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Book Club: Heart Berries · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danny and Samantha. I don't go to Stephane.
0:07
Speaker 1: Never told you protection of I Heart Radio. I just
0:19
Speaker 1: like randomly thought of a question for this one, and
0:21
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask it. But I don't want to
0:23
Speaker 1: answer because I don't have an answer unless you already
0:25
Speaker 1: have a good one. We're gonna write a memoir. What
0:29
Speaker 1: would you call your memoir? So I actually had the
0:34
Speaker 1: back and forth about different titles, and I can't tell
0:38
Speaker 1: you because I've written them down. Something with like the
0:42
Speaker 1: fact that I have an undoing or untangling and or
0:46
Speaker 1: an unraveling of swords, the unraveling of Samantha of some sort,
0:50
Speaker 1: that that was my title, just because it was like
0:53
Speaker 1: my memoir would have a lot to do with trying
0:55
Speaker 1: to piece together everything, so you have to undo everything
0:58
Speaker 1: to come back to everything. Glut the way I learned
1:01
Speaker 1: are the beliefs that I had growing up and then
1:04
Speaker 1: having to undo that. That would have been a big
1:06
Speaker 1: piece of mom in war. So I actually do have
1:08
Speaker 1: an answer, not an exact answer, with something along the
1:12
Speaker 1: lines answer, I love it. I think that's great. Um,
1:16
Speaker 1: I really don't have an answer. I will say a
1:18
Speaker 1: lot of that. I'm a very big title person. I
1:21
Speaker 1: think we've discussed this before, Samantha. You and I both
1:23
Speaker 1: love a good title, and usually my titles are very
1:28
Speaker 1: I don't want to say heavy handed, but they're like
1:30
Speaker 1: dramatic and a lot of the things I like, um
1:34
Speaker 1: pawns also but dramatic. But as we got said, this
1:37
Speaker 1: fiction like a lot of the and we'll talk about
1:39
Speaker 1: them as we do them. But a lot of the
1:40
Speaker 1: times I name I use something that is usually in
1:44
Speaker 1: reference to technology, but I'll use it as like something
1:49
Speaker 1: deeper about the human condition. Yeah. So we have one
1:52
Speaker 1: coming up called deep dream, and that's in reference to
1:55
Speaker 1: the Google Deep Dream where you can feed it images
1:59
Speaker 1: and it tries to it makes sense of what they
2:01
Speaker 1: are and if you go look it up, it looks
2:02
Speaker 1: like the most trippy dream you've ever been on this Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
2:08
Speaker 1: So it would be something like that. I'm going to
2:09
Speaker 1: think about it to return to later. So before we
2:13
Speaker 1: get into this one, which is a book club at
2:15
Speaker 1: a memoir, if you're confused as why we're talking about that,
2:18
Speaker 1: I didn't want to put a quick trigger warning here.
2:20
Speaker 1: We're not gonna go too deep into anything, but um,
2:23
Speaker 1: we are going to be talking about a little bit
2:25
Speaker 1: about suicidality, mental health, abuse, and trauma. We're also going
2:30
Speaker 1: to touch a little bit on UM disordered eating eating
2:33
Speaker 1: disorders and UM death death in the family. UM. So
2:38
Speaker 1: if you're not in a good space for that UM,
2:40
Speaker 1: you know, maybe come back later or maybe skip this one,
2:43
Speaker 1: because today we are talking about heart Berries teen, a
2:47
Speaker 1: memoir by Therese Marie Mayatt Um. It is the story
2:50
Speaker 1: of Mayatt and her personal journey grappling with trauma after
2:54
Speaker 1: a dysfunctional childhood growing up as an indigenous woman in
2:58
Speaker 1: the Sea Bird Island Band Reservation of the North Pacific.
3:01
Speaker 1: She was hospitalized with PTSD and bipolar to disorder and
3:05
Speaker 1: given a journal to write out her trauma, and this
3:07
Speaker 1: journal became Heartberries. A lot of it is addressed to
3:12
Speaker 1: her lover or ex lever I Guess Casey, and it
3:15
Speaker 1: is a tribute to her mother and activists and social
3:18
Speaker 1: worker and examination on a relationship with her father who
3:21
Speaker 1: was an abusive alcoholic artist UM who was also Bernard,
3:24
Speaker 1: and an examination of love in the face of shame UM.
3:30
Speaker 1: And the writing is really really beautiful and poignant and
3:32
Speaker 1: painful and Millie braw it does. It gives you that
3:35
Speaker 1: vibe if you're reading somebody's personal journal. This is probably
3:40
Speaker 1: one of my favorite writing techniques in that the address
3:44
Speaker 1: and the personal, first person content. I love that type
3:48
Speaker 1: of conversational writing, which is probably what I align with
3:52
Speaker 1: the most. Beau. I'm not going to compare to this
3:55
Speaker 1: award winning novelist at all or author in any way whatsoever,
4:00
Speaker 1: but this would be the way that I write. She
4:03
Speaker 1: does it in such a way that it digs into
4:06
Speaker 1: my heart. I don't know the way of saying that,
4:10
Speaker 1: in just feeling like, yeah, I thought these things. Uh.
4:13
Speaker 1: There's conversations in there where she talks and compares herself
4:16
Speaker 1: to white women, and even though I'm not native or indigenous,
4:19
Speaker 1: I am Asian and grew up in a white world,
4:22
Speaker 1: and I felt it. I felt that pain. Um. But
4:26
Speaker 1: outside of that, just the way she has this inner
4:29
Speaker 1: dialogue that comes out onto pages. It is glorious and
4:33
Speaker 1: I think it's so raw and so beautiful. But yeah,
4:35
Speaker 1: it is such a compelling piece, um, if you are
4:39
Speaker 1: in a good place, because it is fairly traumatic her
4:42
Speaker 1: life has She's gone through some some things, and she
4:45
Speaker 1: writes in such a way that you feel it. Yeah. Yeah,
4:50
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very it's a quick read. It's
4:53
Speaker 1: a I wouldn't say difficult, but it is like emotionally taxing,
4:57
Speaker 1: emotionally training, I can put it down. It felt very electrifying.
5:01
Speaker 1: But it was one of those things where it's like,
5:04
Speaker 1: because of the way she wrote, she packs so much
5:08
Speaker 1: into like every word in every sentence, and it's all
5:11
Speaker 1: it's so condensed, but so much is being communicated in
5:14
Speaker 1: everything that it felt like just alive almost in like
5:19
Speaker 1: electric and like I don't know where this is going
5:22
Speaker 1: to go, but it feels I don't know if scary
5:25
Speaker 1: is the right word, but like you're you're just on
5:27
Speaker 1: edge because yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but very very effective.
5:32
Speaker 1: And I thought it was really powerful and beautiful and
5:35
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it. From NPR quote an illuminating account
5:39
Speaker 1: of grief abused and the complex nature of the native
5:42
Speaker 1: experience at once raw and achingly beautiful. And yeah, as
5:47
Speaker 1: you read it, you see my it sometimes fragile mental
5:50
Speaker 1: state reflected in the writing, but you also see healing
5:53
Speaker 1: and a reclamation. Yeah, And as I said it, it
5:56
Speaker 1: is largely directed to casey uh and kind of like
6:01
Speaker 1: their relationship and her sort of grappling with all of
6:04
Speaker 1: these things around that I have to wonder with that
6:08
Speaker 1: because she it is all these are real people. I
6:10
Speaker 1: went through half the book researching if there was reaction
6:14
Speaker 1: to her writing, because she is brutally honest even and
6:18
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it, i'm sure later on. But there's
6:20
Speaker 1: a small section about Paul Simon, the musician, and the
6:24
Speaker 1: way she like paints him. It's not ugly, he doesn't
6:27
Speaker 1: do anything ugly, but it's just very direct about like, hey,
6:30
Speaker 1: white man profited, good job. And I had to go like,
6:33
Speaker 1: does he have a reaction to this award winning top
6:37
Speaker 1: you know, tin book memoir? I didn't find one, just
6:41
Speaker 1: so you know, but I did wonder because, especially when
6:43
Speaker 1: she's talking about Casey, she is open and completely raw
6:46
Speaker 1: about how she's feeling, and it's familiar for any woman
6:50
Speaker 1: who felt gaslighted in any way and or secondary in
6:54
Speaker 1: any way and in a relationship. It feels so real.
6:57
Speaker 1: But I won't have to wonder, like I wonder what
7:00
Speaker 1: his thoughts are? Did he read doesn't think oh yeah, yeah,
7:08
Speaker 1: we're gonna get into that with this one, And like
7:12
Speaker 1: with many where we're not you know, we're neither of
7:15
Speaker 1: us our Native American women in a part of the
7:18
Speaker 1: indigenous experience. We're gonna use a lot of quotes, and
7:21
Speaker 1: this one, I feel like I say this with all
7:23
Speaker 1: of them and it's always true, but there were so
7:25
Speaker 1: many that I was like, all of this is quotable,
7:28
Speaker 1: this is this is why everyone should read it. Everyone
7:32
Speaker 1: should read it, and and people are singing its praises rightfully.
7:36
Speaker 1: So it's won a lot of awards. It's on so
7:39
Speaker 1: many must read list, including Emma Watson's. And I put
7:41
Speaker 1: that out there because I do. I've read a lot
7:43
Speaker 1: of books because of that list. So oh yeah, but
7:46
Speaker 1: very very very well deserved um. And yes, we highly
7:49
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. So yes, we are going to include
7:52
Speaker 1: a lot of quotes in this one around some pretty
7:54
Speaker 1: central themes. And one of the themes right at A
8:00
Speaker 1: eight is storytelling. So here's a quote that's at the beginning.
8:06
Speaker 1: My story was maltreated. I was a teenager when I
8:08
Speaker 1: got married. I wanted to save home. Despair isn't a
8:11
Speaker 1: conduit for love. We ruined each other and then my
8:15
Speaker 1: mother died. I had to leave the reservation, I had
8:17
Speaker 1: to get my d a d I left my home
8:20
Speaker 1: because welfare made me choose between necessities I used to
8:23
Speaker 1: check and some cash I saved for a ticket away.
8:26
Speaker 1: I knew I would arrive with a deficit. That's when
8:28
Speaker 1: I started to illustrate my story and when it became
8:30
Speaker 1: a means of survival. The ugly truth is that I
8:33
Speaker 1: lost my son Isodora in court the Hague Convention. The
8:36
Speaker 1: ugly truth of that truth is that I gave birth
8:39
Speaker 1: to my second son as I was losing my first,
8:41
Speaker 1: My court date and my delivery aligned in the hospital,
8:44
Speaker 1: they told me that my first son would go with
8:46
Speaker 1: his father. Yeah, so that's kind of right at the beginning,
8:52
Speaker 1: setting up all of this trauma, all of this pain,
8:56
Speaker 1: and throughout you hear kind of this idea of, you know,
9:01
Speaker 1: my story was maltreated and the story of my women
9:05
Speaker 1: in my family especially has been maltreated. And seeing all
9:10
Speaker 1: of this trauma play out and then how people reacted
9:15
Speaker 1: to it, and kind of I think another really big
9:19
Speaker 1: theme throughout this is shame, and a lot of the
9:23
Speaker 1: shame around again, she does so much, was like very
9:28
Speaker 1: little words, so effective and so amazing, But throughout you guys,
9:33
Speaker 1: get this at the beginning, and then throughout you get
9:36
Speaker 1: kind of more of the story behind it and the
9:40
Speaker 1: pain and trauma that it caused her and really just
9:45
Speaker 1: the sad, the sad situation behind it and all the
9:51
Speaker 1: all the reasons behind it. Yeah, and again this does
9:55
Speaker 1: kind of build up her own understanding of family that
9:58
Speaker 1: I had really come to terms with family and where
10:01
Speaker 1: she is with her mental health and what she has
10:04
Speaker 1: to do for herself, for her family um as well
10:07
Speaker 1: as finding love in the midst of all of that
10:10
Speaker 1: with not so great situations and admitting that these are
10:13
Speaker 1: not great situations. She is ridiculously vulnerable within her book,
10:18
Speaker 1: and I applaud that honesty in itself. And yeah, she
10:21
Speaker 1: does call out a lot of the fact that government
10:23
Speaker 1: in the system really screwed her over as an Indigenous
10:27
Speaker 1: woman and has continued to do so and has been
10:30
Speaker 1: doing so for a while. So that's also another thing
10:32
Speaker 1: that you have to remember. She continues, it's too ugly
10:36
Speaker 1: to speak the story. It sounds like a beggar. How
10:39
Speaker 1: could misfortune follow me so well? And why did I
10:42
Speaker 1: choose it? Every time I learned how to make a
10:44
Speaker 1: honey reduction of the ugly sentences, still my voice cracks.
10:48
Speaker 1: I packed my baby and left my reservation. I came
10:51
Speaker 1: from the mountains to an infinite and flat brown to
10:54
Speaker 1: bury my grief. I left because I was hungry. And
10:57
Speaker 1: my first writing classes, my professor told me that the
11:00
Speaker 1: human condition was misery. I'm a river widened by misery,
11:03
Speaker 1: and the potency of my language is more than human.
11:06
Speaker 1: It's an Indian condition to be proud of survival but
11:09
Speaker 1: reluctant to call it resilience. Resilience seems ascribed to a
11:13
Speaker 1: human conditioning in white people. Yeah, and I think there's
11:16
Speaker 1: so many things that she touched on just there that
11:19
Speaker 1: I'm like, Yeah, I feel as we've talked about recently,
11:23
Speaker 1: just even in sort of our more superficial take on laughter.
11:27
Speaker 1: But the issues that you're talking about, we're serious. Where you,
11:30
Speaker 1: as a marginalized person, you feel this like it's too
11:35
Speaker 1: ugly to speak the story, or like you feel it
11:37
Speaker 1: pressure to to make people more comfortable, and that like,
11:41
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear this because it's too sad.
11:43
Speaker 1: No one wants to hear this because it's too painful
11:47
Speaker 1: or will make them uncomfortable. And how often marginalized people
11:52
Speaker 1: have had to do that and had to think about that,
11:54
Speaker 1: and to have her like you know, trying to make
11:59
Speaker 1: I love the language she used to like make a honey,
12:01
Speaker 1: reduction of ugly sentences more palatable, or so that you
12:06
Speaker 1: will listen, Like it's painful, but you've got to listen
12:10
Speaker 1: because what's going on. I heard use when she talks
12:13
Speaker 1: about the comparison to being a white writer or a
12:15
Speaker 1: white creative and talking about resilience is really pertinent to
12:20
Speaker 1: the entirety of the story she actually wrote. Also talking
12:23
Speaker 1: about how she felt like writers before her seemed to
12:27
Speaker 1: do the work of looking and being indigenous, so we
12:29
Speaker 1: could look through it to herself, meaning herself obviously in
12:33
Speaker 1: that is taken this much for her to be able
12:36
Speaker 1: to talk about her indigenous background, but even still, it
12:39
Speaker 1: doesn't feel enough to be able to compare to those
12:41
Speaker 1: in the white community who are doing this and are
12:46
Speaker 1: praised left and right. And for her to do this
12:49
Speaker 1: is a big risk because we also know in marsin
12:52
Speaker 1: Law's communities, when we talk about mental health is not
12:56
Speaker 1: seen in a in a positive light to seek out
13:00
Speaker 1: to talk about it outright, So for her to talk
13:03
Speaker 1: about this, she's like, this is not what this is
13:05
Speaker 1: what white people do. Essentially, in this conversation, and I
13:08
Speaker 1: found that very interesting in the whole thing, Like yeah,
13:11
Speaker 1: and when we talk about it, when we look at
13:13
Speaker 1: the depth of it, it seems so much harder because
13:17
Speaker 1: she is of of the indigenous background, and it's it's
13:20
Speaker 1: that more risk that she is taking in being this
13:23
Speaker 1: upfront and honest, right, And just that that is a
13:27
Speaker 1: recurring theme as well of like these sort of positive
13:31
Speaker 1: spins that white artists get of, like things like this
13:36
Speaker 1: of negative or hurtful things versus like the oh you
13:42
Speaker 1: seem to be complaining too much or oh you should
13:44
Speaker 1: you need help or like which uld be true, but
13:48
Speaker 1: it's also very dismissive of what of what she's writing
13:52
Speaker 1: and being vulnerable with. And that's just something that I
13:55
Speaker 1: kept thinking about too, is like how we will often
13:59
Speaker 1: law the art of generally white men if it's you know,
14:05
Speaker 1: vulnerable or whatever in that vein, whereas oftentimes with women
14:12
Speaker 1: and then every other intersection within that marginalized intersection within
14:15
Speaker 1: that be like you know, it's yeah, feminist, bust kill
14:20
Speaker 1: or whatever like yeah. So I think that was definitely
14:27
Speaker 1: throughout and is totally on point. Um. So another thing
14:34
Speaker 1: a big piece of this book when it comes to
14:37
Speaker 1: themes and this is a lot in in one idea,
14:40
Speaker 1: but like grief and trauma and mental health and racism
14:45
Speaker 1: and sexualization and abuse and shame, and I would add
14:48
Speaker 1: in in there like racial trauma and generational trauma because
14:53
Speaker 1: you do get to see, like her relationship with her
14:56
Speaker 1: grandmother and her memories of her grandmother and also of
14:58
Speaker 1: her mother, and then you've got her and then you've
15:01
Speaker 1: got her children and her dad, but just all these
15:04
Speaker 1: traumas that have impacted them and then impacted her in turn.
15:09
Speaker 1: So here's a quote. I knew I was not well.
15:12
Speaker 1: I thought of the first healer, who was just a boy.
15:15
Speaker 1: My friend Denise told me the story. She called him
15:17
Speaker 1: Heartberry Boy are O Doman. His name means strawberry in
15:20
Speaker 1: the language. Denise and I struggled and came up together.
15:23
Speaker 1: She named her son after the boy. The people in
15:26
Speaker 1: his village were sick and dying because the Indian world
15:29
Speaker 1: was shifting. The boy lost his mother, oh Deman became
15:32
Speaker 1: a sorrowful kid who found solace in the dream world.
15:35
Speaker 1: He fell asleep and spun a restlessness that comes when
15:39
Speaker 1: people are waiting to die. Sometimes grief is a nothing feeling.
15:43
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just think that's so beautiful and the
15:46
Speaker 1: way she describes grief captures so much of it. And also, yes,
15:50
Speaker 1: this is where the title comes from in part and
15:54
Speaker 1: and the story goes on. But I just thought that
15:56
Speaker 1: was encapsulated so much of this idea of dealing with
16:02
Speaker 1: all of this grief and sort of what the stories
16:06
Speaker 1: that come back to you are. The memories that come
16:08
Speaker 1: back to you are the things that suddenly you think
16:13
Speaker 1: of and you can't stop thinking of, and you're not
16:16
Speaker 1: entirely sure why that it relates to what you're going
16:19
Speaker 1: through in some way. But yeah, that was also something
16:24
Speaker 1: she excelled at, was capturing this idea of what it's
16:27
Speaker 1: like to be dealing with trauma and to be dealing
16:31
Speaker 1: with grief, and it continues. I want to be polite
16:35
Speaker 1: and present myself as decent. I know the math of
16:38
Speaker 1: regret nostalgia. I regret leaving you, and I'm disappointed you
16:42
Speaker 1: let me go. I don't remember what I did. I
16:45
Speaker 1: know that I cried next to you and I was
16:47
Speaker 1: wearing lingerie. You're angry with me for wanting to die.
16:50
Speaker 1: More than that, you are upset that I was weak minded.
16:53
Speaker 1: I was dramatic and unhinged. I couldn't play Kate. I
16:57
Speaker 1: know that's what I should have done. Yeah, And and
16:59
Speaker 1: like you said, Samantha, there's so many things in here
17:01
Speaker 1: like even if maybe not to the same extent, but
17:04
Speaker 1: if you've ever been a relationship where you felt gas
17:08
Speaker 1: lit or you were struggling, that it just hits home
17:13
Speaker 1: so so well. And we have a lot more quotes
17:15
Speaker 1: to demonstrate that. But again, a lot of this is
17:17
Speaker 1: addressed directly two her. I mean, I guess on and
17:21
Speaker 1: off again. Lover is the best term, Casey, So she'll
17:26
Speaker 1: like directly be like Casey, you did you left me here?
17:30
Speaker 1: I came here because of you or whatever. Here's another
17:32
Speaker 1: quote you used me. I know you think animals are sentient.
17:36
Speaker 1: You treat your dog well. I needed to talk to
17:38
Speaker 1: you the way we operate. Ask a lot from me
17:40
Speaker 1: before I can ask something of you. And I want
17:43
Speaker 1: to include that one because I it just I connected
17:46
Speaker 1: with it so much of that idea of like someone
17:52
Speaker 1: and sometimes, like in my experience, I don't want to
17:54
Speaker 1: speak for everybody, but sometimes in my experience it's not
17:56
Speaker 1: anyone's fault in particular. But if you entern a relationship
18:00
Speaker 1: and you're dealing with trauma, and you're dealing with all
18:02
Speaker 1: of these other things, and it just asks a lot
18:06
Speaker 1: of you to quote like not rock the boat, like
18:10
Speaker 1: there's already like kind of a power dynamic or a
18:13
Speaker 1: power difference. And for me, like I constantly felt like
18:17
Speaker 1: I was failing because I wanted to be like the
18:19
Speaker 1: in heavy quotes normal like no drama girlfriends. But that
18:25
Speaker 1: does ask a lot, and that does ask you to
18:27
Speaker 1: like hide a lot. And then again, in my experience,
18:33
Speaker 1: the other person is expecting that and they get used
18:35
Speaker 1: to that. And then when you're starting to be like,
18:37
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm a little tired of this, like
18:38
Speaker 1: this is a lot of a performance for me and
18:40
Speaker 1: I'm struggling, they were like, wait, what what right? This
18:46
Speaker 1: is not what I signed up for, Like, well, okay,
19:03
Speaker 1: and here's another quote that we wanted to include. Uh.
19:08
Speaker 1: And this is also kind of related of the idea
19:11
Speaker 1: of what she kept from Casey. I didn't say that
19:15
Speaker 1: my mother had spent her life waiting for service. I
19:18
Speaker 1: waited with her in cafes for an order of French
19:20
Speaker 1: fries or something small we could afford. White women didn't
19:23
Speaker 1: greet her or consider our time. We walked into places,
19:26
Speaker 1: and sometimes men heckled me. I said I was twelve,
19:29
Speaker 1: and they often didn't believe me. My mother and I
19:31
Speaker 1: found solace driving hours out of our neighborhood or being
19:34
Speaker 1: Indian was not much of a crime. If I told
19:37
Speaker 1: you that, I would also need to stop and note
19:39
Speaker 1: the significance of so many other things. Mm hmm. Yeah,
19:44
Speaker 1: So I feel like just going off like that last
19:46
Speaker 1: thing of you know, the way we operate, ask a
19:48
Speaker 1: lot of me before I can ask something of you. Um.
19:52
Speaker 1: And this whole thing this was in an instance where
19:55
Speaker 1: he'd gotten kind of frustrate with her because she was
19:57
Speaker 1: upset about French toast, arriving later, arrive cold. And this
20:01
Speaker 1: is her reasoning why, and this is why it was
20:03
Speaker 1: important to her, um. But it was something that she
20:07
Speaker 1: felt she couldn't communicate to him because otherwise all this
20:10
Speaker 1: other stuff have to talk about all but that would
20:14
Speaker 1: unravel to so many things the unravel, and she continues, on,
20:22
Speaker 1: my mind is overwhelmed with breakfast alone. I don't eat
20:25
Speaker 1: for days. So you can run your hands over my
20:27
Speaker 1: rib cage. You told me that you always want to
20:30
Speaker 1: eat ribs afterward. I don't eat for days because I
20:33
Speaker 1: can't afford it. The mill I ordered after being by
20:36
Speaker 1: you or anyone is something earned. Men objectified me to
20:40
Speaker 1: such a degree that they forget I eat. You feed
20:42
Speaker 1: your dog more kindly than you feed me. That's men.
20:46
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that section in itself, when she talked about that,
20:49
Speaker 1: I kind of had that moment of like, oh, yeah,
20:51
Speaker 1: if I was getting ready for dates like I would
20:53
Speaker 1: find and I found myself doing this a lot. That
20:55
Speaker 1: connection of like really trying to be the perfect girl
20:59
Speaker 1: and to having issues about your body was such a
21:03
Speaker 1: thing that, yeah, I would purposely not eat before a
21:06
Speaker 1: date in hopes that I would lose that water weight
21:08
Speaker 1: or whatever just in case or whatever like it may
21:10
Speaker 1: have been, because yeah, you want to be the perfect
21:14
Speaker 1: in however situation you see, it's perfect. And I guess
21:17
Speaker 1: for her right here, him making that comment even skyracketed
21:21
Speaker 1: her mindset, even though again she talks about which is
21:26
Speaker 1: so sad and I think we all have done this.
21:28
Speaker 1: It's kind of going back to the whole ridiculous sentiment
21:31
Speaker 1: that if they pay for our fancy dinner, you owe
21:33
Speaker 1: them something. But it's kind of that same conversation of
21:36
Speaker 1: the fact that she's like I earned my dinner. You
21:38
Speaker 1: forget to feed me because I can't afford it, but
21:41
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not going to ask for it. But
21:43
Speaker 1: then you treat your dog so much kinder, and that
21:45
Speaker 1: this dog thing does happen a lot, because the white
21:47
Speaker 1: woman's dog comes into play a lot. And then she
21:51
Speaker 1: I might go, oh, oh god, I feel this and
21:54
Speaker 1: it makes me sad. Yeah, yeah, I mean also just
21:58
Speaker 1: like this three line of sexualization and like twelve years
22:02
Speaker 1: old at such a young age and feeling like that's
22:09
Speaker 1: exactly right. Um, And as she goes on to say,
22:12
Speaker 1: when you loved me, it was degrading using me for
22:16
Speaker 1: love degraded me worse. You should have just me. It
22:19
Speaker 1: was degenerative, you inside me outside. Then I leave. Then
22:23
Speaker 1: I come back and get you looked down at me
22:25
Speaker 1: and say I love you. I love you. I go
22:27
Speaker 1: home and degenerate alone. The distinctness of my bed and
22:31
Speaker 1: it's corners are by my you. My agency is degraded
22:36
Speaker 1: for comfort. I remember my hospital bed and the neutrality
22:39
Speaker 1: of the room I had. I was safe from myself
22:42
Speaker 1: and from you. I'm stupid waiting for the phone to ring,
22:46
Speaker 1: thinking you might call. I drive to you and be
22:49
Speaker 1: no better for it. Yeah, yeah, again, like I feel
22:56
Speaker 1: so many of it is, even if it's not exactly
22:58
Speaker 1: the same the same level. Relate to this idea of
23:02
Speaker 1: when you for me, like you know, like something isn't
23:09
Speaker 1: right for you or isn't good for you, and you
23:10
Speaker 1: keep doing it anyway, and you see all of these
23:15
Speaker 1: like signs or things that bring memories of it throughout
23:18
Speaker 1: your own place, like it's kind of infiltrated your you know,
23:22
Speaker 1: in heavy quote safe space or like your apartment at
23:25
Speaker 1: your home, and so it's so hard when you catch
23:30
Speaker 1: yourself thinking about this person or this thing and you
23:33
Speaker 1: don't want to, but it's just all these memories of
23:35
Speaker 1: it everywhere, and then having to grapple with whom because
23:42
Speaker 1: we hear that all the time to write of like
23:43
Speaker 1: why didn't you leave? Or what was it that if
23:47
Speaker 1: you're so bad, why did you stay? And then again
23:51
Speaker 1: for me, I don't want to generalizations, you have to ask, well,
23:54
Speaker 1: I guess my self confidence was that bad or whatever?
23:58
Speaker 1: It is like face up again for me, I don't
24:02
Speaker 1: want to say for everyone, but like, yeah, why did
24:04
Speaker 1: I keep doing it? I love the I'm waiting for
24:09
Speaker 1: the phone to ring. Because I've done that. The text
24:12
Speaker 1: waiting for that text just in case, hoping did I forgive?
24:16
Speaker 1: Let me turn my phone off and on just in
24:18
Speaker 1: case is not working. But it's in hating yourself for
24:22
Speaker 1: doing that and just waiting even though you know this
24:25
Speaker 1: is not healthy, right, right, And it kind of goes
24:30
Speaker 1: back to that whole idea of like wanting to be
24:34
Speaker 1: desired and wanting to be sexually desired even if you
24:36
Speaker 1: don't really want the other person, or like just kind
24:41
Speaker 1: of wanting to know or that that since that is
24:44
Speaker 1: how we are. The currency that women are often given,
24:47
Speaker 1: or the value we're told we have is that you
24:49
Speaker 1: want that even if you don't want that. Right, It's
24:53
Speaker 1: a real mess. Here's another quote. Nobody wants to know
24:57
Speaker 1: why Indian women leave or where they go. Our bodies
24:59
Speaker 1: walk a us the highway from the dances of our
25:01
Speaker 1: youth into missing narratives without strobe lights or sweet drinks,
25:04
Speaker 1: and our small purses are the talk of leaving. The
25:07
Speaker 1: truth of our leaving are coming into the world is
25:09
Speaker 1: never told. Yeah, And I thought that was really powerful too,
25:15
Speaker 1: of just how invisible Native American women have often been
25:21
Speaker 1: treated when it comes to yet individuals and just like
25:24
Speaker 1: issues at large, right, well, she has onto so many things,
25:29
Speaker 1: not only with the fact that they are ignored, erased,
25:32
Speaker 1: but just kind of that whole narrative for the missing
25:35
Speaker 1: UH and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two spirited UH.
25:39
Speaker 1: A big part of the narrative and the reason that
25:41
Speaker 1: we don't hear much about it and or because people
25:43
Speaker 1: don't look into it is that really negative toxic idea
25:47
Speaker 1: that these people, this indigenous community are are gone because
25:51
Speaker 1: they are drug addictive and or lazy and or sexually promiscuous,
25:55
Speaker 1: and you know, they probably brought it onto themselves. And
25:58
Speaker 1: this really toxic narrative. I'm allowing that as if it's
26:02
Speaker 1: an excuse. It's it's like, wait, it doesn't if even
26:04
Speaker 1: if any of that was true, there's still people like
26:07
Speaker 1: I don't understand why we wouldn't care about them disappearing
26:10
Speaker 1: we do? Why don't we do more? This kind of
26:13
Speaker 1: narrative like no one really sees it, no one really
26:15
Speaker 1: cares about it, they don't care if I come and go,
26:18
Speaker 1: And that's such a beginning narrative, like just not even
26:20
Speaker 1: caring that they left, point blink, and why did they leave? UH?
26:25
Speaker 1: And they she did a really great job and making
26:27
Speaker 1: it so personable about this is the struggles that I've had,
26:30
Speaker 1: and this is how little people pay attention and that
26:32
Speaker 1: that in itself is the bigger conversation that we need
26:35
Speaker 1: to be having, because we know when it comes to
26:38
Speaker 1: marginalized communities, they are more likely to have these issues
26:42
Speaker 1: where it causes them to need extra help because once again,
26:47
Speaker 1: the level of trauma and incidents and all of these
26:50
Speaker 1: things that happen are so easily ignored and no treatment
26:53
Speaker 1: is given and no funding is given, and so the
26:56
Speaker 1: likelihood of its skyrocketing and continuing on, especially generationally, it's
27:00
Speaker 1: this whole bigger conversation of like, we've allowed this to happen,
27:04
Speaker 1: We as a community have allowed this to happen, and
27:07
Speaker 1: us completely ignoring it and allowing for a twelve year
27:09
Speaker 1: old be sexualized without anybody stopping. Hey, this is a
27:13
Speaker 1: weird conversation. Why are you even talking to a twelve
27:15
Speaker 1: year old shut your face or thinking that it's cute
27:18
Speaker 1: in some way? Like, there's this whole weird narrative in that,
27:22
Speaker 1: especially again in the brown community, indigenous community, in the
27:26
Speaker 1: black community, where we've allowed it for so long and
27:30
Speaker 1: then when we try to talk about it now, we
27:32
Speaker 1: still don't give it any spotlight as opposed to a
27:36
Speaker 1: young white woman being missing or leaving, Like that's the
27:39
Speaker 1: first thing you noticed. You're kind of like, why is this?
27:43
Speaker 1: And I think she talks a lot about that in
27:45
Speaker 1: a personal way, Like he doesn't talk about it out right,
27:48
Speaker 1: but you see a beginning here. You're like, oh, there's
27:51
Speaker 1: the beginning. That's what we see, and yet we're just
27:54
Speaker 1: letting it go as a it's just a narrative. It's fine, right, um,
28:00
Speaker 1: And as we said it is. She does such a
28:02
Speaker 1: great job of being like, this is a very personal
28:05
Speaker 1: individual story, but it tells so much more. And I
28:08
Speaker 1: think part of that was with like when she talks
28:11
Speaker 1: about her own family and all of what they went
28:13
Speaker 1: through and all the trauma they went through, and like
28:16
Speaker 1: this generational and racial trauma, and you can just expand
28:21
Speaker 1: that out and see how that would that this one
28:23
Speaker 1: story would impact the story and this story and this
28:25
Speaker 1: story and just sort of this domino effect and and
28:28
Speaker 1: talking about that. I did want to include this quote
28:31
Speaker 1: about trauma comes kind of towards the end of the book.
28:35
Speaker 1: Quote my father I said, just saying the two words
28:38
Speaker 1: cracked my voice. It was enough for him to know
28:41
Speaker 1: he hurt me. I said just the three words were
28:43
Speaker 1: too many and enough for me to know. The rest
28:46
Speaker 1: of the year was a practice in language. Every new
28:48
Speaker 1: word became more horrific. I can say full sentences in
28:52
Speaker 1: the shower. Before I knew how to be scared or
28:54
Speaker 1: protect myself, I disappeared. Ten minutes of my life were
28:58
Speaker 1: enough to kill me. Every day I negotiate the minutes
29:01
Speaker 1: of my life, remembering that I can't remember enough. I
29:04
Speaker 1: spend hours convincing myself that no child is ruined, and
29:07
Speaker 1: the one inside of me is worth remembering fondly. My
29:10
Speaker 1: mother is looming spirit guides me some days, telling me
29:13
Speaker 1: that nothing is too ugly for this world. I am
29:15
Speaker 1: not too ugly for this world. Yeah, that's I mean,
29:21
Speaker 1: that's so painful and so powerful, Like that's us someone
29:27
Speaker 1: who's gone through drama. That this ring so true, right,
29:32
Speaker 1: how hard it is to speak it? And then once
29:35
Speaker 1: you do, all of the yeah, like all of these
29:38
Speaker 1: minutes and all of these things that you don't realize
29:42
Speaker 1: or just reminding you of it, and and then like
29:46
Speaker 1: you even if you don't think about it, it's like
29:48
Speaker 1: in your head that you, oh, you're not thinking about it, right, yeah,
29:53
Speaker 1: oh yes, yes, yes, And that's convincing yourself that you're
29:59
Speaker 1: not too ugly for this world. So something else that
30:04
Speaker 1: we've been touching on, but quite a few quotes on
30:07
Speaker 1: that UM we wanted to share is the theme of
30:10
Speaker 1: love or of this relationship she has with Casey. So
30:16
Speaker 1: here's a quote about that the man I had been
30:18
Speaker 1: conditioning was not happy with me. He knew something was wrong.
30:21
Speaker 1: And that's when I wondered if maybe falling in love
30:23
Speaker 1: looked like a crisis to an observer. I just thought
30:26
Speaker 1: that I liked that, and I like, you know, sword
30:30
Speaker 1: of you know, conditioning, because I just feel like there's
30:33
Speaker 1: a lot of things we do in relationships that are
30:37
Speaker 1: these kind of negotiations, and when you think about it,
30:39
Speaker 1: it's strange that we behave this way, but it also
30:43
Speaker 1: is very telling of where each person is coming from
30:46
Speaker 1: in their own past experiences. And I think that again,
30:50
Speaker 1: as someone who's gone through trauma, the negotiations you make
30:55
Speaker 1: in these relationships, and a lot of these are happening
30:57
Speaker 1: in your own head, right, Like you're not really sharing
30:59
Speaker 1: the UM. Do you feel sort of like this colder.
31:05
Speaker 1: I mean it's not necessarily colder, but like words like
31:07
Speaker 1: conditioning or you know, like trying to figure the other
31:10
Speaker 1: person out and keep yourself safe and maybe trying to
31:14
Speaker 1: hide these avenues of yourself are these pieces of yourself
31:17
Speaker 1: that are not as happy, and then maybe you kind
31:23
Speaker 1: of discuss it a little bit. Another person is like, oh, no, no, no,
31:25
Speaker 1: I'm there for you. But then when they see maybe
31:29
Speaker 1: they're not there for you. So here's another quote. You
31:31
Speaker 1: said you'd be on the other side of the door.
31:33
Speaker 1: That's how perfect love is at first. Solutions are simple
31:36
Speaker 1: and problems are laid out simply. I knew that the
31:39
Speaker 1: way I'd been living was too complicated for you to
31:41
Speaker 1: see up close. I should have consulted a healer before
31:43
Speaker 1: I went further with you. So I like that one too,
31:47
Speaker 1: because they do think, like I love this. You know,
31:50
Speaker 1: perfect love is how perfect love is at first, and
31:52
Speaker 1: solutions are simple in the beginning. I do think it's
31:55
Speaker 1: very very true. I think that it's kind of also
31:58
Speaker 1: what we talk about a lot how as well, when
32:00
Speaker 1: we talk about how damaging it can be, as fun
32:03
Speaker 1: as it is and as much as it makes sense
32:04
Speaker 1: when we watch a lot of like rom coms, and
32:08
Speaker 1: that's a lot of it looks like okay, and then
32:10
Speaker 1: you get in a relationship you're like, oh no, this
32:12
Speaker 1: is hard work, this is all right work right. The
32:16
Speaker 1: beginning changes very quickly, and you know, going back to
32:19
Speaker 1: your first quote about love, when he talks about conditioning,
32:23
Speaker 1: I think she puts the blame on herself so as
32:25
Speaker 1: a way to take it away from them, because we've
32:27
Speaker 1: done that a lot of us who have been in
32:29
Speaker 1: toxic relationships and or not just not good pairing. We
32:34
Speaker 1: try to make ourselves what we think they want us
32:37
Speaker 1: to be. So we conditioned them to expect whatever, this
32:40
Speaker 1: fantasy of the person that you are, um, being the
32:43
Speaker 1: perfect girlfriend, being the uh if they want the man
32:46
Speaker 1: pixie girlfriend trying to be that. Like it's this weird
32:49
Speaker 1: level of like trying to meet the standards that you
32:53
Speaker 1: think they have for you. And I find that fascinating
32:56
Speaker 1: that she put that on herself instead of being like, oh,
32:58
Speaker 1: because I don't because you didn't us that they would
33:01
Speaker 1: want the right um. And I did find that very familiar. Yeah. No,
33:07
Speaker 1: that's a great point. Yeah, that's a great point. And
33:09
Speaker 1: it does kind of go back to like, also this
33:11
Speaker 1: idea of like low self esteem, um, which is interesting
33:15
Speaker 1: because she talks about that in there, and she's like,
33:16
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a thing. It's a white person thing.
33:22
Speaker 1: But yeah, kind of like not trusting someone would want
33:25
Speaker 1: you and your true authentic self. And she continues on,
33:43
Speaker 1: I am familiar with death, and I remember it was
33:45
Speaker 1: heavy to hold. My mother's death was violent internally. I
33:49
Speaker 1: remember once an elder skinned of rabbit in our yard.
33:52
Speaker 1: He wanted to teach me how to do it. He
33:55
Speaker 1: said so many times that a body is a universe.
33:58
Speaker 1: He slit the rabbit open in point with his knife,
34:00
Speaker 1: to the thick parts of it. He said the word entropy.
34:03
Speaker 1: I remember that when my mother died, a tube had
34:06
Speaker 1: stretched open the dry corners of her mouth. She was
34:08
Speaker 1: not giving grace into the next world. When they pulled
34:11
Speaker 1: the tube from her throat, her lips were dry and
34:13
Speaker 1: her mouth fell open. Nothing is too ugly for this world.
34:16
Speaker 1: I think it's just that people pretend not to see. Yeah.
34:20
Speaker 1: I mean again, just such powerful language and imagery and
34:25
Speaker 1: that throwback to the you know, her mother saying that, like,
34:27
Speaker 1: nothing is too ugly for this world. Um, and yeah,
34:30
Speaker 1: the idea is people just don't want to see it,
34:33
Speaker 1: don't want to acknowledge it. Here's another quote. You don't
34:37
Speaker 1: appreciate that you've broken me. Lovers want to undo their partners.
34:40
Speaker 1: I feel unveiled in more work than you had bargained for.
34:42
Speaker 1: I was unsure if the currency of men and unaware
34:45
Speaker 1: that losing myself would feel so physical. Yeah, so there's
34:52
Speaker 1: that undoing again. You're onto something. But yeah, also just
34:57
Speaker 1: this like I feel that too of you don't know
35:00
Speaker 1: the currency of men. And then it's like when you
35:03
Speaker 1: get in it too far and too late, and you
35:06
Speaker 1: have you have conditioned yourself or felt like you know
35:10
Speaker 1: something was wrong with you, are always putting the blame
35:12
Speaker 1: on you, and then you get so far in the
35:14
Speaker 1: relationship that it feels like you lost yourself or I
35:19
Speaker 1: remember for me it was in one relationship. Is like
35:21
Speaker 1: I was just like waking up suddenly, Wait, what's been
35:25
Speaker 1: happening here? Right? How did I get so far into this? Go?
35:31
Speaker 1: It feels slowly at first, and then it just snowballs
35:35
Speaker 1: and she goes on. I feel like my body is
35:37
Speaker 1: being drawn through a syringe. Sometimes walking is hard. The
35:42
Speaker 1: gravity of Indian women's situations and the weight of our
35:45
Speaker 1: bodies are too much. Yeah, she's just so open with that,
35:49
Speaker 1: with all of her her experiences and her emotions around
35:53
Speaker 1: around all of this. And something else that we wanted
35:57
Speaker 1: to talk about is this theme of motherhood and family,
36:03
Speaker 1: which is throughout as we mentioned at the top, she
36:06
Speaker 1: went through the trauma of losing custody of her child,
36:10
Speaker 1: having an abusive husband, abusive father, the relationship with her mom,
36:17
Speaker 1: which was very complicated, very very complicated, and yeah, like
36:22
Speaker 1: we said, all of this shame kind of throughout a
36:24
Speaker 1: lot of their stories. So here's a quote. The Indian
36:30
Speaker 1: condition is my grandmother. She was a nursery teacher. There
36:33
Speaker 1: are stories that she brought children to our kitchen and
36:35
Speaker 1: gave them laxatives and then put newspaper on the ground.
36:38
Speaker 1: She squatted before them and made faces to illustrate how
36:40
Speaker 1: hard they should push. She de wormed children this way,
36:43
Speaker 1: and she learned that in residential school where parasites and
36:45
Speaker 1: nuns and priests contaminated generations of our people, Indians froze
36:50
Speaker 1: trying to run away, and many starved nuns and priests
36:53
Speaker 1: ran out of places to put bones, so they built
36:56
Speaker 1: us into the walls of new boarding schools. I can
36:59
Speaker 1: see my grandmother's face in front of those children. Her
37:02
Speaker 1: hands like rose petals, and her eyes were soft and
37:04
Speaker 1: round like buttons. She liked carnations and canned milk. She
37:08
Speaker 1: transcended resilience and actualized what Indians weren't taught to know.
37:12
Speaker 1: We are unmovable. Time seems measured by grief and anticipatory grief.
37:17
Speaker 1: I don't think she even measured time. So so much trauma, right,
37:24
Speaker 1: they're so much generational trauma and just in her family.
37:29
Speaker 1: But I feel like she also did such a good
37:32
Speaker 1: job of like painting, uh, these small details that make
37:37
Speaker 1: a person a person that says so much more about them,
37:40
Speaker 1: And she did that with with her grandmother. And you know,
37:45
Speaker 1: I love the tuxposition of like she liked carnations and
37:48
Speaker 1: canned milk. And then I don't think she even measured time,
37:51
Speaker 1: Like it's just so much encompassing so much in this
37:55
Speaker 1: person and in her memories of her. YE do love
38:01
Speaker 1: how she does concentrate on the women and of our family,
38:05
Speaker 1: and in that level of realness and trying to be
38:08
Speaker 1: real open about things that she learned, she does bring
38:11
Speaker 1: to light a lot of conversations about being Native American
38:14
Speaker 1: and indigenous in that uh, how she differentiates her life
38:19
Speaker 1: like what it seems to be with the man who
38:22
Speaker 1: I assume is white versus her family who are showing
38:26
Speaker 1: her and trying to remind her of the Native ways.
38:28
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to see that like dichotomy for her
38:32
Speaker 1: where she feels broken versus where she may have been
38:34
Speaker 1: broken slash where she still needs that strength. Like it's
38:37
Speaker 1: kind of that build up again, she goes on. What
38:40
Speaker 1: I feel struck with is something smaller in a less
38:43
Speaker 1: impressive world. I woke up today confused inside of something
38:47
Speaker 1: feminine and ancestral in its misery. I woke up as
38:50
Speaker 1: the bones of my ancestors a locked in government storage.
38:53
Speaker 1: My illness has carried me into white buildings, into the
38:56
Speaker 1: doctor's office and the therapist with nothing to say. Then
39:00
Speaker 1: I need my grandmother's eyes on me, smiling at my
39:03
Speaker 1: misguided heart. Imagine their faces when I say that. Yeah,
39:07
Speaker 1: that's going back to what you were saying of needing
39:10
Speaker 1: that the strength of the women and her family, and
39:14
Speaker 1: how painful it was to lose that. Here's another quote.
39:17
Speaker 1: It felt like Mom's funeral lasted a year. It felt
39:20
Speaker 1: like one long winter where my family told every story
39:22
Speaker 1: of hers by memory, as if we were being interrogated.
39:25
Speaker 1: My mother's spirit loomed over us, imploring us to avenge
39:27
Speaker 1: her death, but there were too many culprits, from the government,
39:31
Speaker 1: to the reservation to her own family to ever hurt her.
39:34
Speaker 1: The very first time I saw in pictures that between
39:37
Speaker 1: thirteen and fourteen, my mother changed that culprit and then
39:41
Speaker 1: all our fathers and the men who said they were
39:43
Speaker 1: down for the cause and then abandoned it like they
39:46
Speaker 1: did their children. Those men killed my mother. Even the
39:49
Speaker 1: sweet lovers who gave her hope are the culprits of
39:52
Speaker 1: her pain, right, Ah. And one of the people who
39:56
Speaker 1: gave her pain was Paul Simon. Yeah, I need to
40:00
Speaker 1: put that out there. Seriously struck me as odd, like
40:03
Speaker 1: in the moment that I was like, wait, what was that? Right,
40:09
Speaker 1: I had to go and look and I was like,
40:11
Speaker 1: I have to look at what this say is. And
40:13
Speaker 1: essentially it took on this someone that she knew, the
40:17
Speaker 1: mother knew helped provide background stories for them to do
40:21
Speaker 1: a musical which got some heat but also was successful
40:26
Speaker 1: for pretty much retelling Native stories without Native people. Again problematic,
40:31
Speaker 1: and the mother really feeling like for a moment she
40:34
Speaker 1: was being rescued by this white man and then once
40:37
Speaker 1: again being disappointed. It was an interesting moment. But I'm like,
40:42
Speaker 1: damn her mom. She thought, for just a minute maybe
40:46
Speaker 1: he would change her life, and he really didn't. Yeah.
40:49
Speaker 1: And in fact, if I remember correctly, the reviews are
40:53
Speaker 1: very unkind to her. They were like, I want to say, okay,
40:58
Speaker 1: so the person who played is her as Sarah Ramirez, oh,
41:04
Speaker 1: from Grey's Anatomy, which she mentioned she was like the
41:07
Speaker 1: woman from Grey's Anatomy by her mother, So yeah, she
41:11
Speaker 1: was played by Sarah Ramirez and her mom. I think
41:14
Speaker 1: the character was not so giving. Yeah, and her mom
41:17
Speaker 1: was actually really helpful in helping him get a lot
41:21
Speaker 1: of information, and they apparently helped pay for some groceries
41:24
Speaker 1: and such like. They were paid a little bit, but
41:27
Speaker 1: not to the extent of what he made off of it.
41:31
Speaker 1: But I was like, well, Paul Simon not a good guy,
41:34
Speaker 1: are yet? Yeah? To be fair, I've never seen this play.
41:43
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything related to it, so I really
41:46
Speaker 1: can't tell you anything about that play. But just having
41:50
Speaker 1: that mentioned in the memoir, I was like, wait, right,
41:54
Speaker 1: what is happening right, and her dad was an artist
41:57
Speaker 1: and also not the same experience with some things similar.
42:00
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, he thought he was going to
42:03
Speaker 1: be rich, because there's the film, a documentary was made
42:06
Speaker 1: about him, because he was like a really bad criminal,
42:10
Speaker 1: but in a talented artist like that seemed to be
42:13
Speaker 1: both of those things. And she continues to write, the
42:19
Speaker 1: pain was a process to understanding. Men were born to
42:22
Speaker 1: hurt my mother in the flesh and the text, and
42:24
Speaker 1: she was my savior. The language was always wrong, even
42:28
Speaker 1: in this account. I can't convey the pulse of her
42:30
Speaker 1: in her sleep. I couldn't turn away in love with
42:33
Speaker 1: her heavy breathing. She rarely slept, but when she did
42:36
Speaker 1: it felt generative and sacred, like a bear's hibernation. Her
42:40
Speaker 1: small palms were red with heat. She always fell asleep
42:43
Speaker 1: with a book on her chest. It was the illumination
42:46
Speaker 1: of living light. And then here's final quote we wanted
42:51
Speaker 1: to end with. There is some stillness even in my history,
42:54
Speaker 1: a good secret and so much bad. It almost feels
42:57
Speaker 1: like a betrayal to have good thoughts. Sometimes I know
43:00
Speaker 1: part of me is still a ghost walking next to
43:01
Speaker 1: my mother, looking for something to make an offering to
43:04
Speaker 1: holding her hand. Either this feeling means part of me
43:07
Speaker 1: is dead or that she's alive somewhere inside of me. Yeah.
43:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I just feel like she did such a
43:15
Speaker 1: fantastic job of capturing grief and trauma but also the
43:22
Speaker 1: humanity of all of the people in her life. And
43:27
Speaker 1: I mean it's beautiful prose, it's no good and it's
43:31
Speaker 1: something we didn't mention. As her conversations with her sons,
43:34
Speaker 1: so Isador's one, then she talks about the other sons
43:36
Speaker 1: that she kept and and how strong he seems to
43:39
Speaker 1: be for her. She is real raw about the fact
43:42
Speaker 1: that she went through postpartum depression and just where that
43:44
Speaker 1: was for her and trying to being pregnant and being
43:47
Speaker 1: on her medication. Like, she is very raw about that experience.
43:51
Speaker 1: And I think there's so many women who have been
43:52
Speaker 1: pregnant and god that similar experience can really relate to
43:56
Speaker 1: and again being postpartum, and we've seen that come to
43:59
Speaker 1: light a little more with a little more giving of like, oh,
44:02
Speaker 1: women go through some things when they're pregnant and after
44:05
Speaker 1: the fact. Cool, cool, but not enough. But we talked
44:08
Speaker 1: about that as well as again we're talking about what
44:11
Speaker 1: that looks like for women who are indigenous women and
44:13
Speaker 1: women of color who are often not given the same
44:16
Speaker 1: lenience as white women do. And we can talk about
44:19
Speaker 1: that with the removal of her first child and her
44:21
Speaker 1: not being able to fight that, first of all because
44:23
Speaker 1: she was having her second baby. Secondly, because she was
44:26
Speaker 1: going through all of the mess being off medication, having
44:30
Speaker 1: to really have to come to terms with her mental
44:34
Speaker 1: health and what she needed to do for treatment for
44:36
Speaker 1: herself to be in a better place. That's partially what
44:38
Speaker 1: she's talking about. Of Course, she's got so many things
44:41
Speaker 1: that she's talking about this tiny memoir, and I'm sure
44:43
Speaker 1: she has some more things to say, but yeah, we
44:46
Speaker 1: don't mention it too much in here, but she does
44:48
Speaker 1: write about that, and I think it's just again, there's
44:51
Speaker 1: no solutions in this, just how she survived essentially where
44:55
Speaker 1: she is today and it and it's a beautiful, tragic,
45:00
Speaker 1: magic till slash beautiful telling I guess of what she's
45:04
Speaker 1: been through. Yeah, yeah, highly highly recommended. Was so moving,
45:10
Speaker 1: So go check it out listeners if you haven't already.
45:14
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you have any book suggestions for
45:17
Speaker 1: our next pick, please send them to us our emails,
45:20
Speaker 1: Stuff India mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com. You
45:22
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or
45:24
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as
45:26
Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina, Thank you and thanks
45:30
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I Never Told Me his
45:31
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