Transcript
Speaker: It was a few years ago at this point when I came up with the idea of a themed issue for the audio magazine called Codes. I was watching The Mandalorian and these bounty hunters never remove their helmets. They even punctuate an encounter with each other saying, this is the way.
Speaker: Staying in the Star Wars world, you could extend the code to Jedis whose objective is a monk-like devotion to order and justice and a devotion to the Force.
Speaker: You know Batman has a code that he never kills. You know, that and The Dark Knight. The Joker teases him about it. And Batman, out of necessity, breaks the code in killing Harvey Dent to save Jim Gordon's son. Hey, that movie came out in 2008, so I don't care if I spoiled it for you. I admire people with singular devotion because I am someone who is so lacking.
Speaker: in singular devotion. I say I want something and yet my habits rarely align with that thing I purport to want. That's why the people I tend to write about are obsessive and they give things up because the real sacrifice is not seeing their goals through.
Speaker: Not giving up a night on the town, not giving up drinking the weekend away, not eating multiple pizzas. I could go on. So it was with that in mind that I wanted to get a sense of the codes people live by. if I'm being honest, I'm still seeking mine out.
Speaker: I do have one uncompromising one that i seek to do as little harm as possible to the animal kingdom. I don't eat or drink anything that comes from an animal's body. I don't wear anything that comes from an animal's body. I have a few things from the before times, ah this leather bomber jacket. ah But aside from that,
Speaker: i won't contribute to the harm and exploitation of animals. That makes me a weirdo and people will judge me and I'm okay with that because, me thinks, it comes from a place of kindness.
Speaker: I also abide by a code of journalism ethics, but that's boring. It has admittedly taken me far too long to publish this issue of the CNF Pod Audio magazine with the theme codes, you know, with a you know a writer and another one. they're like, hey, so when is this coming out? I'm like, it's coming.
Speaker: Eventually, i don't know when, but it's it's happening. And you'll get your burrito money. ah But here we are, and we have six wonderful essays exploring the theme as they define it through essays ranging from tandem bike riding to horseback riding, COVID protocols, and yes, the inability to take a piss at a urinal. And maybe we'll just start there.
Speaker: Sam Sharp. Grew up in North Central Ohio. He's a writer and educator with an MFA from the University of Wyoming and a concurrent degree in natural resources. His essays have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.
Speaker: And his work has appeared in Terrain.org, Midwest Review, Midwest Weird. I think I'm reading that right. And elsewhere. He lives in Missoula, Montana.
Speaker: where he teaches environmental studies with the Wild Rockies Field Institute. His essay is titled P-Math. So let's hear from Sam.
Speaker: I am standing at a urinal. I need to pee, but I cannot pee. Or my bladder won't release the pee. Not here, it says to my brain. Not now. I don't know why it happens.
Speaker: Maybe I'm nervous. Maybe I drank coffee after 12 p.m. Maybe I'm in a dive bar and the only bathroom is one of those closets with a urinal and a toilet without a stall. Or maybe I'm in a stall at the Denver airport and someone just yanked on the door without even knocking.
Speaker: Or maybe I'm in a urinal in the Denver airport and an older man just sauntered up to the one beside me, let out a sigh, turned and said, you on the flight to Dallas? What kind of person makes small talk in urinal?
Speaker: Whether I'm caffeinated or drunk or nervous or all of the above, it often happens that I cannot pee in urinals. I don't know why, and I don't always know what to do. It used to be that when I couldn't go, I would just stand there, wait 15 seconds or so.
Speaker: As long as an average pee or pees, I figured, before washing my hands and leaving the bathroom, still with the full bladder, just playing it cool. So cool. And if I were with friends, I would exclaim half an hour later, oh wow, need to pee again, so weird.
Speaker: Or I would fake it. Once, during some cocktail hour at a hotel convention center, I was 20 at the time. Most of the other attendees were retired, and I had zero social skills, and was using a fake ID to get wine.
Speaker: I escaped to the bathroom. I stood at the urinal and waited. Then another man came in. He began to pee, but I didn't want him to notice that I wasn't yet peeing, which might make me appear suspicious.
Speaker: I poured my wine into the urinal to imitate the sound of pee, but the wine spilled on the floor. The man stared at me. I did not look back. I don't know why it happens, but it has to do with sound. Bathrooms are intimate echo chambers, and something about cutting into their silence with an expression of my body just feels wrong.
Speaker: It's about pressure. If I start peeing but stop, what does that say about me? Because I am worried that others might be listening, I inadvertently listen to them, becoming the very person I am afraid of peeing beside.
Speaker: In my early 20s, I started doing math, mental math, to get things going. Nine times five is 45. Five times nine is also 45. 45 times 19 is, well, 45 times 10 is 450. 45 less than that is 405. 405 plus 450 is 855. Now what's 855 times 12?
Speaker: forty five less than that is four oh five four ah five plus four fifty is eight fifty five now what's eat fifty- fiveve times twelve By now I am peeing. The cognitive heat produced in solving these equations is often enough to melt the glacier of my bladder.
Speaker: I have always loved mental math. I love how spontaneously my brain processes single digit equations, how the numbers just coagulate. I'm good at it. My math skills peaked in second grade when I dominated the one minute math tests in Mrs. Parrott's homeroom.
Speaker: I always finish first, 100% correct, oftentimes several problems ahead of Andrew Wagner, the fastest kid in school, who sat there staring at 11 times 12 with his mouth open, dumbfounded, trying to count to 11 with his 10 stupid fingers.
Speaker: When I was a child, numbers over overwhelmed me. Before falling asleep, I'd close my eyes and see them reproduce exponentially. They'd formed slowly at first, in soapy white fonds.
Speaker: One, two, three, four. Then they would explode in both size and quantity. 50, 60, 600, 678,000, 3,103 billion. sixty six hundred six hundred and seventy eight thousand three thousand one hundred and three billion The numbers engulfed my field of vision, and in the darkness I would flail under the sheets as if I was being chewed on by infinity.
Speaker: The technical term for shy bladder syndrome is perioresis, commonly understood as a form of social anxiety. One redditor says that it is the fear of others judging you for not being able to pee.
Speaker: But why would anyone judge you for not being able to pee? I suppose I'm afraid they will think I'm dysfunctional, that I'm perverse, broken, not right. There's also something chauvinistic about peeing as a guy.
Speaker: At football stadiums, we have to pee in a long line into those steel troughs while other men watch impatiently and others grunt and huff and the worst of them make small talk. There's something undeniably cool about a man like Robert De Niro, who in the movie Stranger Than Fiction drinks coffee and talks to Will Ferrell and pees copiously all at the same time.
Speaker: How confident you must be in your body to do something like that. How unashamed. Mostly, it's about reflection. As the case with most of my fears, I am afraid that characters in my environment will reflect the narrative already boiling inside my mind, that there is something essentially unidentifiably wrong with me.
Speaker: One day, in another attempt to understand my body by Googling its symptoms, I stumbled on the Reddit thread of r slash peeing. These posts are often written by men asking advice on how to pee in public.
Speaker: Responding to one such request, one Redditor says, it's not a big deal, bro. Just shrug your shoulders like Dennis does and always sunny when Mac talks to him in the bathroom. And Dennis says, Mac, I can't pee when you talk to me.
Speaker: It's not a major dysfunction, just a minor annoyance. It is not a minor annoyance, a deleted user says. I can't pass drug test at work because of it. Big Guy, 275, agrees.
Speaker: I feel your pain, he writes. Nothing works for me. I'm so depressed, so much anxiety. Don't even want to leave the house anymore. BunsenBurner69 asks, how bad does it hurt to administer a catheter on yourself?
Speaker: every Everyone wants to know the same thing. How do you make yourself pee? How do you make your body do something it's designed to do spontaneously? Some users suggest listening to music, standing on your toes, playing Candy Crush.
Speaker: Another user writes, my solution was to just tell myself I had such a big penis that there was nothing to worry about. He received two downvotes. I am not a cognitive behaviorist, Talladega Nighttime admits, but the secret is that you have to expose yourself to urinals slowly, first with stalls, then with open doors of stalls, then you just go for it.
Speaker: I used to think about my bladder like this, something to train. One night in grad school at the Third Street Bar in Laramie, I decided to test myself by peeing at a urinal even when there was an open stall.
Speaker: This was a big time risk. One stall, one urinal, LED lighting, no fan, no lock on the door, no telling when someone one might walk in. I postured.
Speaker: A few seconds passed. No pee. Okay. I went to distract myself by opening Instagram. Then another guy walked in. I didn't see his face, just heard him enter the stall, unzip, and unleash a torrent of urine.
Speaker: He flushed. Why am I listening? While I stood dumbly at my urinal, pretending to pee. As he washed his hands, a friend of mine walked in, and this unknown male turned to that friend and pointed in my direction.
Speaker: He's just standing there on his phone, he said, and laughed. My bladder entered another ice age. I returned to my friends absolutely furious, my bladder still full. You'll never guess what just happened.
Speaker: What happened? Some frat bro just made fun of me while I was trying to pee. He pointed at me and said, he's just standing there on his phone. Like what the hell? Like what kind of asshole says that? That night, the cousin of a fellow grad student was drinking with us.
Speaker: He was a tall, blonde, muscular poet, and his name was Cal or Call or Raul. Something very Californian, I thought, and he'd been hitting on my girlfriend all night. Raul spoke up.
Speaker: I said it. Sorry, I didn't know it was you. I didn't know how to respond. I remember that I apologized. This moment regularly haunts me. Why did I apologize?
Speaker: He is the one who had a reason to be sorry. Not me, but it is never the people who make others feel bad about their bodies who actually feel bad, is it? Even though my body had done nothing wrong, even though he was the one who had behaved poorly and some guilt might've been good for him.
Speaker: But how do you ingest that message into your subconscious, into your b bladder, into the assembly of workers who loosen and tighten the valves of you? How do I tell that to the part of my brain that worries about the judgments of strangers, that worries chronically if I am okay?
Speaker: Nobody knows. The best solution the researchers have found at r slash peeing is distraction, most accessibly most potently in the form of mental math. I have since given up trying to pee in public urinals.
Speaker: I just won't do it. If the pee flow is wonderful, but if my bladder freezes up, I will not coax it or pretend. I don't care if I started at the urinal and then it froze. I will go to a stall.
Speaker: I will pee on the street. Or better yet, I will pee in the woods. Because nothing beats peeing in the woods. I have tested my body in many classes. At the urinal, yes. But also in bed. How long does it last? That kind of thing.
Speaker: It has taken me a long time to learn that there is no way to pass these tests, that the act of testing is itself a failure, that this body does not learn through standardized testing, so I no longer test it.
Speaker: Exams are banned in this course. This is the first law we've written together, my body and I, our first code, that I will not treat it as a test subject, that I will not approach it as a thing to train whose boundaries are just obstacles to overcome.
Speaker: That no matter the context, no matter what someone else might think, when my body says no, I will do my best to listen. Sometimes I forget and I thrust myself into situations that are really hard to pee in just to see if I can.
Speaker: Other times it happens. I pee in a urinal at the Denver airport. And now that my body knows we can always go to the stall, urinals are not so intimidating. But whenever the little man in my bladder hisses that it isn't safe, I'll switch to a stall and get to work solving low-level math equations.
Speaker: Then there is no space for questions like, did that guy notice I'm not peeing? Do I have constricted blood vessels? Is my pelvic floor tight? God, what's wrong with me? Is it hypertension, diabetes?
Speaker: There is no space for questions like that because I am multiplying 18 times 71 in my head and dividing the product, 1,278 by two and half. by two and a half and on the best days when my mind and body are synchronized.
Speaker: I will solve the equation at the moment my bladder empties. Then I'll just stand there on my phone for a moment, checking that the answer is, as I found it to be 511.2. And it and it
Speaker: Sam can be found at abrica underscore Sam on Instagram. And his website is samharlansharp.com.
Speaker: Okay, so next we're going to hear from Lindsay Street for her essay, There Will Always Be Horses. and For more than 20 years, Lindsay has worked as a staff writer, reporter, and editor in newsrooms across North and South Carolina, winning multiple State Press Association awards. Her book, Maude Callen, Legendary Nurse, Midwife of South Carolina, was released earlier this year In addition to writing, Lindsay raises children and stewards a homestead.
Speaker: Here's her essay.
Speaker: The ring fit perfectly. In the right light, it sprayed joyful miniature rainbows. A small diamond set on a skinny gold band, the ring met a future together with my soon-to-be husband, Henry.
Speaker: We lived on the bottom floor of a Charleston single house inside the peninsula, but my fiancé wanted me to take the ring out of the city. I needed to show it to a specific someone, he said.
Speaker: Let her know I finally come first. Wait, that sounds menacing. So let me assure you, he was half joking, half hoping. Still, my response remains legendary in our 18 years long marriage.
Speaker: She was here before you and she will be here after you. A lifetime commitment can never change my bond with horses. I don't know if I ever thought of it as a personal creed or code, but if it was, it would be.
Speaker: There will always be horses. I never did show the ring to my horse Buttercup. It gets taken off or covered by riding gloves when I'm working around horses. And honestly, I doubt she would have cared about some human derived symbol on my left ring finger.
Speaker: Keeping horses in my life hasn't been the easiest choice. They're expensive. Sometimes, especially when you least expect it, they're dangerous. They're a logistical nightmare to move.
Speaker: And since I married a man in the Coast Guard, this is a reality we deal with every few years. Horses have taken me to some of my highest highs in life. I competed show jumping in France.
Speaker: I gave guided horseback tours on the beach. I rode out into the dark and watched the sunrise in the swamp. I kept focus on horses in my backyard until we finally had a little place of our own.
Speaker: The whole world has opened to me because of horses. Horses introduced me to wax myrtle, a plant that helps keep mosquitoes at bay while riding deep in the woods in the south.
Speaker: Sticking a branch into the headstall, the wall of green was broken, and now it's rare I don't know an arboreal neighbor. Buttercup's health issues showed me the benefits of an organic diet, which guided our journey into beyond organic farming practices and permaculture.
Speaker: I have watched a young horse imitate the mature horses around her, Donning a saddle, a rider, and riding the same paths as easily as the veterans in her first rides.
Speaker: I have seen horses grieve in a way that makes headlines when it's orcas. I'm not surprised an orca mother carried her dead calf for 17 days. Because I watched Magic, who refused to let anyone remove her stillborn full and then ripped out her own forelock in grief. Would I have recognized non-human sentience and personhood if it wasn't for the bonds I carried with horses?
Speaker: They're like saints, I told my sister once. What do you mean? Like... When you pray to a saint, identify with that saint, it makes it easier to talk to God, right?
Speaker: Horses give us a way back to nature. Perhaps I don't know Catholicism that well, but I know horses and what they've done for me. There will always be horses.
Speaker: Then I became a mother. The first moment I doubted my passion, i was seven months pregnant with my first child. I told my midwife I was still riding, assuming she would be pleased how active I remained.
Speaker: Instead, she warned, would you forgive yourself if something happened? If something happened, something always happens with horses. I'm partnered with a 1000 pound prey animal that spooks at plastic bags.
Speaker: I stopped riding while pregnant. Instead, I walked them like dogs and kept them better groomed than when we were showing. In the hours after my child was born, I asked Henry to take the bundled pink baby outside to introduce him to the horses.
Speaker: Motherhood unexpectedly dug up old memories and pains. In recent years, I've thought a lot about Carissa Warren. Carissa was the reason my sister and I rode horses instead of danced ballet.
Speaker: She was also the reason I was pretty good at getting out of being tied up to a chair, being the tag-along little sister of the best friend duo. If possible, Carissa was even cooler than my sister. Once, she rode on the back of a Harley to Daytona Beach.
Speaker: Apparently your butt goes numb somewhere on Interstate 95. Carissa wanted to be a jockey, even though at 10 years old she was already bigger than most professional jockeys.
Speaker: With her long, straight, blonde hair capped with a velvet helmet, she galloped her off-the-track thoroughbred, Shibley, whenever she could, after school especially.
Speaker: Then the harsh ring of the telephone echoed through the farmhouse on a December night. I sat on my horse-covered bedspread in a room full of horse pictures and horse books, surrounded by horse wallpaper.
Speaker: As my uncle told me, Carissa Warren had died. She had fallen off of her horse. In the next room, my mom told my sister, no, no, no, my sister said.
Speaker: I just saw her at school. They had passed each other in the hall. My sister didn't say hi. It was a given she would see her the next day.
Speaker: One morning, I slipped out to the barn in the backyard. There, my pony, Snorty, pricked his ears and walked up to me. I silently asked him, "'How could horses do this?' He stood still as my tears streaked down his pumpkin-colored coat.
Speaker: But it wasn't until I became a mother that I saw Carissa's death as something else. Entirely preventable. My parents chose to let us develop a lifelong obsession with these unpredictable animals.
Speaker: I asked my dad, After Carissa Warren died, did you and Mom talk about selling the horses? No, he said, not offering more on the subject.
Speaker: I've broken my arm twice. I've been crushed into fences, barn walls, and the sides of trailers. I don't even want to consider letting my children grow up to play football, and yet I've had at least two bad concussions.
Speaker: In 2014, I spent eight months in and out of doctor's offices with a torn labrum that ended in surgery. During one of my diagnostic x-rays, the doctor asked me how I could have possibly broken my back so many times.
Speaker: I did not realize I ever broke my back, but I could think of a few nasty horse-related falls. Being horse-crazy, these were nearly points of pride.
Speaker: Then, horse-related injuries came for my child, Thomas. In the first weeks of the 2020 pandemic, I rushed him to a half-closed children's hospital for emergency surgery.
Speaker: Just shy of his third birthday, Thomas had grabbed Buttercup's halter as she grazed. Before I could say anything or grab him, she spooked at the sudden toddler-sized weight on her head and flung him into the air.
Speaker: In the years since, Henry and I have talked. Would I get another horse when one died? Could i just have donkeys? Why horses?
Speaker: The boys rarely asked to ride anyway. When Buttercup Mocha and their donkey friend Roxy died, that could be it. I could ride other people's horses. An easy decision. Let my passion for horses die with me.
Speaker: Luckily, i spent a life being humbled by horses, so I was well prepared to be humbled by children. Last year, Thomas decided my ex-racehorse Mocha was his, and he would ride when I ride.
Speaker: I never asked him to come with me. He knew what days to meet me at the paddock, wearing his jeans and boots. Using birthday money, he bought a cowboy hat, even though I never let him ride without his helmet.
Speaker: Like the eager yearling who followed in the hoof prints of her fellows, my children followed me to the barn in the backyard with brushes whisking dirt out of the horse coats. We talk a lot about safety.
Speaker: I'm not sure i could have stopped him, but I know I didn't try. After all, there are few greater joys than sharing your passion with the next generation.
Speaker: Thomas had a goal this past summer. Ride mocha into our little pond, not much bigger than a puddle. Let me back up a minute because mocha is not some easygoing couch potato pony. There's a reason she was given to me.
Speaker: Years ago, a friend was trying to sell her and I offered to help get her ready for market. The mare would break into a sweat and tremble before I could swing my leg over her.
Speaker: Under saddle, she hummed with all the energy of a Concordia jet. After months of training, I thought I had helped her move past her old track habits.
Speaker: I called her decaf mocha. But when potential buyers came to try her, Mocha regressed every time. Apparently, all I had done was convince her to trust me and me alone until Thomas came into her life.
Speaker: With Thomas, this hot, nervous, former racehorse becomes a patient, doting granny. Thomas can stand on her back and leap off. He practices turning around in the saddle and riding backwards.
Speaker: But old habits, especially in old horses, can die hard. And my memory is perhaps too long. On one summer morning, Thomas used the bathroom stool to reach every spot on Mocha's coat, making sure she was groomed to perfection.
Speaker: When I went to adjust the saddle blanket, He told me he could do it, shifting it into the correct location. Using the stool again, he rested the saddle across her back and brought up the girth, buckling it into place.
Speaker: Almost as soon as I bridled her, Thomas swung into the saddle. I could already tell today would be the day. After a short trail ride, I brought my horse into the pond.
Speaker: Buttercup stood knee-deep in the water while I watched Thomas walk Mocha to the water's edge. You're the captain of the team, I said to Thomas. Set the expectation, expect her to follow, but be there to help her if she can't.
Speaker: Thomas nudged Mocha closer, but then she veered away before her hooves could get wet. The next time he approached the pond, Mocha stopped at the edge.
Speaker: Looking to veer away again, she turned her head, but Thomas's rain kept her facing the pond. It's okay, I said. We can do it another day. That's good work to end on.
Speaker: Mom, Thomas replied with a winning smile. I've got this. He scooted his seat and kept his hands steady. Together, they walked into the pond. Thomas's smile widened as water splashed up under Mocha's belly, licking the bottoms of his boots.
Speaker: Now, I have kids on horses, humbling me.
Speaker: Horses are no longer a necessity when it comes to transportation, war, and meat. But they are still necessary. Here's why. For the last 6,000 years, Homo sapien has worked with Equus caballus.
Speaker: There are no longer the wild progenitors of the domesticated horse, just as there is no part of the human genome unaffected by millennia of codependency with equines.
Speaker: You don't have modern humans without ancient horses, and you don't have modern horses without ancient humans. When another phone call comes through, this time with a cheerful boing inside my car instead of the cruel ring in the farmhouse of so long ago, i pull over.
Speaker: The call is important and the cell reception is spotty. The detailer says we're definitely moving, Henry says from the other line. My chest tightens under immediate grief.
Speaker: The car idles in a church parking lot. The cross outside offers no comfort. What I need in that moment is 100 miles away The soft skin of a muzzle, the fluttering of nostrils in a deep exhale, that impossibly sweet smell of dried grass and latherin.
Speaker: It's hard not to feel that horses hold me back in this moment. What if we are assigned to an Alaskan billet? There's no way we could move with them. We would have to figure out some way to care for them from thousands of miles away. When I come home, Thomas moves into my arms. His eyes are puffy.
Speaker: I inhale the top of his head like I did the first time I cradled him more than eight years ago. i don't want to leave Mocha, he says with a stuffy voice.
Speaker: The horses were his first thought too. I know, i don't either.
Speaker: I'll be really sad without her, he says. Then, impossibly, he grins. But dad says he'll buy us four Mustangs when we come back.
Speaker: My life's current now thrums through my entire family. There will always be horses. And because of that, we will get through whatever the future holds.
Speaker: And Lindsay has started a new podcast on Substack titled The Morgue, where she interviews old journalists about their best stories. That is at themorguepodcast.substack.com.
Speaker: dot com
Speaker: Next up, we have Jennifer Lang and her piece, Optimus Amicus. San Francisco-based area born. Jennifer Lang lives in Tel Aviv, where she runs Israel Writer's Studio. Her prize-winning essays appear in the Baltimore Review, Under the Sun, Midway Journal, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and served as an assistant editor of Brevity Journal.
Speaker: Her first book, Places We Left Behind, a memoir miniature, was a finalist in Forward Reviews Book Awards for memoir, and her latest, Landed, a Yogi's Memoir in Pieces imp Poses, won Zibi Awards for Best Midlife or Late in Life Coming of Age.
Speaker: Both books are unconventional, timely, and true. Her writing focuses on identity, voice, faith, belonging, and home. When not at her desk, she might be walking along the edge of the Mediterranean or on her yoga mat, practicing since 1995, teaching since Jennifer. Goodbye, hello.
Speaker: here is
Speaker: Amicus et tonquam alter idem. A friend is, as it were, a second self. Cicero. One.
Speaker: Separate ways. In my mother's metallic blue Mazda 626, I zip down Telegraph Ave toward Blondie's Pizza in Berkeley.
Speaker: Judy ride shotgun, Marsha in back. We roll down windows and prop elbows on sills. I blast San Francisco's KFRC.
Speaker: They harmonize, overpowering my discordant voice. When American Top 40s announcer Casey Kasem says, journey, Judy cranks up the volume.
Speaker: Marsha shrieks, this song's so wicked. The car vibrates. Lyrics cascade out of our mouths. Words we've branded into our brains about being worlds apart and brokenhearted.
Speaker: As we sing cry our cyclonic emotions about life after high school graduation, I grip the wheel. I can't believe you're leaving, Judy says.
Speaker: They'll stay in state while I'll move to the Midwest in search of something unnameable. All afternoon, we rehash memories of our firsts.
Speaker: Crushes, kisses, blowjobs. Every sentence starts with, oh my God, or remember when? i cling to our best friends forever relationship.
Speaker: Too naive to understand, Tempus Fugit will blunt it.
Speaker: Two, don't walk away. At summer's end after graduation, I buckle my seat on my one-way flight, JFK to Charles de Gaulle,
Speaker: venturing into adulthood as a bilingual assistant for the World Jewish Congress on the Champs-Élysées with je ne sais quoi as my driving force. My first month on the ground, I stop a frizzy-haired young woman, cockle my lips, and ask, où est le Musée Picasso?
Speaker: Our connection is quick and intense. Both bold 22-year-old Jewesses, we are enamored by each other's language and culture. An art student at the Louvre, Fabienne introduces me to hole-in-the-wall sushi bars, covered passages, and Johnny Clegg and Savuka's South African band.
Speaker: I immerse in Paris through her eyes. 18 months later, i fly to Israel, fall in love with the Frenchman of my dreams, and stay.
Speaker: When Fabienne visits, my boyfriend and I show her the flea market in Jaffa, Arab shook in Jerusalem, Masada fortress at sunrise. We blast Johnny's third world child album on my portable tape player, singing the catch phrase, what you see is what you get.
Speaker: But nothing prepares me for what I later get. 10 pages, handwritten in her tight looped scrawl, accusing me of abandoning her.
Speaker: Her abrupt rupture stings like a scorpion. Am I a bad friend? Did I break some secret or one-way code? Whether mea culpa or I misunderstood our relationship, my heart splinters.
Speaker: Three, she moves on. At Piedmont Park, I hear another mother speaking Hebrew and ask, mi'efo'at? Her espresso brown eyes widen with surprise.
Speaker: Born on Kibbutz Magal, near where my husband and I lived in northern Israel, Adi and her family recently moved to the Bay Area. We swapped numbers, organized play dates, weigh the pros and cons of each other's country, and confess our longing to belong.
Speaker: Two years later, before we moved to the East Coast, Adi and I splurged on a Paul Simon concert in downtown Oakland's Paramount Theater. A carpe diem decision despite crushing work family fatigue.
Speaker: The auditorium roars when Paul sings from his Rhythm of the Saints album about moving on, about clouds shifting, about planes lifting. Every lyric makes my lips tremble, my shoulders shake.
Speaker: After six years in my home state, we're leaving. Adi wraps her arms around me and together we sway.
Speaker: Four, sideways. At our weekly yoga teacher's practice in Armonk, 20 minutes north of our house in White Plains, I place my mat across from Susan's.
Speaker: Poses intensify, heat builds. Citizen Cope croons a rhythmic blues soul folk rock blend. In crow pose, I tip forward and extend my legs skyward, balanced, blissful, strong, full of vigor.
Speaker: Until Clarence Greenwood sings about feelings knocking sideways. Upside down, my eyes water. After nine years in New York, my Frenchman and I are returning to Israel with three teenagers.
Speaker: I stare at the room of robust yogis, thinking about how much we've shared. How many friendships I've formed and forsaken after too many moves in too many decades.
Speaker: Back on our feet, Susan says, ground down, feel the earth underneath you. Is she talking to everyone or just to me? The only status quo in life is change.
Speaker: And you can find Jennifer on Facebook or on Instagram at JenLangWrites.
Speaker: Marilyn Wimp Paolino collects family stories and cookbooks. Early in her career, she was a newspaper reporter who accepted all the leftover assignments. An avid bicyclist, she writes about her travels on two wheels. She lives in the Philadelphia area where she divides her time between writing, writing, and volunteering at her favorite indie bookstore. Here is her essay in tandem.
Speaker: Traveling by tandem was a real road test for my mantra. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. When I venture into unfamiliar territory, career or cycling, rarely is it a solo endeavor.
Speaker: When I was new to cycling, I joined a bike club. Belonging to a bicycling club is like having AAA membership for touring on two wheels. Club members steered me to trustworthy bike mechanics, while the gadget geeks told me about swap meets to buy bargain gear.
Speaker: And my cycling friends showed me how to fix a flat, saving me from being stranded. Mentors gave me vital points for long distance rides. Drink water before you're thirsty.
Speaker: and those who failed to heed the advice of cyclists before them suffered from heat exhaustion or were stalled and sidelined. Thanks to mentors, I became a stronger, smarter, and more adventurous cyclist.
Speaker: A new adventure awaited for me. My partner and I planned our first vacation as a couple. Lounging on the beach, being lazy, was boring. Forget the expense of fancy resorts, Grinding up hills and gliding down hills for 550 miles on a bicycle built for two was more our style. We were taking Mother Nature's roller coaster ride through the Allegheny National Forest.
Speaker: Give us a no thrills adventure and camping under a starlit sky. Cycling seven cities in seven days made my legs wobble and my confidence wane.
Speaker: This week long trip was destined to tax our endurance, try our patience and nourish our growing relationship. Pedal PA, founded by an experienced cyclist, Bob Ingersoll, was the scenic cycling bargain we craved. Bob's well-planned routes highlighted historic towns, sites, and offered food stops. A van towed our bags from town to town.
Speaker: We carried only the necessities, spare tubes, tools, water, money, rain gear, because packing for rain ins ensures it won't. And my good luck charm, of course, a tarnished penny.
Speaker: Our long-haul tandem mission started in Erie and ended in Philadelphia. Mileage averaged around 55 to 75 daily, not daunting for us.
Speaker: The terrain and scorching summer heat had us more concerned. I wanted to keep cool, calm, and most of all, keep pedaling. Flashback to riding tandem with my girlfriend when our legs turned to jello during a steep climb on the Hilly 100 Tour.
Speaker: She stopped pedaling. We toppled over. Thankfully, no riders around us got hurt, and we suffered only skinned shins and bruised egos.
Speaker: We walked away, or rather walked up the hill and finished the ride. Still, following was a lingering fear, despite the fact that I was now a more experienced tandem tourist.
Speaker: Several years earlier, my boyfriend and I rented a tandem on a whim while down the shore. That's slang for New Jersey beaches, all of them. Oh, what a bouncy ride. Soon we were singing, oh, solamia, an operatic melody whose words described our sunny mood and the day depicted in this cheery song that goes back to 1898.
Speaker: Our jaunty ride inspired us to buy a tandem. We fell in love with a brand new Trek tandem. A royal blue beauty was our first big purchase together as a couple, a commitment to stay together.
Speaker: Because riding together on separate bikes was always a compromise to match one another's pace. On a tandem, the designated driver, Captain,
Speaker: Typically, the stronger of the two cyclists controls the steering and the braking from the front seat. My tandem position was the second seat, the stoker, still close enough to tap my partner on the shoulder or pull a snack out of his back jersey pocket.
Speaker: Because it's hard to hear in the captain's seat, I used a series of gentle taps on the driver's back to communicate, like Morse code. A common misconception, though, is that the backseat rider is taking it easy, snacking, sightseeing, and not pedaling.
Speaker: Wrong. Each rider must pull their weight. Like twins, tandem partners are in in sync with one another. We recognize when we need to slow, speed up, or rest without a word.
Speaker: Trust keeps tandem teams together. And trust means not screaming like a banshee when the bike hits insane speeds ranging from 30 to 50 miles per hour.
Speaker: Honestly, I cannot confirm our actual speed because i close my eyes. but my internal speedometer swears we were exceeding the 55 mile per hour speed limit.
Speaker: Tandems can go fast, but my goal was for us to go far together. The five Ps. Our fate and fun depended upon teamwork and training.
Speaker: Have you heard this phrase? Proper preparation prevents poor performance. We adopted a training motto, Pedal PA Preparation Prevents Pain.
Speaker: Thankfully, tandems have a built-in accountability partner. Our tandem, nicknamed Old Blue, emerged from hibernation after the clock sprung forward.
Speaker: Pollen swirled in the air, coating everything in lime green. Spring temperatures swung from gentle warm air to biting winds, calling for wool hats under our helmets, as well as thick gloves.
Speaker: White blossoms danced in the wind, reminding us of the harsh, blinding snow flurries during our winter ride in Valley Forge Park. Soon enough, summer came into our lives, forcing training to start at 7 a.m.
Speaker: before the heat wilted our enthusiasm. But whatever the weather, we logged the miles for three months before the trip. Pedal PA welcomed nearly 100 riders, tandem touring and mountain bikers. My partner and I were in a minority in our two-wheeled community because this route was not tandem friendly.
Speaker: Tandem riders are fond of flat terrain because it's easier to move, balance and control the bike. But rolling terrain means minding the inertia. Time slows down, crawling uphill and speeds up whizzing downhill.
Speaker: Physics for Cyclist. Day one. My other riding half had ridden solo for the inaugural Pedal PA Tour. He gave it high marks for scenery, support, and social aspects. I trusted his judgment and his riding ability.
Speaker: However, this trip was a new route. At the rider's reception, I wore his prize Pedal PA shirt. The shirt was an ideal icebreaker, but the bicycle banter paused after I confessed that this was my first big bike trip.
Speaker: I met others who had not ridden pedal PA, and I bonded with them. I swallowed myself down as my excitement and anxiety did small somersaults in my stomach.
Speaker: Quelling the queasiness was easier than drowning my doubt. It wasn't the first time I had experienced imposter syndrome. No, I had had symptoms surface after starting a new job, getting a promotion, or accepting tough assignments.
Speaker: I worked to overcome that I didn't deserve it mindset, whether it was an ideal job offer or an award. On the tour, every night, we reviewed the next day's ride. obsessing over the terrain, mileage, and scenic stops.
Speaker: Was I ready for the winding roads and whatever wild encounters lay ahead? My worry cast a shadow darkening my mood until I realized how useless it was to worry about what I could not control.
Speaker: Our route was set, but we controlled our pace. This was a vacation, not a race. We didn't need to go fast. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
Speaker: Early high point. My fortitude was tested with Mount Freeland standing 1,942 feet, claiming the highest elevation in and Pennsylvania.
Speaker: This legendary hilltop now holds our personal title for the highest peak we had climbed at the slowest pace. Silent and Steady.
Speaker: We crawled up, up, up. At the midpoint, we pulled over and paused to rest. We wheeled ourselves back on the bike, determined to conquer this hill.
Speaker: At the top, we admired a grand view, pristine green hills uncluttered by housing developments. We toasted our triumph climb pouring power drink into Dixie cups.
Speaker: This combination of red, orange, and green drink powder was an ugly brown color, but at least it was gold. We made it, all doubts disappearing from my mind, just like the sweat evaporating from my body.
Speaker: The hardest climb was behind us. My partner and I were in this journey together, aching muscles and awful puns. That night, we would sleep well in our two-person tent,
Speaker: Our camping facilities were either school or churchyards, which were always on a Hillcrest. We usually pitched a tent no matter how weary we were from riding all day.
Speaker: Our small tent offered privacy, shade, and quiet to wind down after shower and dinner. In the warm summer night air, we slept atop, not inside, our sleeping bags.
Speaker: Only when thunderstorms and lightning threatened did we move inside. One stormy night we spent indoors, cocooned in colorful sleeping blankets spread across the gymnasium. I felt safe and snug.
Speaker: Low-beamed flashlights flickered in the night like the golden glow of fireflies. Muffled snoring replaced the songs of crickets. Mountain Magic.
Speaker: Among our biker brethren, we were the first to rise. We had a set route, but not a set start time. We settled into the saddle before the sun woke up.
Speaker: I was eager to experience Pennsylvania's only national forest the Allegheny National Forest, about 500,000 treasured acres. What wildlife waited in the woods for us?
Speaker: Bear and elk had the right way. We would follow Mother Nature's rules. As we traversed the narrow roads, I forgot my fears. Birdsong accompanied us as we rode under the canopy of trees, shadiness from the sun, bright and awake.
Speaker: We were cooler still speeding down the mountain, exceeding 35 miles per hour with the disc brakes engaged. Our hearts were racing three times their normal speeds.
Speaker: while my partner scanned the road for dips, bumps, cracks, and other hazards. We needed the adrenaline boost to climb and crest the mountain. We stopped at the top, dismounting on a soft shoulder to admire the view. My cleated bike shoes held me in place as I peered down the steep slope into the lush forest.
Speaker: Back on the bike, we left the shaded area on two wheels, gliding, around and down the hills, feeling the warmth and smelling the sunshine. To our surprise, a family of three rode toward us, uphill.
Speaker: Two bikes balanced bulging saddlebags with one pulling a tow-haired child. We exchanged smiles. The final 50, dense and stifling air enveloped us. Our only escape was forward on the road from New Hope to Philadelphia. We peddled past the aches and pains, bumps and bruises earned the past week. I ticked off the final 50 miles in my head.
Speaker: Pennsylvania had welcomed us with a graceful rolling landscape, small town hospitality and the shady respite of a treasured national porous. We were sweaty and smelly, tired and happy with Independence Mall, the finish line in sight.
Speaker: We forfeited our solo sojourns to ride in tandem from the first mile to the last. This memorable journey following a mantra ended in a promise for us to stay together forever.
Speaker: we have Judith Evans, who recounts the last days of her mother's life and the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which started more than six years ago, which is kind of crazy to think.
Speaker: Wild to say out loud. I feel in so many ways that it was only yesterday. There were a couple of years there that I have almost no memory of. Almost zero But Judith has one pointed memory. Judith Evans has been writing professionally since 2009. She has published a book of poems and short fiction, as well as articles on legal topics. A graduate of the University of New Hampshire and Vermont Law School, Evans currently writes political commentary articles on Substack.
Speaker: She lives in Boise, Idaho, with her senior Shih Tzu, who thinks he's a puppy. When not writing, Evans loves gardening, drawing, and sipping coffee at any of Boise's many cafes.
Speaker: Here's code for a time of loss.
Speaker: Ditto. That was the last intelligible thing my mother said to me over the phone. I had called her at the nursing home where she lived for the last three months of her life during the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions, the code that we all lived by.
Speaker: Neither one of us knew that mom was about to enter hospice, comfort care as the nursing home called it. With the pandemic surging, I wondered if I would ever look into my mom's gray-blue eyes again.
Speaker: Ditto was what mom often said after I told her I loved her. People who overheard thought it unsentimental and abrupt, but to me it represented a secure, comfortable relationship in which the unspoken was understood.
Speaker: Mom lived at the Boise, Idaho nursing home from July 2020 through October
Speaker: the day she died She was only two miles away from where my husband and I lived, but I could not sit at her bedside until the last week of her life.
Speaker: I could only visit her over the phone or outside her window. It was 2020, the year that introduced words like pandemic, lockdown, and quarantine into everyday conversations.
Speaker: It was the worst year imaginable to have a loved one in a facility, especially a loved one with advanced dementia. You have to know Boise to imagine the impact of the 2020 stay at home order.
Speaker: It's a city of California expats, students, entrepreneurs, and native born Boiseans trying to hold on during the housing crunch.
Speaker: For the refugees who came from all over the world every year, the city has a welcoming spirit, our unspoken code in normal times The stay at home order, which began in April 2020, was a heartache and eventually a source of conflict.
Speaker: Accusations of tyranny and hoax were thrown about whenever masks and social distancing were required. That August, armed and maskless protesters broke through security and shattered a glass door at the Idaho State Capitol building.
Speaker: 2020 was, as Mom said while she was still living with John and me, a year like no other she could remember. Mom moved into the nursing home in July after suffering a heart attack and after an unsuccessful two-week stay at a rehab facility.
Speaker: She had been living with my husband John and me in our three-bedroom Boise home. The three of us spent hours in the kitchen discussing politics, books, and art.
Speaker: Our morning coffee was punctuated with mom's keen interest in politics and national public radio news. Her dementia came on gradually, but 2020 brought a rapid decline.
Speaker: Then came the midnight call to 911 on July Mom had called me to her room to tell me that her chest felt tight and that she was having trouble breathing.
Speaker: I was grateful that she didn't put up her usual fight against medical attention. John and I breathed a tentative sigh of relief as the EMTs wheeled Mom's stretcher out the door and onto our driveway, where the ambulance waited.
Speaker: She looked like a fragile baby bird in the chaos of tubes and oxygen tanks. You can't go with her, one of the EMTs said, putting her hand up as I reached for my purse.
Speaker: There's a strict no visitors policy due to COVID. The hospital will call you as soon as they have more information about your mom's condition. She'll have a COVID test first to rule that out.
Speaker: Our dog, a white and gold Shih Tzu who adored grandma, cried in the hall. Seven hours later, an ER doctor called to inform me that it had indeed been a heart attack.
Speaker: She'll be in isolation until we get the COVID test results, which should be later this morning. I was barely aware of the lawnmower running in our front yard as our lawn guy made his usual Thursday rounds.
Speaker: I couldn't visit my mother at all, the doctor explained. I wrote down the direct phone number to mom's room. That afternoon, I tried to picture how mom must have looked as we talked on the phone.
Speaker: For the next seven days, mom lay in a hospital bed while I played phone tag with doctors, the social worker, and the discharge planner. First she was coming home in two days.
Speaker: Then it was three days, five days. Terms like non-weight-bearing and rehab facility led the conversation. Mom, who had helped me cook dinner a week earlier, was not able to get out of bed.
Speaker: Why am I here again? She'd ask me every time I called her. One more COVID test and mom's next destination was Riverview Rehab Facility, which looked like a luxurious ski chalet, but nevertheless sent mom into an emotional and mental tailspin.
Speaker: The afternoon she was transported to Riverview, I was introduced to another feature of life during COVID, the window visit. A CNA guided me outdoors and around the facility. She dropped me off at a window marked 107.
Speaker: I was grateful for the cool breeze. A masked nurse opened the window and said, we don't normally do this, but since it's her first day here, you guys can have the window open.
Speaker: Next time, though, the window will be closed and you'll have to talk on the phone. Another attendant, wearing a gown, mask, and visor, brought my mom's wheelchair to the window.
Speaker: As soon as the attendant left, mom burst into tears behind her mask. "'I don't understand anything,' she said, her eyes searching my face for answers.
Speaker: She had always been tiny, eating like a bird, but now she looked even tinier than the night she left our house. Our visit consisted of my feeble attempts to answer the same questions several times in a row.
Speaker: You've had a heart attack. They're going to help you get your strength back. You'll be here three weeks at the most. I love you. Ditto. After a few visits, Mom's room was full of mementos from home.
Speaker: Photos of John and me, flowers, books, and a bag of fresh plums from our tree. Mom, who was a gifted artist, didn't touch the drawing paper and pencils I brought.
Speaker: During one visit, I took a picture of mom through the screened glass. The image made her look like a ghost, a flesh-colored blur behind fine mesh. No face, just a featureless oval.
Speaker: Any other year, I could have taken pictures in her room. We would have looked out her window and watched joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers make their way along the Boise River greenbelt.
Speaker: Panic set in as mom's condition deteriorated. A doctor called one night to tell me that mom had fallen trying to get to the bathroom. She wasn't hurt.
Speaker: Mom explained that she had gotten out of bed because she had to meet someone at the post office. Rehab obviously wasn't working. The trick was to find a reputable long-term care facility that accepted Medicaid and wasn't closed to due to COVID.
Speaker: Please keep her there until we find a place, I begged Sarah, the Riverview discharge planner. She should be able to stay until there's an opening, Sarah said.
Speaker: Should be? What did that mean? A few days and one more negative COVID test later, i was visiting mom through the window at the bright, shiny new Cascadia of Boise nursing home.
Speaker: In spite of the reflection on the glass, I could see that her fine white hair had been shampooed and styled in an updo. A CNA had to stay in the room to remind mom to talk into the phone.
Speaker: Mom's first two weeks in the nursing home would be spent in isolation for COVID regulations. Our visits consisted of me calling her while I sat in our backyard and listened to her cry.
Speaker: I'm worried about dad, she said, meaning her father. What if he gets this thing that's going around? Her father, my grandfather, had been dead for 20 years.
Speaker: He's okay, I said. Oh, that's good, Mom sighed. I soon learned another term, sundowner syndrome. Jessica, the social worker, explained that mom, like many people with dementia, was becoming agitated in the evening.
Speaker: The moment she was left alone, she would scream. I'm wondering, Jessica said, if a roommate would help. Once your mom is out of isolation, she just likes to have someone else there with her.
Speaker: I shuddered. What if a roommate didn't help? I would have kept her company if they had let me. After two weeks and another negative COVID test, mom was out of isolation, which didn't make much difference.
Speaker: Doctors and nurses still looked like they were wearing spacesuits, and residents had to stay in their rooms. Mom did, however, have a new roommate by mid-August.
Speaker: Within a few days, Mom sounded more like herself over the phone, even cracking jokes, no tears or screams. Her roommate would even chime in with a good-natured comment.
Speaker: So what if mom insisted that she was going horseback riding today with her long-deceased high school best friend? Mom was laughing and chattering up a storm, and my stomach didn't hurt anymore.
Speaker: I started making plans for post-lockdown visits. I couldn't wait to sit and watch TV with mom, show her my crochet projects, and even take our dog to visit.
Speaker: Maybe I could volunteer to help decorate the facility for Christmas. At 4.30 p.m., the Friday before Labor Day, Jessica called. Your mom has C. diff, which is a highly contagious infection that causes severe diarrhea.
Speaker: She's taking antibiotics and has been placed in isolation again. But don't worry, these antibiotics are highly effective for C. diff, so she should be out of isolation within the week.
Speaker: One month and three antibiotics later, mom's infection hadn't budged. After a window visit during the first week in October, I sat at a table in the nursing home courtyard with Jessica and a nurse.
Speaker: I heard the words comfort care and end of life visits, but felt as though I was watching a movie. The movie continued for 11 days. I was given a COVID-era privilege called end of life visits, which allowed me to dress in a gown, mask, and visor and sit in mom's room.
Speaker: I could stay for 30 minutes once a day. All I could do was watch her sleep and talk to her as if she could hear me. I was grateful that I had told her I loved her during that last window visit.
Speaker: Ditto, Mom had said through the window. That was two years ago. i keep Mom's ashes in her old bedroom in our house. At John's suggestion, I now use the room as a library and meditation room.
Speaker: I listen enviously as people my age talk about their parents moving in with them or plan visits with loved ones in assisted living homes. They don't have to worry about the code, which had virtually disappeared when the virus slowed down.
Speaker: Still, the restrictions haunt me, as I wonder how much longer mom would have lived if I could have held her hand or shared lunch with her. I retreat into her old room and imagine her sitting next to me, watching cooking shows and looking at fashion magazines.
Speaker: I play the last voicemail I received from mom, Our dog runs into the room, tail wagging, looking for mom, as if the only codes were to love and have fun.
Speaker: And that long last year is our final essay. Yeah, I wanted to end on something mildly bright. It's one of those essays that works better as a part of a group of essays.
Speaker: And that's why I think this one was so was fitting amongst the ensemble. Aaron Simpson is a high school librarian and writing... Erin Simpson is a high school librarian and writer living in eastern North Carolina with her husband and two kids. She graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 2006 and spent the first decade of her career as a newspaper reporter.
Speaker: She shifted gears to non-profit work and later worked as a freelance writer and artist while her children were young. Once her kids were in school full-time, she enrolled in a master's program at UNC Greensboro and graduated with her master's in library and information sciences in December 2025. She is forever working on a new story idea before she wraps up one and aspires to one day have a book that's commercially published. Here is You Go Girl.
Speaker: Be your own cheerleader. i don't remember which therapist told this to me, but it's been the most useful tool in my arsenal since losing myself to postpartum depression and motherhood almost 10 years ago.
Speaker: Picture it, your hair is falling out in clumps, your kids need you 24-7, nothing in your closet fits, and your husband thinks you guys need to go to mass. And in an attempt to function, you simply just lay on the closet floor, sobbing and contemplating your own awakening scenario, where you just wander off into a deep, dark nothing and cease to exist anymore.
Speaker: That's what the first two years of my life looked like post-babies. I was not okay. Even now, with my kids eight and 10, every day feels like an uphill battle and one I was and ill-prepared for.
Speaker: And don't even get me started on the fact that there is no good way to handle being married while going through all of this. Not one. But I constantly question myself, my efforts, my wins, my fatigue, my desperation.
Speaker: i was doing all the right things, but none of it felt good enough. That's when one of my therapists said to me, you have to be your own cheerleader. Talk to yourself like you talk to your best friend.
Speaker: Be that friend to yourself. And holy shit, did that change things for me. Not quickly, mind you, but after 10 years of practice, I've gotten pretty good at it. Why hadn't I been talking to myself like this the whole time is something I've wondered repeatedly. And the only answer I can think of is that this impulse to be our own hype person is slowly and methodically beaten out of us by society, capitalism, and by the well-meaning, maybe, parents some of us have grown up with who think there's only one way to be a good, successful, contributing member of society. If you question everything you feel, think, do, you're more likely to want to buy the thing that can make it all better and look to others for solutions.
Speaker: Becoming a mother has helped with this too. I am my children's hype person because I don't want them to waste their youth wondering if they're doing anything right. I will cheer them on like a crazy mom at a youth soccer game and I will make sure they know they are doing great, even if all they want to do is stand around the soccer field picking daisies. Is it what I do? Maybe, because team sports are a nightmare.
Speaker: If my daughter wants to be the next Taylor Swift, then girl, sing your heart out. And no, I will not correct her if she's a little out of tune. My mother did while I was singing my own heart out in the back of her two-door Toyota Tercel to Kokomo by the Beach Boys when I was about my daughter's age.
Speaker: If my son wants to play with LeBooBoo's, read Babysitter's Club till he falls asleep, and build Legos until he runs out of ideas, then hell yes, you go. My sweet boy has wanted his nails painted since he was probably one or two, and I've never told him no.
Speaker: Joy is the one commodity we lack in the United States, and I'll be damned if I'm going to take that away from my kids or myself anymore. Do I need a little treat to motivate myself sometimes? Yes.
Speaker: Do I need to celebrate every soberversary? Abso-freaking-lutely. Five years, baby. Do I know what that will be this year? No way, but I know I deserve it, whatever it is.
Speaker: The biggest thing being my own cheerleader has taught me is that you really can turn off that annoying, anxious voice in your head that someone else put there in the first place. Is my reflection looking different than the idea i had of myself in my head?
Speaker: Shut up, no it isn't. You look great, now go to work. Is my hair doing that weird thing again where some of it is curly and some of it is puffy and weird? So what? Literally no one cares. Live your life. We waste so much time worrying about what we look like that it takes away from the shit we should be worrying about, like the fall of democracy and rise of fascism.
Speaker: When you become your own cheerleader, you start to embrace the things that bring you joy rather than convincing yourself something is childish, unnecessary, or frivolous. Since when did those become bad things? Childhood is filled with wonder, amazement, and opportunity. I want all of my days to have a little bit of that.
Speaker: Unnecessary doesn't mean bad. It means I don't need it, but I sure do want it, and it brings me joy, so I'm going to go for it. All things in moderation. And opportunity. My God, we limit ourselves. We convince ourselves we only have bad choices only to have certain paths we are meant to walk. But no, we just have to keep searching and making a path regardless of how frequently or infrequently it's been traveled.
Speaker: I've also heard any decision is better than no decision. So hype yourself up, make a decision, and see where it takes you. It might end in a bust. It might also end up with you and your dream job 10 years later than you ever planned on it happening. And as the saying goes, better late than never.
Speaker: I find myself currently in a place of, I need to make a decision, and find myself frozen in fear, what ifs, and utter existential dread. But my inner cheerleader keeps me moving in the direction I want to go, keeps reminding me to relish the little things, to do the things that bring me and my kids joy, and is constantly reminding me there's no right way to do anything. You don't have to decide today. You can make a decision internally and work toward it quietly before you're ready to make it official.
Speaker: Life is short, do the thing, be your own hype girl. And like our fearless leader, Taylor Allison Swift says, you gotta fake it till you make it. And I did.
Speaker: And what do you know, that's it. Yeah, I put this initial call out for this magazine in 2022, and it only took four years to finish. I had my hands full with other pressing deadlines, as you might imagine. But maybe you don't imagine. Maybe you have no imagination of the deadlines I had in my hands.
Speaker: But it's nice to bring these stories to light, finally. I'm not sure I'll do another one of these again, but if I do, it might be more flash essays on a particular theme.
Speaker: had Just to keep the work a little tighter, a little shorter. Yeah, you get it. Be sure you're subscribed to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts and follow the show on Instagram at Creative Nonfiction Podcast and consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash cnfpod. Money raised from that helped pay these writers for their stories.
Speaker: They each got 25 bucks and there aren't many literary magazines out there who will cough up enough dough for a couple burritos. So yeah, go get yourself a burrito.
Speaker: All for now, CNFers. Back to your regularly scheduled programming. See ya.
