Latest / Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast / 60,000 Miles & A Cafe Mocha

Transcript

60,000 Miles & A Cafe Mocha · Beyond the Arc: Reflections on Resilience, Identity, & Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, it's Amy Gamble, and welcome to Beyond the Arc.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My new book,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Driving My Way Through Grief,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: is officially out in the world,
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: and this morning I decided there was only one appropriate way to celebrate,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: with my book, my Nissan Sentra, and a very sugary cafe mocha.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: What happened next reminded me why I wrote this book in the first place.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is 60,000 miles in a cafe mocha.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Blue skies without a marshmallow cloud anywhere to be seen.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: The sun warmed my face as I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I figured I'd celebrate the launch of driving my way through Reef with a sugary Cafe Mocha.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in two and a half years of DoorDash driving, I bought one Cafe Mocha.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was always too busy picking up someone else's order to worry about my own.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The beauty of independently publishing a book The author has 100% control
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: over everything, things like cover design, formatting, pricing, and launch day.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with a one-person show is sometimes it gets a little hectic.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I had what's called a writer's burst,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: some kind of phenomenon where a writer who's been thinking about
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: a particular book suddenly has an epiphany,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: and the words flow out so quickly it all seems very easy.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote over 30,000 words in three weeks.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: However,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'd been thinking about driving my way through grief for much longer
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: than those three weeks.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: After the Starbucks,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled into the McDonald's parking lot on a mission to find Dylan,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: one of the assistant managers.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: He also worked at Petco.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So in my DoorDash days, I ran into him frequently.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had told Dylan I was going to write a book a couple of years ago,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: and in the Petco aisle, I asked him for permission to use his name.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was the first person I saw as I walked into McDonald's this morning.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Dylan, I called out to him.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He stopped and turned around, grinning when he saw me.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that book I told you about?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I held out my author-proof copy for him.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: No way, that's awesome, he said with genuine interest.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He took the book out of my hands, turned it over, and started to read the back cover.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote about you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: When I get my books in, I'll bring you one and mark the page.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, Dylan looked up on the book and then at me.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I thanked him and gave him a high five.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Dylan.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're awesome.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're awesome.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: He handed me my book back and smiled as he walked away.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I walked out the door with my heart filled up.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The book launch is great.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what matters most to me is the connections with other people.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Although I was tempted to turn on the DoorDash app for one final delivery,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: the Nissan Sentra talked me out of it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: She had enough miles on pavement taking me safely to what amounted to the equivalent
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: of circling the world nearly two and a half times.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: When I realized that's how far 60,000 miles was,
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: I said to myself, well, Amy, I'd say extreme times call for extreme measures.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then I took one final drink of my cafe mocha and laughed at myself.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Humor, one key to my resilience.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta keep going, Esther would always tell me, and so I do.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Driving My Way Through Grief,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Essays on Lost Life, and the Mouths Between is available now.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But today, I think I want to leave you with Esther's words.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta keep going.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So wherever you are on your own road, keep going.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, this is Amy Gamble, And this is Beyond the Arc.