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Episode 173: Sonja Livingston — Expeditions in Devotion, Trust, and The Virgin of Prince Street
133 Plays5 years ago
Sonja Livingston returns to talk about The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion (University of Nebraska Press, 2019).
Thanks to Bay Path's MFA in Creative Nonfiction for the support and to Riverteeth for the promotional support.
Keep the conversation going on Twitter and Instagram @cnfpod.
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Transcript
Navigating Life with Traffic Metaphor
00:00:01
Speaker
And sometimes it's not even a blinker. Sometimes you just veer that way and cut people off in traffic and it's really ugly. But that's what you needed to do and that's okay.
Sonya Livingston's Return to the Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
That is Sonya Livingston, author of The Virgin of Prince Street, Expeditions Into Devotion, a CNF pod alum, making her triumphant return to HQ. I love it, baby. Let's do an ad read.
Spotlight on Bay Path University's MFA Program
00:00:30
Speaker
Creative Nonfiction Podcast, CNN, the greatest podcast in the world. Discover your story with Bay Path University's fully online MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing.
00:00:41
Speaker
Recent graduate Christine Brooks recalls her experience with Bay Paths MFA faculty as being, quote, filled with positive reinforcement and commitment. They have a true passion and love for their work. It shines through with every comment, every edit, and every reading assignment. The instructors are available to answer questions, big and small, and it is obvious that their years of experience as writers and teachers have made a faculty that I doubt can be beat anywhere, end of quotation.
00:01:11
Speaker
Don't just take her word for it, man. Apply now at baypath.edu slash MFAA. Classes begin January 21st.
Support from Riverteeth Journal
00:01:20
Speaker
Also, thank you to Riverteeth, the Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, for their promotional support. Check them out and submit your work, bruh. riverteethjournal.com.
Introduction to Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:01:32
Speaker
Parental advisory, explicit riff.
00:01:43
Speaker
Hey CNFers, I'm Brendan Romero, and this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, the show where I talk to badass writers, filmmakers, and radio producers about the art and craft of telling true stories.
Engaging with the Podcast Community
00:01:56
Speaker
I chart their journeys and try to tease out tactical nuggets so you can get a little bit better at your own work.
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Speaker
Be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're feeling good, if you're jacked up on your sixth cup of coffee, head over to Apple Podcast and leave a buzzed review of the show. Did you delete Facebook this week? If you didn't, you can like the show's page over there, or keep the conversation going on Twitter and Instagram. Both are at cnfpod.
Benefits of Shorter Podcast Episodes
00:02:25
Speaker
Let me know what resonated with you on a particular show. But this one, this one's a nice tight 30. It's a good energy and a tight 30. Not that I don't like spending an hour with people, but sometimes 30 minutes, you can get a good show going in 30 minutes. So you know, whatever. What's on your mind? What are you struggling with?
Sonya Livingston on Catholicism in Her Work
00:02:44
Speaker
Are you enjoying the CNF topus?
00:02:46
Speaker
on monday the cnf snack a little motivational monday stuff i've done three so far i hope you dig them they're snackable shareable good stuff i think one or two of you do actually like it that is something right right i hope i've made something worth sharing so please link up to the show and share it with your cnf and buddies so like i said sonja levingston brings her badass self back to the show to talk about her latest book the virgin of prince street
00:03:16
Speaker
We're gonna get right into it. We're gonna get right into it. Why waste any time? This is the black album phase of the show. You know it's sad but true. This is where this new book, The Virgin of Prince Street started for you. What was that initial seed? Well, I'll go back a little bit and say that a lot of the essays that I've written, probably ever since the first essay I wrote,
00:03:46
Speaker
always sort of had Catholicism in the background. And people would point that out. They would say either, oh, you're a Catholic writer or you seem to talk about Catholicism a lot. And I would get a little offended. Like, what are you talking about? I'm clearly not writing about the church. But in this case, actually, after many years of writing and also sort of noticing how we're changing as a culture in many ways, but especially
Challenges of Writing About Religion
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Speaker
related to religion and churches closing, I decided to sort of own it and also become a little bit more purposeful about exploring Catholicism.
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Speaker
And isn't that crazy that sometimes when you do enough writing over time, certain things just kind of bubble up to the surface without you even knowing it. It's just like this thing that happens, and you don't even know. It's just undercurrent. But it took someone else telling you that this thing just keeps happening, man. What's going on here? Yeah. And maybe, I don't know how it is for other people, but they're probably the things that I don't want to see that are more challenging because
00:04:55
Speaker
for me personally, but I think also just as a culture, religion is just a loaded topic, right? So for somebody to say, oh, you, you know, you're writing a lot about church, you're writing, I didn't want to hear that. And yet I did have to admit that, yes, this does seem to be a consistent backdrop for my writing. And I think part of being a nonfiction writer, especially, but maybe all writers, part of what I think we
Growth Through Writing Uncomfortable Topics
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Speaker
hopefully are doing is looking at those topics that are not being talked about that we are uncomfortable with or that the culture is uncomfortable with and to sort of push yourself and go there. Do you find and did you find over the course of your research that are people more uncomfortable with religion or Catholicism in particular?
00:05:42
Speaker
Well, I think Catholicism is its own brand of discomfort. You know what I mean? I think religion is loaded, but if you have any connection to the Catholic Church, you're going to have some stories there, whether there's so many to choose from. So it is lately, for the past couple decades, especially loaded, but maybe it was always loaded. But I had a student in one of my undergraduate workshops who in the workshop would write about, he wrote about being in prison, about shooting up drugs, about
00:06:12
Speaker
robbing a bank and everything, everything was just out there with him. And he once asked for a private appointment with me because he wanted to talk about something that he was embarrassed to bring up in class. And I thought, what on earth is this? Because this man brings up everything already. But it was an experience that he had in solitary confinement in prison that he called a spiritual experience. And he couldn't talk about that in class. And so
00:06:36
Speaker
I do think that there is something especially problematic about trying to give words to an experience, whether it's religious or spiritual or whatever, that sort of defies words. So there's a lot in the culture that goes on about Catholicism or Christianity, but I think on a personal level, we also don't really know how to talk about these things.
00:06:55
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So as his teacher, in that conversation, how do you navigate
Journalistic Approach in Essays
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that and make him feel comfortable to maybe approach that subject matter on the page and in class perhaps? Well, yeah, that's a good question because I was really careful. I didn't want to push him to... So the answer is that I listened and I could share my experiences and could say it has been rewarding for me to go to the places
00:07:25
Speaker
that have been challenging, whether it's writing about poverty or women's lives or now religion, those topics that seem so embarrassing or off-putting are often the topics that bear all kinds of fruit. So I certainly encouraged him, but I didn't want to push him too much to go there if he wasn't ready, because
00:07:45
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because I was aware of the fact that he did write so openly about every other thing. So I was supportive, but also sort of let him know that he will write the thing that he needs to write in good time. I just noticed that in the writing workshop, the things that you think would be hard to write about are often not the things that are hard to write about, you know, such as violence or sex or, you know, family problems. We as a culture are more open to those topics than others.
00:08:13
Speaker
and for a lot of good reasons. I think the topic of religion is just loaded and lately really politicized and it gets ugly fast. A grad school mentor of mine, Tom French, one of the greatest things that he taught me was with heavier subject matter or things that are weighty like religion or someone who's religious if you're reporting on them or writing about them was like the heavier
00:08:42
Speaker
and more loaded a certain topic is, the more you want to actually kind of like turn down the language on it. Turn the volume down on it is what he told me
Catholic Symbols in Livingston's Essays
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because the subject matter itself will amplify it. So as you approached writing about Catholicism in your journey to sort of re-find, like yeah, re-find it if you will, how cognizant of you were of like of the language itself and not trying to be too over the top.
00:09:11
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with the language to find that right balance. You know, I was aware of it to answer your question, but I think it partly is my writing style to be a little bit more restrained when I'm describing, in this case I was describing a lot of other people. I mean, the book is about my own personal experience, but I make a lot of journeys and sort of observe and interview people who are in the Catholic Church or doing different things.
00:09:39
Speaker
And so I really tried to or was aware of having distance between myself and what was happening and my understanding of what was happening. And so I thought of myself almost as more more like an anthropologist or journalist in some cases where I wanted to just sort of give, describe and help the reader see where I was. But I didn't want to put my personal too much of my loud personal
00:10:06
Speaker
reactions on the page a little bit just to get people involved but religion especially I mean the language is so bombastic already how you know and I actually talk about that in the book like even using the word God is just it's so loaded right so you
00:10:21
Speaker
Besides that, like your professor told you, it's a tenet of good writing to sort of back off a little bit when the subject matter is heavy. I think especially with religion or with a subject where the vocabulary is already so heightened, I was very aware of sort of backing off a little bit and also just sort of exploring language itself so that we could begin to have that conversation.
Personal and Cultural Themes in Essays
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Speaker
what does it mean when somebody says, I mean, people use Jesus language or all kinds of things. And that made me pretty uncomfortable, which may seem weird for somebody who's writing about Catholicism, but that was part of what I was writing about is how that language can be so loaded and really shut people down. And what was that experience like for you taking on more of a sort of journalistic approach to some of these essays versus the ones that are more strictly personal?
00:11:16
Speaker
That was really great. It was really new for me. I mean, I'd already, you know, I sort of started off as a straightforward memoirist and I love the essay. And so I'd written, you know, sort of lyric or lyrical essays for a long time. And so, you know, there were sort of elements of research that I would weave in and sometimes a little bit of travel.
00:11:36
Speaker
But this was the first time where I said to myself, OK, I have this question. And instead of merely sort of tracking the question on the page, I'm going to get my body involved. And I'm going to go to a place or I'm going to interview a person or do a thing at this sort of active, dynamic engagement quality, which is journalistic or like travel writers do.
00:12:00
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And it was new, it was a little uncomfortable at first, but it really resulted in writing that like, you know, you had just asked about like, how do you sort of back off with all the personal big language around a topic like religion? Well, getting into action and interviewing people who are doing things or going to places that were really interesting was a really natural way to allow that to happen because I would have like a ready-made setting and really interesting characters and situations.
Symbolism in Religious Searches
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So it was, I had to sort of push myself
00:12:30
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And I'm so glad that I did because I think the writing was better as a result. And now in my classes, I actually, I have students do the same thing. I call it a quest essay. And I asked them to go out and do something, add some sort of contemporary dynamic element to the question that they already have.
00:12:50
Speaker
Early on, I believe, is actually the first page of the book. You said, like, you know, the statue was shorthand for many things. And you're in search of this one statue from the church, Corpus Christi, where in the town where you grew up, in Rochester, New York. And what were you in search of that transcended the mere search of this statue? And how was that statue a conduit for the ultimate search you were on?
Pursuing Irrational Quests
00:13:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I mean, it worked very well, symbolically, the statue, which is such a traditional symbol of Catholicism, and a traditional symbol of devotion for Catholics and non Catholics, lots of non Catholics don't understand Mary at all, they don't get it. And so she, the statue worked in that way to sort of to serve as a model of devotion or, or Catholicism
00:13:45
Speaker
But she also worked really well as an object for helping me to explore the status of the church currently. So there's this whole sort of thread in the writing where I'm looking for this statue. I'm trying to find her because she's been removed from my childhood church. And I end up going to Pittsburgh and Buffalo and looking for her. And where she, I'm saying she, but where this statue ended up and some other religious statues have ended up,
00:14:12
Speaker
wasn't coincidence. It actually mattered where they ended up. The statue, the object itself, told a story that was larger than it, that was more about what's happening in the church. Churches are closing all over the sort of rust belt in the Northeast. And so that statue then becomes something other than just this object, this one object in one church.
Love and Judgment in Catholic Writing
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Speaker
And you write also that I know I'm unlikely to succeed and see by their expressions that my desire to launch a full-scale statue search makes no sense to anyone else, but some of the most important things in life make no sense. And whether I'm able to find Mary or not is hardly the point. The point is that I need to try.
00:14:53
Speaker
And I love that and I wonder what about this kind of felt like it made no sense and what about what about this was so strong a pull that you needed to do it you needed to try. Yeah well a lot of it didn't make any sense like just starting starting with going back to the church like at first it was a novelty I'll see these ladies from when I was little and
00:15:16
Speaker
see if I remember any of the words to the prayers. At first, it sort of started off as sort of, you know, I'm sort of looking at what's going on here. But over time, I began to attend church willingly, like I was actually going and it didn't make sense, just like the statue search didn't really make sense. And I think a lot of these essays or a lot of the writing were in large part trying to explore a way of knowing that was different.
00:15:40
Speaker
So not that I stopped using my brain completely, but I became very open to ways of knowing that aren't just relative to the way that we typically understand. I think a lot of this, going to church or exploring these different, what I called expeditions, were about trying to find out if there were other ways of understanding the world around me beyond the way that I had been relying upon. And a lot of these essays challenged me in that way. Like I have one about going up to
00:16:10
Speaker
a shrine in Montreal and seeing or talking about the heart relic. There's a famous saint up there who's got a heart relic in the oratory. And that's a really strange thing. And it was odd to sort of participate in that. But at the same time, I was very curious about, like, what am I learning? What's different on this expedition than the others? So I don't know if that's making sense. But I think on some level, my heart was kind of being challenged
00:16:38
Speaker
challenge in my head, which had already been challenged and I did pretty well with my head for a lot of years, was sort of taking a back seat sometimes and that was really important.
Balancing Intellect and Emotion
00:16:47
Speaker
Can you say other examples in your life that were important that didn't make sense but you pursued it anyway? Yeah, I guess every love ever, right? Yeah, I think that there are other examples and a lot of them have to do with love, you know, or something like affection where
00:17:07
Speaker
it feels like you could make a list on paper on the person that you should fall in love with. Or I was actually just interviewed by somebody and they're like, why the Catholic church? You could at least be a Unitarian because on paper, politically and all these other ways, you seem like you should be this sort of progressive Unitarian. But in fact, it turns out that for me anyway, religion was more like falling in love than writing a dissertation. So different parts of my brain were engaged.
00:17:36
Speaker
But, yeah, I think any kind of love, whether it's family relationships or romantic love, a lot of times that's one of the few occasions in our lives where we actually let most of us anyway, we let the brain sort of have it, you know, it's still running and functioning, thank goodness. But the heart for a minute, what I'm calling the heart, which is really this part of
00:17:55
Speaker
I can't believe I'm talking about this stuff, but this is, you know, the heart for a moment takes over and we're sort of blindsided. And I think other times are like when somebody dies, suddenly we don't, our brain doesn't function very well. Like we're thinking and we're doing what we need to do, but it doesn't really make sense. So I think those big moments of like love or death, really suddenly there's another part of us that sort of rises up hopefully and tries to make sense of things. And I was just interested in what that part was
00:18:25
Speaker
because it's a culture we really don't talk about it very well. And even now I'm sort of blunder, you know, like sort of only trying to talk about it in a way that might make sense. Yeah. And speaking to the heart, I think a lot of this, you know, for someone like you, who's a very, very bright writer, you know, a teacher and you travel a lot, and of course you're a thinker too. And so a lot of this story is sort of about
00:18:55
Speaker
relinquishing or surrendering some of the headspace to something that's a bit more resonant on, let's just say, a deeper level, for lack of a better term. What was that like for you to maybe not overthink and overintellectualize and just surrender to the feeling of this journey and specifically the Catholic Church? Yeah. I like how you said that so much. Thank you for that question.
00:19:25
Speaker
Relinquishing is a really great word. It was really challenging. I mean, it's really hard. And I think that that is why, because I am used to navigating the world with my thoughts and let's face it, my judgments. Right. So a lot of the reasons if the part of me that thinks and judges so so sort of naturally
00:19:46
Speaker
were only in charge, I could have never done any of these trips because I'm very judgmental. I categorize the world into good and bad, and that's just what I think the brain does. But to suddenly sort of let go of that a little bit, not all the way, but a little bit, enough to be open to other people and experiences that on paper don't really make sense, was challenging but really rewarding, which is why I kept doing it, which is why, I mean, I think underlying all of this is really about this question of
00:20:15
Speaker
sort of letting go of the need to judge, to sort of parse good from bad, and particularly with the church, which I had always loved, and there were some things about the Mass, for instance, that I had always loved, but when my head entered the scene, like, what does it mean that we say this is the body of Christ, or what does it mean that I'm attending a church where a woman cannot preside, or that, you know, there's a sex abuse scandal, when my head got involved, then it would just sort of fall apart. So a lot of this was sort of
00:20:43
Speaker
allowing both to occur at the same time, to sort of not forget my ability to think, but also to open up to people and experiences in a different way.
Confession and Vulnerability in Writing
00:20:52
Speaker
And that was important beyond or is important beyond the topic of religion. I think, politically in our country, we are so divided right now that I find this experience with having gone to church or done these explorations has helped me to deal with people who are different in other ways as well.
00:21:12
Speaker
And I like this line you, I think it was in the essay where you go down to that mobile confession bus and you say, it's not confession I struggle with so much as contrition. And I wonder if you could expand on that. Well, I think what I was saying there is I think in the old days, right? So especially like my parents' generation, but the idea of confessing your sins
00:21:40
Speaker
was really hard. People didn't open up. Like I said in the works earlier about that kid in the workshop and how it was hard for him to talk about religion, but he was fine with talking about, you know, drug use and all this other stuff. Well, you know, like 50, 75 years ago, it would have been the complete opposite. Right. Like so people would have been unable or it would have been very difficult to open up. But that's not our trouble anymore. I think we open up pretty well with each other. We will say like I could post on Facebook or something right now a challenge that I'm having or
00:22:09
Speaker
You know, like, oops, I just ate too much candy corn again. You know, ha, ha, ha. Like, that is OK. But I think that the part that is hard for me and I think other people is to be sorry about something that we've done. And it's tough to talk about because it sounds like I'm saying we should be really sorry or we should be guilt. No, I think it's guilty. I think it's good that we've thrown off a lot of the bad trappings of religion, all of that guilt and not being able to open up
00:22:36
Speaker
But on the other hand, there is something to saying to another person, you know, I did this wrong or I don't fully understand this thing. And I think that confession is one way that people can do that now.
00:22:51
Speaker
because it's so loaded and because it's religion, it doesn't happen very easily. But in that essay, I'm really struggling with the fact that I don't want to go to confession. Most people consider themselves Catholic, don't even go to confession. It truly is a dying sacrament. So I was looking at like, why is that? If we're okay with saying what our problems are, what's the problem? And the problem is really, I think, saying, I did wrong to another person, but there's also a lot of power there. If you can do it, say, I did wrong, doesn't need to be to a priest, it could be your partner, whatever.
00:23:19
Speaker
that there's a lot of ability there in that moment when you're vulnerable before somebody to have a connection that matters. Yeah, you wrote that, you update Facebook and Instagram page a few times a week and have written about myself in essays and poems, but it's somehow easier to bear my soul to unseen thousands than to open myself to one human being sitting quietly before me. Yes, yes, it's true.
00:23:46
Speaker
You know, I don't know why, but that is the power of human relationships, that it is more difficult. And I think part of, like part of me as a writer is I do better on the page, right? Like I'm better with writing an essay about a thing than having a conversation about that thing to face to face because it requires a different sort of level of vulnerability. And yet I was just looking at or exploring, a lot of these essays were about, it's not like I'm advocating that, hey, I think that you should go to confession or I should, I don't even know if I'll go any,
00:24:14
Speaker
It was more looking at, like, OK, this sacrament or this tradition is dying, and I understand why it's dying, but what happens? Like, what do we lose as the sacrament dies? So not just with confession, but when church is closed, when we stop going to mass completely, maybe something else is going to arise and it's going to be
Compiling Essays into a Collection
00:24:35
Speaker
just fine. But I was sort of wondering, like, what happens next?
00:24:39
Speaker
that ability to sit down in front of a human being, because most confession isn't even in a confessional anymore. It's just sitting across from the priest. But that ability to do that, that seems important. And so that's really what the essay was kind of investigating.
00:24:54
Speaker
And with respect to stitching these essays together, what was the challenge for you in tracking them to kind of use a music term together, since they did kind of appear elsewhere in various forms, I imagine, and then you had to think about how you wanted to package them together. So what was that experience like getting these things to feel cohesive together? Sure. Yeah, that's always a tough one with an essay collection, I think, because
00:25:23
Speaker
They're written at different times and for different purposes. And even though they're clearly all about or informed by Catholicism or religion in some way, they are a little different. I mean, I'm different as I'm writing them. But and so some of it was just deciding which ones should work together as a book. But I'll say that in this case, the the editor I worked with at the University of Nebraska Press
00:25:47
Speaker
came up with the idea to, I had a long essay about searching for the Virgin Mary statue. And she, Alicia Christensen at Nebraska said, why don't you divide that up and let that be sort of a through line? And that was a great idea. I had not thought of that. But that allowed me a little bit to sort of have the variety or the wide range of essays, but that they would have this backbeat of looking for the Virgin Mary statue.
00:26:12
Speaker
But it's still challenging, you know, like I have one little essay in there that really reads more like a poem and I still wonder, should I have put it in? But it went in. It's just a tough one. It's really a tough one. And so, yeah, I laid them out in terms of order, tried to make them sort of chronological. But ultimately, I think that the editor helped a lot with this one.
Growth in Editing and Trusting Interests
00:26:33
Speaker
What would you say that you're maybe better at today having written thousands and thousands of words in the last five years or so than you were, say, five years ago? What do you feel like you have a better grasp at now than five years ago? That's such a good question. I think the answer is that I'm better about cutting because I often will tell my students their gift is also their curse in writing.
00:27:01
Speaker
those writers who are so poetic or really love language, and I put myself in that camp, we can overdo it. And sometimes the story itself or the object or the idea can get a little crowded. And so I've learned to pull back and to really edit a lot more of those
00:27:21
Speaker
pretty passages out. But I still, I mean, I still, I look at the hard copy of this book and I think, wow, I could have, I could have cut even more. But in general, I think I'm getting a little bit more distance from the writing. And, you know, a big thing about getting older in general, but writing especially, is just learning to trust what I'm interested in. Yeah, it's wacky to look for a statue. Yeah, it's wacky to go to Louisiana, to go to a confessional booth, a mobile confessional booth.
00:27:48
Speaker
but there was a reason that I was interested in it, and so I learned to trust that. Yeah, there's something to be said about, you know, it might be kind of just inconvenient in a sense, but like you look in a certain direction and you're like, well, it's kind of the fork in the road thing. Like I could go left and it's nothing, but if I go right, I don't want to go there, but there's a story there and I'm a writer, so it's like you kind of have to just put the blinker on and go right and follow your gut, right?
Creative Satisfaction in Editing
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good way of saying it, the blinker, yep. Sometimes it's not even a blinker. Sometimes you just veer that way and cut people off in traffic and it's really ugly. But that's what you needed to do and that's okay. In the process of generating pages or editing and rewriting, where in this process do you feel most alive or most engaged?
00:28:40
Speaker
Good. These aren't really, I appreciate these questions. They're great. There's, I am most engaged. I'm going to be honest with editing. There is something that is wonderful about, you know, generating, but it also for me is pretty stressful because I don't know where I'm headed. I'm just sort of trusting.
00:28:57
Speaker
You know, like this matters. I notice this. I'm going to put this weird thing on the page and struggle with it there. But when I finally get through that process of sort of fumbling and pushing my way through this material and I have the first or second graph,
00:29:11
Speaker
I do really love going, I'm a nerd about editing. I like to print things out. I like to see what could be rearranged and how to make certain things sort of shine or talk to each other in a really interesting way. So I do love writing, sort of generating the material, but it's a different, for me the thrill is in editing and sort of seeing what might be there.
00:29:37
Speaker
I think it's so important to have those kind of paper habits. That way you can physically see things that you're cutting out, drawing through, rearranging. On the computer, because it disappears, there's no paper trail of that edit. So to have it in hand and to see all the markings and everything, it just has such a more concrete feeling that, oh, work is being done here.
Fireflies as a Metaphor for Inspiration
00:30:02
Speaker
Yes. And it feels, even though maybe I'm lying to myself, it feels like I'm in charge there.
00:30:06
Speaker
Whereas when I'm writing, and that's why it's also exciting, but in a different way, I don't quite feel in charge. I feel this sounds a little strange to say, but I really do feel like a channel or sort of a camera who's noticing things and putting it on the page and hoping that it's going to make sense for some reason. And so that's really hard. It's like you're just sort of, for me anyway, you're just sort of this open your question mark and
00:30:29
Speaker
There's all this doubt. But when you're editing, it's like, yeah, you've got the I've got a printout. I've got a red pen maybe. And it feels like, hey, I'm in charge of the material. Again, whether that's true or not, I don't really know. But it does feel it's a relief after sort of struggling through the writing.
00:30:46
Speaker
uh... couple years ago i was working at a at a whole foods and i would work from like three to eleven so i was always ride my bike home at night and i was on this bike path and as i got out to the main road there's this big big open field news during the summer i would turn i would turn to the right and in this open field pitch black were just thousands upon thousands upon thousands of fireflies popping off
00:31:14
Speaker
And when you wrote the scene about fireflies in the book, and I was wondering if you could describe it, because for anyone who hasn't been able to see that kind of fireworks show coming from bioluminescent insects, it's pretty special. How would you describe it?
00:31:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yours sounds really good, but it's one of those things that is hard to describe because you say firefly and it sounds so sweet and romantic or whatever and people, you know, but, um, yeah, so I just, I'll just quickly say that I chose to write about that because it was in the essay about how the word God just doesn't seem to work because whatever you think God is probably defies vocabulary or any sort of puny human attempt we could give to name it.
00:31:57
Speaker
And I think that my experiences that are like that involved nature. And so one that I wrote about was just following my husband, who's really wonderful about always getting us to see these great things out in the world. We just saw blackbirds migrating in these sort of huge swarms, these dark clouds, and that was beautiful. We just saw migrating butterflies, great. So this time we had to go out at night and I had to trust him that it was going to be good. And so we walked through the woods into a hollow
00:32:27
Speaker
And that hollow just literally broke with light. And it's, you know, I don't know how to describe it other than that, except that it's this experience where suddenly, again, my brain has gone off, everything's suspended, and I'm just in the moment of light. And it's, you know, it's just wonderful. And like your description of coming across that field, a lot of times these are unexpected.
Exploration and Gratitude in Writing
00:32:51
Speaker
You can't really plan for it. I didn't know what I was going to get. And it's still, it's very powerful.
00:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, it reminded me of like being in a sports arena and tip off goes off and then all the flash bulbs are going off in the stands. And that's what it was like. It was like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that's cool.
00:33:09
Speaker
All right, well, we're winding down here, and I've been doing this goofy little thing at the end of the show where I ask writers for a recommendation of some kind. Maybe it can be anything to unplug from whatever it is people are doing out there, and I wonder if you had a chance to think about it, if you have a recommendation for the C&F Pod listeners.
00:33:29
Speaker
Well, I think I'll go back to what I said I'm now doing in my classes, which is for some people who are already, let's say, more journalistic or comfortable writing about the world outside of themselves, this may not be so radical. But for a lot of essayists who focus a lot about their perceptions of the world and memory, that kind of thing, the thing that I recommend is going out and doing a thing.
00:33:52
Speaker
that relates to the topic that you're interested in. So if you're writing about, I don't know, furniture making, or your grandfather, the furniture maker, go to a furniture making factory or do something. It doesn't have to be a major trip. It can be calling somebody up. But I think to add an active element to the writing, this will open things up in a way that will, I believe,
00:34:16
Speaker
Really enrich the work and enrich your understanding to the topic and help you understand again, like why you were even interested in it to begin with. So that's my idea is to go out there and add some other new element to the thing that you're writing about, no matter how goofy, the goofier, the better. Just do it. Awesome. Well, Sonya, this is great to get to catch up again and talk about your, your wonderful new book or our latest book. And, uh, so this was great. Thank you so much for the time and, uh, yeah.
00:34:46
Speaker
Well, thank you so much. Your questions are really thoughtful. I mean, I think you're just a thoughtful person in general, but they're really good. And now when I hang up, I'm going to write them down so that I can ask them of other people. But thank you so much for your time. Oh, of course, Sonja. Likewise. And yeah, ask away those questions. All right. Take care. You too, Sonja. Take care.
00:35:07
Speaker
Can I get a second helping of that? Did you get all that? Man, I dig Livingston. Maybe we can get her back on the show more than once every two years. Raise your hands if you want that.
00:35:20
Speaker
let me know what you think of of a tight 30 like that you know do you like interviews there a little kinda like bang bang bang kinda like that a little good I kinda like the energy of a tighter episode I think when you tell people that they have like 30 minutes that people they tighten up their answers too so we can still get to a good amount of questions still have a good dialogue but also you look down your phone you're like oh my goodness this podcast is
00:35:46
Speaker
30 minutes. They're like, all right, I can do that. But when you look down your phone, it's like this is 75 minutes. You're like, whoa, this is going to be a commitment.
00:35:54
Speaker
So anyway, I'd love your feedback. Let me know at cnfpod on the Twitter. Be sure to head over to brendadomero.com for show notes, to this and other shows. Keep the conversation going, of course, on Twitter and Instagram, at cnfpod, Facebook, too. We use these platforms to connect. Share the show with people you like and subvert the algorithm, man. Subscribe so you can get it on your device. Boom. There. Download.
00:36:22
Speaker
Stay tuned. Next week I'll be talking to Bob Batchelor who wrote a book about a bourbon bootlegger. Hashtag alliteration. If you can't do interviews, see ya!