Latest / The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac / The People We Fear May Be the Ones We Need

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The People We Fear May Be the Ones We Need · The soulnotskin Podcast with Jen SluMac

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: She meets these people that she meets along the way that she thinks she has nothing in common with, like the Baptist preacher.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_04: She keeps expecting him to be judgy and judge her, and he never does.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_04: He actually turns out to be a wonderful friend to her.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: So I just like again, we're back to that theme of don't judge a book by its cover or by you know your lifetime of assumptions about people or what you've you know seen about people on Twitter or or X or Facebook or whatever.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but come to your own conclusion.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Soul Not Skin Podcast, a virtual living room, a safe, welcoming place to land where you can come up and share and share stories straight from the heart.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Jen Slumack, or as my students like to call me, Miss Jen.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about the real human experience, the hard stuff, the wonderful stuff, and the messy everyday growth that shapes who we become.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Real stories, real people, real insight, becoming who we are.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Settle in, and let's dive into today's episode.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Today I have author Leanne Walling with us, and I'm very excited to introduce her to you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: At age 69, she's a former journalist and political aide.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: She published her debut novel, Assault and Lightning Express.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: The story follows an older woman traveling west in a small RV to scatter her late partner's ashes.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: And on the way, she is she's navigating a lot of things.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's navigating grief, flagging faith and social device to rediscover purpose and love.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Which I've had my own recent experience with grief, not a partner but a mother, and I certainly think that we do grow a lot in the in the wake of it.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: A book life editor's depict the Kirk's Reviews calls it a very compelling character study of a woman seeking redemption and love.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So as I just told you before we got on the air, I'm very excited to have you here.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is not my typical format that I would have somebody come on to talk about their thing, but your thing is story.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And your thing is story of the human experience, and that's what my show is about.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think it's critical that we move through life engaging so that we can grow.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Would you start by introducing yourself and tell us uh what inspired this novel?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thanks so much for having me.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_04: I just I love what I've listened to of your podcast so far, and I'm glad to be on it to talk about this.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't been on one for a while.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_04: So I during, you know, all all kinds of things happened during the pandemic, you know, big life shifts and opportunities to think about what's important and what's not important and what you want to change about your life.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_04: And uh one of the things in and thinking about regrets, and if you might have any, and one of the things I regretted, probably the only thing I regretted was I always had wanted to write a novel.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_04: I became a journalist after college.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_04: I it was the the heyday of Watergate and newspaper journalism and the Washington Post, so I thought that's the route I wanted to take.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I did it for about 10 years, and then I really deviated into many other things politics, land use, owning my own business.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: But uh during the pandemic, I signed up to apply to be a student at Drexel University in in Philadelphia.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: They had a Master of Fine Arts program, and I thought, well, if I'm gonna pay tuition, uh, I'm gonna, there's a something's gotta come out of it, like a book.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_04: So that was, I kind of held my feet to the fire just by the fact that I was paying, you know, the tuition.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_04: And it turned out to be a great experience.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was uh part residency and part online.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, a group of I was not the oldest person in the group, but close to it.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, there were a lot of people all along the spectrum of life, including you know, graduate students who had just done their undergrad.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: So we blended really well.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: It was a very diverse group.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_04: And during that first year of the program, I I wrote this novel, which started out being uh kind of autobiographical, memoiry.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, as I was in the program, I realized it was a lot more fun to make stuff up, you know, and to make up people and to make up places and to make up plots.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_04: And it was probably any more interesting than any story I could tell about myself.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_04: So it morphed into this story of this older woman whose partner is gets killed in an accident, and it's partly her, it's partly the protagonist, Chris's fault.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: So she has a lot of guilt, she has a lot of grief, and after about a year of really downward spiraling, she decides to go west in a little RV, a little Winnebago, red Winnebago, and she ends up in Moab for the first part of the book and meets a lot of people, just a quite a motley crew of people, but they take her under their wing and they start the healing process.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh then she uh she meets a woman named Claire who didn't start out as kind of being the major love interest, but she more she also morphed into that because I started to really like Claire.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: I started to think, what more can I do with this woman?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and so I made her the other main character of the book.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: But she goes to Texas and she tries to ri reconcile with her evangelical kin down there in Texas, who she hasn't seen for decades and doesn't go well.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: So and then she meets up, there's a lot of spirituality in the book.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_04: She's uh struggling with her faith.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_04: She, you know, had been a she had been Episcopalian, she had had these experiences, she'd had experiences with a lot of hypocrisy as well.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: So she's church?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: Come on.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, can you believe that?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_04: We can talk about that later.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well she meets just talk she meets a Baptist preacher, uh Southern Baptist preacher named Jared in a Starbucks, and she doesn't really she makes all kinds of assumptions about her, and he turns out to be a great friend.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_04: So he also helps.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, go ahead.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_04: Sorry, go ahead.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to tell your whole book.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I know.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_04: I I was gonna stop people that read it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I was gonna stop about there, but I mean it's just about trying to connect, it's about trying to find community and belonging and love.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_04: She doesn't really expect to find love, but she just wants to belong somewhere.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I'll leave it at that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not I wasn't planning to tell the whole story.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: If I wrote that, I wrote the first draft during the first year of the program, and then I refined it during the second year of the program, and then I graduated in 2024, and then I published it in last October.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm working on the second one.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_04: But I you know, it's like I know you don't like people on selling a product, but it's not like I've sold thousands of copies.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: I've you know I've sold several hundred copies.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I can can we jump back for a minute because you had so much right there, and I just kind of want to dig into it a little bit.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: You've written a book, you've reinvented yourself multiple times.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you identify in the LGBTQ community, is that right?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so I just I was so excited to have somebody else uh to talk to you about sort of this journey because it's been such a journey.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that you said I wanted to start with is when you mentioned going back to college, you said that you were one of the older, but not the oldest.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so that first year was sort of this experience with all of these different people.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I imagine I wonder, is that some of what inspired Chris to have that experience in Moab?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like is was was your experience of being sort of moved into this world of different people?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Did that inspire it at all?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that just a coincidence?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I think what inspired it was just not making assumptions about people, whether it's you know, young people or old people or uh people of a certain political persuasion or people from a certain place.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, so that that was part of it because uh when she goes to Moab, there's a there's a couple there named Wade and Hannon, they have this gigantic like million-dollar RV and they're from Texas, and she makes all kinds of assumptions about them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and they get off on the wrong foot, but they turn out, of course, to have a I hate to use the cliche, but they have a heart of gold and they're very generous with their time and their treasure.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I I think I started out to to create a a book about just not falling for assumptions about people.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_04: Because I think in a, you know, in in the time we're in, we really go to our corners pretty quickly and dig in.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I do it.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm not a saint.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_04: I I make assumptions about people all the time.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_04: But I was I was hoping this book would would sort of get people thinking about that and what they do and how they can undo their thinking like that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate that.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big theme of my show and my work is I've had the wonderful privilege of sort of uh living in different communities and being, excuse me, becoming close and being a fly on a wall in a lot of different worlds.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what I've learned is yes, there's a lot of things that make us different.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um at the core of it, we all want the same things, you know.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think we do.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we're so much more than the assumptions that we make about each other.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I like to talk about how you know it's just simpler for human beings to sort of put people in categories, and so we sort of make two-dimensional character caricatures of those people, right?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm so sorry, excuse me.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things that I want to do is I want to bring those people into the conversation so that people who've never met them can maybe meet them in their earbuds or you know, be folding laundry and learn about I've got a passion for the incarcerated population and those who come out and are able to sort of reinvent themselves.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I so that's a big reason why I wanted you here because that's one of the themes of your book, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have so much more in common than we have different.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And if we could focus on what we have in common, we would have so much so there'd be so much less divisiveness, right?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think we're I think there's a there are forces at work every day dividing, trying to divide us.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_04: And uh if if we ever if we ever figure it out that you know the the folks in Appalachia are are and the and the poor people in the city have more in common than they, you know, that than their differences.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I think that would be super powerful.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_04: It'd be the end of our divisions.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm being I'm being really utopian here, but I just I'm convinced that we share the same, for the most part, share the same goals, and there's all kinds of forces at work driving us apart, whether it's bots or media or politicians or whatever.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's I've I'm struggling with, I'm struggling against that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's one of the things that I tell my son.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, what I've decided in this world is that in my lifetime, we probably won't all come together because we're all growing up at different paces, we're all at different levels of understanding the world through our journey.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: We understand it differently the more we've seen of it, and the more people that we've met who are diverse and different than us.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I told him there's two teams.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's one that is, you know, breaking each other down, and there's one that is building each other up.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you gotta decide which one you want to spend your life on.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to live on the team that is building people up and trying to build communities.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I saw a lot of that in the story.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were talking a little bit before we got on, and I'd like to bring this conversation to to the to the show real quickly.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're different generations, and I'm 52.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when when when I was deciding what language I wanted to use to identify myself in the LGBT community, I landed on queer because queer is just sort of it just felt like more of the umbrella to keep it simple term.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I also understand that it's got some historical uh negativity attached to it.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I was approached several times on campus when I was doing my comic strip and responding to a lot of painful messages in the newspaper.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was attacked a couple of times by older folks in the LGBT community for bringing us back, setting us back by using that word.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: What what is your language?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: What do you like to use and where does that come from for you?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I've never been comfortable with the word lesbian, and I don't really even have a good reason not to be.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's just, I don't know, it just hits me wrong, it hits me wrong.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_04: But I've I've been using it because it's accurate, you know.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: And and I actually liked when they when when the when they started with the initials, you know.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: I thought I thought LGBTQ, I can handle that, you know, because that kind of that can that and then they started adding more initials and a plus.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, so if I only say LGBT or LGBTQ, am I now being politically incorrect, you know?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_04: So but I still use I still use that.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, as an author, there's like a Sapphic authors group.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I kind of uh I leaned into the Sapphic for a while, and then but apparently that's very controversial for some reason, and which I didn't even know until I waded into the whole thing.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: So and queer, it's like I was at a book signing with David Sederis, the humorist, and he he actually asked me, he goes, What do you think about the word queer?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: He goes, I'm just not comfortable with it.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, I think it's our age, you know.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: I just think back when we were kids, it was a pejorative.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, and but on the other hand, it's so succinct and it sums up a lot of different, you know, manifestations of somebody who's who's you know, LGBTQIA plus whatever, you know.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: And my my uh the and one thing that's sort of getting me acclimated to it is my pastor who we're I go to a very progressive Methodist church in Rehoboth Beach, she uses it regularly, and I'm like, well, if she can say it, I can get comfortable with it.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm I'm sort of I'm sort of getting more comfortable with it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't like label.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_04: Part of the problem is I don't really like labels, but but that that's starting to work for me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_04: I'm starting to like lean into it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for saying that.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to look up the definition.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not like distracting from us, I'm looking up to see what it actually means.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's differing in some way from what is typically considered usual or not normal.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Odd, strange, weird.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it there's this like, you know, yeah, I'm different, I'm perceived as different than you.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing like I always got upset with the word lesbian too, or the word gay.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, you know, I grew up in the same world that you did, and then when I fell in love with the girl, or when I started realizing that I was having, you know, attractions to females, then the world started to call me lesbian.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's never something that I decided I was, right?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I discovered who I love, and then I had a new name, and I was just like, I don't, I don't want to stop it, right?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so funny because I think from the outside looking in, you're just like, oh, she's gay.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's a lesbian.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like she probably chose that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's almost like we we decided that we were that, but we discovered that we were that, and that's what you chose to call me.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now I've got to wear that, right?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand your discomfort with it.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's always just kind of a like I don't know about that.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_04: But I was already I was already always okay with gay, pretty much, you know.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's just just I am who I am, as they say.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well the thing is, is that all of all of the labels have weight to them?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's true, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't want your weight, like that's not my weight.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_04: Right, exactly.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Good point.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I said in my in my book, I said at one point, I said, you know, if I'm not with somebody, because I I fell in love with a girl in high school, and of course that didn't work out very well, or at least the way that I wanted it to.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Man, if I don't have her, I don't want this title.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't want to walk around and have to carry the weight of your stuff.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, at least if I'm with somebody and I'm happy and I'm on top of the world, okay, fine.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_04: Call me what you want.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Call me what you want, I don't care.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: But like if I'm not with her, like I don't want the title, you know, just leave me alone.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_04: I know exactly what you mean.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, thanks for going down that rabbit hole with me for a minute.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_04: I love rabbit holes.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do too.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately or fortunately, whatever.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I love about your story, and I'd love for you to you you touched on a little bit with the folks from Texas and the big sexy RV uh van who turned out to have hearts of gold.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: But give me a second story before, besides them and the pastor, what is one of the most poignant moments that Chris has on her journey where she really sort of sees things differently when the grief starts to turn?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And who did she meet that that caused that?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, she meets a woman named Claire, who is a actually a black woman.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_04: She was a retired school superintendent from upstate New York, and she's a native of Barbados.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_04: And when I first started the book, I start I kind of made her this like mystical figure in the campground, and I wasn't going to do much more with her.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_04: And then I found out that it's actually like a negative trope uh of black people, the you know, the so-called mystical Negro.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_04: And and so somebody called me out on that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_04: And so I but I start I was already starting to like Claire, and she had her own tragic story.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: Her son was an off-duty policeman who was murdered by a vigilante at a in a Walmart in Texas.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: So she there's an event towards the end of the book that's a very physical, violent event uh that kind of is the climax of the book.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_04: And after that, you know, she's had these feelings for Claire that she's never really elaborated on, and they've kept in touch even after they both left the campground.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: But she and but after that experience, now you're now I am giving away sort of the end of the book.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: But after that experience, after that experience, she kind of she just realizes life's too short.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_04: I love this woman.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I if she doesn't love me, I just it doesn't matter.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_04: I still have to, you know, tell her what how I feel.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: And that's I'll leave it at that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: But she never really expected to find love again.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_04: She just wanted to, you know, belong somewhere.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: She wanted to belong with her family, and that didn't work out at all.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_04: They were just too judgy about her.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And too afraid.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_04: Too afraid.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_04: And Moab, you couldn't you stay, you couldn't stay in that campground forever.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_04: Everybody, you know, left and went on.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: So so I just uh you know, she does come to terms with a lot.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_04: She was not mindful at the beginning of the book.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_04: She her lack of mindfulness caused the accident that killed her partner.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't her fault directly, but that contributed.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_04: So throughout the book, she's sort of searching through for, you know, I mean, so there's a lot of spirituality in there about, well, one of the big themes is what is Christianity in, you know, 21st century USA?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: What is it, you know, what what are the basics?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: What do you need to believe or or think to be considered a Christian?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: And what you know and why has it gone so wrong, you know, in our in our society?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: And there's a lot of that in the book.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: So there's kind of like major people themes, like human themes and then the spiritual themes.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but she does um emotions and really think about, you know, don't just settle.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's another theme of the book.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: People that never really ask the hard questions about what they want to be, who they want to be with, what they believe.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's amazing how many people go through life who just go through the motions and don't really uh ask themselves those questions, don't find time to.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_04: They like to stay busy so they don't have to think about it, you know.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that you said one that came to me as you were speaking about that, Leanne, what's you know, the not judging a book by its cover and Chris being an older woman who basically can't take care of herself.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought about like when I was younger.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I never wanted to assume that you were going to feel ugly about me, but safety determined that I had to, right?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like I had I had the people on the college campus, like they were I was getting death threats and I was getting followed in the dark on campus.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Gratefully, there was no social media at the time.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: There was my picture wasn't even in the paper.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: They asked if I wanted my picture in the paper, and I didn't alongside.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was writing every day in response to some really homophobic and angry people in the community.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and people found me.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: They found me in the dark.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like they would give me letters like types.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: I worked at the cafeteria, and they would like get me letters and say, Would you please meet with me?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: My parents have disowned me.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm suicidal, and I don't want to, I don't want to take my life, but I've never met anybody that I could talk to.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't want to talk to you in public because people know that you're gay.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you mean?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would meet people at like 11 o'clock at night in like these dark corners of the campus so that they could bear their heart to me, right?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I had guys attack me at parties saying that they would turn me straight, type of things, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I got that.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so so there was a lot of there was a lot of stuff that gave me good reason to make assumptions like I could be wrong, but then I will survive, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: So the older we get and the more capable we find that we are able to move through this world with some agency, with some autonomy, and with some self-protection, then we get to a place where we are safer to give other people a chance.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: How much do you think that there are different versions of that same fear that keep us separate from each other, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: That have nothing to do with one's sexuality in this world.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I just, you know, you just took me back to the 70s and 80s, and you know, when I had, you know, one foot and four toes in the closet and and nobody really I just had to be a different person like at work versus what I thought about and wrote about at home.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_04: And and it's sort of I I don't know if you've read this book, it w Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's on my list.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_04: I haven't yet known what I did in her other one, uh, seven husbands and this one kind of changed the because I it's rem it was about it's about two women astronauts in the 1980s and kind of you know, forbidden love, and it it just and plus there's this big space uh disaster going on at the same time.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, I wasn't an astronaut, I was just a reporter and a political person, but it reminded me of what it was like back then, you know, and how far we have come, although we seem to be, you know, slipping a little bit uh in terms of just being not being afraid to say who you are.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_04: I go to a church where half the people are probably gay, uh, and uh it's it's just celebrated.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_04: But that book inspired me for like to to do the second one, which is more about somebody's journey, you know, through the 70s, 80s, and 90s until she finally finds a partner and they live in Philadelphia where nobody cares, you know, it's in it's in the 2000s.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I never really thought in my lifetime that I we we would be at the place where we were in the in you know 2015, 2018, where the Supreme Court was striking down, you know, prohibitions right and left and and the you know same-sex and our or you know, all that stuff.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_04: I just never thought I'd be there.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_04: And it kind of it kind of took me by surprise.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_04: And it was like a year, our our state was uh Delaware was one of the first to pass like a civil union uh law.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: And after a few months, my my pastor at the time called me up and she goes, Are you guys gonna do this or not?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_04: You know, she called me because we I just wasn't I couldn't keep up with the pace of change back then.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_04: It was pretty fast.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I mean that came from And I had never dreamed of getting married.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, me neither.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_04: I never even thought about it.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: I figured if I do get married, it'll be I've exhausted of this of this effort, and I will just concede and marry a dude, and the wedding will be fine, and we'll be friends, and it'll just be and you guys can all keep your label and I'm just I'm tired, right?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the wedding that I imagined I might have one day.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, when it became legal and then it like went back and forth, it was I I didn't like you guys when you didn't expect it in your lifetime and it shows up, what a blessing.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but then you take it back again.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've already I've already decided that this person is my wife.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So again, keep your label or whatever, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I just yeah, that was a things that come with marriage.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, there were, I mean, there's obvious financial benefits and tax benefits and all that stuff.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: But I was like, is it you know, why why do we need to be validated by this institution, you know, that is this tired old institution that my mother and father failed at and my dad failed at like five or six times, you know.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_04: But it but it it became it became a symbol, it became important.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_04: But that kind of inspired me to write about this person's journey.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and she she actually she has a a a teacher, a mentor from high school who's dying, and he calls this group of friends to his bedside, and this is the next book, and he and they haven't seen each other for 40 years, and there's a lot of baggage.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, she goes back and she but she has a partner who's very upset with her just dropping everything and going back.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: So the next the Know that book is called The Next Right Thing.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm revising it right now, but uh it's more it's gayer, that's what I tell people, you know.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the the first one is like not spicy, which I've quit apologizing for because you know it's a story of two women, you know, and kind of what they go through to get to the point at the end where they are.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's not spicy.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_04: Uh the next one is not really spicy either, but it's a little bit gayer than the first one because I was really inspired by that book atmosphere to talk about, you know, just what it was like.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, and when I I worked for the governor of Delaware, the first and she was a woman, uh, but and at the f when she was first elected in 2000, she would have state dinners and I'd have to drum up a guy to, you know, uh invite to to be with me at the dinner because I just didn't feel comfortable inviting my partner who's still with me, you know, 40 something years later.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: So but so and that's the thing.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Part of it is part of it is that you you don't I mean, you just want to go to the state dinner, you don't want to deal with everything that comes if you show up with your partner.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I want to be there with with her, I want to, I want to enjoy the state dinner, I want to be able to uh enjoy the talking and the speech and all this stuff, but yeah, but but that gets stolen from me if I show up as myself.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so just to kind of keep that at bay, I'll play your game for a little while, right?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's very and by the end by the end, it was you know, she did show up with me to events and things like that.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: And that's great.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_04: But uh it it it took a while.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_04: It was partly my fault.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I could have insisted, I guess, but it just didn't, like you said, I just wanted to enjoy the state dinner, yeah, the food, the booze, the people, you know.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to rile up the children, you know what I mean?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just want to go to the show.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like Leah, I just want to go to the show, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really interested.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, because my book is autobiographical, but I I called it fiction based on a true story because I talk about a lot of things.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about the divorce of my family, alcoholism in my family, and some really yucky scenes about you know sexual abuse on campus and you know, a lot of different things.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I was I was sexual with men for a period of time in an effort to stay safe and also to be held when it was scary to ask for what I wanted, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so there's a lot in there and a lot of names and family that I didn't want to throw out there because I've done a lot of healing, but they necessarily haven't.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I've really thought about so I've got a second book that I'm writing now for the last 25 years of my life.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: But my question to you is because I've really been inspired to go from this version, I'd rather put it into characters and tell the story from my experience, but create.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: How did you make that transition from wanting to tell your story into developing characters?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Direct soul obviously had something to do with that in the university.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I just I realized my story wasn't that interesting.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_04: You know, just I mean, maybe it was, but I, you know, memoirs are very hard uh to get published.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_04: Uh of course you can self-publish them.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: But uh at the beginning, my gut my idea for the book was, well, she was gonna reconnect with her family and it was gonna go well.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: You know, they were gonna kind of bridge the gap and could, you know, understand their divide what divides them.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_04: And then I realized, yeah, I know, I realized boring, you know, it just wasn't very interesting.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: And two, as I was writing, you know, I mean, I it it also wasn't realistic.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_04: It just I just couldn't see it happening, you know, with just the way people are, you know.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_04: So I I just and also, like I said earlier, I, you know, as as I got farther and farther into the program, I realized, you know, I can make things up.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: I can make up people, I can call them whatever name I want to call them, I can make up plot.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_04: I don't have to stick to some rigid factual something, something, you know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and and that was uh, I mean, it sounds so basic.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_04: It sounds so basic because, you know, I'm writing a novel, you know, of course I can make things up, uh, but it it took a while to because I was a journalist, you know, so it's quite a change in mindset uh to go from you know wanting to be factual.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: And I still sort of, I still I sit with you know Google Earth on my computer to make sure that I'm you know accurate about this place and that place and that street, and I look up words and I um I I still fear that somebody's gonna call me out on something that's untrue or inauthentic or something.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, I it's a novel.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: So you can make it turn you can make it turn out however you want, you know.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's the beauty of it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I highly recommend it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_04: I highly recommend it.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: I gotta tell you what I have found in putting my book out there, and then it I published it in 2019, and then I just sort of I worked full time for a while, and then long story short, recently resigned from my job in April because my mom passed and I wasn't doing what I felt like I was needing to do in my life.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, why am I miserable at this job?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good good people, good mission, but I'm not in I'm not feeling good about waking up every day and going here.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So what am I doing?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I resigned and and I have to tell you that I started to push my book again and you know, maybe five more years old, so yay.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But but what happens is as I start to sort of market it, I'm just like I'm like sort of like listen to my story from 30 years ago that I've moved through and that I've grown through and that I've healed through.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm just kind of like I kind of want to just start over and and write.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know if I even want to tell you the rest of the story because it's just like I'm bored with me.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I did, I did call it, I did call it fiction because I I have a horrible memory and I'm sure that I've conflated timelines, and sometimes I've compressed timelines just because like this is a boring decade, you really don't want to hear all this.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what happened ultimately, right?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it just let's go from there.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a tricky thing, but I may want to pull you offline and just talk to you a little bit about an idea that I have and see, you know, yeah, I I think you should start over.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_04: It's freeing, you know, to just start from scratch.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's you there's I do have an I start with an outline, and Lord knows by the end of the Salt and Light Express, I don't think it looked much like the outline.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: But I I mean I do like to have some kind of structure and sort of know where I'm going because then you can you can plot out, I mean, the second book is all plotted out in a spreadsheet, every scene, and I could I could have I could dive in anywhere and write what I what I felt like writing about that day.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm I'm all for like organization to some extent, but not so much so much that it's so structured and rigid that then you can't go off in a totally different direction because you're in something has inspired you.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, I would I would suggest just you know, phone, starting again, you know, with a work of fiction.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: I would.
• 28:27
  unknown: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've got a lot of life experience that could certainly uh fill it out, you know, a lot of really interesting.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's that's the beauty of getting older, you know.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you just have these experiences you can draw on and kind of weave them into your story.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, I can't imagine writing a book like this when I was, you know, 22 and right out of college.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_04: I had I knew nothing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't know anything.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I didn't know that I didn't know anything.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: I thought it was pretty darn smart, you know.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: So well, and all of my writing from back then, because I've always written I've written all over the place.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I used to write my name all over furniture and make my mother insane.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've always been a writer, but oh my god, at one point I had to get rid of my journals from my teen years.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: They were taking up, they were like a black hole energy in my in my house.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was so miserable.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I think the page saved me.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think having the ability to write into a safe place where there wasn't any repercussions, like probably saved me.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: But like, yeah, I was so melodramatic and so depressed, so sad.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's obvious enough of that, you know.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_04: I still I still have the literary journal from high school where I wrote all where all my angsty poetry was published, and it's just makes me cringe now.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean we had to do it, right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's almost like it's it's this or it's self-harm, right?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's this absolutely, you know.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: So so yeah, I still have my I did a comic strip in college and all those letters that I wrote in response to folks, and I still have my my book of that because that was just a really that was during um don't ask, don't tell type sort of era.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I kept that, but I've gotten rid of a lot of the other stuff.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, tell me, I'm interested about the title of your book.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell me about the title?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: How did you come up with that title?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: That's from the Sermon on the Mount.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: You are the salt, salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: And like I said, there's some spirituality woven in there, and that is the name, what she ends up naming her camper, the Salt and Light Express.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_04: So I love it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_04: So, and and talk about a total brain fart coming to you.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_04: I had no idea what this book was going to be called.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_04: And and you know, I do I really do think that when you're plugged in or when you're in the zone, that things do you get struck creatively, that there's a creative force within you that you can tap into when you're really, you know, uh in the zone.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I was super happy with that title, and most people thought it was a great title, especially when they found out that that was the name of her camper, you know.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but yeah, she talks about Claire.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_04: Claire was also a spiritual woman.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_04: She was like almost kind of a mystic, sort of like a real contemplative.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_04: And uh they were talking one time about they were just trying to remember what Bible verses they could remember from you know when they were in Sunday school, and this one came up.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_04: And then, you know, Chris has the idea that, oh wow, that'd be a great name for my camper, you know, salt of the earth, light of the world.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and Seven on the Mount is my favorite.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I go back and read it a lot because it is sort of a mission statement and it's got some beautiful, uh, I mean, I know it's translated uh from Greek, but it still has some beautiful poetry and imagery in it that I just love.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_04: So I read that pretty regularly.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it kind of helps keep you grounded.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: I finally found a church that is by no means primarily LGBT, but surprisingly very welcoming of me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: The pastor got up one Sunday, they were talking about scapegoats.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: There was a series we were doing on scapegoats and how in society we just sort of like you know put it on other people, and it's usually the other, and it's usually the marginalized hand.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then he he stood up there and he apologized to the LGBTQ IA plus community.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I was one of these people that grew up believing in all of the ugly things that you have had to overcome.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I spit them at you and I'm so sorry.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, wow.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he and I have actually become friends, and um one of the best parts about it is that we would both tell you that we learn from each other, that we grow.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: He said his Christianity is strengthened, you know.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know if he said that, but what he said is, you know, I see you as a mentor too.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's in conversations, that's what we've talked about.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we sort of help each other see things differently, and it's really beautiful.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's the the value of the story that you're telling.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think we do this in the world?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get I mean, we can't save the world obviously, but how do we get more people to sort of talk to somebody they've never met?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And or do we just have to leave that to when it happens and be grateful for it?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I you know, I think if you volunteer and you know, not just send money to something, but if you volunteer and meet people face to face, I think that might help.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I my spouse has a great granddaughter, and she we were leaving church one day and there were people lined up for to get food because we hand out food on Sundays, and and she's like, Why do why do these people have an if they need food, why do they have nice cars?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, Oh, here comes a teachable moment, you know?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, yeah, so we're like housing is really we're in a beach area, you know, a resort area.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_04: Housing is super expensive.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh people need a car just to, you know, go around and go to their jobs in daily life.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_04: So they're gonna have probably have cars, uh, even if they're still hungry.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_04: So uh so I I mean, I hope that that sunk in with her.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_04: It's a question that a lot of adults ask, you know, why do they have a cell phone?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: You know, they're supposed to be poor.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_04: Why do they do this?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_04: Why do they why can't we help people in our own country first?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_04: You know?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and I just think the more you volunteer, uh, I think that's a that's a step.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I just we got a new neighbor next door, and and he came over and he was super nice, and his wife was super nice.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_04: And then I, as I do because I'm a former reporter, I looked him up on Facebook and I found out that he'd been in DC on January 6th as a protester, you know, as a pro-Trump protester.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, oh man, what am I going to do with this?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I really enjoyed it.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_04: We talked to the guy for an hour and his wife, and we showed him around our house, you know.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_04: But that's almost like a bridge too far for me, you know, that the big thing.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but you know what?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the insight that that it's it's all about relationship.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Once we have relationship with that which we think we have nothing in common, then we realize that like I'm doing the best that I can with the information that I have, and so is everybody else.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that puts us in different places on January 6th.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes that puts us in different places at the pride parade.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember there was this guy who used to stand every single year.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: There was a little small town pride parade in one of the towns near me.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: A dad started it because his son was gay.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was small, but it was, you know, big deal.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And this one guy used to come and he would he would hold his son, he would just stand there silently across the street from the pride parade, and it just said, God hates facts.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the first year it just like it devastated me, right?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I I couldn't and the next year I was like, wow, he is he's here again.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like nothing changed for him this last year.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next year I saw him again, and I finally just said, Okay, I'm I'm just gonna go talk with him.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I went and I stood next to him and I said, Hi, I said, I see you here every year.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, and he wouldn't, he didn't say anything to me.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Tell me about your God, and he didn't say anything to me.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I said, I love God too, but my God just doesn't hate people.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'd be really interested in hearing more about yours.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then he finally looked at me and he goes, Are you one of those gay people?
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you over there?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Would that change how you answered my question?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm asking you about your God, I'm not asking you about those people.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just like, and he wouldn't talk to me.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I stood there for a while and I just said, Well, I love you.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm sorry that you feel like you need to come here and hold that sign, it's gotta be heavy.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I hope you have a great day.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I walked back across the street, and then I could stand myself.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like the first two times I let it be about me and like like a you know, like it was hurting me.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was just like, Wait, this is about him.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: This, you know, so getting back to that finally having enough agency to realize like he's a danger, but not to me.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: Like, that's yeah, it says much more about him than about you.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm trying to say.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah, and and you know, there's there's two things that I w want to finish your your question because it popped into my head while you were talking.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_04: It was one, I mean, we're supposed to love people who don't love us back.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's easy to love our, you know, our kids, our our you know, the love of our life.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's easy to love, but we're not supposed to stop there.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: We're supposed to love the people who are really hard to love, who don't love us or who who hate us.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: And the second thing I'll say is uh, and I've sort of come to terms, I think, you know, it's so ugly at the national level because we feel helpless.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_04: We feel like we can't do anything to change what's going on at the national level, but we can definitely, you know, get together at the community level.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm I mean, I'm sure there's people, you know, in the food pantry and the food ministry at our church who, well, I know there are, who have different political beliefs, uh, but they believe in feeding people who are hungry, and they can get together on that topic.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_04: And and I think you know, you just have to you have to get down to the community level.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_04: The form the church that I went to in Dover was very diverse, you know, R's and D's and gays and straights and older people and young people with families, and we would just get we would get together around things that we could all agree on.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_04: You know, uh I'm trying to remember what the issues were up there.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_04: It was a little bit different because we were in the state capital, but you know, down here where people are hungry and you have the resources to feed them, it's pretty easy to get behind that, no matter what your political beliefs are.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_04: So I would just really recommend to people that they get involved on the community level and try to tune out, at least to some extent, the national crap going on, because it can get you down.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I just have to turn it off at at some point.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_04: I probably shouldn't watch TV news at all.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_04: I should probably just read uh, you know, news articles and things like that, and I won't go crazy or have to mute it every time somebody comes on that I don't want to hear from, you know.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and here's the thing, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had a s I stopped, I chose to stop watching the news decades ago just because it doesn't serve my light, so to speak.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: So regardless, I mean, decades ago with several presidents and several administrations.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I just, you know what, like you said, at community level and like I was saying, it's relational.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are relational creatures.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can focus on like what we can reach and who we can reach in our circle of influence, exactly, then we can, and that will that will that will ripple out.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: But if we focus all the time on the big things that we can't control, can't control they will consume us and make us uh sort of paralyze us to be able to do things locally.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I totally agree with that.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's hard.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Here's an example.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is how hard it is, right?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've shared and we've just discussed how I feel about we need to talk to people that don't agree with us and come together and focus on what we agree on.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I've got an aunt who is uh I think I have two aunts who are very conservative, but this one in particular, I was it it came up around Charlie Kirk's assassination.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw her post something very loving and kind about him, and I reached out to her and I said, Tell me about I I tried to I tried to be very careful, but basically I wanted her to tell me about what she sees in him, like what she loved about him, and this and I wanted to know, right?
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: So she she wrote back and she said, Why, what do you think?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: She was willing to go there with family, right?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I I blew it.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: I blew it because what I did was my thumbs got to my emotional response to all the stuff.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that comes from my trauma, and I know that comes from not being able to say what I need to say, what I need to say, and just kind of what it does.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it just got done so fast, and it was my fault.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I live this stuff, like this is what I want in the world, and I can't do it.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: So we went back and I just said, listen, I said, I am not I don't advocate for assassination, I don't I advocate for anybody getting killed, regardless of what they believe, how they live, anything.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: I value human beings and families, and I'm sorry for his daughter, and I'm sorry for his wife, and I'm sorry that he's gone.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And let's just leave it at the fact that we're family.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so you try to go back to the family, but you still know that it's there, you know?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I've, you know, what one thing in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination was that people had totally different views of what he was about and what he said and what he didn't say.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_04: And there was, I mean, I never saw the side of him that a lot of the people were reacting to who were mourning his death.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_04: I I was shocked.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_04: I read it, it sounded like you were going to say exactly what I had read that uh that you talked to a person who saw one side of Charlie Kirk that I never saw, and she never saw the side of Charlie Kirk that I saw, you know.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like, how can that happen?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's just so crazy and bubbles, you know, echo chamber, echo chambers, and and you know, and getting out of the echo chamber, that's hard, it's really hard to do.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is hard to do, and what's hard, what's harder, maybe not harder, but what is hard to do about this is focusing on what we have in common rather than focusing on what what is different, right?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe if we can focus on what we have in common, then maybe we can at least start to see the human being behind that thing that we don't agree with.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's what she and I decided to do.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I just said, I said, listen, you know, I blew it, I didn't do well with this, but you know, we're family, and can we just focus on that?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, Yeah, let's just do that.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the hard thing, right?
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is to love each other anyway.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't see the world the same way, you know, you're not gonna see it the way somebody else walks through it because you don't the world doesn't treat you the way that the world treats somebody else, so you don't see what they see.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the things that I'm really interested in.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: I can't wait till my book arrives.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I ordered one, it didn't get here in time, but I did make great efforts to find out more about it so that we could have this conversation today.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_04: I personally pulled a pulled a copy out of my closet, signed it for you, addressed it for you, and took it to the post office.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: So hey, thanks.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're you are your own drop shipment company.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's right.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, somebody suggested, yeah.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, you can get you can buy the book anywhere, you know, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, any bookstore, you know, but basically, but somebody suggested, you know, if somebody wants a cop a signed copy of your book, you should make it available.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_04: So that's what I did.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I saw that.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was really neat.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a closet full of books too.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_04: Well, there you go.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just did a book signing at Barnes and Noble not too long ago, and uh, and I've got some left over, and I was just like, I just hold on to them because I give them away.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: And and then sometimes I get to sell them too.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, autographing them, that's a really neat idea.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: I like that.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Anything you want to share with us before we uh sign off in terms of the journey of writing this or the uh the critical nature of community?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh I don't want to I don't want to sound like a cliche, but you know, I'm 70 years old and in 2020 or maybe a little well, if things were still like percolating then, but you know, I would decided to go back to school and do something that I never had the time or the money or you know the inclin inclination to do.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_04: It wasn't convenient because I was working.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_04: And I just think it's like one of the themes of the book, it's never too late.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_04: You know, it's never too late to try to reconnect, it's never too late to find a whole different family or a whole different community, it's never too late to find your soulmate to find love.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's never too late to just start over.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, because the character in the book is not quite as old as me, but you know, she was in her 60s.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_04: I also, you know, think that it's there's not a whole lot of books that feature older women protagonists, you know, who go on an adventure.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_04: So so I would just, yeah, I would just say that, you know, you have you may have something to say that nobody else, you know, people younger than you don't have that experience to say.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: So try it.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_04: And I, you know, I got it independently published.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_04: I hired a consultant who helped me, you know, do all the cover design, the interior design, the ISBN numbers, the the uh well, not really the marketing, uh, but helped me, you know, plan my launch, help me get the uh book reviews and stuff like that.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_04: I spent way too much, and I won't have to spend that much the second time.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: But there's just some there's many, many different ways to get published.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: I gave up on an agent, you know, in the traditional route long, long time ago.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not even sure I would even want one now, you know, to be perfectly honest with you.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: It takes too long.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_04: I'm 70 years old.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh but that's it's like this gate.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, it is.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like the gatekeeper.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: You don't you don't need a uh creative agent anymore.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: You can just go on YouTube and it's a wonderful thing.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's like podcasts, you know.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_04: I started my own podcast.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_04: Anybody can start a podcast, anybody can have a sub stack, anybody can publish a book.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_04: Uh it's great.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: But you have a substack, don't you?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's called MFA and Beyond.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: And it's free.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_04: Subscribe for free.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_04: If I ever get famous, maybe I'll start charging.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_04: But right now it's right.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I want to just say one last thing.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I agree with you 100%.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's never too late.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just wish direct.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've pivoted so many times in my life that I almost had some shame about it.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a friend of mine told me, she said, Stop beating yourself up.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, but I'm changing my career again.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: She said, because you have the courage to.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: She said, so many people will not go with the tide of their interest or go with the tide of their evolution.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: They will stay put under the delusion of security.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, I celebrate you.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, Wow.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_04: That's absolutely true, Jen.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_04: That's true.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_04: Some people will never even consider that they're in a stuck in a rut, you know.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_04: They don't even want to think about it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_04: And thinking about it is the first step to crawling out of it.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: So and I want to thank you for not writing a spicy book.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for not writing uh for writing a book that you think is boring, because I think that the not spicy and boring books are are needed.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I find them endearing.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that it's important.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Books and podcasts and movies, these are our opportunities to impact the way people see the world.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I hope it's not boring.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_04: When I started it out as kind of a memoir, autobiographical memoir sort of thing, that's when it was boring.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_04: But once I figured once I realized I could make things up, uh then I hope hopefully it's not boring now.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_04: But and it's you know, it's about friendship, the depths of friendship between older two two older women, you know, and finding your soulmate.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for correcting that.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm by no means calling it boring, but I'm glad that you corrected it.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, let me know when you read after you read it what you think.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I will.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very excited to read it, and I appreciate you putting it out in the world, and I appreciate you spending time with me today, Leanne.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, thanks for having me.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Really, it was fun.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: If this conversation sparked something for you, or if you want to dive deeper, head over to soulnotskin.com and take a look around.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Grab a copy of the book, Soul Knot Skin, free resources, or get on the wait list for our next workshop.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you'll pull up a chair next time to hang out with us again.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're figuring out this world and ourselves at the same exact time, growing as we listen to the stories of others.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's keep getting to know each other.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: After all, we are in this together.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: See you next time.