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00:00:14.200You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch.1.00
00:04:47.700Um, I'm not good at practicing what I preach all the time in terms of mental illness, where
00:04:57.640there are things that I have figured out and I even write down in the book, and then I still
00:05:01.720have to relearn them in the moment. But one thing that sticks with me again and again is kind of
00:05:07.440the idea of not being quiet about it. I've done a pretty good job of killing off any embarrassment
00:05:12.680related to my mental health struggles so once that's achieved there's no reason not to
00:05:20.920talk about kind of whatever so yeah there's really no part of
00:05:27.700any of my story that i'm i'm shy about talking about partly because i've made a lot of connections
00:05:34.560by being open about it and gotten a lot of encouraging little notes on on social media
00:05:41.660of people who said thanks for talking about this so yeah I don't I don't I mean it can be
00:05:48.960emotionally hard as I'm sure you know to rehash certain things but also that's kind of a thing
00:05:54.680I'm always doing in my own head anyway so right yeah I relate to that piece how was it writing
00:06:04.280the book daunting at first it was i've been kind of chewing on this project for
00:06:11.840four or five years it started in a very organic way where as i said i would i would talk about
00:06:19.460struggles with depression and then i would get notes from people who i used to tell leslie who
00:06:24.340wanted to talk shop you know and i was happy to do it but also i'm not a therapist and also
00:06:32.880I couldn't really talk about everything I wanted to talk about within the context of DMs.
00:06:39.720So the book took shape as the thing we talked about as the long conversation around here.
00:06:46.020This idea that I wanted to go on a long camping trip with all of these folks and have a long talk about my own struggle or what I had learned.
00:06:56.060So as a writer, it was clear to me it had to be a book.
00:16:06.120and then sometimes I have to kind of return to things that I've known before and written down
00:16:11.500before and tend to forget every day and that's the making space for the good stuff it's the
00:16:17.740acknowledging what I do and don't control the idea that the good and the evil in the world are
00:16:22.140happening concurrently and always are and so choosing what to see and what to focus on and
00:16:29.880what to invest my energy in really is a choice. And sometimes, you know, I have to think about
00:16:38.040being small and being kind of realistic about what I am as a person on a planet with 8 billion
00:16:47.220people. And that can be a little terrifying, but it does, I think, sometimes put it all in
00:16:56.440the proper context when I feel kind of a rage and a panic that there's something I should do right
00:17:02.740now to fix it all. Yes. You know, but like, like, like so many things in nature, there's a balance
00:17:10.860because there's also all kinds of good I can do in the world. And a lot of it is good that is
00:17:16.060very much in my control. And it's good that nobody gets a vote on. And so, you know, it's,
00:17:23.020it's not feeling steamrolled and powerless because of the the evil in the world i can't control
00:17:30.660not letting it rob me of the good i can do through despair or the kind of anger that is paralyzing
00:17:40.200you know yeah don't let it rob me of the good i can do is a good one yeah because it can you know
00:17:49.420there's a lot there's a lot to be upset about or to despair about but in kind of a
00:17:55.740weirdly practical way it's like all right but what good does that do
00:17:59.920and sometimes i have to come back to kind of the same thought i use on depression which is
00:18:07.260that as a part of nature with the same dignity and worth as an oak tree in a river valley like
00:18:15.600all right i do deserve moments of happiness or i do deserve peace and contentment and sometimes
00:18:21.260sometimes i have to give myself kind of grudging permission to grant those things to myself
00:18:28.020but it's not always comfortable you know everything from conversations i've had in the
00:18:35.560last year about genocide and palestine trump and authoritarianism and global fascism and
00:18:42.300you know it's it's it's that is there any moment for rest but you know i also have a five-year-old
00:18:50.560that i look at and think like okay but part of my job is to teach and experience with him the good
00:18:59.560in the world and the stuff that is the reason we're upset all the all the good things and things
00:19:06.820we cherish that are at the heart of why we are so upset about injustice and pain and
00:19:12.780evil in the world. And making time for that good is important too.
00:19:20.960Sometimes I think I have stuff to say about it as somebody who has major depression too,
00:19:27.880because it almost doesn't matter what year it is. I can find reasons to give up hope and have
00:19:35.520total despair and i could have said the same thing in 1996 this is a pro of your depression
00:19:41.960you always have access to this incredible insect just like all the pros of my cancer
00:19:47.400well yeah because like sometimes if you have to build a viewpoint where there's still good in the
00:19:54.960world from scratch like that's a skill i have had to do over and over again and i kind of know that
00:20:00.920it is independent of what's going on in the world and it teaches me how subjective reality is
00:20:07.240sometimes and the idea that meaning is a crafted thing and stepping from the idea meaning is a
00:20:15.280crafted thing too and i can participate in it it's not something that i just have to accept
00:20:20.220yeah yeah i mean i'm struggling with parts of that these days you know like i don't think i've
00:20:30.040ever been so often have I had come into my mind the feeling of hate just a thought you know like
00:20:40.380they're they're letting women die rather than save their lives when the baby inside them is dying I
00:20:48.160hate them you know they're fighting for the right to marry children I hate them they're making it0.99
00:20:52.480illegal to feed the homeless I hate them like they're making it illegal for women to hear each0.98
00:20:57.420other's voices it you know i hate that and i feel that feeling building up in me but i'm literally
00:21:03.800fighting cancer i can't carry all that hate yeah and it's so hard to find a way back to a
00:21:12.020different kind of meaning and you know the title of your book really it moves me a lot because when
00:21:19.700i'm in that place i have a hard time believing that something in the wood like that the woods
00:21:25.460aren't just really pissed at us you know what i mean yeah yeah i mean the woods don't need stories
00:21:36.280to understand reality the way we do you know i don't know that the woods have a goal in mind
00:21:43.840i think something in the woods loves you because the kind of effortless knowing there and
00:21:50.740experiencing of life resonates with the part of us that is effortless in our living and being a
00:21:59.260part of nature and being animals and you know being kind of a part of the big mystery of of life
00:22:04.860and that resonance isn't judging anything about us that's kind of i think anchored to our intrinsic
00:22:13.080worth in terms of like the work we have to do in the world that is about crafted meaning i think
00:22:21.300you know i i do i do get drawn to despair about it but sometimes sometimes the numbers help me
00:22:29.320i mean i forget the exact numbers but it was like 32 percent of the electorate voted for trump
00:22:38.120and 31 for Kamala and 30 whatever it was it was it was 30 something just didn't vote
00:22:46.060and it's like okay this isn't like some huge groundswell of evil and of the percentage that
00:22:54.700voted for Trump a lot of that is you know fear ignorance propaganda working like propaganda
00:23:02.680of works especially if you you know aren't educated against it and if you're desperate and
00:23:10.280if you're scared and you know if you're not sure how you're going to take care of your family and
00:23:13.980you don't know how the world is changing like there's a lot of humanity to observe I think
00:23:22.180even as we understand all of the things that we need to fight and fighting it through education
00:23:28.140and resistance and but sometimes those numbers help me when I start to think like all right well
00:23:32.620the heartwood of the world is rotting. I think it is more complicated than that. It doesn't change
00:23:39.100the work that needs done, but it does help me not be angry at all of humanity or the human character
00:23:46.380in the same way, if that makes sense. It does. It does. A beautiful thing that your book,
00:23:54.100something in the woods loves you does is it sort of lets different animals and plants
00:24:02.120participate in that making of meaning with you or or you let yourself make meaning with them
00:24:10.580and as a side note I'll say I was so happy that you got to see a loon we messaged each other about
00:24:18.060loons a while after the last time we spoke I want to hear all about you getting to see a loon and
00:24:23.620also i want to know like what kinds of animals and plants are like nudging their way into your
00:24:31.360attention these days or like oh yeah so the loon was kate nurenberger a poet nature poet
00:24:40.560has some some cool books on on witchcraft and poetry she teaches at the university of minnesota
00:24:47.780And she posted a thing for a writing retreat she was doing with a biology professor up in northern Minnesota at Itasca, which was like a biology research station up at the headwaters of the Mississippi.
00:25:03.640There's a lot of headwaters of the Mississippi.
00:25:07.400But it was at this place called Lake Itasca.
00:25:10.500And so I drove, I don't know, 18 hours or something to get up there for this writing retreat.
00:25:17.780And it was just great. It was just adult summer camp.
00:25:21.980It was this cluster of cabins and there was one that was sort of the mess hall and they would ring this school bell when it was time to eat.
00:25:29.100And, you know, they just had a collection of like ceramic mugs you could just take with you and return whenever.
00:25:34.760It's just great. But I went hoping to see a loon and I got there hours early and I was just sitting inside this this cabin.
00:25:46.040the little gathering cabin hours before our first class was going to start and I heard one
00:25:52.080and yeah and I just got choked up and I'm getting choked up just thinking about it yeah and I ran
00:26:01.100outside and uh this one of my classmates cool lady who writes about a history of wild rice
00:26:09.760came up and was just like oh are they talking to each other out there and I was kind of like
00:26:14.920yeah and i went out on the lake later that day or the next day with her and a few other women from
00:26:23.040the from the college and we saw a loon and they knew that i had never seen one and they were kind
00:26:32.080enough to say like go ahead jared like and so they sent me ahead and they were like it'll dive
00:26:36.740when you get close and it didn't so i just came up right next to it and got to kind of make eye
00:26:44.160contact with it yeah it's just very cool yeah there's so much there's so much bigger than you
00:26:54.900think or i i'm always surprised at how big they are you know they look like ducks i mean you get
00:27:00.480so i knew they were big because i worked at a wildlife rescue in ohio and their logo was a loon
00:27:10.060and they had a stuffed loon on a shelf above the desk where i worked
00:27:14.720which was so weird and at the time i said are loons in ohio and they were kind of like
00:27:21.680no not really i was gonna say i spend a lot of time in the woods and i've never seen a loon here
00:27:30.040yeah so i guess they've kind of loomed large loomed loomed loon large for me for a long time
00:27:37.580And, you know, I had read a lot about kind of mythology attached to loons and a lot of their kind of fascinating physiology about the density of their bones and how eye color helps them see underwater and stuff.
00:27:51.040So, yeah, they were just kind of it was a big celebrity encounter for me.
00:27:57.460Yeah, I feel that every time I see them, there's no it never gets old, you know, you're never too cool for loons.
00:28:05.840No. It's the sound, too. I mean, the sound really just does it for me. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think I would ever get over it. I mean, there are birds that live near me that I feel the same way. I mean, morning dubs were close to making it into the book, and pileated woodpeckers, and yeah, there are lots of creatures that are celebrities to me still.
00:28:30.140so let's go back to that second part of my two-part question then because maybe the answer
00:28:37.120is affiliated woodpeckers um what animals or plants are shaping how you think these days or
00:28:50.460i'm thinking a lot about oak trees lately i've been reading doug tallamey's books
00:29:01.240about oak trees because i i have a little space for more trees i've planted
00:29:07.280i don't know 20 trees in my yard in the last handful of years and i don't have that much
00:29:13.300space but there since i have a little bit of yard and i really want to be in the woods
00:29:19.500something kind of occurred to me that there was no reason for me not to start converting this yard
00:29:24.240to a patch of woods and doing research on what native trees kind of have the most I mean this is
00:29:33.100a slippery thing to try to define but have a lot of kind of local impact I did a deep dive into oak
00:29:40.920species and acorns are just one of my favorite objects in the world but tiny hats yeah I just
00:29:49.000love them well acorns and pine cones are just i just think they're so beautiful but so i've i've
00:29:55.480planted a red oak and a white oak and i found some volunteer kind of little babies out in my
00:30:02.620parents woods and brought them home i think one's a swamp oak i planted a bur oak and it it's just
00:30:10.800another one of those moments of okay there's there's more that i can learn in a lifetime
00:30:17.000for any given species just watching any of these little young oaks and saplings grow and finding a
00:30:27.620single like bump a gall on a leaf and trying to identify what insect made it because you know
00:30:34.540these galls are like an insect comes along and injects essentially venom but it could be all
00:30:41.420kinds of compounds into the leaf and that gives the leaf instructions to grow a gall that they'll
00:30:47.660then plant eggs in and just seeing all of them and realizing all these little nurseries on these
00:30:53.660oak trees and that it's more than i can know and they're all unique and all of these different
00:30:58.760relationships with these insects developed over just you know millions and billions of years and
00:31:05.640And it's just another one of those, like, it's like a grown-up experience of turning over a rock in the woods and being like, okay, yeah, there's just infinite, hidden, fascinating, beautiful things here.
00:31:22.960They're not necessarily visible when you first take a look, but there's always a deeper way of seeing and more to know.
00:31:30.820And I find that very helpful just sort of as I get older. And there's always a pull to a kind of cynicism or things fade from familiarity. So all those wonders keep trying to hide in plain sight.
00:31:49.340And so reminding myself that that there's always more. I can't know it all and I can't remember it all. And the point isn't mastery in some way, but but enthusiasm. I've just more and more realized that, like, I don't want to be an expert. I want to be an enthusiast. And so finding more fuel for that fire really does it for me. So oak trees at the moment.
00:32:13.000yeah thanks that sort of feels like in some ways like the story of the book can you talk about
00:32:21.440i guess that part you know like when it gets you can talk about it in the context of of the story
00:32:29.840in the book like what it got so hard to leave the house how you tricked yourself into doing it
00:32:37.100yeah i had to do that yesterday hmm it's it's almost a kind of faith which is not a word i
00:32:48.180reach for very often yeah um but it is a kind of faith because i don't believe it will help
00:32:57.620on the days that it's hard i really don't i know but you mean like there's no part of me that is
00:33:04.660like ah i have like a deep inherent wisdom that knows this is the right thing to do no it is just
00:33:12.500a mechanical one foot in front of the other thing i will rely on that that that sense of faith
00:33:20.160mixed with a little bit of identity helps like in so much as that my identity is kind of a system
00:33:28.740of beliefs that have like accreted over over years sometimes that will help to have like all
00:33:38.400right i am someone who goes out into the woods when i don't feel well like that's part of where
00:33:43.520my my medicine is or that's a thing i do that mixed with faith that even though i can't feel
00:33:51.520that I know that has helped me in the past will get me to not necessarily
00:33:57.220shower, not necessarily like put an outfit that makes sense together,
00:34:02.220but, but like put on shoes and go. And like yesterday it helped, you know,
00:34:07.000I was having a really rough day with, yeah,
00:34:10.220the inauguration and everything. And, uh,
00:35:39.380Like if, if I can have those and string together days that feel like wins, even if they're hard, that's so much better than what I used to do where I would have a bad day.
00:35:52.340I would hold on to it as some kind of loss or failure that was on my permanent record.
00:36:00.320And like, then I would feel them stacking up.
00:36:04.080And then that has its own kind of inertia.
00:36:19.460And yeah, this day was tough, but I did some things I could be proud of. Just be proud of, but things that mean I'm honoring my own worth that I think I deserve to feel better. Like the fact that I did the trudge and put on the boots and went out means like I'm voting for myself, that I'm on my own team a little bit more.
00:36:41.560my mom used to say put put verbs in your sentences and so sometimes i think about that
00:36:48.740whereas if if i can find any way to exercise any kind of agency it it can help because then it takes
00:36:55.760me a little bit out of the passive mode like i'm at least in the fight you know
00:37:01.840yeah i'm gonna read this piece you wrote
00:37:08.800you wrote we seldom admit this seductive comfort of hopelessness it saves us from ambiguity
00:37:19.560it has an answer for every question there's just no point it's just not worth the effort
00:37:26.300hope on the other hand is messy if a good outcome is possible then we have things to do
00:37:33.180we must weather the possibility of happiness we must hush shame and doubt and participate
00:37:41.480in the art of living because we are needed to usher good into the world for others and ourselves
00:37:48.800when you say we are needed to usher good into the world
00:37:54.480can you talk about who you mean and what you need from them
00:38:00.020i mean all of us and it goes back to that meaning is a crafted thing sure but so is
00:38:10.320culture and so is so is civilization and so are shared values of any human family so
00:38:18.340sometimes it it feels like it's the most sensitive or empathetic among us that get
00:38:27.120trampled the hardest by self-doubt or hopelessness and and yet these are the people i want
00:38:37.000with me crafting meaning and defining the narrative and so you know i want the empathetic
00:38:45.280people the sensitive people the creative and imaginative and loving people to to weather
00:38:52.340the, the, the burden of hope. And that framework is really familiar to me because part of what
00:39:03.480depression has done to me historically is, is really emphasize that idea that hope is costly
00:39:13.760because you know i i say in the book that depression is a liar and depression defends
00:39:23.100itself and for me part of that was always there's no point in doing things to try to get better
00:39:30.500and more than just there's no point it'll be another failure on that on that imaginary
00:39:38.260permanent record because it's like you're going to put out energy you don't have to try and when
00:39:44.120it doesn't work that disappointment will be worse than if you hadn't tried at all and so that that
00:39:50.740ties into what i think of as the burden of of hope yeah it's it's sort of paradoxical it's like
00:39:59.000the people i find that are so confident um that they always know the right stuff are often the
00:40:06.580people i think of as least suited to to lead us yeah and so it's like all right no i want my i want
00:40:16.120my thoughtful sensitive self-reflective community to to learn the the skill of of weathering hope
00:40:24.180and yeah to to keep on keeping on yeah and i i want the stories from chronically ill people
00:40:36.460And I want cancer stories and suicidal ideation stories, you know,
00:40:43.900because I think they're probably the most honest about what our economy has
00:40:48.560wrought upon us, what pieces of our deluded culture have wrought,
00:40:54.820and where we find other pieces of hope, how we find each other,
00:41:01.580yeah there's this there's this pervasive taboo against stories that make people uncomfortable
00:41:09.400and i think you know we fight that by biting it telling those stories i also think that's
00:41:16.840the cure for why they make people uncomfortable like there's so so much um struggle that is
00:41:23.040invisible and then when it surfaces people think it's like aberrant that it's kind of
00:41:30.540rare and and to be shunned um but you know it's like my experience with with depression
00:41:36.960in speaking up i i have gotten so much correspondence from people they're like oh yeah
00:41:43.860that's me or i see my you know messages that talk about people seeing themselves in in in my book
00:41:50.600we know these things aren't rare from from just the stats i remember the first time i talked to
00:41:59.520my family doctor about depression and that was hard and scary and i thought it was gonna be
00:42:05.240i didn't know what i thought i don't and i don't know why i didn't research it but i was like am
00:42:09.740i gonna get put in some kind of mandatory inpatient facility for bringing this up
00:42:15.940and she was like she talked to me like it was the most typical thing in the world i think she even
00:42:21.520said to me like oh i've i've talked about this three times today or something it's like okay
00:42:26.320i don't hear these sorts of stories in in public forums so it augments the feeling of isolation
00:42:35.500and hopelessness because it feels like i'm an unmapped territory so i think the stories are
00:42:40.660so important and i don't know who making them invisible serves1.00
00:42:45.720i mean i guess i know but but fuck those people yeah fuck those people0.99
00:42:55.540yeah and I I know what you mean I want to read another piece that I had pulled up that I want1.00
00:43:03.840to talk about one thing that is so great about this thug about suicide and depression
00:43:12.820is that it's really funny like unexpectedly like I laughed out loud many times reading it
00:43:20.860which is really endearing and one of the twists I love early on in the book is you're talking about
00:43:29.620your wife Leslie and falling in love and what an incredible strong person she is and you sort of
00:43:36.860set it up so that you the reader especially if you're you know accustomed to a certain shape
00:43:43.580of narrative for women is expecting, you know, that Leslie's going to save the day. And I'm sort
00:43:51.000of cringing waiting for that part in the book, but knowing you well enough in the little I know
00:43:56.520you to suspect that's not where we're going. And then we get this, Leslie was there as an
00:44:03.140ambassador of kindness, an undeniable example that the world was not all hurt, isolation,
00:44:09.940and abandonment. Perhaps they, the horses, sensed in her someone who knew pain and loneliness.
00:44:19.160She endured the mean horses, bites and kicks, and being tossed into walls. She soothed the
00:44:25.640neglected horses, vacant, shattered things, impatient for an ending. She understood how
00:44:31.320to be there for broken, hopeless animals. Yes, I know. Here we pause a moment. I understand the
00:44:39.660parallel I'm approaching and it's time to swerve aside. I'm writing a story about my chronic mental
00:44:45.020illness and have now introduced my wife as an expert in healing wounded creatures. So let me
00:44:50.500get out in front of this and state outright, I'm not building to a metaphor. I am not a horse.
00:44:57.240Leslie is not my doctor, my keeper, or my deus ex vacuna. She did not appear in my life as if by
00:45:03.860magic to rescue me. She didn't find me starving in an empty lot behind a Walmart near Lansing.
00:45:11.940That would be simplistic, dishonest, manic pixie dream garbage. Leslie's virtues are real,0.97
00:45:18.480but neither romance nor friendship solves mental illness. Nor can we shore up the cracks in our
00:45:24.420foundations with other people's lives. The story of seeking mental health is rarely a story about
00:45:30.540saviors teamwork certainly saviors no thank you so much for that and also i i want to
00:45:39.900attach it to a question about finding a team you know especially if we're alone or we think yeah
00:45:48.600yeah that was hard for me and if some context i did not mention in the book was that i had been
00:45:57.760married once before I think I mentioned that but it was kind of an abusive relationship you know
00:46:05.800a friend of mine in grad school once took me aside this friend was pretty drunk at the time
00:46:10.760and she said Jared she's mean to you and I hadn't really really figured that out yet but
00:46:18.260first I just want to pause this shout out those friends and and like have the courage to say if
00:46:24.040someone is mean to someone. Thanks. Thanks, friend. It was a big help. It was that. And
00:46:29.060at the time I was, I was in grad school for English and my then wife was, was going to
00:46:34.960school for nursing and she told me she hated it, but she had to do it because one of us needed a
00:46:40.140real job. And so she was like a martyr because of my bad choices. And so that those things together
00:46:48.320were like well let me let me free you let me let me let me help you out but i didn't really have
00:46:53.800the skill of having a team is is what i'm saying and so then eventually when when i met leslie and
00:46:59.900we started dating and it was a developing skill to figure out how to have a team um
00:47:07.560and it's really useful because there are serious holes in my memory especially as
00:47:15.340as it relates to depression whereas Leslie will have a position outside to say like hey I think
00:47:25.240you're kind of rough right now and you know there are things we can do or hey you're doing a lot
00:47:30.900better I know this is rough but you're doing a lot better than other years she reminded me not
00:47:36.360long ago that when we first got together if I had really bad depression a thing I would do is lay
00:47:42.000face down on the floor and ask her not to talk to me or touch me i don't do that anymore so
00:47:48.780you know would i know that i don't do that anymore if she didn't tell me nope probably not so
00:47:55.480yeah the team is so huge and so vital but it's also a skill it really is it's it's it's that
00:48:02.820idea of constructive vulnerability which i think is a huge strength of the human animal but
00:48:09.780i think it's a cultural failing that that we and i'm going to say especially men
00:48:18.460are terrible at it and you know you can't benefit from the wonderful diversity of of humans and all
00:48:27.980our different experiences and expertises and talents if if you don't find ways to embrace that
00:48:34.740that authentic vulnerable self and put it out in the world because you know people aren't going to
00:48:41.060read your mind yeah and the whole manic pixie dream girl thing that i was very aware of going
00:48:47.720into that chapter so i was trying to figure out how to deal with it and it occurred to me i'm just
00:48:54.000gonna hang a lantern on it like yeah i know it's the same thing of you know going into this writing
00:48:59.300this book i wanted to be very careful not to say not to have it be a book it's like go touch a tree
00:49:04.240and you'll feel better you know because those books exist and kind of the toxic positivity
00:49:10.360version and so yeah that was that was on the short list of fears I had going in going into
00:49:17.700the book so I love that I love that you zeroed in on that nobody else has mentioned that part to me
00:49:23.800but oh yeah I loved that I also just to go back to this you know how hard it is to find a team and
00:49:32.320the way that that is also like kind of financially so unavailable like therapy is so
00:49:41.200not fetishized but it sort of held up as like are you in therapy i'm in therapy and like i love
00:49:47.180therapy really really thankful that being a cancer patient got me access to free therapy
00:49:52.760put it on the list of pros but it's not accessible you know it's so expensive and
00:50:01.540waiting lists for so long my favorite comedian Maria Bamford has this amazing piece where she
00:50:07.480talks about calling a car rental place I'm sure you've seen this place this piece go around or if
00:50:12.640you haven't go look it up after but she talks about calling a car rental place when she was
00:50:17.040contemplating suicide and she called it and told the rental person the person was like I can sort
00:50:23.280of only rent you a car but I do believe every life has value and Maria was like yes it tricks
00:50:31.200you into helping me yeah yeah for sure i mean it's a conversation i remember where i would
00:50:37.920argue that i don't think we could afford it even when i was going to mark because i feel like even
00:50:42.100with insurance it was i don't know it was maybe like 75 dollars a visit or something yeah then
00:50:50.200yeah yeah which was too much for us and you know and then the place just stopped taking our
00:50:57.520insurance and so I was going to stop going and then Mark was kind of like we can just do a side
00:51:04.460deal and I was like we can like weird and what a it's just such a terrible system yeah and I
00:51:13.160remember how daunting it was when I finally started looking for a counselor too because
00:51:18.360it's expensive it's hard to access and then you have to essentially shop around it's almost you
00:51:25.260know like dating because there have been all these studies and it's like the best outcomes with with
00:51:32.040counseling come if you really like feel like you click with your counselor and you feel like they're
00:51:37.500an ally and they get you and it's like oh is that all you know like okay so you're at your lowest
00:51:45.800you're at a low point and you want a counselor they're expensive you know around me they're hard
00:51:51.500to find and then you have to go see if you hit it off by how by hashing out your most painful stuff
00:51:58.540again and again again yeah yeah right so and i talk about in the book the first person i went to
00:52:06.200you know said things like well maybe as a writer maybe you need your pain it's like wow like did
00:52:12.940you get your your counseling degree from a series of bumper stickers or something like what why do
00:52:18.180you think i'm here what terrible thing to say and what a toxic myth yeah i mean i it reminds me
00:52:25.300there's a woman in my cancer yoga who went to see a naturopath who told her that her diagnosis was
00:52:34.780just her body getting ready to die and so she should just start preparing to die she's like0.96
00:52:40.880have stage 2 cancer like i i have other shit i should do besides prepare to die like0.98
00:52:47.600i can do chemo naturopath like there's medicine that feels criminal i mean like how many times0.96
00:52:56.160has has she said that to someone you know like what a horrifying thing i'm pretty sure there
00:53:02.580is a criminal case against that naturopath's office right now so that wouldn't make sense
00:53:08.320Yeah, that's not to keep bringing out cancer. I mean, something about it is that it makes me very selfish or self-centered. You know, I bring everything back to it because it's like where I'm at.
00:53:20.580Of course, that's on your mind. That's perfectly good. Don't worry about it.
00:53:26.960There's also ways in which I think it relates. It feels so related to so many conversations about chronic illness and chronic mental health. There were so many parts of the book that I felt so seen by, even though it's such a totally different thing.
00:53:43.920You know, like thinking about shame. You know, I think you make the point in the book that we assign shame to mental illness in a way that we don't to physical illness. But there is a weird way in which you do feel shame when you have cancer or chronic illness.
00:54:03.120So the things where you're like, oh, what the fuck did I do?0.92
00:54:06.140Like, what secret thing did I do in my life that brought this upon me, you know?0.95
00:58:09.620The nectar of fact becoming the honey of meaning.
00:58:14.280and then i want to read this one other piece about magic it's from a little bit later in the book
00:58:21.740you're right change is always on the way to meet us with or without our participation
00:58:27.700but there is magic in intentional change in the audacious act of inviting change
00:58:35.080and walking to meet it what do you think about magic these days
00:58:41.320i think i'm a lot better at giving myself permission to reach for that word
00:58:49.700as as somebody who's sort of been science-minded for a lot of my life the concept of magic is
00:58:56.600important to me it's related to that idea that i'm partly in control of meaning making
00:59:04.220in collaboration with the natural world and i often reach for the idea of magic kind of in the
00:59:12.760in the same breath with the sacred the idea that that when i go to nature it isn't just because
00:59:19.480it's pretty you know or it isn't just because it feels a certain way or because it feels a certain
00:59:26.280way and feels like home and feels like it's connecting with me in sort of a unique way that
00:59:31.780needs a word. Yeah, I've gotten a lot less shy about about the idea of magic and kind of personal
00:59:38.380magic and the sacred. Yeah, I talked about in the book, you know, I was raised by two atheists,
00:59:46.700but we did nature walks every day. And it was clear to me that morel season was a holiday,
00:59:52.840sort of a religious holiday. And I never met my maternal grandmother, but all of the stories about
01:00:00.000her and her wildflower gardens and the way she taught my mom how jewel weed could soothe an itch
01:00:08.740and then my mom taught me. Yeah, all of that sort of is interwoven into what I think of as magic
01:00:16.080these days. I love that light thread running through the book. It's really, I don't know,
01:00:25.900It plays with magic in the way that I often write about it and play with it too, you know, and why we play with the word witchcraft or feel really at home there, you know.
01:00:37.280It's like thinking about it in a way that has a lot of love for those grandmothers and their wildflower gardens.