Sara Schaefer, GRAND

Zibby Owens: Welcome, Sara. Thanks so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Sara Schaefer: Thanks.

Zibby: I am really excited to discuss your memoir, Grand. I also took a whitewater rafting trip when I was younger with my family. Could you tell everybody listening what your book is about? Then what inspired you to even write a memoir?

Sara: Grand is an inward and outward journey. For my fortieth birthday, I went on a whitewater rafting trip in the Grand Canyon with my sister. It was an eight-day, two hundred miles, very rugged outdoor adventure. In the book, I chronicle the trip while also remembering basically what led me to the point of getting on that raft in that river from childhood with stories all the way up to that moment. I always knew I wanted to write a book from a very young age. Before I even realized I wanted to be a comedian or anything else, I thought, I want to write a book. This book in particular came about with the idea of, there's a lot of stories from my life that I've never shared publicly before that felt more intimate and special to me and difficult that weren’t really working yet, I hadn’t even really tried to talk about on stage as a standup, wasn't really the place for it. Writing this book came from wanting to share that part of my life and some of my stories in a more in-depth, intimate way and a little more sincerity to it than what I do on stage which is obviously trying to get as many laughs as possible. This book, I had room to breathe and be more emotionally vulnerable in a way that I don't do on stage. That's kind of the short of it.

Zibby: Was it cathartic for you to write about those times?

Sara: Oh, yeah. First, the book was going to be kind of centering around my moral anxiety which I do talk about in the book of, am I good person or am I a bad person? That's sort of my life's quest, is to figure out if I'm good or bad. Then much later in life, I realized that was such a flawed prison I had put myself in because no one is all good or bad. How did I get to be that way and the journey of my life up to now, it's a pretty crazy story about my dad and my whole life changing at age twelve, my whole family's life changing, and a journey of redemption, my dad coming forward with some pretty scandalous news and our entire status in our hometown changing, our whole lives turned upside. I, at a young age, witnessed my own parents changing their lives, taking huge risks personally, and repairing the damage, and forgiveness. All those things were drilled into me, but I was too young to fully understand it. The way I described it in the book is it was like a bone healing out of place in me of being extremely afraid of being morally wrong. I thought after the stuff happened with my dad, we were now on the right course. We were bad. Now we're good. Before was bad. Present is good. That set me up for a real shit show later on. [laughter] Excuse my language.

Zibby: The stuff with your dad, I feel like you wrote about it in such detail that we were right there with you. You had such a sense of shame over what happened and also almost detached amusement in a way. Not amusement, but like, huh, look at what's happened to my family. Look at that. How about that? How about this guy in school telling me my dad's a thief? How about that? It was at a reserve, almost.

Sara: Go back because you froze for a second.

Zibby: Oh, sorry. I was rambling. I don't even know what I was saying. I'll start again. One thing I noticed when you were talking about your dad is that you wrote about it with such clear detail and all those little memories and the day and them sitting you down and then filling in backstory that you learned later and the emotion and the uncertainty, really. Yet you also took this sort of detached view of it like you were an outside looking in, which I though was such an interesting angle. Just tell me a little more about being at that age and going through something that you weren’t sure what to make of it. Your church background, I feel like, was the frame of reference you were using for everything.

Sara: I was definitely very keen on what I was learning and discovering at church which was this concept of Christ being a source of unconditional love in all of your flawed, complicated glory. Forgiveness is such a tenet of the Christianity that I was taught, and redemption and all those things, and baptism. You're clean now. Those things just crystalized in me like, oh, this is the answer. Church was where we were welcomed after all this. My dad and my mom lost a lot of their friends and their status in our town. Certain people took us in emotionally. A lot of those people existed at my church. They are still people that I am in touch with and have been mentors to me and to my whole family. That community was crucial at that time. It set us on a path of staying together as a family and learning to get through it as opposed to running away or disappearing or hiding. We just had to get through it.

I was twelve, though. I was a teenager. I didn't want my parents anywhere near me. I was like, we solved it. We're good. Moving on. I didn't want to dwell on it because I didn't have the emotional capacity as a twelve-year-old to really get into it. It wasn't until years and years later, and a lot of it during writing this book because I discovered so much that I had never known talking to my father -- we spent a lot of time talking. I'd never heard so many of the things that happened. We went into real detail about everything. It was really heartbreaking not being able to talk to my mom in this process. That was one of the hardest parts of writing the book, was not being able to ask her questions. It comes in phases. Forgiveness is not a simple -- I don't trust people that go, "I forgave you. I'm not mad," right after something really bad has happened. I don't trust that because I know that feelings change over time. Instant forgiveness is really not complete. It is a process. People's feelings can change. My journey with my -- I use the word journey way too much when I talk about this book. [laughs]

Zibby: It's okay.

Sara: But that's what it is. The voyage of my relationship with my father has been the unexpected part of this. I wanted to write so much about my mom. I love and miss her so much. She was such an incredible person. I feel like I did a good job here, but it was just scratching the surface. I would love to write more about her and explore her story more. I didn't expect so much healing and discovery to happen with my father, which was such a gift of being able to do this, that he trusted me enough to share with me and let me share with others.

Zibby: That's amazing. It's great to be able to reconceptualize things that have happened. It's not always so clear. Not to go back into your right and wrong thing, good and bad, or whatever dichotomy. If you do something that you shouldn't, it doesn't make you, necessarily, a bad person.

Sara: No. Right. We always joke -- there was that show Bloodline. The main character says, we're not bad people, but we did a bad thing. My family uses that line sometimes as a joke. It's been tough because I'm someone who's naturally, and I got this from my mom, as being really empathetic to others. I'm lucky that I was taught empathy, and especially after all that happened. My mom working with house-less people in our town and really going there, she became dedicated to a life of service after all this happened. She felt called. I couldn't ask her for this, was she thinking, this is how I make up for -- my mom didn't do anything wrong, but she felt she was part of it in that she blindly followed what my dad did. I would love to talk to her about it now just to revisit. We entered into a life of service as a family. I was taught to see, the way my mom would describe it is that she saw god in everyone she met. To serve someone, the lowest most vulnerable person in your community, is to serve god. That was how she viewed it.

That was put into me, a lot of lessons about empathy and not to assume you know -- people say empathy is always walking in someone else's shoes. You'll never really be able to walk in someone else's shoes. Recognizing that first is the first step towards empathy, is knowing you can't assume what's right for someone else, what their experience is like, but you can try to learn and listen and let them tell you. My mom was very good at that. She wanted to meet a need. She never wanted to tell others what was going to fix their life. She was like, what is it that you need? Then she would try to meet that need. I thought that that was so beautiful. It has led me to sometimes be unable to recognize actually really bad people at times. I'm like, everyone has a story. Everyone has a reason for doing things. Then I look at someone, perhaps a certain politician, we're not naming names, or a really bad person in my life who's hurting me over and over again, it sometimes has been hard for me to back off of that and go, sometimes you've just got to let somebody go. They're just hurting you. You'll never fix or save or meet their need. That was a rambling answer.

Zibby: It's such good advice. The only tragedy to that advice is I feel like everyone has to learn it themselves anyway. It's one of those pieces that you learn through experience. Yet even if I tell my best friend or my daughter or somebody, they’ll be like, okay, yeah, but it's not going to stop them from doing the same mistakes.

Sara: They have to learn it from --

Zibby: -- You have to learn it.

Sara: In the book, I talked about that. I think that's a good story, a good connection to the relationship I have with my little sister of us protecting each other and wanting to fix things for the other. You see that in the book happen in the Grand Canyon, of our own little personal battles that we were having and not be able to help the other one fix it. You can support. You can listen and be there. That's what you need to be, but you can't force your way onto someone else's way. I would do this. Well, that's not necessarily what's right for them or their way of doing things.

Zibby: It's so true. I loved also when you had the five thousand staples, the box of staples, and you decided that by the time they were empty you had to have achieved something in your wish-list career of being a comedian. Then you finished the box and you were like, I better get out of here, basically. [laughs] Tell me about that.

Sara: I used to have a day job, my job when I moved to New York City to try and become a comedian. I didn't know at all how to do it. I'd never even seen standup comedy in person before. I'd only seen it on TV. I had no idea what I was doing. I go to New York. I'm like, I'm going to be a comedian. It's going to take six months. I didn't know anything. I got a day job because I didn't have any money. I had to support myself. New York is very expensive. I remember thinking when I moved there that the salary that I was offered for my job was so much money. I was like, I'm rich. I had no idea that it was not enough.

Zibby: Yeah, that's your subway fare. There you go. [laughs]

Sara: Barely enough to live off of. Anyway, I was at this boring law firm job. My days were just spent in spreadsheets and with a really gross kind of creepy boss. All my early comedy was office humor because that was my life. It actually ended up being a great experience to write about in my early days of comedy because I didn't know what to write about. I thought, I'll write about what's right in front of me. While no one's looking, I'll be in my cubicle working on something about this experience. I think anyone pursuing a creative career hits that wall at some point. They realize, oh, my god, this is going to take so much longer than I thought it was going to take. You're shown examples of people who are overnight successes and young success. We value youth, 30 Under 30, all these things. For many, it is a really long journey. I think it's really more rewarding to get there in a more organic way than some sort of overnight success, I would imagine. I mean, the money would be nice. [laughs]

I hit that wall. I had these box of staples. I always made little deals. I would be like, if he's standing at the top of these stairs when I come out of here, he loves me. I would do those deals almost like a he loves me, he loves me not. If the phone rings right now, that's a sign from the universe. This little deal with myself about the box of staples was a motivator. Get out of here. Get out of this day job. Figure out a way to make money as an entertainer, comedian, writer, or whatever by the time this box of staples runs out. Really didn't do the math and understand what -- I knew generally how many staples I would use a week. I thought I was making a pretty safe bet. Then the five thousand staples were gone, and I was really depressed. Looking back, it was actually not that long. I actually had a quick turnaround there.

Zibby: You were using a lot of staples. You just were flying through them.

Sara: I was only at that job for five years, but it felt like an eternity at that age. In your early twenties, it was just like, the clock was ticking. How am I going to do this? I was so lucky I got this job. It was so weird. It was hosting an online show for AOL, which existed then. It was internet video. I was interviewing musicians. I thought, I've made it, and I did. I had made it. I got to quit my day job. That's all I wanted, was just to not work at that day job. I wanted my job to be being in the entertainment industry, a comedian, writer, whatever. I didn't care what it was. I'm like, just make me a part of it. That sent me on my way. I had some setbacks. I had to go back to the law firm job once the AOL thing got cancelled. It was a real journey. Again, the word journey. Let's keep count how many times I say it.

Zibby: Then when you decide you were going to interweave your whitewater rafting trip with your family memoir of sorts?

Sara: It's crazy because I had this trip planned. You have to book them really far in advance to get your spot on the boats. We probably had it booked over a year in advance. I was already writing my book when I went on the Grand Canyon trip. I had no intention of writing about it. I don't seek out experiences for creative fodder. I'm pretty lucky in that I live in the moment. I separate my career from my life. I'm not going home for vacation for Thanksgiving and keeping a notebook. I'm not someone who does that. My stories that I tell from my life bubble up naturally. Years later, I'll go, I should talk about that on stage. I've been telling this story to friends as just a story. I'm like, why didn't I think about turning that -- I've gotten better at churning out material quicker, a quicker turnaround and realizing when something funny happens, recognizing that could be something I write about. The Grand Canyon thing was just strictly a trip for my birthday. When I went on the trip, I was in the throes of getting my first round of feedback about the book. It was a mess. It was like, you got to figure this out. I was like, oh, shit, I don't know what I'm doing. That was adding to my mental state when I went into the Grand Canyon. I didn't say that in the book because it would've been too meta.

A couple months later, I was dreading going back to work on the book. My deadline was approaching for a second draft. I was dreading it. I just started thinking, god, what it needs is a really vivid story with stakes and place and all the five senses. So much memory is so foggy. It's hard to write about memories that you're barely sure you have a handle on. I learned how to do it. It suddenly occurred to me, what if I -- I just had a little idea. I asked my editor. She's like, "I kind of like that. Give it a try," which is really scary when someone goes, give it a try. I feel like I wrote three books. The second draft was a complete rewrite. It was like I started over. When they got my notes back, only one chapter was like, this is good. It was rough. I gave it a try. It took a long time. What I turned in the next time was enough for her to go, "Yeah, this is working. You still have a ways to go, but the way you're telling this story is --" The Grand Canyon stuff lightens the heavier stuff from my life. When I was down in the Grand Canyon, that is what I was experiencing mentally. All of it is connected to these stories from my past. The metaphor, it was like a writer's delight, a canyon trip, a boat, a river, rocks. It was all so fun to write about. That part was pretty easy.

Zibby: Awesome. I thought it was great. I thought the intersection of those two experiences and going back and forth worked really well. It's something that you might not necessarily think to do. I wouldn't necessarily think to frame something that way. Yet it was so effective in the storytelling and pushing both narratives along through the river pushing the -- [laughs].

Sara: You had to go through it. We were laughing whenever I would talk to my editor about the book. We would be finding ourselves accidentally speaking in metaphors that were related to the flow. It flows really well here. I had to pull back on it sometimes. I'm like, there's too much. It's getting obnoxious. I had some people really be very encouraging. I've never done this before. They were like, it's okay to be on the nose sometimes and to hold our hand a little. The transitions between the canyon and the life chapters, I was very particular with those. It wasn't too heavy-handed, but it was a nod going, and now we're talking about this. Weaving those together was pretty challenging. It took a while. It felt like I was wrestling a bear to the ground and after a while just like, how do I fucking make this -- I had to cut so much. Every time I sat down to work on the book again, I would be overwhelmed and dreading it and just sick. It was like I was going back into a Chernobyl. I don't want to go back in there. I would thrash and not want to do it. But once you get going, you're on your way. You have to do it.

Zibby: Now that you've survived this process which you made sound so enjoyable, what do you have coming next? What are you up to from the comedy side? What are you up to from the writing side?

Sara: It's been surreal. I've been anticipating this release of this book for so long. I didn't think it would happen the way it has happened at all, obviously. But I'm healthy. My family is healthy. By the way, I've been following you on Instagram. I'm so sorry about your mother-in-law.

Zibby: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Sara: I'm very much sending you love.

Zibby: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Sara: Anyway, sorry to bring that up.

Zibby: No, it's fine. I'm very open about it. It's fine.

Sara: I'm glad you are because a lot of people are going through this right now. You sharing helps other people. I don't have anyone currently in a hospital suffering from COVID or anything like that. Reading about your experiences just underlines what this experience is really like. You can't forget it. We're still in the middle of it. It ain't over yet. It's very real. It's easy to start relaxing being like, I'm not going to think about it today. Anyway, back to me. [laughs]

Zibby: Yes, back to you. Go ahead.

Sara: I'm sorry.

Zibby: That’s okay.

Sara: The pandemic made it very weird. I had anticipated a book tour. Then I was planning a standup tour for the fall. I started working late last year on all new standup material, new jokes. I was going to start working on a solo show maybe inspired by the book. I was still figuring it out. That all went to shit. Now I've just been very lucky. I've been getting some writing jobs for TV shows that are in production during the pandemic. I've written for a few specials like a graduation special where Obama spoke. I didn't get to write for Obama personally, but I wrote for the special. I've been very grateful that the kind of TV writing I've done has put me in the stable of writers who do comedy variety-type shows that are actually more lightweight to produce during the pandemic. I've been overwhelmed with work at times where I can say no to things, which is not what I expected when all this started. Hollywood shut down. We didn't know what was going to happen. Now I'm looking forward to that this book is out in the world. It's like a baby I've put out there in the little basket in the river and just sent it down the river and let it live. Now I really want to start working on just looking forward to post-pandemic life. I'm starting to really miss performing in front of a live audience. What does that look like when I get out there? I feel like this book is such a new -- people have always known me to be a storyteller, but a little more sincere. I'm not afraid to get emotional and sappy and stuff. I'm thinking about making my live performance a little more to return to those roots of wanting to just tell stories as opposed to punchline, punchline, punchline, and maybe being a little deeper on stage than I have been before. I feel like after writing this book I can do anything.

Zibby: You totally can. I know you just gave some advice to authors. Maybe on more of a positive note, what advice would you have for somebody else out there who wants to write a memoir and maybe doesn't know how to attack it?

Sara: Yes, it is very difficult to write a book of any kind. I think memoir is particularly challenging in some ways because you're going to have to dig deep and face things about yourself and potentially have a lot of fear. I had a lot of fear around, what is my family going to think? What are people who are in this book going to think? Worrying a lot about hurting people. Some people don't worry about that kind of thing. I did. It all worked out okay so far. As hard as it is, like I just said, now I feel like I can do anything. I do think it's worth it to learn a discipline like this. When you take on a really big project, it requires such a commitment and a practice, which is something that I had never really done in this way before. It's helped me figure out how to get over writer's block. Now I trust the process more. Whereas before, I would dread things and put it off and put it off and just be in a tailspin. Now I have faith of, oh, it's okay to write for just twenty minutes in one day. That's all I could do, but I did something, and not to beat myself up. The next day is another day. Tomorrow, I might write for ten hours straight. Have faith that it will come.

Also what I've learned is discovering how good your writing can get when you open yourself up to other people's feedback, especially when it's personal. I'm usually a loner. I write for TV. I collaborate with other people. For my own stuff, I'm like, I don't want anybody helping me with my jokes. A lot of comedians collaborate. They help each other. I've always been like, no, I'm on my own. Now I'm like, man, you're better with the help of others and other ears. It's worth that personal risk. If the goal is to have the book out there, you're going to have to get used to it, so sharing it with some people early on. I shared the book manuscript with some very close friends early on. Then you have editors. Then the process, it gets into more and more hands. You're getting more and more feedback. I learned to welcome it and love it because by the end, I was like, god, I sound so much smarter than I am because all these people helped as part of the process, which was amazing. Don't give up. That's my advice.

Zibby: Love it. Sara, thank you. Thanks so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Sara: Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time. I know you're in a crazy time right now. I just thank you for what you put out in the world. It's really beautiful and authentic. I love it. I'm a big fan.

Zibby: Thank you. I'm so glad. I love doing what I do. I think you could probably tell, but this is the highlight of my day, honestly. I love my kids and we're having a great day, but I'm just saying --

Sara: -- Mommy needs a break.

Zibby: It's great. It's an escape for me too. Thank you for saying that.

Sara: Thank you so much.

Zibby: Thank you. Buh-bye.

Heather Lanier, RAISING A RARE GIRL

Zibby Owens: Welcome, Heather. Thanks for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books" to talk about Raising a Rare Girl, your amazing memoir.

Heather Lanier: Thanks for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here.

Zibby: Of course. For those who don't know, could you please give a quick little synopsis of what Raising a Rare Girl is about? Also, what inspired you to write this memoir?

Heather: It's about raising my daughter for the first five years or so of her life. She was born very, very small. That shocked everybody in the world, in the room, me. I had ventured to have this absolutely super healthy baby and did all the right things. I went overboard to do all the right things. She was incredibly tiny. At full term she was four pounds, twelve ounces. We eventually learned that she had this very rare chromosomal syndrome called Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome where she has little deletion on one of her chromosomes, on the fourth chromosome. The book is about, a lot of it's devoted to the first year and the disorientation of learning about that diagnosis in the midst of parenting, the lack of normality in my life as -- parenting is really mapped by normal, a map of normal, like what the baby does and when the baby does it. Even when you can't find common ground at the playgroup about politics or jobs, you can usually find common ground on when your baby put something in his or her mouth. I just wasn't in that club at all. I wasn't in that club of typical development. My daughter had a lot of other things to teach me. The first year is a lot of processing that, feeling disoriented, feeling grief for the trajectory I thought that child would have. That takes up about half of the book. Then the other half of the book is devoted to life after, reorientation. What does it look like to advocate for her? What does it look like to be a good medical advocate, to encounter doctors who belittle her, to give her language and communication when her mouth wasn't capable of it at the time? That's the book.

Zibby: I couldn't believe the reactions, how greatly they differed among different doctors and people who so rude and so negative without, almost, regard for how you were feeling at all and then doctors who were sort of minimizing. I don't know how you go from all these different spectrums of advice. It's a lot.

Heather: We encountered a lot of different doctors. I had never had a condition that required me to show up for regular appointments. I went for an annual checkup. I saw more doctors with Fiona in her first several months than probably my whole life. What I learned really quickly was, get a second opinion should you ever need one. There just are so many different approaches. So much of someone's personality comes into play when they actually give you medical advice. I learned quite a bit about doctors and reading the room really quickly. The doctor that would come in and be enthusiastic about her and treat her like a kid, they were good doctors. They often gave us really good advice in the end too. The doctor that was troubled by her various ways that she was different, we didn't want to return to them.

Zibby: I can imagine. You captured so well how expecting moms try to do everything right and the pressure that we feel. I have four kids of my own. I had a twin pregnancy, so that was a whole nother thing. Just the pressure that we have on ourselves that if we eat this turkey instead of that turkey, what could happen to our child? Just the pressure in addition to the physical that moms are under to have these perfect pregnancies and therefore expect these perfect outcomes, I feel like you share this belief, but we cannot control anything. No matter how much you do all the right things in any part of life, it's all just kind of a hoax. [laughs]

Heather: Yes. I think there's a lot of illusion of control that's really put on contemporary motherhood. Sarah Menkedick's book, Ordinary Insanity, it just came out in April, it's about postpartum anxiety and depression, but it's about so much more. She writes a lot about the pressure that women feel to produce perfect children or the pressure that we feel to ensure that our kids are developing normally and also the combination of that as a natural thing and how that, it can be the perfect storm for anxiety. She writes a lot about anxiety and does all these interviews. I didn't have postpartum anxiety in any sort of clinical way. Sarah Menkedick's argument is that baseline motherhood is anxiety and that we've sort of accepted that as normal, and it's not. It's not. It shouldn't be okay that we're all feeling this sort of pressure to keep everybody perfect or suffering free or pain free. There's very little we can control.

Zibby: I did not even know postpartum anxiety was a thing until fairly recently. I was like, that's so funny. That's just life. How is that a thing? That's not even a medical term. You did such a good job too when you were in the hospital at the very beginning. They said that you were supposed to rest. You kind of even felt guilty for that despite just having had a child. You were like, I've done all these things. Now that's my one mandate. I've spit a child out of me, and now I can relax. Then of course, you quickly realize that you can't just rest. Now you also have to worry, which is something that people try to control. You're like, no, now I have to take this on because what's going on?

Heather: That was definitely communicated to me in the hospital. They literally wrote, what's your agenda for today? Rest. I was like, yes. Also, really? I've never rested. I'm better at resting now that I'm a mom, or at least trying to take an hour to be like, you need to do nothing. It was clear that they didn't mean that at all. They were so concerned about her size that they meant, if you want to breastfeed, we have to start getting you a lactation consultant. She has to be fed around the clock. There was a lot of stress on me. It was interesting even in my postpartum fog to read the cultural cues there. Rest, mom. Take care of yourself. Breastfeed your baby or she'll be doomed to live a non-breastfed life. Lots of pressure.

Zibby: Of course, you raise the issue that over time different groups of people have had different culturally accepted child standards in a way. In the olden days, they would send off babies with down syndrome to a home. They would say, don't have this child, or all these horrific things. What is really the meaning of a child? I feel like you looked into that from a sort of religious angle, a spiritual angle, medical angle. Who's to say a child has to be perfect according to these random set of standards that some people in society think is really important?

Heather: For sure. It was important to think about why we become parents in this book. I think the pressure to make children who are supercharged with health and wellness and resilience -- resilience is good, but the nonvulnerable human being, first of all, it's impossible to be nonvulnerable. Second, it's not the main reason we become parents, is to create this person that transcends us. At least, I don't think it's the reason we should become parents, is to make a little super baby or mini-me, I guess you'd call it, someone who climbs up the ladder even further than we were. At least from my experience, it felt like the reason that we become parents is just to be absolutely leveled. [laughter] Even if you have the typical kid, you will fail miserably at something in the course of it. Wow, it just levels you. It's so humbling. You always think you're going to be a certain kind of parent. Then you have the child you have. They require a different kind of parent, a different kind of parenting. They don't breastfeed or whatever it is. I wanted to bring that angle into the book. I wanted the book to not just be a story, but also to be some reflection and some essaying, as we would say. Luckily, my editor was great and allowed me to do that. I know some readers will think, I just want story, but I wanted there to be both.

Zibby: It didn't feel choppy in any way. It was all seamlessly integrated. Whatever you did, you did it well. You talked here about this moment where you were like, I didn't sign up for this, but look what I got. I feel like any parent in some way, shape, or form has said at some point, oh, my god, what do I have to deal with? You said, "Of course I signed up for it. Every parent does. When we venture to become parents, we sign up for the fragility of life. We sign up for the precariously vulnerability of being human. We just don't always know it," which is so key. I just had to read that quote because that was no nice.

Speaking of this religious aspect to your book and spirituality and everything, you talked a lot in the book about your relationship with your husband and how he was actually ordained during a time when you couldn't even be there and the fire alarm went off and all that and also been training to be a monk and how he can take ten minutes to make tea and you're like, what are you doing? You said you would've titled a memoir about your relationship Red Wine and Green Tea, which is so funny. Just tell me a little more about what it's like having that kind of influence. I do think in any stressful situation, whether it's something with your child or something in your life, the personality or temperament of who you choose as a partner is so key to how you get through it. Just tell me a little about that dynamic and how it's affected your parenting.

Heather: I want to create an environment where people can improve a lot. Every day at the end of the day, I think about, what could I do better tomorrow? My husband Justin is much more relaxed about that, particularly in parenting. That works out really well because we create this balance. When Fiona was really little, she was six months, the advice that we got constantly was, she needs to do more tummy time, more tummy time, more tummy time because it strengthens the baby's core. I was like, we have to do tummy time all the time. Eventually, I asked the early interventionist, "How much? Just give me a goal. I need a goal here so I that I can hit the goal and I can rest," which I'm not great at. Then she said, "Oh, there's really no amount of tummy time that's too much," which was the worst advice for me. Whereas my husband, he just didn't feel that same pressure. It doesn't mean that he didn't also integrate therapy, but he didn't have this sense of needing to do it and then taking all the joy out of it. He would find ways to make it fun. He would have her on his chest. He would just enjoy her. She would look up at him. He'd play music in the background, lots of reggae. It ended up being great for Fiona to have that balance because she had this very accepting relaxed person and this person who was more worried. That worry, I was the engine behind getting her language. It was me home with her and not being able to communicate with her as clearly as I wanted or as she wanted that made me think, we need to find more people. Justin was busy working. He was a priest. I think it's helpful to have two very different people in a kid's life. That's what happened in this case.

Zibby: I feel like I'm in your camp of personality types. I can never rest. I was on bed rest with my twins. I was like, no, I don't think so. How am I going to do this? What do you mean relax? I don't even allow myself to watch TV unless it's pouring rain. I have all these rules.

Heather: Me too, like don't eat dark chocolate in the morning, things like that.

Zibby: Yes, wait until the afternoon.

Heather: He'll just break those. What are you doing?

Zibby: I'm like, if I start this chocolate thing too early, the rest of the day, what's going to happen? [laughter] Forget it. The wheel's off the train. Also, with the advice that the OT therapist said about there's never enough tummy time, then you cannot accomplish it. If there's no end goal, then you can never cross it off the list. That's the worst thing too when you're trying to get things done.

Heather: That reminds me, he was really good at just saying, this person's advice or their influence in our lives isn't helpful. let's just cut that voice out. He didn't mean let's just cut [indiscernible] out, but he would be like, let's just sweep that away. I would still hear that voice. I don't know if this made it into the book, but I had this therapy session where the therapist pointed out a lot of things that Fiona wasn't doing well. By therapy, I mean physical therapy, gross/fine motor therapy. The therapist left. I leaned against the door and slid down the door and just sobbed. I felt like it was impossible to do a good job in this job of motherhood, which is what I mean when I say we're leveled. In this case, I was trying to get Fiona to make some gross motor gains. My husband said, "I noticed that when these people come --" They came every two weeks. By these people, I mean these particular interventionists. There are amazing early interventionists out there. The one we had was really stressing me out.

He said, "I noticed that she takes away your intuition. She's there, you start to doubt yourself. You start to listen more to outside voices." He's like, "You know what to do." It was really helpful to have him say too, just get rid of the voices. "If this person is causing you to second-guess yourself constantly, which is one of your most important tools as a mother, is the knowing, this deep inner knowing," he's like, "it's not worth it. We should just cut them out." That particular person he thought we could just not have them over. I still was like, no, we have to do what we can. It really did make me think the most important thing is that, at least in parenting and particularly parenting when there's no real clear map or other parents aren't doing what you're doing because their kids are very different than yours, that inner knowing is key. Anything that interrupts that, it's okay to get rid of that.

Zibby: That's good advice. I'm going to take your husband's advice. I have had many a door slide in tears myself. I feel like many parents have had that downward moment. You had another -- hold on, let me just flip to this quote. This was one of my favorite parts, this one particular moment because it really speaks to how none of us really know what's going on and why in the world, and so all we can do is go with what we have as information. Your mother -- was it your mother or your mother-in-law? Your mother, you said, "One morning during her devotional time with her Bible opened on the kitchen table, the prayer she offered was a tear-filled and desperate, why? As in, why did you give this child Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome? The reply she heard was so striking and clear, so separate from herself that it stopped her straight. The voice said, you have no idea what I intend to do with this child. After that, my mother trusted the body my daughter had been given." I loved that. I read it out loud to my husband. I was like, this is it. This is the answer. You don't know. You don't know why. Maybe there's a bigger purpose to everything, for every struggle. Now I'm sounding ridiculous and all woo-woo, but I feel like with every struggle and with every challenge, maybe there's a reason why. Maybe there's not. Maybe some is just bad luck. I don't know. I just loved that part.

Heather: The why question is apparently one that Americans ask a lot. There was some famous Zen master who came to America to teach Zen. He was like, wow, these Americans ask why a lot. It is a question we like to ask. I think there's great freedom in just saying we don't know. Perhaps there is bigger reasons that we could never, ever fathom. I was just talking to my kids about this. We were reading a book about space. I'm reading this kids book about space facts. Every once in a while, I'd be like, listen to this, there's a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. There's billions of galaxies. I can't even fathom that. The human mind just can't fathom a lot beyond our world. Actually, just for writing purposes, I had my mom read that section. I asked her if she was okay with it. She actually tweaked the voice that she’d heard. She's like, "No, it wasn't quite that. It was this." Just in terms of the writing process, it was important for me to not to share other people's deep, personal, divine moments without actually getting their permission.

Zibby: Tell me more about the writing. You actually teach writing. You even had little tidbits in here about highlighting details and just little bits of advice sprinkled through for writing itself. Tell me about your whole approach to this book and how you tackled the project and what it was like to write it.

Heather: I was actually working on a book about my husband and I and our falling in love and the fact that he had been a monk and that I was a recovering Christian or recovering from Baptist faith. I was working on this book and also had Fiona. She was about a year old when I really wanted to write about what I was experiencing, encounters we had with doctors, what I was learning about myself, what it was like to parent someone totally different from what the baby book said, any sort of developmental book explained. I started writing a blog on the side. It was almost like I was cheating on the main manuscript, eking out these blog posts. I wrote blog posts at three in the morning while pumping milk. I wrote it a lot when Fiona was napping. All the while, I was working on this other book. I started writing sometimes longer essays about parenting a child with disabilities, maybe five or ten of those. Then eventually, I think it got to ninety-some blog posts and ten literary essays. I knew that eventually I would write a book about Fiona. I really just wanted to reach readers easily rather than got through the slow route of literary publishing.

After an essay called "SuperBabies Don't Cry," an editor and an agent contacted me. I think it was the same weekend. Those ended up being my agent and my editor the book. That book just sort of fell into place. My agent said -- I said, "I don't love writing book proposals. I like writing the book." The proposal I worry can kind of kill the book idea because you're sort of planning the thing that I don't really want to be planned. I like to find myself in the writing or discover things in the writing. She said, "I'll help you." She did. I wrote it really quickly to try to get it over with. I wrote the proposal. I wrote it from July to August. Then she submitted it to that one editor at Penguin Press in September, and we had a contract. That's how it unfolded. Then this other book that I was cheating on, I haven't looked at in a while. I need to open that back up and figure out -- likely, it will be different now given that it's five years past.

Zibby: Wow. When you did you proposal, though, you hadn’t written it, right? You had just written the blog posts and all the supporting materials?

Heather: Yeah, that really only got you to the actual book deal. Then what happened was I thought, well, I got so much writing done. Surely, this won't be that complicated because there's just all of this material. That summer that I wrote the proposal I spent reading through the blog posts and the essays that I'd written. Sometimes I had just been writing, also, in a Word document that was accumulating pages of experiences that I'd had. I was cleaning out my garage at the same time, or my basement. It felt the same. Going through the basement and all the discorded stuff in boxes felt the same as sorting through all of these different pieces of writing. It was because there was no narrative consistency in the voice. The person who was a mother to a one-year-old who’d just been diagnosed with Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome seven months before, however long ago before, that person was very different from the person who had a six-year-old whose kid was in kindergarten. I'd fully accepted and embraced my daughter and learned so much. I had to figure out chronology and what was important. What was the voice going to be? That all took time. There are moments that I had written about in the blog that end up in the book, but under very different -- they all got recast in this voice with different emphasis. Everything got expanded too because I got the large space of a book rather than a little post.

Zibby: How long do you think the writing took?

Heather: They gave me fifteen months for the first draft. I made my deadline.

Zibby: Congratulations.

Heather: Then it was nine months of revision rounds. My editor, her assistant, and I did three rounds of revisions. Two years after the contract was signed, the book was accepted as done. Then we did fact-check, legal review, stuff like that, fine-tuning, copy editing. They spent from September to this past July getting it all ready and figuring out a book cover and things like that.

Zibby: Now I feel like the uncertainty that you write about in the book and things not going according to plan -- I'm sure I'm like the eight thousandth person to ask you this question, but of course this is now what every parent and every person is dealing with, with the pandemic and how life is just not on track in any way for anyone. What do we do with that information? Now I feel like you're so uniquely positioned to handle that challenge.

Heather: There is a sort of surrendering to uncertainty that I practiced in Fiona's first years. In the early months in the pandemic, I feel like things have shifted so much in some ways and shifted not at all in others, but I did get the same feeling that I had when Fiona was six months or whatever. I would get this quiet feeling in my heart or in my chest that was like, there's nothing that you can do. All you can do is just fall into this and pray or hope or trust that something will be caught here, that you will be caught, that you'll be okay. Okay doesn't mean everything will work out great, you'll keep the job, your kid will walk. It meant it will be a different kind of okay than you would perhaps like, but still okay. I got that feeling again in the first month or two of the pandemic. It was comforting because I thought, oh, I have been here before. I've been in a place where I don't know if my kid is going to walk. I don't know if she's going to talk. I don't know if she's going to live past two. What does that mean? How can I go forward? At the time, what it meant was you love the hell out of life. You take it all in as much as you can and love your daughter as best you can. That doesn't mean I don't need introverted time alone to journal or what have you. I think it's still a good lesson. When things are really uncertain, it brings us closer to the sense of what things really mean and what really matters. It's not fun or comfortable. I wouldn't wish it on anybody. I think it does click things into focus in a helpful way.

Zibby: I feel like you have a whole passage about this at the end. I circled it. I was like, meaning of life. [laughs] You were like, "The point of this human life, I believe, is love. And the ridiculous and brave and risky act of love turns my heart into taffy, stretches it across the broad spectrum of human feeling. My daughter has given me a thousand portraits of grief and a thousand portraits of joy. I hurt. I long. I exalt. I rejoice. Loving my daughter tenderizes me, makes me more human. And yes, my chest sometimes aches from this work, but the ache in my chest is a cousin of joy." It's so amazing. It's so beautiful. Oh, my gosh, your writing. I love your writing. It's as if we're talking, but it's more literary than that. You just want to sit down and be your friend. It's so evocative. I'm not being very articulate myself in describing your writing. I can't even speak. Then you had these little funny lines like vacationing while parenting is kind of like juggling while sleeping. That's perfect. That should be on a pillow that every parent should be given in the hospital. Every airline should have that. Let's just make these difficult situations humorous because what else can we do?

Heather: Yes, they can just give that instead of those baggies of formula.

Zibby: Right? Who needs those? Come on. Forget the bibs. We'll get bibs. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Heather: I was just talking to a friend of mine who wants to tell her life story. She writes poems. She loves writing poems because she can get lost in them. They surprise her. Then she comes out on the other side and she didn't predict that she would go there. She loves that about poetry. She's really overwhelmed to write her life story. I gave her this advice. Maybe it's useful. Sometimes we need constraints to feel free. For her, I was thinking, you have this twenty years she wants to tell in this memoir. What if she gave herself the constraint of, she's going to write as many sections as it takes, but they're only going to be three hundred words? It sort of feels like a poem. Write three hundred words. Write your way into it. Maybe it's a scene. Maybe it's a reflection. Be surprised by it, but it has to be over in three hundred words. That's not necessarily a constraint that works for everybody. I do believe as a writer in the enabling constraints. As a poet, if I start getting sloppy or uninspired, I'll go back to meter. I go back iambic pentameter or whatever form. I'll try to write a huzzle [sp] or some kind of obscure form. It's helpful for me and I think a lot of writers to feel constrained in one way. Then it feels liberating in another. I like that. I like to play with that as a writer.

Zibby: That's great. You could do it with timeframes too. You can only write about one year of your life or make it happen over one day, things like that.

Heather: Yes. Sonya Huber, a friend of mine, has a book coming. It's apparently a nonfiction book about one day. Inside that day is all of this other stuff woven into it. Constraints can be helpful. External forms can be helpful that you borrow. That's one bit of advice.

Zibby: Awesome. Thank you, Heather. Thanks for your amazing book. Thanks for sharing your story. I know your mom said a voice told her that who knows what this child is intended to do. At the least, it changed my time reading this book and my time meeting you and getting to know you and your story and feeling less alone in my slide down my down into the tear land.

Heather: You're calling it a slide. Now I'm envisioning a playground slide. It seems fun now. We just slide down our doors.

Zibby: Yeah, we're all sliding together. It's a wild ride down the slide. It's not just a descent into depression. [laughs]

Heather: And you're not alone either, particularly now. Everyone's doing it.

Zibby: Everyone's doing it. You got to do it to be cool. Anyway, thank you. Thanks for coming on.

Heather: Thanks for having me.

Zibby: My pleasure. Bye.

Heather: Bye.

Alyssa Shelasky, APRON ANXIETY

Zibby Owens: Welcome, Alyssa. Thank you so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Alyssa Shelasky: Thank you so much for having me.

Zibby: I have so much to talk to you about. I don't even where to start first. First of all, your book, Apron Anxiety: My Messy Affairs In and Out of the Kitchen, was so good. I know you wrote this a while ago and you have lots of exciting stuff coming up and everything. I have to say I just loved it. It was so good. I just had to start with that.

Alyssa: That means a lot to me. The people who did read that book had a similar reaction. I would get emails from people saying, "I'm in the grocery store thinking about this scene. It brought me to my knees." People had a really emotional reaction to the pages. It makes me really happy. It also makes me kind of emotional to talk about the book. It's strange because it was a while ago. It was eight years ago that I wrote it and published it. It really stuck with me. I still have dreams and also even sort of nightmares about some of the stories in the book. It really defined a huge part of my life.

Zibby: You talked in the book about everything. It was like a coming of age. Also, your learning how to cook was a metaphor, I feel like, for so many other things. I also had to teach myself how to cook when I was about the same age. I feel like there were so many similarities in our lives. Going to LA, I also went to LA for part of the time. I also lost a dear friend on 9/11. There were all these things in both of our growing up that I was like, oh, my gosh, this girl should be my friend. [laughs]

Alyssa: Thank you so much. It's strange because I get that a lot even in the articles I write for New York magazine or The New York Times. I often hear from people that, you are me, or you know me, or you hear me, or whatever. I get it from people who are so different from me, so different from you. To me, it just speaks to the universal truths that we all want to love and be loved. Everybody hurts. Especially right now, everybody is struggling. Thank you. I can't believe that I have one more reader. I didn't do a really good job marketing that book. I just didn't get it. I was happy that I wrote a book. I was so happy to be done with the book. I wanted to move to Italy and write my own Eat Pray Love the minute it was over. I didn't really work on the marketing or the sales of it all. Now I know the business. I know what goes into actually selling a book. Not that many people read it. I do feel like this real closeness to people who now know all my secrets and who were on that journey with me.

Zibby: No time like the present. Let's get this in people's hands. Also, it's so timeless. It doesn't matter that it came out eight years ago versus today. Aside from the global pandemic, there's nothing that you can't relate to now. There's nothing that a twenty-three-year-old going through the same things today -- not that you have to be twenty-three. It could've been at any time, really. You had a very successful blog at the time, Apron Anxiety. How did this become a book from the blog?

Alyssa: It feels like many lifetimes ago. I was engaged to a celebrity chef. I don't know if he's quite a celebrity anymore. At the time, he was kind of the "it" chef. He was on Top Chef. It was supposed to be a very different book. We were really happy. We were young, dumb, and in love. I got a book deal with Clarkson Potter. It was a food memoir with recipes. It was supposed to have a happy ending. No spoiler alerts, but like most relationships with sexy, hot, young chefs, it did not go as planned. Right when I started writing it, after I got my book deal, we broke up. Again, that doesn't ruin -- you could google me. I have two kids with a totally -- I have a totally different life now, so you know I didn't end up with a chef. After we broke up, my world fell apart. On top of everything, I assumed I had lost my book deal, which was really the greatest love of my life. The thing that mattered more than any of it was as a writer, to have a book. I assumed I lost that on top of everything else. I called my editor at Clarkson Potter. I said, "It's over. I'm not going to be a chef's wife anymore. I'm moving back to New York alone. I doubt I'll be cooking for anybody ever again."

She said, "Are you crazy? Write through the pain. First of all, as someone who cares about you, write through that pain. It will save you. Second of all, what a better story. Who needs another happy ending? What a better story that you went through this. You lived it. You survived. You lived to tell about it. At some point, you will be able to laugh and celebrate the mistakes you made." She was right. That was what turned out to be the book. It was a totally different type of book in the end. It was much more of a memoir than a cookbook. I think part of the reason the minute the book came out I just left for Italy is that it was a really intimate story to tell and very, very hard to retell over and over. I was very much heartbroken and thirty-four and starting to really become scared about my future and wondering if I had really fucked things up for the long term. The last thing I wanted to do was keep retelling this story of immense pain and regret. I did some press. I did what I could because I was very proud of the book, but I mostly wanted to literally turn the page. That's why I moved to Italy and started a whole new trajectory of messed up relationships and difficult men and just romantic disasters that I couldn't seem to escape. Luckily, there's going to be a second book to talk about.

Zibby: Wait, can I just ask a PS to Apron Anxiety, are you still in touch with the chef? Do you have a relationship with him now?

Alyssa: No, not really at all. This is not just some cheap line. I only have beautiful, warm, loving feelings for him. Number one, he let me write that book with no drama. I remember the editor and the lawyer saying, "We have to send this book to him to approve every single page." I wanted that too. I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with it. Within half a day, he wrote back, "You write whatever you want. I support you." He was so kind and generous. I loved him for a long time. Then I stopped loving him. We moved on. I think he had a child right around when I had my first child. At the time, the thought of that, your ex having a baby with somebody else who they're madly in love with sounds like, how would you ever deal with that? At the time, I was nothing but joyful for him and psyched for the two of us. We did it. We found our happy places. We found our people. We found our babies. It's all good. No, I don't really know anything about him. I'm not one of those people that googles her exes. I think that is so toxic. I don't want to know. He kind of has a public name, so every now and then people will be like, I heard he is opening in -- I don't want to know. I don't. Nothing good comes from that. Why? So I can miss him a little bit? So I can cry a little tear? I don't want it. I don't know what he's up to. We're not in touch, but I love him and I hope all good things.

Zibby: Aw, that's amazing. I did find myself sometimes rooting for you guys to make it work knowing that it was almost impossible. I knew it didn't because I've read your more recent stuff. You know how you can suspend disbelief when you're reading? I'm like, maybe. I don't know. Who knows?

Alyssa: I know. Then you just tell yourself what you need to at the end of books so that you can sleep at night. That happened with Normal People. I was like, oh, they took a year -- I assume you read it or at least saw the show.

Zibby: I saw the show.

Alyssa: They took a year or two off, but they totally found each other in the end and they're totally together. I had to tell myself that just to be able to put the book away.

Zibby: So you went to Italy. You were a single mom for a while. Then you fell in love. Now you have another child with someone you call your baby daddy and your partner and whatever else.

Alyssa: God, I really need to rebrand the term for whatever we are. I know a lot of non-married couple also don't know how to deal with this. I'll rewind. I went to Italy. I fell in love with literally the first human being I spoke to. We were inseparable for the next year. I was like, okay, this is how my story ends. This is interesting. I have a Brooklyn/Roman life. We go back and forth. I became a travel writer for Condé Nast Traveller. I was the Rome correspondent. The optics of it were very, very glamorous, but he was very dark. I clearly have a type. He was a little bit dark and brooding, super sexy. He, after a year together, told me that he wanted to ride off on his motorcycle through India smoking hash in yurts alone.

Zibby: Ugh.

Alyssa: I know. Ugh. That's exactly -- and I didn't see it coming. I moved back to New York the next day. By then, I was romantically dead. I was just dead. It was like, how many heartbreaks can one person go through before they are officially broken? I was a little bit broken. My inner spirit was not herself. I didn't know what to do. I let myself be sad for a few months, but it’s really not my style. I can't stay sad for long. I rose above. I remember one night I looked in the mirror in my little Ditmas Park apartment in Brooklyn. I was crying. I said, what do you want, Alyssa? What is it? What will make you happy? You are capable of anything. You can handle anything. What do you want? The answer was motherhood. I was like, okay, I'm doing this. I'm going to be a mom. I've always wanted to be a mom. It wasn't like an aha. It was like, it is time. By then, I was thirty-seven. I knew -- and not all women know this. I can only speak for myself. I knew I wasn't going to have a happy life if I didn't have kids. That was just my truth.

I only knew one other person who was having a baby on her own. That's a mutual friend, Amanda. She was a little ahead of me. I've quoted her in stories. She knows that she's sort of the hero of this story. I did exactly what she told me to do. She knows her shit. She knew the best doctors. She knew the best sperm bank. She's so cool. I really relied on her to get me through this. I'm telling you, Zibby, from the minute I made that decision, I'm going to have a baby on my own, I've never felt scared. I was never nervous. It felt so right and so natural and so obvious. What took me so long? It worked. I got pregnant quite easily. I chose a sperm donor who I knew the minute I saw his profile that he was the one. I had my daughter, Hazel. While I was pregnant, I dated a little bit because why not? I felt sexy. My boobs were amazing. I felt more alive than I ever had. I stopped dating, obviously, when it became uncomfortable to button my little wrap dresses and stuff. I had a little bit of a romance while I was pregnant which was nice because I had a person to call after my appointments. It was a magical time.

Then I had my daughter. I should say I wasn't totally alone. I have an incredibly supportive family. We all live nearby. I had an emergency c-section. My dad was there with me. He was the first person to hold my daughter. It was a beautiful lovefest. I never felt bad for myself. I never worried about how I would pull it off. I don't have a lot of money. I don't come from a lot of money. A lot of people were concerned, how would I support a child? I knew it would work out. It did. A few months after I had Hazel, I was bored. I was nursing around the clock. I had watched every show. I had binged every housewife. I had nothing left to do at three o'clock in the morning, so I joined Tinder. I put in my profile, single mom with a very uncomplicated situation. In other words, no crazy ex. It was weird to have a five-month-old. I had to sort of explain, but I didn't say too much. I just said it's all good. I got a good situation here. I'm single. I kind of just want somebody to have a glass of wine with. I was not looking for a husband. I was not looking for a father for my daughter. I just wanted a little bit of flirtation. One of the first people I met was this guy Sam. He said he was from Maine. He was a documentary filmmaker and all the things that always lured me in, the sexy, artsy thing.

I could tell within a minute of talking to him he was more than that. He was a family man. He came from a big family. He was grounded. He was stable and steady, all of those missing pieces from before. We had a first date. My mom watched my daughter. We had bloody marys at Vinegar Hill House. Hazel came with us on every single date from that point on. We became a family really quickly. It's a fairytale. It really is a fairytale. He's wonderful. She said daddy before she said mommy. We just had another baby together. I'm forty-two. I just had a second baby. It wasn't that hard. It's a lot of miraculous, hopeful things. I do often hear, it all worked out. It did, but also, we would've been okay. I don't really love the message that we needed a man for it to all work out. It worked out the minute I had a healthy baby. It's a beautiful story, but it's not a beautiful story just because we found the prince charming. That's just a nice handsome cherry on top. That's the story. It didn't come without a lot of pain and a lot of hard choices. I tell my stories and I always cry because they're beautiful stories, but there was so much heartbreak and so much struggle that went into this. There will be more heartbreak. There will be more struggle for all of us. That's what it is to be alive. That's why I can't wait to write this next book. I have so much to say about this stuff.

Zibby: Wait, so tell me about your next book. Congratulations on your book deal. It's so exciting. Tell everybody the name and what it's about and all the rest of it.

Alyssa: I'm so glad I can announce it on your podcast.

Zibby: Yay!

Alyssa: It just happened like a second ago. We're calling it This Might Be Too Personal. It's a series of essays on my own private stories of love and pain as tied to my career as a love, sex, and celebrity writer. So many of my relationships and hardships happened because of where I was with work or my career or my ambition or my successes or my failure, and mostly my failures. [laughs] It's all in there together sort of like Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which I'm listening to right now and loving. They're personal stories, but in relation to my really unique work life. I'm so excited to do it. There's nothing I'm not going to talk about. I'm scared, but I'm really excited.

Zibby: I can't wait. Before, you were saying you have high hopes it's going to be a masterpiece, which is the greatest thing to hear from a writer. I love it. No doubt it's going to be amazing. I cannot wait.

Alyssa: I don't suffer from that. I'm not one of those neurotic self-hating writers.

Zibby: Thank goodness.

Alyssa: I think I'm a great writer. [laughs]

Zibby: That's it. Own it. Why not? It's awesome. Your recent articles in The New York Times have been so amazing. I particularly appreciated your article when you let every married couple off the hook from having sex in the pandemic. That was very kind of you. Thanks for that. [laughs]

Alyssa: I was really surprised that so many people were like, thank you so much. I'm like, isn't this what you talk about with your friends? All we talk about is how we don't want to have sex. It's like, hi, did you want to get a latte? Did you have to have sex last night? That's it. Like I said in the story, we will all get our sex lives back, but oh god, not now.

Zibby: [laughs] Oh, my gosh. I am so excited to have gotten this sneak peek of your new book. I loved all your articles, being a single mom and then how you just told it now and how you wrote about in The Times and your recent article in The Times and your book and all your other zillion articles and essays and everything. You're a fantastic writer. I love that you just share your voice so openly. You are who you are. It's refreshing and awesome. I am so rooting for you at every step, as I was just even reading the book, just holding my breath and rooting for you. Now I feel this sense of ridiculous pride even though I just am meeting you having gone through your memoir to see where you are now and all you've been through. I can't wait to keep following you. It's amazing.

Alyssa: Seriously, it's super meaningful to talk about the new book with you for the first time because I feel really safe with you and really close to you through our mutual friends. I think that you're awesome. I think you are so good for women and writers. I'm lucky you're part of my tribe.

Zibby: Aw. Anything I can do to help with this new book. I mean it. I know it's going to be amazing, just like you do. I still think we should try to resurrect Apron Anxiety and get it back out there and not let it just sit undiscovered because it's so good. I'm in your corner. I'm glad we connected.

Alyssa: Thank you. Good luck with everything you guys are going through.

Zibby: Thank you. You too. Bye.

Alyssa: Big kiss. Bye.

Michele Harper, THE BEAUTY IN BREAKING

Zibby Owens: Hi.

Dr. Michele Harper: Hi. How are you? Good, it worked.

Zibby: Sorry, am I late?

Michele: No, it's fine. I just wanted to make sure I was in the right place.

Zibby: You're in the right place. I was early. Then my daughter just -- now she's bleeding. Anyway, she's fine.

Michele: Oh, no.

Zibby: I was early. I was ready. Then she came in. She scraped it on some staple. It's always something. How are you? Thank you for your direct message. That was so nice of you. Thank you.

Michele: I'm sorry.

Zibby: I wish you were our doctor. Oh, my gosh, anyway, this podcast is very casual, informal. I want to just get to know you even more than I was able to get to know you through your book and read a few quotes from your book and all that good stuff. It should take about a half an hour. Enjoy. Relax.

Michele: It's audio, right? I didn't dress up for this.

Zibby: Sometimes we do like a minute clip. I don't have to if you don't want me to. You look great.

Michele: Oh, I didn't know that. Damn it, sorry.

Zibby: No, it's okay. We've been doing more just to help promote the episode, like a clip on social or something like that. If you don't want me to, I won't do it.

Michele: I guess whatever you want. I just feel badly. I totally would've gotten dressed.

Zibby: You look amazing. Who gets dressed up these days? It's up to you. You can think about it and we can talk. I could show you the clip before we post it and you tell me if you want us to or not.

Michele: Okay, thank you.

Zibby: Welcome, Michele. Can I call you Dr. Harper? I feel bad calling you Michele.

Michele: Whatever you want is fine.

Zibby: Welcome, Michele. Thank you so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Michele: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Zibby: I am so excited to discuss this beautiful memoir which was so good. Oh, my gosh, I just loved it. As soon as I started reading it, I was emailing your publicist. I have to talk to her. [laughs] It's so well-written and so great. Thank you for joining me. Would you mind telling listeners who don't know what The Beauty in Breaking is about, what your memoir's really about? Also, would made you write a memoir?

Michele: It is a memoir. It's about me and difficulties I overcame growing up in an abusive household with a batterer as a father. It's my journey to healing. It's also interwoven between patient stories. Each chapter is one or two patient's names. It explores their own journey to healing in their lives. The reason I wrote this was because, for me, I resonate more with the healing process and being a healer more than any specific title, so more than being a doctor specifically. I find that in the ER I can help potentially one patient at a time, one family at a time, maybe one community at a time, but with writing, so much more, people throughout the state, the country, the world. That appealed to me. I thought, this is another way for me to use a different platform to demonstrate our interconnectedness as human beings and support healing for people in other locations.

Zibby: That’s amazing. I'm really glad you did. I just wanted to start by reading this beautiful quote which sort of explains the naming of your book. You wrote, "From childhood to now, I have been broken many times. I suspect most people have. In practicing the Japanese art of kintsukuroi, one repairs broken pottery by filling in the cracks with gold, silver, or platinum. The choice to highlight the breaks with precious metals not only acknowledges them, but also pays tribute to the vessel that has been torn apart by the mutability of life. The previously broken object is considered more beautiful for its imperfections. In life too, even greater brilliance can be found after the mending." I loved that. I'm assuming this whole theory is how you named your book. Tell me about how this theory has played out in your life.

Michele: It's true. That's how I named the book. It resonates with me in life in general because I feel that part of the deal of being human is that there will be challenges. There just will in life. Then the question is, not will something painful or something that feels untoward or something that could wrench us apart, but how we meet that moment and how we come through it and how we are on the other side of it. I believe that in coming through it we can be stronger, more resilient. Then for me, of course, the most important thing is then we can contribute in a more powerful, meaningful way to life in general and help other people.

Zibby: Which is of course the most powerful thing you can do as a human being anyway. Perfect. One of the things you did in this book that was so interesting, which you just mentioned, is how you weave in all the different stories. You'll go from yoga class to gunshot wounds. We're all over the place here. You're sitting on the couch and then trying to get a tube down a baby's throat. I'm like, where are we here? What chapter am I on? [laughter] Do I have to be sitting forward on the edge of my seat, or can I relax in one of your chapters where you're doing your busy work at home? One of the things you mention is that when you're waiting for a patient to come into the ER, oftentimes you'll hear a story first. You don't want to get wrapped up in the story. You said the luxury of just being in the moment, of doing our job without getting tangled up in the story of the job is a luxury, really, but most of the time you hear what it is ahead of time. Tell me a little bit about this and knowing what it does when you know, when you hear it, when the EMS teams calls and says that such-and-such is on the way, how you prepare yourself for things like that. I feel like it sort of encapsulates things in life. It's all a metaphor. This whole book, I feel like, is a metaphor for everything bigger. Tell me about that, please.

Michele: It's true. If there's a potentially critical patient coming in, we'll get a notification often. They might say, baby with a seizure coming in, unresponsive, might need intubation, something along those lines. We'll get the rooms ready. If I'm the provider on who's going to get the case, I'll try and tidy up my other work so I can drop everything and go to this patient. The benefit is that we may be able to prepare. The downside is it can bias us. Maybe that's not at all what's coming in. It might not be an infant. It could be a trauma and not just a medical case. In some ways, it can lead us from being really prepared to take care of the patient because we might not consider aspects of the case that happen. You're right, that applies not only in the ER, but in life in general, and for me, to maintain an open mind and not get carried away with my biases that could influence my work. I speak about such a case, various examples, but one in particular. A patient came in. It said he had a hemorrhoid. He was fine. He was stable. I reviewed the vital signs. Then an alert came up on the board when I was reviewing the electronic record that he had been violent in the past. He had assaulted a female physician who was taking care of him, sexually assaulted her.

Of course, that made my blood boil, that in the act of this woman taking care of him, trying to save him from an infection that could've been life-threatening, that he chose to assault her in that moment. Then of course, my blood was boiling too because it was described in this just casual way. She put down her knife and walked away. Then a man finished the procedure. When I read his record, he was stable according to everything documented by the nurse. I was like, you know what, I'm going to make coffee. He can wait for me to make coffee. I'll stir in the sugar grain by grain and enjoy this terrible coffee that was sitting in the ER for probably eight hours. I came back. Maybe it was just a couple minutes later. I felt that he was fine to wait. Other patients might come in, and they shouldn't wait. When I saw the patient and examined him, I realized he wasn't coming in with a hemorrhoid at all and actually had an incarcerated hernia. It's a technical term, but it's a surgical emergency. He needed to go to the operating room.

I told that case because he is not a sympathetic character. What he did was awful. Also, it wasn't relevant to the moment of me seeing him. While he needed to be held accountable and while the hospital needed to be held accountable also to take care of their staff and not enable abuse of their staff, my job in that moment because I really didn't know him or what had happened was to deliver the best care possible. I wanted to show how it was important for me to hold myself accountable in that way as well. He did fine. I took care of him. Interestingly enough, the two surgeons who were on were also women and took care of him. I thought, did he think about that? I don't know he had grown since then. I don't know if he was in therapy. I don't know if anything had changed the course of his life or understanding. I wondered if he thought about that. I wondered if somehow that changed him. I knew that the only way that he or I or any of us would grow is if we were open and sensitive to the understanding in that moment. If I could have compassion for him and if he could have compassion enough for himself, then we could all be better for it.

Zibby: Wow. You also talk about, in the book, this ethics case, essentially, that comes in when you had a bunch of white policemen bring in a black man. They were trying against his will to get him to get all his -- they thought he had swallowed drugs. It was this whole big mess. Instead of insisting on the medical exam per the police, you, in your badass way that you have as I can tell from this book, just went in and calmly, you looked him in the eye and you asked him some questions. Then you told everybody, no, we cannot do this. You can't force somebody to do something against your will. Tell me a little more about that moment and what it's like just to have even the person that you trained sort of questioning you and all this systemic stuff that gets mixed in with medical care.

Michele: Yeah, constantly. The police wanted me to force this exam on him, which is unprofessional, unethical, and illegal because he was competent. I don't know if he swallowed drugs or not. It also didn't matter because he was competent and sober and didn't want to be examined. The right thing to do was to discharge him from the emergency department, which I did. Meanwhile, the person I was training, the resident, had called what she deemed a higher-authority, hospital ethics and legal department, to see if she could go around me to get this done anyway. The hospital said, no, you actually can't because she's right. If you do that, it would be illegal and that would be bad for everyone. She said, okay, they said you're right. Then she just went on with her business. What was very important for me in telling that was to show how, yes, as we're seeing now with the protests and movements for justices, that there are definitely issues with systemic racism in the police department. We also have their them in our own house, in the house of medicine, and demonstrating how we've been complicit and how it takes tremendous acts of courage to stand up against these institutions, but it can be done. In that one case, it was effective. We have to continue these movements if we want progress to happen. That was just one story. You're right. It happens all the time. It is exhausting. My hope is that in telling these stories it will empower other people to act as well.

Zibby: You also illustrated how you were passed over for a promotion that you completely deserved. The hospital, not only did not promote you to the job that you deserved, they left it open, which is the worst thing ever.

Michele: It gets worse. It gets worse than that. [laughs]

Zibby: Go on. Tell me.

Michele: I was the only one to apply for that position. My boss had called me. It was an administrative position in the hospital. He said, "I'm so sorry. You were super qualified." He told me point blank, "This hospital just never promotes women or people of color, and so they always leave. I hope you'll stay on with us. I hope you'll stay anyway." I did leave. You're right. I was the only applicant. They left it open. I found out shortly after my leaving they did hire someone for it. It was a white male nurse.

Zibby: What do you with all that? How do you process that feeling? I would be so pissed off. How do you just hand in your resignation and start a job somewhere else without that lingering?

Michele: It lingers in the way that I don't forget, clearly, because I put it in the book. [laughter]

Zibby: It figures. We're talking about it today.

Michele: Exactly. I process it because the only option for me is to move forward. I think about how to navigate these structural issues that we talked about, this structural sexism and racism, the list goes on, homophobia and rights for people who have different levels of physical ability. How does one process that? The only option for me is to keep moving forward. The way I tackle the system will vary depending on the circumstance. In that one instance, for example with the job, I decided it was best for me to just leave. They had already had a lawsuit. Clearly, it didn't really change much. One picks her battles. In this case, I figured I would leave, but my work would continue fighting for equality and justice. Part of that is speaking openly, shedding light on these issues, which can take tremendous risk. That's come up in interviews before. How are you doing this? What if there's backlash? It's true. There can be backlash. There's a place now for truth-tellers. Now in this time, it's more important than ever. I started writing this book years ago. If I had to estimate, maybe six years ago. I had no idea it would come out during a pandemic, after the Me Too movement had started, during Black Lives Matter. I had no idea. The personal risk I was anticipating was even greater. Now as it happens, this is the time it comes out, which has created a softer landing. I'm actually grateful because there's more of a space. People are a little more open to talk about it now and to act.

Zibby: Tell me about the six years of writing this book. Tell me about the moment when you said, you know what, I'm going to try this, I'm going to sit down, and you opened up your computer or whatever. What was that like?

Michele: These stories had been percolating since residency. It started where I would see patients, and their experiences would just stay with me. This is back in residency, so this is over fifteen years ago, fourteen years ago. I'm dating myself. They would just stay. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I know that I had to process them, tell them, and amplify these voices. Around six years ago, I said, okay, now it's time. I want to start writing. Since I work shifts, I couldn't make classes. I really wanted to enroll in literature class. I figured I'd work on my writing that way, but I couldn't. I found someone who could do some private instruction with writing. I said, you know what, if I'm going to pay for this and we're going to meet weekly, I might as well start. A couple weeks in I said, I should just start working on my book. That’ll be my personal project, to write my book. That's how it began. I just figured it out as I went along. Once I was done, I said, now I have a book. I guess I should try and do something with it. Met with a literary consultant, because I had no idea, who advised, "Yeah, I think it's good enough. You should try and get it traditionally published." Then I was rejected by agents for maybe a year and a half. Of course, it always happens this way. I was about to give up. Then my current agent took the book and believed. I'm so grateful that she believed. Then within a month, it sold at auction. Then I edited for another year, around eight months. Now we have a book. That was the process.

Zibby: Wow, what a journey. Oh, my gosh.

Michele: I had no idea. This is lifetimes. As an ER doctor, years and years, I'm like, I can save a life in three hours. This book took six years. [laughs]

Zibby: It's not for the faint of heart, to write [indiscernible/crosstalk] try to get it published. It's quite a road. That just goes to show, you just can't give up. I'm so glad you didn't. I bet those first slew of agents are just kicking themselves right now.

Michele: It's interesting. You're right. Another story I really like to tell is one -- most of the times, the rejection came in the form of silence. Some of the agents were so kind. They would write and they'd say, "This is a really great project. It's just not what I do. Someone else should represent this who can do it justice." Then one woman -- I wish I had kept the email. I was going through a difficult period of my life at one point. Then I thought the book also wouldn't work, so I didn't think to keep her email. I remember I was walking down the street and I heard from one agent in California. I figured I would never hear from her again because I think I wrote her maybe six months before. I get an email on my phone. I'm walking down the street because I was clearing my head. I like to take walking meditation walks.

I opened it up. I was kind of excited because it started as, "I'm so sorry. I meant to get back to you sooner." Then she continued to say, "But I wanted to make sure to write you to just let you know that we already have doctors writing." She proceeded to name three men. I had never heard of one of them and vaguely the other, and none of them from underrepresented groups of color. She's like, "We already have these doctors writing, so we don't need your book. I just wanted to let you know that." [laughs] That was the email. I was furious that this woman went out of her way and took her time to tell me to stop what I'm doing because my voice is not needed. I remember thinking, this is just fuel. Oh, I'm going to get it done. She's going to hear about this book. At this point, I'm sure she has. It's a sweet moment.

Zibby: You have to wrap up a copy and FedEx it to her door and be like, here it is. I'm terrible. That makes me sound spiteful and awful. You shouldn't do that. We should just joke about doing it, but don't actually do it.

Michele: I won't do it. Hopefully, she does remember and thinks twice before she tries to kill someone else's dream. That's my hope.

Zibby: That's also the challenge with almost not taking things personally in this literary craziness because they could just say, okay, medical books, check. Then they're not like, oh, this interesting new voice. It's like, that book is filled. Now we need a rockstar. Now we need an addiction novel. It's a challenge. Let's talk about divorce for a minute if you don't mind. I'm divorced. I'm always happy to talk about people who have gotten through divorce. Your parents got divorced. My parents got divorced. Let's get all divorced. [laughs]

Michele: Oh, I know.

Zibby: You wrote really beautifully about the future that wasn't, which is something that I think so many of us have to grapple with. You see your life, and not just with divorce honestly, but you just see your life going in a certain way with all of the things that that comes with. Then all of a sudden, you come to a screeching halt. Not just what's going on now stops, but all the things that were to follow also stop. Just talk to me a little about that and how that pervaded your life for a while and how you got over it or any of it.

Michele: The divorce, we were together -- this is funny. We met at the freshman ice cream mixer, that's what it was called, in college. We grew up together, really. Then before graduation from residency, I found out that the marriage was going to end. He said he couldn't be with me anymore, that I was on my life path. It seemed that I would be successful. I was graduating from residency and was going to be a doctor. His road was more challenging. He was interested in documentary film and pursuing the arts, which is a more difficult road. It's not linear. He said since I was doing well and he wasn't, he couldn't handle it, so we'd have to go our separate ways. In that moment when he said that, I feel that everyone can make their own decisions. I don't take hostages. If he couldn't be with me, then he couldn't. I knew it was over. I wish him the best. It was painful. I also knew that it was triggering something much more painful than had to do with him at all. I needed time to process that. What I really was grieving was this loss of a story I had for our future. I thought we would continue together. We would have kids. I focused on my career, finishing my career, so kids would happen later. I just took it for granted. We were going to be this fantastic chic couple. I was this doctor. He was a documentary film artist. We were going to have the coolest kids and the greatest life.

That's what I was grieving. Even deeper than that, being a person who grew up in a dysfunctional home where there was so much pain and suffering and trauma and violence, including physical violence, the relationship with my ex-husband was the healthiest relationship I had with a man. I wanted a healthy family. I wanted to bring that to the world. I grieved that more than any of it. The moment that I understood that, that I could heal from it, I let my ex-husband go, and quite peacefully so. I believe that I allowed myself to open up, as Joseph Campbell, I don't know if he was the only one to say it, but I let go of the life that I had and this idea of a life that didn't even exist to let myself open up to the life that was waiting for me. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that the only way for me to live with integrity was to be willing to accept what was happening and what was yet to come. That was a really important story for me to talk about because what I've found in my own life and working with patients and family members and friends is that we get so imprisoned by these stories in our mind. So much liberation comes from just letting them go and letting them be and living.

Zibby: That was awesome. I love that. What's the two-second, since the book ended, what's happened with you? Now I want the update. Now I'm invested. I'm going to stalk you. No, I'm kidding. [laughter] I feel like after you go through someone's whole life for a while, you need the PS. What's happened since? What's coming next? What's the rest for you?

Michele: I don't know. What's happened since is, honestly, it was a while to get the book out, and I worked on it tirelessly. Now the book is out. Now it's been a whirlwind. Literally, I work my shifts. When I'm not doing shifts, then I'm speaking to fun, interesting, cool people like you. It's actually a blast. So far, it's been like, every day I'm off, then I schedule time when I can eat dinner or maybe clean or something. That's really how it's been. Thinking about what's next on this literary path, some interesting conversations around film and TV. The moment I have time to consider it, I do want to think about future writing. I have an essay that should be coming out I'm super excited about soon. Books also, I want to think about. It's really interesting. I'm not going to say how I end the memoir for whoever hasn’t read it, but I do speak about what we've already talked about, how an important part for me in my spiritual path and life path is becoming comfortable with uncertainty and just not knowing. The true answer is, I don't know what's happening next. I have all these ideas about potential projects. Now I have to see which seeds take root first. It's fascinating for me because on my medical path, it was really easy. You do steps X, Y, Z. It takes you in this direction. If you want to go a different direction, you follow this path. This is different. I have no idea. Again, this is not linear. It's exciting. We'll see. I know it'll be interesting. That's actually the only thing I know.

Zibby: I'll just keep stalking you. You'll have to open your blinds one day and [indiscernible/laughter].

Michele: Right now, I'm in a high-rise. It'll be a little challenging.

Zibby: Like Spiderman. I'm kidding. I'll just follow you on Instagram. Then I'll leave you alone. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?

Michele: Yes. That is the tenacity. That is just to write about what moves you. Write the story that has to be told. Write the story that is calling you. Then have bravery in doing it. One thing that I -- it's probably cliché. One thing that I experienced was, I worked with tremendous editors. I love my editor at the publisher. He's so wonderful. Even in working with him or my literary whisperer, there were times, maybe twenty percent of the time, when I said, nope, this is the way this part of the story has to be told. I can't give up this part of the story. This is the part I love. It's true to me. Eighty percent of what you said is completely correct. I am a better human for it. This is a better book for it. But this twenty percent's got to stay. It always worked out well that way. I feel like we both won when we did that. I would say know what is true for you. Stick by it. Just keep going. Don't give up because there are people who will try and tell you your voice isn't needed. I am here to tell you, especially women, people of color, other people who are traditionally silenced, we specifically need your voices. Please keep going.

Zibby: Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much, Michele or Dr. Harper, [indiscernible/laughter].

Michele: Thank you. It's wonderful hanging out with you.

Zibby: You too. Let's do it again. Anytime you're around. I'll be on the couch.

Michele: [laughs] I'm going to have to remember, every time now I have Zoom, I am dressing appropriately because you never know.

Zibby: You look great. I don't know what you're talking about. It's not like you're in your jammies or anything. Stop it. Sometimes I literally wear my pajamas and do these interviews. I'm like, well, they're sweatpants, so nobody knows. Now that's the problem. My sleepwear has become so similar to my day wear. I don't know if it's day or night. All to say, I can't see your full ensemble, but from this angle you look great.

Michele: Thank you. I'm about to do yoga. It's yoga clothes. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Zibby: Thank you so much. Have a great day.

Michele: You too.

Zibby: Buh-bye.

Michele: Bye.

Dr. Jill Biden, WHERE THE LIGHT ENTERS

Zibby Owens: I did an Instagram Live with Jill Biden this week, which was so amazing. I hope that you all really enjoy this episode because I had the best time getting to know her. Jill Biden is a community college professor and served as Second Lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. For those of you who have picked on who she is, she's Joe Biden's wife and perhaps will be the next first lady. We'll see what happens. During the Obama-Biden administration, she advocated for military families, community colleges, the fight against cancer, and the education of women and girls around the world. She continues this work today through the Biden Foundation, the Biden Cancer Initiative, and the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. Dr. Biden is married to former Vice President Joe Biden. Her book is called Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself. It's a memoir, a New York Times best seller, and just came out in paperback. Definitely read it. I read it. I half read it and half listened to the audiobook of it. I interchanged them. That was also really neat because she reads it herself. Enjoy.

Hi.

Jill Biden: Hi. Hello. We are in the middle of a gigantic storm. We've had a tornado watch all weekend. We've lost our power. All morning, we lost our power three times. That's why we're a little bit late.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh, don't worry. We have a tornado warning here too. I'm like, don't go out at one o'clock. I can't lose my Wi-Fi. [laughs]

Jill: Where are you? In DC or in New York?

Zibby: We're out on Long Island in New York.

Jill: Gosh, yeah, it's crazy.

Zibby: How about you? Where are you today?

Jill: Delaware, at our Wilmington home.

Zibby: Thanks so much for taking the time. Congratulations on your paperback release. Do you see I'm wearing your matching sweater today?

Jill: Oh, yes. I should've worn it. We could've been twins.

Zibby: Could've been twins. This is such an amazing book. What a story. What a life you have led. It's truly remarkable. You can just tell how, this sounds so trite, but you're such a good person. It comes through in every story that you tell. It's just so nice to get to know you now in person as well, or this way. [laughs]

Jill: It's nice to meet you. Thanks for doing this.

Zibby: Of course. So much to discuss. First, I just wanted to hear a little more about how much you love being a teacher. That's one of the things that came through so clear in the book. You wrote, "I realized early on that teaching was more than a job for me. It goes much deeper than that. Being a teacher is not what I do, but who I am." Tell me a little about your love of teaching. What about it gets you so fired up?

Jill: I've been teaching, I think this is year thirty-six. It's my career. It's what I love doing. My grandmother was a teacher. For me, it's this sense of community that I feel in my classroom. They're like a family to me. I try to create that. That first week of school, I get to know everybody's names. I have them get to know one another. I teach writing. Writing is so personal that I think that they have to feel that they know somebody else in the classroom to read what they’ve written. They have to know their stories. Writing creates a vulnerability. I get to know my students really well. I hear from my students all the time. They're texting me and emailing me even though we're not back in school yet this semester. I have to tell you, Zibby, I'm taking certification so that I can teach online should I become first lady.

Zibby: That's exciting.

Jill: That's my dream. I did that all the eight years that I was second lady. I loved every minute of it. We made it work. I'm hoping we can make it work again.

Zibby: Would the online component be because schools might not open or because the first lady can't teach in a public place? What would the impetus be?

Jill: We're in such a precarious time right now. Every day, my phone is going crazy with my friends, and my friends who are teachers saying, "What should we do? What should we do?" We have to listen to the scientists and the doctors. When they tell us it's safe to go back, then I think that's okay to go back. Right now, the public schools, a lot of them don't have the funding. Maybe they don't have extra masks. You know yourself, kids forget everything. You know that they're going to forget their mask. We need to have a supply of masks in every classroom. We need to socially distance. You know how many kids are in a classroom, twenty-five to thirty-five. It's hard to do that, to move these desks and then address all the students' needs. That's the big thing. We're in August and school is about to start. I think that's the thing on everybody's mind. What do we do?

Zibby: This is literally all I talk about. [laughs]

Jill: There we go. See?

Zibby: I have four kids. They're at three different schools. They all have different plans. I don't know what I agree with, what I don't. It's so hard. Every parent has to not only listen to the national advice, but the actual individual school advice, and then listen to your heart. It is so hard. This is a tough time, and for teacher too, educators as well.

Jill: I agree. That's why I say I'm hearing from a lot of teachers who are saying, gosh, we think right now, unless the doctors say it's okay to go back, should we really go back? Then we have to go back into our own homes and take care of our family. There are a lot of decisions. That's why leadership is so important to know what to do, to give us advice, and tell us the path to follow, somebody we trust.

Zibby: Somebody in the comments is saying that you should be the secretary of education.

Jill: [laughs] Oh, no.

Zibby: Perhaps VP. I hear it's still an open slot at this point.

Jill: Nope. I love the classroom. That's where I want to be.

Zibby: Okay, fine. You wrote so beautifully in the book about parenting your way through uncertainty and through sorrow. I feel like uncertainty in particular at this time is what basically everybody is going through in every which way. You said, "Parents are supposed to be the ones with the answers, the ones who can tell you that everything is going to be okay. But how do you make your children believe that things will work out when you aren't so sure that they will, when you have no answers, only sadness and confusion?" Where have you come out on this? What are we supposed to do? What do you think about it?

Jill: My mother was always so strong for me, always. I always went to her with whatever problem I had or if I was trying to sort things out. She always gave me such great advice. I depended so much on her. My mother was such a great role model for me that I want to be that for my children. I try very hard to take the lessons from her book and be strong and try to be resilient and try to just love them, just love them through the tough times. I think that’s the role of a good mom.

Zibby: Another thing that came through in your book is, just buy a lot of candles to decorate your table. Clearly, I want to go to your Thanksgiving and your dinners.

Jill: Yes, come. [laughter]

Zibby: You would probably say that because you have such an open-door policy. The importance of the small rituals too and all the traditions of family was something that came up over and over and how little things like having a catalog in the backseat of the car driving to Nantucket, sometimes the sum total of all these traditions make up a family, right?

Jill: Yes. Don't kids love that? They love the things that you do over and over again year after year. At Easter, I get the clear jars and I fill them with jellybeans. Then I put the candles in the jellybeans and I put them down the table, or just things that they always look forward to. Even if they're a little bit corny, the kids still love them. I don't know about you, I still do stockings at Christmas. They still love the really funny stuff, the candy bars you stick in. We have a tradition where we always stick an orange, my grandmom did this, always stick an orange in the toe. The kids kind of laugh at it, but if I didn't have that orange in there, they would be the first ones to tell me. I think kids just love that kind of -- I think it provides structure. It provides comfort, the things that they're used to.

Zibby: I totally agree, yes, when everything around you changes even down to the stores in your neighborhood. Everything is changing.

Jill: Give me an example of something you do for your kids.

Zibby: We always do birthday breakfasts which is something that my parents used to do for me. In fact, my husband is like, "What's up with everybody eating cake for breakfast?" [laughs] I'm like, I don't know.

Jill: I love that.

Zibby: We always do that. We have a cake at breakfast. I decorate the whole kitchen. I have all the gifts waiting. When you come down in the morning, it's a whole big thing. There's a banner. In fact, in the next room, they're so into these celebrations now with so little else that goes on these days that we're celebrating the end of their pretend camp, which was just one friend each. We have a cake. My son now has put party hats all over the table. After this, we're going to have a celebration for that. I should support the paper goods industry. I should invest or something.

Jill: It's funny because today is Natalie's sixteenth birthday. She's Beau's oldest. Every year, I have a pool party for her. Of course, Joe and I had to stay away. She brought some friends over and they went swimming. I do the same thing. We have cake. We have balloons. It doesn't matter if your kids are sixteen or they're thirty-six. If you don't have those balloons, they're so disappointed. [laughs] I love that. I love that birthday cake idea because what difference does it make if they -- that's one of the beauties of being a grandmother, is when they come over and I have dessert for dinner. I say, I don't care, eat your dessert first. What do I care? They're going to eat all the dinner anyway, so what difference does the order make? That's the beauty of being a grandmother. I don't think I'd ever do that as a mother.

Zibby: I feel like this pandemic has made me act more like a grandmother to my own kids. Rules that were so strict, now I'm like, I don't know, is it a big deal?

Jill: Yeah. You have to be fun and creative because it's tough for them. This pandemic is really tough for our kids. They don't really understand a lot about it. Everything is upside down. It's really tough on them.

Zibby: Absolutely. How do you maintain this sense of closeness and family and tradition while your life is also on such a public stage? You're out there everywhere. Your husband is out there everywhere. How do you come back? What do you do at night to stay normal? Do you sit around and watch TV? How do you go back and forth from such a public to the private?

Jill: You have to make your family and your private life, you have to maintain that. You have to make it a priority. When I'm at school, my head's at school. When I'm doing something as second lady, my head was totally there. You have to be very conscious as a mom to make sure that you do all the things that your kids expect, calling them or sending a card or sending a quote. I sent a quote to Natalie this morning. Walt Whitman said that some people are full of sunshine to the very last inch. I said, "Natalie, that's you. That's who you are." It is who she is. That's who her dad was. That's who my son Beau was. I wanted to send that to her. She sent me back a very sweet email. You have to make time. You have to really think about it. You can't just let time go by or a day go by. You have to be vigilant at being a good mom and a grandmom, right? Not that you're a grandmom, but being a good mom, you have to be conscious about it.

Zibby: It's true. Oh, my gosh, honestly, my heart broke when you wrote about losing Beau and just how open, authentic, honest, I'm so sorry that you've gone through this. Your whole family's loss, my heart just breaks for you. The way you wrote about it in the book and that there is nothing you can say, you're like, I don't have the words for this. All I can say is, to other people that have been through it, that you're not alone. Sometimes that is all you can say. It was just absolutely beautiful and so heartbreaking. I just wanted to extend my --

Jill: -- You know what, Zibby, I really feel that because you love your children so much, I think you know or you can imagine how painful it is to lose a child. You can't even let your mind go there. You can't even let your head go there. The thing that I found that Joe and I did was we tried to find purpose. After we were in the administration, we started the Biden Cancer Initiative because every American family is going through -- many American families, most have someone who is experiencing cancer. It's so tough to go through it. I went through it with my mother, my sister had a stem cell transplant, and then Beau. I can't even tell you how many people that I connect with weekly, a lot of people who have gone through the same thing. I have to tell them, you just have to find purpose to be able to go on. You have to make something of the life that you've lost, and in Beau's case, brain cancer. I'll keep going. I'll keep going with this no matter what happens in our future. I will still be in the fight against cancer.

Zibby: It's just so awful. I'm so sorry. In fact, one of the things that really struck me in your book too was how you talked about your requirement, essentially, to compartmentalize and how you had to just put it aside. I felt like that resonated so much because everybody has to do that to some degree or another, not necessarily through the awful things that you've been through, but even something smaller that's really on their minds. Yet you have to do it. Your point in particular was, "I wasn't disingenuous when I smiled at rallies or campaign stops. I just had to teach myself to forget for a little while the parts of me that were hurting. So many us, public figures or not, have to learn how to lead these double lives. Work doesn't stop because your father is sick. Deadlines don't go away because your friend is dying. We never know what's behind someone's smile, what hardships they are balancing with their day-to-day responsibilities."

Jill: That's so true.

Zibby: Tell me about your ability to compartmentalize and how we all do this, how we all can just step it up when we have to. How can people do it when they're feeling so lousy?

Jill: As moms, you have to do that. In my professional life, I had to walk into that classroom every single day, a smile on my face, because as you walk into the classroom, that instant that I walk in there, that's so important. It sets the tone for the class. If I walked in and I was upset or grouchy, that would permeate. Every day, I would walk in positive and with a smile on my face knowing that my students were going through some pretty tough times. I teach a lot of refugees. I teach a lot of immigrants. A lot of my students are in the United States by themselves because they’ve lost their entire families due to wars or circumstances in other countries. I had to be there for them. Like I said, my classroom is my sense of community. I owe them that as a professional, as a friend, as their teacher. As a professional, I think I owe them that.

Zibby: It goes back to your saying you have to have a purpose. This whole sense of purpose and doing things for others and just making it all matter requires that level of stepping it up to such a degree, oh, my gosh. Writing a book, is this something that -- I know you've written children's books as well. Is a memoir something that you always thought you would do? Has it been in the back of your mind? Did you ever write a novel? Tell me about writing.

Jill: After we were in the administration, I met so many amazing people and did so many amazing things that I thought, I have to write about that because I have to tell these stories. When I talked to publisher and presented the book, they said, "No, we don't want that. We want a book that only you can write," and so they said, "Tell us about your family." There's so many blended families now. That's what I decided that only I could write about, how I married Joe and he had two children and how I became a mother to Beau and Hunter, and then later on we had our daughter Ashley, and how I used my own family as a roadmap to sort of navigate what I valued in my growing up to guide me to being a mother, an instant mother by the way, an instant mother to two little boys. I grew up with four sisters. I was so used to girls and fighting over makeup and who has the comb and the hairbrush, all the things girls do. Boys were totally different for me. I write in the book about the snake story where the kids came in -- I'll never forget it. "Mom, mom! Come here, come here!" I go running down the steps. They're holding this net. I look in the net, and it's a snake. I screamed and I ran back upstairs. They were so proud that they had caught this snake. They wanted to show it to me, those sort of things that I really had to get used to as a new mother. There were a lot of fun, fun stories. I don't know if you have boys or girls.

Zibby: I have two of each.

Jill: Then do you think boys and girls, raising them is a lot different?

Zibby: I feel like just all my kids are so different even within the genders. Yes, there are some things that are just so -- yeah. [laughs]

Jill: It's just funny and different. They were a lot of fun, raising them. I went through some really interesting times.

Zibby: I'm sure you could've written many more books just about that. Is it something that you would want to do again? Would you want to write about what it's like to be on the campaign trail? Would you want to write more about being a grandmother? I could just see you doing so many books because your voice is so amazing.

Jill: I love writing. I journal every day, most days. That's what I suggest to people that I meet, to my students, to other friends because we are in such a different time in this pandemic. I try to tell my grandchildren I want them to journal because I never want them to forget what they went through during this time, in good ways and in bad times. Write reflections of, how did you feel? How did this pandemic change you? How did it change your view of the world? What do you want to see in the future because of having been through this pandemic? I hope your kids are. They don't even have to write it. If they want to do it through art, some of my grandchildren are very artistic, or they want to do a video and record it, but I don't think we should lose the essence of this experience. Even though this illness is so horrible, I think we have to think of ourselves and what we went through and how it changed us as who we are or who we were.

Zibby: I think my daughter is chronicling this through TikTok, which might now go away. I think we need some different outlets. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors, aside from journaling of course?

Jill: I say write from your heart. I read so many memoirs. When I finished a lot of them, I thought, I don't really know that person. When I thought about writing my own memoir, I thought, my readers are going to expect me to expose my heart and get to know me for the woman I am. I hope that came through in the book because I didn't want it to be superficial. I wanted people to get to know me. I just wrote my children's book, Joey, about my husband. I'd love to write another book because look what we're going through. There's so many things happening in the world right now, just so many things that are challenging yet interesting, sad yet you find joy. You feel joy, so much more than you ever allowed yourself to feel it before because we've seen such loss. I'm writing every day, so who knows?

Zibby: Who knows? You might have a much bigger thing on your plate.

Jill: Maybe. Hopefully.

Zibby: Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on my show. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to wear this sweater again. [laughs] No, I'm kidding. Seriously, I read a lot of memoirs too and this is really one of my favorites because of just what you're saying. It was so open. You're just the way that you seem from the book, talking to you one on one. That's just amazing. That's all we have, is being who we are. It sounds so stupid, but anyway.

Jill: That's right. I've loved getting to know you. Thanks for doing this.

Zibby: You too. Thank you so much.

Jill: Thanks. Take care.

Zibby: Buh-bye.

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