were doing this in at four a.m. We were doing this and
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I think it's like the further you get from like baby life, the more kind of reconnected or at least this is my experience.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So reconnected you get to your former self in a way if you can, but I think in my experience, I would maybe have a moment of like, oh, wow, they really don't want to know all these details, but if you're in that life.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: you do and you understand those details because that question of how are you doing, it's not just, oh, how am I feeling this morning?
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, this is what happened the last 10 hours of my life because so much happened.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, we just had like a month and a half solid of Henry who's 19 months, just not sleeping.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it has been torturous.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: We were traveling, staying in people's houses, so we are all four of us, our five-year-old.
• 6:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you still nursing, too?
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still nursing, yep, and if I nurse him, he will go back to sleep easier.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's not on any sort of schedule, like sometimes he'll go to bed without nursing at all.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's definitely like, was trying not to, so it would be like air and you tend to him, so maybe he'll go back to sleep, and then it was like, that doesn't work because he's a lunatic, and he's like, only wants.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Mom, his comfort is he punches my neck.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's really intense.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So all of these like details that non-parents are probably like this is so boring and uninteresting.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's maddening because all of these little things inform how we can exist through the day.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I look at pictures of myself in July and we played
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: festivals and shows and all I can see is like the bags under my eyes and the memories of like, oh, we played Rolling Stone State Side Festival.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: That was so much fun.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I slept two hours.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: All four of us slept in a double bed before.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god our five-year-old was totally wrestling.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's nobody's left in the middle of our five-year-old slept great.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: She loved it.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You all laid in the double bed.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and she slept diagonally across all of us was like her knee You know on my killer her elbow in my face.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly
• 8:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: and the 19th-month-old like choking me the whole time.
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But anyways, so that's all to say as parents, and especially musician parents, because I feel like there's such a divide in lifestyle once you have bring a child into the mix, there's a bunch of other elements to consider of
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to function through the day, but then also to have the capacity like you're promoting a record right now and I'm assuming about to go place shows and are you writing right now or are you just like trying to compartmentalize how is your brain function grappling with where it's so filled with all of art stuff and sleep and schedules and preparing for tour to leave him for the first
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: How much energy and mental space are you even having for the actual music and career stuff right now?
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, most of the time you're just sort of doing the next thing that's in front of you, but I've been getting these moments more frequently around just like, touring as like a childless person.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's sort of a grueling thing on your body and on your person.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: If someone's that goes into it where you're just exposing your raw heart and never being in one place, just touring alone is sort of a lot on the body and on the system.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: really sing a record is sort of a lot on the body and on the system because you're doing things like this every day and trying to keep all the ducks in a row and make sure that you know I signed 200 records the other day an hour before I had to get down a plane to fly to Vermont to play a festival just trying to make sure that everything happens on time and the right way and every seeing it and then being a toddler mom is a lot on the system and on the body.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like all three of these things are happening right now and I've been experiencing system overload.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, my friend texted me and was like, hey, I want you to sing a song at the wedding I want to chat with you about it.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me know when you ever chance to talk and I was just like,
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I can ever talk.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just like, yeah, I don't have space in my brain to talk about anything.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just on overload, you know, and it's not true.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know that I will have space to talk, and I did chat with her the next day while I was making Bart's breakfast egg.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're like, I keep getting these feelings of just overwhelmed.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: and I want him to like know that he is the most important thing to me because that's the truth and I want that to be clear that he's the most important thing to me and then also I have to do some things you know so there has to be some boundary like right now he's got his dad
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I feel like I feel pretty good about just sort of waiting until Dad can go, they can do something.
• 10:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: It would be great.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: He'll forget about the fact that he wants unlimited access to me every second for an hour and a half, you know?
• 10:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like this festival we played in Vermont this last weekend.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: We did a couple festivals on mountain time a few days before.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for a week, we were in Colorado and Wyoming, Idaho, and so we were on mountain time.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he was really, really stimulated at Grand Target.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He had a great time.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He liked thrives at the festival.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then, you know, he wasn't going to sleep until later.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: and then we were home for a little bit and he like finally got some like really long nights of sleep and then we got an Easter time we didn't get in until like after midnight and he slept on the plane some but like just the way that all the times worked out he slept until noon almost noon the day that I played this festival.
• 11:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we're constantly doing this, should I have done this?
• 11:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, should I have opened them up?
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know?
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, but I'm not going to wake up the sleeping baby.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, obviously, need sleep.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I let him sleep till noon.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he took her nap on the way to the festival.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, at bedtime, and I waited until like 10 o'clock, the festival promoter of let us use her air stream.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, then, we read the story, and I set up the spot in the monitor, in the sound machine, and then there's them to sleep, and he fell asleep.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: All groovy Lucy who he loves who lives a block from me who nanny's form and comes on the road with me when ever Kyle can't Lucy's stays with him in the air stream with the monitor and I go rehearse I didn't have my front of house.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have my base player my late night set turned into my main stage set and now I am playing songs with my buddies at the festival to try to figure out what we're gonna do for the late night set while he's sleeping But he only sleeps for an hour because in his system
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then he wakes up and like Bart is not the type of dude that's inconsolable.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's pretty easy going cool guy.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can count on one hand the number of times that he's been inconsolable and his 15 months alive.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is one of the times he wakes up and loses an air stream with him and he's
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: and controllable.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I went in there to see if I could get him back to sleep, but he was not having it.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was like, I'm done with this bed.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: All done.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: All done here.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we just take him into the cabin where we're rehearsing the set was 12 30 to 13 AM, which I like.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not the time in my life to be doing that sort of thing.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 13:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I've no.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't remember why
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like I'll go I got 10 minutes.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me just go see if I can get him back down before I go play the set and that was clearly not happening So we all just go to the set me Lucy the band Bart we get in the shuttle and go to the 12 30 AM
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Late night set and I get on stage and Lucy takes him and goes and I've played the first song And I think I hear him and then I play the second song and I hear him kind of whimpering out there And I'm like I'm not gonna play this set with my crying baby and the audience like I don't want him to be away from me
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, is that Bart?
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Lucy brought him to the stage and sometimes if he's just near me, that's like good enough.
• 14:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm like, okay, okay, he can just be on stage with us hanging out and that would be cool.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wasn't enough.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was not the hour for that.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: He wanted to be on me.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I put him in the sling and I've gotten like a tower in my band Jo and I'm planning the late night set.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like a couple thousand people at 12 o'clock in the morning.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've got an A-D-A-M flight to Denver the next day.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: He, like, wanted to be done with the show, but also he, like, loves the base and Sam Grisman is there.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: That sort of made me feel better.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was at one point.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, well, if Sam Grisman is any testament to how Bart's going to turn out, I think it's going to be fine.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know what?
• 15:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just feel like a horrible mother who, like, needs to be done with this, because my baby wants to be done with it.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also, I need to be doing the show because that's what I'm hired here to do.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's how I'm going to pay my mortgage this month.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, the people who write to me are like, you did this so gracefully, but I also know that there's some people in the audience who are probably feeling what I'm feeling like, get that baby to bed.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing?
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, uh, all these, like, just feeling so torn on the inside.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I still think about this all the time.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if there's a solution because the solution presented is okay, give up your career, which
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Also, that's your livelihood.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: You need to work.
• 15:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most of us are not in situations.
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most Americans are not in situations where families and households can exist off of one income.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's like the financial survival that's necessary for moms to keep working as well as the emotional spiritual fulfillment of getting to do the thing that you feel like you were meant to do
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: While also being pulled and wanting to be with your child, it's so hard.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have to continually tell myself and meet people like Sam Grisman and we talk to Derek Trucks, and he talks about how their adult kids are like, they're so close and they turned out fine.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's just this really tough period where you're pulled in a million directions.
• 16:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's such a learning process.
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You learn like, okay, maybe I'm gonna plan for more cushion time.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like every individual person has to go through it and learn what it is.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's also different for the mom.
• 16:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: The dad isn't the one that the baby's putting their hand on their shirt, like trying to get back inside your body, essentially.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: like that need is so is so intense last night our daughter I was trying to put her to bed and she was like one of me to go to the bathroom with her and I was like mommy just needs like a couple minutes go do your team with daddy and then I lay with you and that's our time and she said yeah but mommy I want all of your time and I was like I know
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know you do, but could I have five minutes?
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just five minutes.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I actually want to give them all of my time.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so I want to talk to you all for an hour.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's not much, so I want to do outside of living.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm all my time.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I forget who we were talking to.
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like maybe it was Leila, McCalla, where we were talking about that poll, especially when you're in the face of your end, and transitioning from early childhood to like 15 months or getting more and more independent, you're able to leave for longer, you're able to do more things, trying to balance that poll of parenthood, and then your other love, your other passion, your art, your creativity, Leila was saying that I'm pretty sure it's Leila, about how it's really important for your children to see you following your passion.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: doing it and seeing you do the work and put it all in and be like, no, this is what's important.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to continue to do this hard work and do what lights me up.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's equally important.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: As hard as it is to physically be away from them or momentarily put them lower on the priority list at a necessity.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, which is not true, he's still my number one priority, but like I do very much believe in that too that it's a slow process of getting to the point where him seeing me invest in myself and be a real model in that way is slowly starting to actually be a thing.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Up until this point has really been, he actually just needs me to care for him and co-regulate and it is really important as much as we are caretakers or real models.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I find that especially if I'm like in periods of time where I'm just parenting when I do get an hour to go do a little bit of writing or even an interview or especially when I've gotten to go away by myself on tour and I don't have that poll while I'm also on stage in the same acute way because they're not crying in the green room.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I come back so much more present and refreshed in my feeling.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel like worn from the pole.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like those little reconnections are so helpful for parenting and also
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we never have this conversation with fathers in the same way.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have conversations with fathers who talk about the role that fatherhood is played in their career, but it would never be a question of, would you give up touring or not work as much?
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: A question for men would be like, well, how are you going to work more because you need to provide?
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think we've had a lot of conversations, or a handful of conversations with men about the sacrifices that they've made through father Joe Henry comes to mind.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I chose the primary caretaker and he made an entire record.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't citizens.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he made an entire record where it was when he was in L.A., and his studio was in his basement.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And at nap time, he would grab the monitor and run.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I didn't know if I would have 20 minutes to record or two hours to record, but I'd run out and he made an entire record during his daughter's naps because he was the primary caretaker.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he shared Michelle, you can chill out, told Joe Henry, don't try and hide it.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was always trying to make music time separate from his parenting time.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she told him like, let them see it all, which it sounds like Lindsay, you guys do also of just it's messy and chaotic.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think sometimes hard to regulate within it, but letting them see it all and be a part of it.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think is one of the beautiful aspects.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: and our five-year-old, when she plays pretend, she pretends that she's Taylor Swift.
• 20:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, Mom, you be my husband and you watch the baby while I have to pump milk from my boobs for you.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she has a different story that maybe we don't because of the time and space that we grew up.
• 21:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I want to know is you mentioned that insane festival story that he shared with us.
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when he woke up in the air stream, and you're like, okay, we're all going to this set.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you mentioned our children see us co-regulate.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there anything that you did in that shuttle ride to center yourself or maybe once you got to this stage?
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have things that you do to kind of shed the oversimulation of parenthood before you have to show up and be completely vulnerable and share your voice in your songs?
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I always think about my breathing, you know, just sort of redirecting my focus to my breath.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's how I regulate myself.
• 21:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with bored, I always just tell them what's ahead.
• 21:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like 98% of the time, things go smoothly if I'm just like, explain to them.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to get in the van now.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bart's going to come with Mama to the stage and then Mama's going to pass
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or it's going to hang out with Lucy just while mama works.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And place music just for a little bit.
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then Bart and Mama are going to get back together.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get back.
• 22:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I sort of just like explain to him every human's about to happen.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And nine times out of ten, it goes like that because he understands everything I'm saying to him and just knowing what to expect helps everything run so much more smoothly.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's always that one time out of ten where it doesn't.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where he's like, hmmm, that's not what's about to happen, mom.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, and at this point, my regulating myself is always a matter of co-regulation.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's as regulating to me to regulate with him so that I feel like we're on the same page together, and I'm setting us up for success.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be easier on him.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: If it's easier on him,
• 22:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: going to be easier on me.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so just the thing that helps me is focusing on my breath and doing the work.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I just feel better in life.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just do the work.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do the thing that I need to do.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've only been away from him twice so far.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the times was leading up to this river trip that I had to be gone for seven days and he just was physically not allowed to go white water
• 23:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was six nights and so we did two nights leading up to that three weeks before that just to ease into it.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it would probably become more like you're talking about the thing that you experience Michaela, you have a five year old, so you're further along and experiencing all this.
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, that first trip of spending two nights away from them, I went back to work when he was seven weeks old, and so he's been in my arms on every flight that I've taken and at every festival I've played, at every gig I've played, he's been with me until the end of June.
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, man, I thought that I was going to feel this like relief in this freedom and this body autonomy that I have been so without.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And instead I just felt like weird and awkward.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And lonely.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I used to relish in this quiet hotel room.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: that I can just do whatever I want and I would not even go do the advice, I love adventures, but on the road it's like you get so overstimulated I would just sit in the hotel room by myself and the time would just like fly by and I just like relished in this alone time.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I got this hotel room to myself and this quiet hotel room and I hated it.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was just looking at the watch.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guess at time to load out yet, you know, and I was like half our early for load out There was this mom with her two kids on the flight and I just creepily stared at them the whole time, you know So look at the little baby talk
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, marveling at her with two of them doing this alone, you know, and I just felt like foreign in my own body and in my own space because as much as he has this attachment to me, I have this attachment to him too.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I have a need for him like he has a need for me.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We were, he wasn't just a part of me, we were a part of each other.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, and so it's like going to be this whole process and I think that's where the mom and dad Different kind of happens is like that is such an extreme thing to have been literally one person with another person
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: for so long and then, especially as a nursing mother, it's just a different level.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not that fathers don't experience a shift.
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like, I have a new body, I have a new brain, I have a new heart, I like kind of new, I was going to have to say goodbye to my old self, but all of a sudden they're gone and you didn't say goodbye because you were laboring and you were like thinking you were going to die for 12 hours, you know, and it's like,
• 25:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now all of a sudden you're like tripping for a while on oxytocin and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my god I can't just get in the car and go to Phoebe's to sing happy birthday to her without feeling Not comfortable in my skin because I'm not with my
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Baby, who's been in me and now on me, it's so everything, it's just, they want every baby view because they actually have every video, yeah, it's like the reality of it and it's so extreme.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's euphoric and devastating at the same time because
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like motherhood and parenthood too because for both parents, the grief of the life that you no longer have who you were before, but also this weird grief of being like I long for it, but I also don't want it anymore.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I know there are cultures I've watched different things where they talk about ceremonies of actually saying goodbye to yourself before you bring a baby into the world.
• 26:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And welcoming that new person, we're different people.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and like I was doing with that self.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was ready for this new self, but I was used to that self.
• 26:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was almost 40 years old.
• 26:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I spent almost 40 years being that self.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter if what I thought I was ready for or not, you know, it's like all of a sudden it's just gone and it's jarring.
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's
• 27:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: intense and difficult and also euphoric.
• 27:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm feeling this intensity all day and then he goes to bed.
• 27:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, man, I can't wait till he wakes up.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I miss him.
• 27:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's in the other room.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just going to look at pictures of him now with the monitor right next to me.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, because I'm obsessed.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm not complaining about any of it.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just kind of what it is.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's no way that you can hear this, or really get this, until you're in it.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can have somebody say all this to, if you're a woman and maybe a man to find out for sure, if you're a woman that wants to have a baby, you can hear all of this.
• 27:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it does not mean what it's about to mean.
• 27:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: No.
• 27:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you're in it, you know.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: you can hear someone say you've never experienced a love like this and you're like oh yeah sure that makes sense and then all of a sudden you're like oh yeah how can I feel this feeling for sure yeah you can hear all the words in the world you're not hearing those words at three in the morning when you're absolutely sleep deprived and stressed because you have a flight in two hours and
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know all those compounding like oh this is real but I love it we've experienced our lives extend in both ways the lows have gotten lower and the highs have gotten way higher it's just complete stretching of capacity in all directions
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, just a quick pause from this conversation.
• 28:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: The other 22 hours is an independent production built entirely on the idea that these quiet, honest conversations matter.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: The best way to support our work is simply to share it, so if you can think of one person who would appreciate this show, please pass it along.
• 28:43
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• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a small action that makes a massive difference for us.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
• 28:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get back to our conversation.
• 28:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious if you and it might be early, but if you feel that there's been any shift in your relationship to your ambition, musically.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: In two different ways, ambition in your creative striving, but as well as ambition on the career path.
• 29:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I do feel like I have less capacity for bullshit in general, which I think plays into that question, but I'm not sure if I have felt a difference in motivation or drive or anything.
• 29:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like a very stereotypical, ery's type.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, this like drive and dream and vision is like sort of always happening.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like I was nursing my four-day old baby and listening to mixes of bluegrass women.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's always something that's happening in me, in my brain, and in my being.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think I have less or more drive.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like I wanted to be a mom so bad for so long.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything that I did up until being a mother was so that I could be a mother.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to get my career established and have things going and have a place in this world of music so that when my baby comes into my life, I can support the baby and I can be the role model.
• 30:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been thinking like this since I was like 20.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: or my whole life.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was psychotically like this.
• 30:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I've experienced a difference in my driver drive.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just have less capacity for things that aren't serving the best good, you know.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing like parenthood to really make you super efficient with your time and priorities.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it really puts things into clear focus.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You get shit done.
• 30:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know we're nearing the end.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We of course want to be mindful of our time.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: This podcast we barely ever talk about new records.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I do want to mention your new record and would love to hear a little bit about it before we do our last question.
• 31:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You put together an incredible lineup of all women making the bluegrass women record.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So engineers, producers, all the musicians and all the songwriters of the songs on the record are all women.
• 31:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you just share a little background of what was the impetus of this project, what kind of inspired you to put it together?
• 31:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was mainly finding out that women had written a couple of standard bluegrass songs that I had learned and been singing in jams, you know, that were like Stanley Brothers or Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs, to find out that a wife or a mother had written these songs, and I've learned about old bellbreed early on.
• 31:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I probably heard Tim O'Brien saying I've been doing before I ever heard about old bellbreed.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, mm-hmm.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was like a after aha moment to find out that women had been a part of this music, because it's just like not the thing.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just aren't a ton of physical women in the history of this music.
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: So as a woman who's in this music, when you find out about this, it's like, oh, cool.
• 32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just feels cool.
• 32:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It feels encouraging.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It feels sweet, you're delighted and
• 32:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like a cool thing, and so to put all these songs together, and one place gives it really nice highlight, bluegrass is such a beautiful thing where it bridges generation gaps and brings people together that might not even know each other unless you be a band, because there's this common repertoire, and there's records like The Nady Goody dirt band will circle being broken and the bluegrass album band,
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: and David Grizzman's home is where the heart is, Scott Vessel's Floodgrass 95, where men are like honoring the heritage of the music and getting together with the cross-generational musicians and making records honoring the heritage, there's no women and any of the records that I just cited.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not pointing a finger or making a judgment.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just saying that that's the situation.
• 33:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know that is what it is.
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so right now we're living in this awesome time where there's all these amazing women pickers and there's more and more coming up every day that I could just like text all my friends and be like, hey do you want to make this record with me of all these songs Lagara songs written by women?
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: and what's your availability and put together a handful of bands, and I got Sean E. Gandhi, who was also pregnant during the sessions, and Phoebe came in with little five-month-old bastard, and you know, and we're all just real women, and all of us have had the experience of being the only woman in the room, you know, whether it be at the jam or in the session, or at the gig, and to just get us all together in one room,
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just felt like a celebration and a reunion and a hang, and there was all of this mutual respect and reverence for the songs and for the women who wrote them and for each other and for the women and the room who would have been doing it longer than we had.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I literally get goosebumps talking about it every time.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been having these interviews so much and it's still just like felt so impactful.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And here it is, a record in time that can be referenced for years to come.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: That says that we were here and we are here and we've been a part of some of your favorite songs since the beginning.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not meant to be political, it's not meant to be judgey, it's not meant to be fingering, it's not meant to be apologetic, it's just a cool thing.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, it's incredible and it's like a whole picture look at trying to contribute to the canon of bluegrass music and Seeing a whole and being like I'm gonna fill that especially because you have the opportunity that there's so much incredible talent right now to include
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's, you know, like we've been talking because I'm so in the depths of motherhood.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you've let me, that's all I'm going to talk about.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is important if a woman wants to have a career, if a woman wants to have a creative or artistic or spiritual vocation that that is available in a possibility, lots of intention goes into it because of how all
• 35:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: but then when a child sees their mother investing in themselves and taking care of themselves and being creative, it's good for the whole system, it's good for the whole society, it's good for everybody and everything, this whole idea has been building and growing and being talked about for years and years and years and years and years and we're at a time where more than ever
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's visible like as recently as the 70s with a woman got pregnant, you know, out of wedlock or in a career it's like you had to hide, you know, and that's just not good for anybody.
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just great that it's so visible.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like I remember seeing the gals from Lucius being open about their pregnancies and motherhood and touring.
• 36:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: and Rachel Price and there's just like various examples of it that I've seen and that we all see from each other and it just gives a sense of encouragement and instills a sense of possibility that's good.
• 36:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's what the whole basis of this record is making a truth that is part of our
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it blows my mind being in the position that I'm in being a producer or a musical director like I'm having to hire people all the time and I've said it a few times on this podcast, but like I'd much rather hire a mother or somebody that's a parent than hire some totally
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We virtually lost 30-year-old dude that lives in his Nashville that was probably at France until four in the morning, and like that parent is going to be there, they're going to be prepared, they're going to be on time, and they're going to be responsible.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like just across the board, whether that's a musician for the band or a mix engineer or an engineer or whatever, it's just like the capacity and the growth that you get doing this job and chasing this career as a parent, adds value and adds skills across the board
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think what you said, the visibility without pointing fingers, without making the judgment without talking about the wire, or whatever, the fact is that it's hard to find those spaces where you could see the records where it was a bunch of women players, but you know they exist.
• 37:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: so just creating those opportunities is really incredible.
• 37:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think our age group and circle of women musicians who have become mothers in the last several years.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have these conversations all the time with the girls of Lucius or Rachel Beeman or Caroline Spence, like so many of us that now it feels like I look around and there's so many working musicians who are mothers, but
• 38:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: six, seven years ago, when we were talking about having a baby, it was so scary because it was hard to find those examples.
• 38:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I knew maybe someone was a mother, but I didn't know it wasn't visible.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was kind of like, I'm like, well, they must just make a lot of money so they have nannies or something so that the kids are away and not the kind of lifestyle that I think a lot of us have where our babies are like with us, we're working class, you know, our children are everywhere,
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's really beneficial of just shifting the narrative and showing what is possible and building a new more visible culture.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like because we want to be cognizant of the time that you've given us today, but we do finish all of these conversations with the same question and it's like choose your own adventure.
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it could be either something
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: that someone said to you or something that you heard slash red that continues to resonate with you and keep your cup full and keep you inspired and keep you creative or conversely be something that you wish younger you knew when you were first starting to build a career based on your art.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so just say it's all going to be okay.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be okay and you're you're going to get into deep or you're not going to want to do anything else anyway, so relax.
• 39:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, it's come in no matter what you do.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 39:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got a two batch of degrees from MSU for Spanish and human biology and it was going to be a doctor and it was like, took me so long so many years to be like, am I doing the right thing?
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Am I doing the right thing?
• 39:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could just have like a regular job and I could not be having my whole self and heart be the thing that is going to pay my rent or not, you know, all the way through the pandemic almost only like in recent years have been like, no, I'm not going to be a mailman, I'm not going to be a doctor.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, even studs still happen sometimes, which I think I could be lactation consultant or like help others.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, this is what I do.
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is who I am and just like, not feeling that torment of am I doing the right thing and my making the right decision because this is what I do.
• 40:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really do think that it's the best way that I can serve humanity and myself is just making this art that I make.
• 40:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But just relax because you're not going to give up anyway.
• 40:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So stop thinking about it Yeah, I could use that too.
• 40:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I still I still need that Well, thank you so much Lindsay.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know Bart's going to be happy to have you back this morning Thanks for letting me talk about mom's stuff for an hour.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wait.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll do more
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: We know your time is valuable and we're grateful you chose to spend this hour with us.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: If this conversation resonated with you, know that it is just one of many.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have an archive of over 140 conversations.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're looking for a way to go to next, you can find curated playlists by topic on our YouTube channel or simply scroll back in the speed to find our conversations with Rose and Cash, New York Times bestselling author, Maggie Smith, Lucius, Jade and meferson, and many others.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: This shows produced by me, Mary Chaffer-based, with help from the Kayla Anne.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And all the music you hear is written, performed and produced by me as well.
• 41:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Our show is edited and mixed by Leland Holden at Pod Punch, and we are proud numbers of the Bluegrass situation podcast network.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for being here.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you next time.