Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
A Legacy of Good Work with Christy Bauman, Tracy Johnson, and Katy Stafford
80 Plays27 days ago
Author Christy Bauman shares with Tracy and Katy from her latest work, Her Rites, about the rite of legacy. While many of us have received traditions passed down from our mothers and grandmothers, far fewer have intentional language about the meaning behind those acts and traditions. Together, Christ, Katy, and Tracy reflect on the legacies they have inherited and the ones they long to intentionally leave behind. Join the conversation to consider what intentionally living your life to leave a legacy looks like.
For more stories from brave, ordinary women, join us at Red Tent Living.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Red Tent Living Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Katie Stafford, and this is the Red Tent Living Podcast, where brave women host honest conversations about our beautiful and hard ordinary.
00:00:12
Speaker
Each week, we share stories with the hope of seeing one another a little better and affirming each other across different seasons and perspectives. We're excited for you to join us.
Mother-Daughter Duo on Legacy and Inheritance
00:00:24
Speaker
Welcome to our table. Hello, Christy. It's good to see you. Good to be seen. It's fun to have you, me and Katie all here. Yeah.
00:00:37
Speaker
you know. It's really sweet to see y'all's faces. I'm actually so happy to be with you both. Man, all the all the things flood my mind, but particularly what we're going to talk about, it's just really rare that podcasts will have a mother and a daughter.
Women's Roles in Preserving Legacy
00:00:55
Speaker
Who's hosting. Like, I feel like that's very rare. And I feel like it's very important to what we're talking about today. And so you get to bring an insight about legacy and about inheritance that I think we wouldn't normally have by, or i haven't had by any interview, um a podcast interview with someone who doesn't have a family member, you know, it's fun.
00:01:20
Speaker
That's fun. Yeah. Yeah. And I, as I think about, you know, like talking with you and talking about your most recent book, i this is true about when you tell stories and when I read your, you know, your writing, I'm always aware of what feels like such rich legacy that you have with your mom, your grandmother, your great grandmother, your sisters, your
Influence of Legacy on Writing
00:01:51
Speaker
aunts.
00:01:51
Speaker
It's like, oh man, ah you have, uh, you have, have had women around you, um your whole life. And, and so much that feels like it's, it's not only storied, but it has intentionality and legacy around it.
00:02:13
Speaker
The way that, um, the way that you write about it. We'll see how you talk about it. But as you mentioned, Katie and i I, think one of the things that gets provoked for me when i when I'm reading your words, Christy, is that I feel like I watch that with my daughters. I watch that, ah you know, some of that dynamic and how they certainly and how they interact with one another.
00:02:38
Speaker
and I think I know some of the things that, you know, they would say about me and what it's been like to be mothered by me. But it's a little different vantage point.
00:02:50
Speaker
It doesn't, I don't feel like I didn't grow up living inside, you know, that kind of ah sort of female rich family experiences.
00:03:02
Speaker
So I... Yeah, so i i I love that in your writing. And I think part of what it's done is maybe give me a little different eye for how I watch what happens with my girls and what I see happening with them,
Importance of Recognizing Women's Role in Legacy
00:03:18
Speaker
for sure.
00:03:18
Speaker
Well, I... I love that. i love that we get to talk about with the importance of women carrying on legacy, being preservationist, and also what inheritance we've gotten and what inheritance we're leaving.
00:03:36
Speaker
I don't think women are talking about that. I don't think there is much energy on, do you know what your legacy is? Do you know how to preserve what has been preserved from you millennia just before?
00:03:50
Speaker
What do you know of your mother and your grandmothers and your aunts? you know, and I just don't think we're talking about that. And yet I am firmly of the belief that women are legacy and that's our gift.
00:04:04
Speaker
Our gift to the world is that we leave a legacy, whether that's in bringing a child into the world, whether that's in bringing a company into the world, whether that's through sisterhood, whether that's through setting table and the process of that, we are living that out. And our gift to the world is legacy. And I,
00:04:22
Speaker
Yeah. I just don't know how common we're taking it serious or talking about it in depth. So I'm excited to talk to you two both about it. Yeah. Hmm. Okay.
Introduction to 'Her Rites' and Legacy Rites
00:04:32
Speaker
I'm going to jump in So I did write this book, Her Rites, which is the six most common rites of passage in every female life.
00:04:39
Speaker
And Though it starts with your first breath and ends with your last, we're really only going to talk about the sixth rite of passage, which is the rite of legacy. So birthright, initiation, exile, creation, intuition, and then legacy are all the rites of passage for those of you who are listening. But we're focusing on what I was saying today, that women don't really realize how much they are in charge of a legacy.
00:05:06
Speaker
And I look through this idea that my grandmother's, my one grandmother in particular was a preservationist.
Personal Stories and Inherited Legacy
00:05:14
Speaker
She canned everything. She freaking canned everything like figs. She pickled everything, pickled carrots, pickled okra. Like when I would go into her kitchen, it was, she was taking all of every scrap of thing and she was boiling it down and putting it in a jar and preserving it.
00:05:35
Speaker
And it was because she came from a very poor, poor family. That's what her mother had taught her to do. And she inherited in marriage, a very rich, wealthy family.
00:05:48
Speaker
And so she married into a family who their style of preserving was wine. And her husband, his family line came from a vineyard in France. in Bordeaux and they would make this wine. And so it was so interesting for me to look back and say, what do I come from? i come from this mother who can pickle and can anything.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I come from this grandfather who makes these choice wines that will over time age really well. And both of them are about eating at a table.
00:06:23
Speaker
it's It's about survival, but it's ah also part of it is about survival. And the other part is about celebration. And i just was like, okay, that's why that runs in my blood and my veins. That's why I know and want to understand that I will bring that legacy into this world, into my own kids and into how I set a table, how I sit at a table, what I'm eating and what I'm drinking.
Traditions and Generational Legacy
00:06:50
Speaker
And what I know about you two women is you know something of that too.
00:06:55
Speaker
Like to me, Tracy is the epitome of setting a table. And I think when I think of your family that Tracy, your girls will know how to set a table. You guys will know how to come around and celebrate.
00:07:10
Speaker
but I haven't had anyone say those words out loud to me to help me understand that this is what I was inheriting from my, group from my grandparents. And that then this is what I'm passing on when I do those things.
00:07:26
Speaker
And that's the right of legacy. The right of legacy is what are you preserving? What have you inherited and what are you leaving? And I love that for women. I want us to explore those things. And,
00:07:40
Speaker
So I did it by expressing it in my own family. And that felt really exciting to me. So I don't know what that brings up for either of you. i can keep talking, but I and just want a little bit of you two to say what you do know because of what's been passed down.
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, I love that frame. And I think you're right. You know, it's as I've been thinking about How have I come into awareness about like what my, what I've inherited and what I'm preserving and what I'm leaving. My husband has actually been a helpful vantage point there because there are things I just do automatically because I was raised by Tracy Johnson who was raised like, because this is the way you do things that he mirrors back like,
00:08:23
Speaker
I really love that you do this. I really love the way that you decorate at Christmas. I really love that we have these traditions on Thanksgiving. course we do, but he's he's the one actually speaking that to me of realizing, oh wait, I've been gifted something and I do this because I come from this and it's important to me and it's how I'm gonna continue to be in the world.
00:08:45
Speaker
um And tons of that comes from mom. Lots of it is around the table and meal preparation and how I mark moments. um And it's like, because that's how they were marked for me. That's how I came into womanhood.
00:08:59
Speaker
It makes me think about like, as you were saying, like, we don't talk about it often. It's like, yeah, how, how are we engaging that mindfully if we don't have a mirror per se, who's speaking to us like, hey, you do this. And it's very cool. And beyond the table, like,
00:09:16
Speaker
what are other places where I assume what we're preserving and inheriting and leaving is also about what we're not about, right? There are things we're about and we give our life energy to that. And that means we make choices about the things that don't matter where it's like, maybe that helps life happen, but that's not where my life force goes.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah. I think what you are saying about just what it means to be given this stuff. It does make me want to ask you, Tracy, like, where did you get it from? And also say there is a complexity, like both
Reflections on Storytelling and Family Traditions
00:09:52
Speaker
and. And so I'll start with, since Katie, you're already saying, you know, that my husband's pointing out all these things, right? One thing I do know about you guys is the way you decorate, right? I know that Tracy will say like, I have my joy sign out.
00:10:10
Speaker
Like, And I know that that is something that she's in a sense parenting herself and you all, right? There's something, there's an inheritance is that long after this, you will decorate in such a way that is leaving a tradition for your own children to know when to demand our lifestyle to step into something that maybe is or isn't happening.
00:10:38
Speaker
But it's ah it is the tradition of this is how we come. to this holiday. This is how we come to this hardship. This is how we respond. We won't have control.
00:10:49
Speaker
Tracy, yeah, what's your thoughts whenever she says that? like How did you learn to do that? That's great. I mean, you know i think um in some of the same ways, you know I will often say that my love for the table is something that that certainly began with my mom.
00:11:05
Speaker
And she had a lot of My mom was was very intentional and and meticulous about about setting her table you know days before.
00:11:17
Speaker
So days before Thanksgiving or days before like Christmas Eve dinner, or if they were having friends over, you know my mom would my mom would be working on the table.
00:11:28
Speaker
and And i I can remember that. And it was important to her, you know, and and all of us gathered around the table. That was important to her. So I think I i learned about that from her.
00:11:40
Speaker
Holidays were, know, my mom had decorations for all holidays. every Every holiday was celebrated. You know, even even to this day, she doesn't, she my parents, you know, are a care home at this point and nearing the end of their lives.
00:11:58
Speaker
But in the wake of them leaving the home that that they lived in for you know the last 35 years, they you know i found bins filled with you know napkins for every holiday and you know bins up in the attic of Christmas decorations that you know haven't seen the light of day and I don't know how long. And and Thanksgiving and Halloween and Easter and Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day, it's all here.
00:12:26
Speaker
So that, that feels like those feel like things that I definitely learned from my mom. And as I'm sitting here talking to guys, I'm sitting at her desk and in the, there's doors that open, ah you know, at the top of this piece of furniture that I'm sitting at and inside feels, you know, like what my mom has, has preserved of her family. So it's filled, it's, there are pictures, like great, great grandparents and,
00:12:53
Speaker
um and her with her siblings and little artifacts and things. And so that all feels very much like her. I think like the, but the next, the like a missing piece for me and all of that is that there just weren't a lot of words that came in any of those spaces.
00:13:14
Speaker
And so, so there's, there's like, what's in the air that I understand about what's important. But, um but when I think about, at least for me, you know, part of, part of what I want my legacy to see to be, um part of what I want to preserve and hand to my children like,
00:13:33
Speaker
like ah you know, who who i who I have come to see them be in the world. i want to preserve for them that there are words of blessing that come from me for them, for my grandchildren.
00:13:48
Speaker
I don't know that I'll see great, great grandchildren in all honesty, but, but I think, you know, grandchildren for sure. and then And then another thing that feels like it's missing is like words around artifacts.
00:14:00
Speaker
Like there there are things that are here and I know who they belong to or and I know something of the story of how maybe they came to be my mom's, but that was a piece like she didn't she didn't finish that out. I don't totally know why, but but there wasn't, you know, i want you to have this thing and this is why.
00:14:23
Speaker
Right. This is this should belong to you. And this is why this is what I want you to know about
Intentionality in Preserving Traditions
00:14:29
Speaker
that. um And I think there's something important, like the story that you tell about your grandmother, like the last thing she gives you is the figs right in that jar.
00:14:38
Speaker
Mm hmm. and And you made meaning out of that. But she didn't. She didn't put words to that at all. Nope. She just gave you the figs in the jar.
00:14:49
Speaker
Right. And I think that's part of what you were saying is that it's like, these are these things that I have known, but you know, this preserving, but unto what? Well, and I think the complexity.
00:15:00
Speaker
as mom talks about that, because I think about, I do recognize that I call my grandmother my patty, that my patty has all of those holiday decorations and something that can come with that. So it is anticipatory. It is celebratory, but it's also pressure around days. Like these are these are the these are the holidays and they're the perfect days and they're the special days and they need to go like those days go.
00:15:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm. mom did something like when I think about the way mom decorates her house for me, the way I have embodied that and internalize that is this is, this is actually about the birth life, death life cycle. Like this is about leaning into seasons with presents. And, and so there are like, there's how we greet fall and there's how we greet Christmas and winter. Right. And there's how we greet spring and Yeah, I don't think I've ever thought about that before, but I decorate my home very differently. It's not about the special day and that needing to be something. It's more about like welcoming your world and being in relationship with it.
00:16:10
Speaker
And, you know, mom, as you talk about the artifacts I think about. So I'm pregnant right now. we have our first baby coming. And this Christmas, like my Patty gave us a book that we all read as children. It's a version of the night before Christmas. And mom found the same book, same printing, same coloring. And she sent it to me so that that tradition can continue.
00:16:32
Speaker
And there were words around like what that has meant for us as children and belief and hope. And like you, you, gave me what I feel like your mother did not give you, which is like, this is an item that like has captured memory in it. And we, and we carried it forward, you know?
00:16:50
Speaker
And so it's a different energy. It's not about the perfect moment. It's about coming back in time to our story and centering ourselves and like remembering that as life happens, we have these rhythms that equip us to keep living and keep hoping and keep dreaming.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it sounds like if we get particular, you know, in some ways, Tracy, you're saying my mother, it was the day it was, you know, she prepared to set for that meal and that, that group of people coming in or visiting.
00:17:22
Speaker
And then Katie, what I hear you saying is now it's actually the season. How do we prepare for that season? um And I do think, you know, we will have to look for the ways things were preserved for us. And a lot of times we will be disappointed because if we're not talking about this currently, very articulately, like there is no way our mothers and our grandmothers knew how to. They were just passing down and preserving all that they knew.
00:17:51
Speaker
This was how you did life. And so this is what I'm passing down. I think that's very important because many times when I talk to women and I say, you know, what is your mother or your grandmother passing down to you?
00:18:06
Speaker
It's, well, she was a complex woman. Well, that was a time when we didn't know what morphine did mixed with this medication. or We didn't know that after having a baby, there was not like most of these women that were before us didn't have words.
00:18:23
Speaker
And so in sense, they were impacted and Some of them, they look as if they were going crazy trying to find the words or trying to find themselves. And so all they knew to do, my grandmother, all she knew to do was can whatever was around her so that you never sat with me.
00:18:44
Speaker
She never talked to me about anything. But man, when she handed me those figs, I knew she was asking. She was asking me to carry on what to read between the lines.
00:18:56
Speaker
And and too two yeah in some ways, it almost even felt like an apology of like, I'm sorry, this is all I have, but this is everything I have and I'm giving it to you tip to carry on. And, you know, there is complex stories where there's actually harm or abuse and and then and then that is different.
00:19:15
Speaker
But I do think it's very important to also say preservation is not something that's very clear for most people. And so as women and as moving into what inheritance are we leaving, what legacy are we leaving?
00:19:30
Speaker
We have to sort of read between the lines and sort of translate what they were saying amidst the worlds that they were trying to stay alive in.
00:19:42
Speaker
At least that's what it has been for me. I've had to look at you spent all your time preserving this food and this wine. instead of spending that time with me.
00:19:55
Speaker
And yet now when I taste that food or I make my own or I preserve food or I taste that wine, I'm tasting something of you that you couldn't give me whenever I was with you.
00:20:07
Speaker
um And so it feels exploratory. It feels like really dig deep to hear the legacies that were given to us or what's been in what we've inherited.
00:20:20
Speaker
Well, and I think that's, I think that's the beauty of the beauty of how you've written the book is that it's not just you haven't just written about these things, you know, and what you've learned about them for yourself.
00:20:34
Speaker
But but you include, you know, the invitation for your reader to engage, you know, you, you include the, the prompts to, you know, get them on their way. i was noticing like, you know, at the very, at the beginning of this section on legacy, you know, you, you ask the questions, how do you go about naming things that you create this one? I loved, how do you coach yourself in your darkest moments?
00:21:05
Speaker
How will you die or plan to leave this world? Like what aspects of your wild nature name and a legacy you will leave? What are those aspects? So you're really inviting women to begin to do what you just said, which is like, these things may not be obvious, but you you can become the investigator of your own legacy.
00:21:30
Speaker
you know You can choose to go learn. What is there to be found? In the stories that you do have, there's always a story deeper still.
00:21:40
Speaker
if you If you want to go mining for it. Yes. And I think if we listen, I just wrote the sentence, the world inherits life from women.
Cycles of Life, Death, and Legacy
00:21:50
Speaker
And it goes back to what Katie was saying of something you're teaching her in this season is that life, death, life process that happens again and again.
00:21:59
Speaker
And I think when women try to negate that or not, feel those cycles and actually go through them, they're not giving the legacy of life to the world because they're using all of their energy to not be in one particular part of the cycle.
00:22:16
Speaker
Whether it's they don't want to birth and it's a time for them to birth. They don't want to wait and it's a time for them to wait. They don't want to bury and it's a time for them to bury. Whenever we're using our energy to not be in that space, then we're not able to leave a legacy because we're not living in life, in the cyclical part that women just inherently know.
00:22:37
Speaker
We're using all of our energy to slow that down and to stop that. when i think my mom and her When I think about that with her, my mom had a lot of resistance around around naming death or for feeling death or talking about it.
00:22:58
Speaker
And I think some of the like marking of every holiday, it was, it had a little bit of the energy of like, we're just living from one celebration to the next. So we can stay up, you know, it's not, it's not that long. And, you know, and we're, we're, we're onto an Easter was never about good Friday. but You know, Easter was about Easter Sunday morning.
00:23:21
Speaker
and And it's interesting. My grandmother died on good Friday year. She died. It was good Friday. And died relatively early. like when Yeah, she died of my patty.
00:23:34
Speaker
s Death robbed my patty early, right? She had a hysterectomy at a very young age. She had her mother die at a relatively young age. So she' there's an interesting path there that sort of walks with her unwillingness to face death or sit in it.
00:23:53
Speaker
Right. I mean, that just wasn't the the stories around that weekend as i as I processed what it was like for me, you know, that the energy was really all about Easter Sunday.
00:24:05
Speaker
Despite the fact that my grandmother had died on Good Friday, you know, there there was ah lot a lot of focus.
Navigating Traditions and Difficult Emotions
00:24:13
Speaker
You know, Easter Sunday was still going to happen. were still going bunny cake and, you know, and have our baskets and wear our outfits.
00:24:21
Speaker
So all of that, just to say that, like, ah you know, that it's interesting, even to read what was there for my mom in the stories that I do that I do have access to those memories that I have, like you were saying, it's like she was giving what she knew to give.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yes. And when we start to investigate and look at that, there's usually patterns that we've either picked up on or that taken away from, right? Where we swing the pendulum and we are all Good Friday, you know, all resurrection. And we stick with that's what we know. And I love that you said we would just move from holiday to holiday. And I do think in our Western culture, at least that's how we get through the dark.
00:25:09
Speaker
Whenever we start to feel the end, when we start to pack up one box, you know, even this year, it was like Valentine's day. And, you know, it's like it's Christmas and I'm walking in to get something around December 24th. And there it's already Valentine's day. And then Valentine's day, I'm walking in and it's already St. Patrick's day. And I'm like, right.
00:25:30
Speaker
right well We can't even get something the day before a holiday because the other holiday is already stocked on the shelves. And I do think it's because we don't have much resilience in us. We don't have much capacity for death.
00:25:44
Speaker
So it's not lost on me that she wouldn't want or know how to leave a legacy that says, oh, this is how you bury. This is how we move through the hard part, the dark day. This is how we actually light a candle in the dark and we go slow.
00:26:00
Speaker
And this is an important important piece of the holiday. It's just as important to close the boxes and say another holiday done. I kind of feel the weight of that.
00:26:12
Speaker
It feels, yeah, it feels very real. It's interesting, you know, to to put it in context that, you know my mom's not unusual, right? Because even even the stores recognize that like there is that,
00:26:26
Speaker
that energy. It makes me think about like, ah like our one of the younger girls, Libby, Libby and her Libby's boyfriend broke up with her, like Thanksgiving weekend.
00:26:37
Speaker
And, and they, you know, they dated for six years. So it was it it was ah tragedy. I mean, that everyone felt he felt it, she felt it.
00:26:48
Speaker
ah It was a felt tragedy. But but we're coming into Christmas. And so there's like, she's carrying this weight with her into ah like you know, sort of the quintessential big holiday of the year.
00:27:05
Speaker
and as part of like marking what was happening, i mean, I sent Mark out to go get my prayer candles and, you know, and, and I lit one and it just stayed in my office.
00:27:16
Speaker
And she came in you know, the day that I lit it, she's like, is that candle for me? And I was like, it is that candles for you. So we'll keep it lit to remind us like, this is, this is true. Also, this is true. Also feels dark and there's light.
00:27:34
Speaker
And, um, and I just want you to know nobody's forgetting that becomes the work. Right. To mother innocence, death, you know, that's the work to mother death.
00:27:46
Speaker
And We as women inherited that. The women at the tomb inherited the work of wrapping and preparing Jesus's body to be put in the tomb.
00:27:59
Speaker
We are death doulas. That's just a part that our culture does not want to talk about. And by the time we're talking about it, it's too late. But there should be a preparation, right? And you are a mother who came from a mother who didn't know how to. Right.
00:28:17
Speaker
We're living in a culture that is not teaching us how to, and you're slowing yourself down to feel and to mother what you're watching in your own children.
00:28:28
Speaker
But for any woman, if she slows down her body, any one of us, when we slow down our bodies, we feel death when it's, when it's time, right? Even if it's in our 28 cycle, when we feel blood coming, we know it's coming.
00:28:45
Speaker
If we slow down and there is a way in which we can engage it, we have a choice. And I would vie that that's whenever we find out the particularities of the way we're leaving a legacy.
00:28:59
Speaker
I think it's in there and you may need to be more investigative. You might just want to start with holidays where you're looking how you set up for a holiday and how you tear down at the end of a holiday.
00:29:11
Speaker
Maybe that's how you start. Or you look at what do I do when I bleed or when I have a hysterectomy or how I go into menopause or have I planned my funeral, right?
00:29:23
Speaker
At 40, I've already written out what I want for my funeral plan. And I actually think I was late in doing it. Meaning i have seen enough 20 and 30 year olds have to bury something and they have no idea how to.
00:29:40
Speaker
right enough teenagers have to grieve a broken heart or grieve something. And we don't know the way we're very lost in those moments. We only know how to move past it.
00:29:53
Speaker
And yet I would say it's inherently already in the female. If she just slows down and watches her cadence, well she's not afraid because she knows that life is going to come again, that love is going to come again, that she will bleed or create again, or that there's another life after this story. When we know that we sit differently and honor ah burial process differently. We light a candle differently.
00:30:21
Speaker
We can sit in the darkest days in our grief. And I don't want to assume, but I'm imagining Christy like, Part of that is not, there's no escapism or above-ism.
Simple Rituals and Legacy Engagement
00:30:35
Speaker
There's no like, well, I can take a more, you know, a less wrenched emotional position about all of this because I know. It's more of a surrender to where it's like the only way through is through. So how do we lean in and be present?
00:30:52
Speaker
and trust and you know sob the tears and feel the things and light the candles and bake the food. You're so right. How? How do you come to your tears? How do you come to your despair?
00:31:05
Speaker
How do you come to darkness? We're all going to do it differently. And if we're really, and we're all going do it similarly. That's the crazy part. Like there are traditions that we're going to be like, Oh, you do that too.
00:31:18
Speaker
But there are particularities that we need each other in of this is the kind of Kleenex I make. This is the tea I drink this. I come to my grief. Let me show you how, or you show how you do it. How do you survive days?
00:31:34
Speaker
I want to know. It's interesting because i as, as, i as I've sort of like woken up to, to this, this space and this way of being, you know, one of the things that I come to realize is that it's, it's not epic.
00:31:54
Speaker
the The things that we're talking about are not grand and epic. They're they're simple. They're the prayer candle that when it's lit, my family now knows so we're praying for something. We are holding an awareness around something, right? With intention. And that's just, it's a dollar at Walmart.
00:32:14
Speaker
Get yourself some. My friend, Rebecca, you know she'll she'll she'll tell me you know if I'm like, how are you? She's like, well, it's been a week. I had to take to the bath or yeah, take to the tub. i and had to take to the tub or i had to take to the bed. And it's her Southern way of like letting me know, you know it was it was hard.
00:32:37
Speaker
But then I love that. It's just because I know what that means. And it wasn't that hard, right? She lit her candles, she filled her tub, and she got in there and soaked for a really long time because that's what was needed.
00:32:53
Speaker
in light of whatever way that, that wait for death or disappointment, however it was coming. And and but you know, it could be, I haven't baked. I haven't baked while I've been here. i'm in the house by myself. What am I going to do? Bake, you know, a bunch of scones for me.
00:33:07
Speaker
I'm not going to do that, but I'm leaving our house in Phoenix and heading back to Austin tomorrow. And one of my first things I'll do is I will bake something when I get home because there are people there to share it with.
00:33:20
Speaker
And for me, it's part of like moving some of what's in my body through my body will be to to bake something.
00:33:33
Speaker
And so when we we talk about this, it's like these are simple things. These are simple things, but they're done with some intention of honoring. what's actually going on.
00:33:44
Speaker
And I love that you said it's not shiny and bright. It's simple. When I think about decorating for a holiday, everything is bright and shiny. You know, we're all the things. And what you're saying is when it comes to actually making it through those harder days, it's actually really simple. I take to the bath.
00:34:04
Speaker
I bake something, right? where're I know the take to the tub. Oh my gosh, this is like Andrew and I, my husband and I were just talking about our propane bill has been insane because we moved to the mountains and our hot water is on our propane. And I fill up my tub every night as I start. it If it's a really bad night and I'm still trying to put my kids down and have enough energy, I start the bath.
00:34:29
Speaker
And then I go and let it fill up. And I know in my heart, you can make it another 15 minutes well, because that bath is going to be waiting for you. And you have to go stop it because it'll overflow. And there's something about this.
00:34:43
Speaker
That feels like sanity, care, kindness. But my mother didn't teach me that. and it But it was something I learned. And so where we will take from the generations before us, I will learn to bake. I will, you know, I know how to make, preserve it.
00:35:01
Speaker
I know how to drink wine together. I, in my own tenderness and care for myself, have learned that I love to draw a bath of water and light a candle and be with myself.
00:35:12
Speaker
And that's what I'll pass on. To my kids, I'll pass on how to can something and how to drink wine well and how to take a bath. and So there's something in the giving and taking of what I've already inherited and leaving what inheritance I'm giving. And that's the part of legacy that I really want us to start to cultivate and think about what's been given to us and what have we given ourselves and we're going to give to the next generation.
Personal Transitions and Legacy Approach
00:35:41
Speaker
ah love it. I love it. yeah We end these spaces thinking about, like based on this this moment in time and the conversation that we had, what are you carrying forward into this next week? like what What thought is alive for you? I'm curious what that is for each of you. What thought is a alive for me in this next week is really great. I have...
00:36:05
Speaker
Talk about knowing what you need. I need the sun and I need the water. And I actually leave on Wednesday for Hawaii. So that in my heart is also been like, I've wintered well and I have stayed home this holiday. i have been in my bed, in my yard, right? I've been on my couch. I've been in my bath a lot the last three months and it's been slow and and intentional and i'm re and I feel the transition of like I miss the sun and I miss the water.
00:36:40
Speaker
It feels good to look forward to, okay, I've wintered well. I can step into the gloriousness of the sun hitting my face and the water and taking in those images because I've had months of lighting the candle and watching the dawn from my window um and watching snowfall.
00:37:02
Speaker
And that has been such a beautiful rhythm. And it's it's time for me to transition. Like my body's very transparent. So interesting enough, this happens to be a week where though my family won't transition in because I'm going alone,
00:37:16
Speaker
They won't transition to spring yet, but I am starting to turn towards the sun and my body feels very ready. And I feel like I can walk to it with open arms and really receive it because I've, I've been dorm, I've laid still.
00:37:30
Speaker
Well, how about you, Katie? I was thinking of, it was It actually dovetails with a conversation my mom and I were having yesterday. i am also in spring space. We are five weeks out from the due date of our son. And I am in that sort of preparatory, ready, anticipatory space.
00:37:52
Speaker
But it's also coming like that identity shift of mothering and thinking about legacy differently is coming with releasing what have been top priorities that I've always juggled, like always on top of it at work, always go the extra mile, you know, and naturally because of the things happening, like my energy is just shifting more towards my family, more towards what's happening with my husband, more towards what we're getting ready for. And I do feel like I'm not like full on letting something die, but I am like planting my garden seeds differently. I am prioritizing different crops. And ah I think facing a little bit of the shift inside of like, what does that mean about my worth?
00:38:35
Speaker
What does that mean about how I show up? Like there's a little bit of anxiety and newness, the like the unknown of life that feels very present for me. So I think we were in, we've been in grief space a lot, this, this conversation. And I think I'm holding like, okay, how do i grieve and bless and let go so i can grow what I really want to grow and what my heart's excited for and not, not feel inadequacy because of that, you know, not feel like I'm failing.
00:39:05
Speaker
I'm just investing differently. Yeah. Yeah. As you were talking, Katie, I was just thinking, it's like, I, you know, there's, there is something that is coming to an end yeah and, and, and all of it, you know, it's, it's nuanced.
Mothering and Writing as Legacy
00:39:25
Speaker
for you. and and I'm hearing you say that, like, i you know, because some of the nuances, it it it is part of what has told you and affirmed for you some, some of your worth and some of your value, you know, because you're human, all of us, it it gets parked somewhere. And, and I love the way that you, that you put it. It's like, you know, there is something to grieve, like you're planting your crops differently. There are some things that aren't going in the ground this year.
00:39:53
Speaker
right? There are some seeds that it's like, oh yeah, you know, that would probably, you're not planting any blackberries because they'll take over your whole garden. Right. They're just going to weed into everything. Exactly. Right.
00:40:05
Speaker
So we're not going to grow blackberries because we're, we're, we're growing some other things that are, are a little more tender and right? So i I love that.
00:40:16
Speaker
and love that. and And yes, it is time to turn your face towards like the welcome and celebration and that blessing of what has been. This has been good, and now we're growing something new.
00:40:31
Speaker
I feel very like anywhere I turn, if there is either life or death right now. Like it feels so from like almost one moment to the next.
00:40:42
Speaker
It feels very, very real. And and i can find myself kind of partitioning. Like I i leave to go to Katie and Aaron's ah March 22nd.
00:40:54
Speaker
And that is like a, I i am turning my face 100%.
00:41:00
Speaker
when I get there. And that, that doesn't mean that what is happening, what has had me here in Arizona with my folks, that doesn't end that, that won't be done, but you know, by March 22nd.
00:41:14
Speaker
I, um I think the thing, if I'm honest, that, that I'm going to carry out from today is just the, the mothering death. I, I mean, I have words that need to be written about that.
00:41:28
Speaker
as soon As soon as that came and I was thinking about that living from one holiday to the next, I was like, well, I have things to say about that. Not that need to be spoken here, but just I could feel it inside of me. And so that I i am carrying that, you know, probably straight out of this conversation and onto my laptop because that um that needs some attention from me in more than just thinking about it.
00:41:56
Speaker
Well, and I'm just aware, Tracy, that that means like you are presently in the right of legacy.
Concluding Reflections on Legacy
00:42:03
Speaker
You are writing legacy right now, whether it's in parents or welcoming and becoming a grandparent and welcoming a grandchild. in you're literally in that space. So it makes sense to me that you would need to write it because you are doing it and forming it right now as we speak, to your own right of legacy. You are legacy is what you're doing right now.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah, that feels very true. Very true. ah Ladies, it's been Rich. Christy, thank you for thank you for being with us, but thank you for thank you for the book and yeah um and for the legacy our they don't have you know that you're that you are leaving so i hope that our listeners if they don't have it They'll order it, get it.
00:42:53
Speaker
And if they do have it, that they'll pull it out and and remind themselves like there's a lot in there. It's rich and it's worth engaging. Thank you both so much for taking the time to do this. And I would say, yes, I...
00:43:07
Speaker
you know I think I write every book to save myself first. And then if it blesses anyone, I'm grateful for that. And I do feel like this book has been so kind of a guide to me. And I also use the audio book a lot because I was able to read it and i can listen to it in form where I'm like, what what is happening right now? Am I in legacy? What does that mean? How do I actually do?
00:43:29
Speaker
out. um So just know that that's there. Thank you both. And as you, I bless you both. And I cover you both as you go into this next season. Gosh, wildly. you Earth for us.
00:43:44
Speaker
A story that will take our breath away. And you'll already have in just your existence. And thank God you're continuing it. Peace.
00:43:55
Speaker
Love. The Red Tent Living podcast is produced by myself, Katie Stafford, and edited by Erin Stafford. Our cover art is designed by Libby Johnson, and all our guests are part of the Red Tent Living community.
00:44:11
Speaker
You can find us all at redtentliving.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. If you love the stories shared here, we would be thrilled if you left us a review.
00:44:23
Speaker
Until next week, love to you, dear ones.