Naomi Davis, A COAT OF YELLOW PAINT

[1:47]Zibby Owens: This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, moms don't have time to read books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a New Publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com.

[2:20]Naomi Davis: Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. Thanks so much to Shoshana for sponsoring today's episode. At Shoshana they're celebrating their twentieth year of swimwear which is great because I remember when it first came out in 2001 and the industry was still selling swimwear just as sets. And Shoshana knew that from her experience that women are not always the same size on the top as they are on the bottom. So she set out to make a whole new collection that was inclusive of more women and sizes and was honestly the first to introduce the concept of selling tops and bottoms separately as well as using bra cup sizing in the swim industry which seems like such an obvious idea. And of course like it's not. And she created it and it's amazing because all of this has now become industry standard. And you can you know find everything this way but you didn't used to be able to and now she has a line even for kids sizes two t to up to twelve. Anyway, I love Shoshana's dresses. I'm literally wearing one right now as I record the sponsor message that I love. It's like blue and white striped at the top and a long blue frilly skirt and I'm just such a huge fan of Shoshana the person and Shoshana the company. So definitely go check out everything that they are doing. Also, if you want a discount on Shoshana, you get 25% off the whole site, which is amazing. And now I think I actually have to go do that. The code is book club 25, and it's valid from May 11 to May 25. So if you go to shoshana.com and you type in the code at the end book club 25, you will get 25% off everything. I highly recommend the dresses, which are oh so flattering, and of course being able to shop the swimsuits. Thanks, Shoshana. Naomi Davis is the author of A Coat of Moving Through the Noise to Love the Life You Live. Naomi Davis was named a Forbes top 10 parenting influencer. She shares happy and helpful stories across her social media channels and award winning website, which started in 2007 as an online journal about her newlywed life in New York City while a Juilliard dance student, Love Taza, has amassed a loyal following reaching millions around the world. Now Naomi continues to inspire audiences with vibrant photos, engaging videos, and heartfelt words that document her adventures parenting five that's five if you didn't hear me right five young children traveling near and far celebrating life's simple joys and finding purpose in the everyday. Welcome, Naomi. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss a coat of yellow paint. Yes. Thank you for having me. This is such a delight. I felt like your book, it could have been us just like sitting at coffee. And I I was like, well, now I have to tell you, like, all my stuff. Yes, please do. I love hearing that. I love hearing that. I wanted it I just I wanted it to feel that way because I just really love the chance to connect that way where it doesn't feel I just I love hearing that it felt great to approachable, I guess, is what I'm getting at. So thank you. You're welcome. So you started blogging like before blogging was even a thing. It was like 2007 and you got going. And in the book, you said it was a way to connect with people back home when you went to Juilliard. And it hasn't stopped since. So tell me about sort of the evolution of blogging and how you've built this really amazing following and how it has culminated in this book. Yeah, it's crazy to think about, right? Because in 2007, there wasn't even social media or brand partnerships or just this whole birth has happened since since then of really an entire industry. So I feel really lucky with my timing. I just I and I always I feel lucky that I started when I did, because I think that the root of why I shared how I shared back then has been able to really keep me grounded in that sort of sense, even to this day, as as this world has just like so evolved since. But I feel so fortunate it was it was just a happy accident in 2007 that I think it was like word-of-mouth back in that day that you would find blogs. And so, yeah, five kids later, still going strong. And I just I really do enjoy being able to share and connect with people all over the world. It's just it's bananas to think about how we can use a platform like that and feel like I have, like, BFFs that I've never actually met in person, you know, across the ocean. So yeah. The other day, I was meeting up with now that we can finally sort of meet up with some people, I had a friend come over and and my kids were like, well, how do you know? I'm like, she's my friend. She's my friend from the Internet. And they're like, what? You're not supposed to, like, meet random people on the Internet. I'm like, but these are all the people I know. It's like, I'm gonna have to talk to you about all the safety things because I don't know how this necessarily is going to come off when I say this. But I've met some of my closest and dearest friends. And in the book, actually talk about how the our first visitor to the hospital and my little one, Eleanor, was born. We literally met because of a comment she left on my blog a million years ago in a friendship just really blossomed. And she threw my baby shower, and I threw her baby shower. And, you know, she lives she lives all the way in England right now, but it's just amazing how we can feel intertwined and connected despite. So it it can be a really beautiful thing sometimes. I feel like that about books, like books I read twenty years ago that I read and I was like, oh my gosh, like this person would be my best friend. Some of them are now really close friends of mine. Oh, love I like meet them because it's true. Anyway Yes. It's just funny how you end up connecting. Anyway, so this coat of yellow paint, which you named after the piano that you maniacally painted in the middle of the night or something like that, this beautiful color yellow. And by the way, I love that you paint all sorts of walls, different colors. Like a beauty color myself. I'm dying over behind you your beautiful rainbow wall of books. Oh, thank you. Yes, I did that. It's gorgeous. I love it. No, downstairs, our living room is like pink and I'm like all into color. So I just love it. And I love how someone said to you about your Instagram that like the colors of your home made her eyes hurt or something. And you were like, but that's my life. Well, just, it's so funny because sometimes we get these comments and I, you know, I talked a lot in my book about the Internet because I do think it's really hard for us sometimes to understand how to separate something that someone's going to say to you. It's like, you don't even know that person. And if you met them in the street and they came up to you and like said the critique that they're saying, are you going to completely change your life and base all your future decisions off of some random thing? No, you're not. But sometimes we feel the sense of, like, well, they're like they have authority because they just said this to me through their keyboard in some place that I don't even know. And so it's funny. And think, you know, it takes me a lot of time sometimes still, too. But you have to look at it like, but you don't live here. If my walls make your eyes hurt, I think that's Okay. Like, you don't have to deal with it. I do. And this makes me happy. So, I you think we're both good, but it's good to always kind of have that check-in and be like, why am I taking this so seriously? Or why am I giving so much weight to some funny opinion that like someone, you know, like Glass Jar seventy seven said, I don't even know this person. So I feel like that is one of the big themes in this book is sort of taking all this input and putting it in the place where it deserves to be, not front and center in your mind, which is so tempting. And it even started with when you decided to have kids. So young, right? You got married before you graduated from college. And people, I mean, I can't speak to how happy you are, but it sounds from the book that it sounds like you guys are still happy. And that you tried for two years to get pregnant and people were dismissing your concerns because you were young, oh, well, are you doing having kids so young? So tell me about having people sort of on your shoulder your whole life and how you've learned to put them where they belong. Yeah, it's definitely a big theme in the book because I think it's taken me a lot of time and experience to finally find my footing or my confidence in the fact that I have done a couple of things, a more untraditional or unconventional way. So, you know, I was at Juilliard and I got married two days after my 20 birthday. I still had a year left of school, and that was so misunderstood and confusing to my my director, family, a lot of people, and then choosing to start trying for a family straight away. That especially felt difficult. It felt really isolating just because I was in such a different phase of life now from so many of my closest girlfriends, so many people around me. And when it's so dismissed, something that you're just you really want and you believe is is valid, but it's not valid because of your age. Like, it's like, Okay, so when when can I want this thing too in life? Like, when am I allowed to vocalize that without having X, Y, and Z? All of these people close people, anyone just be like, oh, that's just so silly. What happened when it happens? Or you're so you have so much time. Why would you even want that right now? I really learned to just compartmentalize it in a way and say like, Okay, well, like I back then, I just did not have the tools to understand that, like the feedback, the constant feedback that we get despite whatever it is we're going through. It's a lot when you don't know how to handle it, when you don't know how to take it and say, but this is what I want and I it's a worthy cause or I think that it's it's good or I shouldn't have to defend or explain myself. And I didn't I just didn't know how to do that. And it was really, really hard. And I swore back then and even up to a couple of years ago, I was like, I don't think I could ever talk about this publicly because it's just it hasn't been understood even by like my closest circle. But I think over the years, I've kind of as I've gained some tools, I've realized like, no, no, no, no, You can you can absolutely carve the path that you want in this life. And nobody else gets a say when, you know, if you're hurting, you're hurt is valid or if you're confused or or you want something. I think it's so beautiful how unique each of our paths are. And I think sometimes maybe it's scary for somebody when they realize that you're going to do something very different from how they think it might. It maybe should look or how it looked for them. So I was really hopeful that by sharing, even though it's still it's it's hard for me sometimes, like as the book released, I was it just bubbled up a lot of those same emotions from back then. I'm like, oh, shoot, is this going to be a phase two of me feeling everything again? But I really do. And it's amazing how I've had so many comments or emails from people who have had very similar experiences, even trying to get pregnant young or or something completely a 180. But they feel like, oh, wow, I feel really seen right now. Thank you. And so I just I think that it's I'm hopeful that it can help somebody feel less alone because we shouldn't have to we shouldn't have to feel that way, you know, despite the way that we we do things, however different they might be from from the next. So funny, I did an event last night with Melissa Bernstein, who wrote this book called Lifelines. Yeah. Anyway, she said the same thing that once she had put it out into the world, she was like, oh, no. Like, guess, hers was more about existential depression and how she dealt with that and whatever and how she's gotten a handle on it. And then Yeah. With, like, the 10,000 emails she got, she was like, oh my God. And she's like, I felt myself getting into the old patterns, but now it's because of the book. And the book was supposed to be talking about how I'd gotten over the old pattern. I know, I know. It's this funny and I felt that too. I wanted it was important that my tone, I was like, I don't want this to come across as like I figured this out and these are the steps and this is how you do it, because I still struggle a lot sometimes with all of this noise around me of just, you know, we're in this day and age where we're raising our little ones and there's people can weigh in from literally anywhere in a way. And regardless of that, there's just we're just so connected, which is such a great thing. But it also can be kind of detrimental if we allow it to just, you know, like, are you putting your phone at your bedside table before bed? Are you checking it the first thing in the morning? Like, are you allowing that feedback to just always surround you? And as I've learned to place it aside and really live my life, I think sometimes I can still see myself going back to me like, oh, wait, why am I why am I caring so much? You know, why am I allowing these little tiny things to take such hold? So, yeah, it's it's amazing how our brains work and we go right. We revert right back to those things. I shouldn't even admit this. But this morning, so I wrote this article recently about how I'm a little older than my husband and I've started aging. Like I'm 44 and he's like still in his 30s and he has not really started aging at all and I sort of have and I so I wrote this piece about it and somebody commented like, you know, it's time for women to stop like this anti a this ageist society and da da da da da and I found myself this morning when I was like in the midst of like boxes of life cereal and like getting the kids ready like being like, wait wait, I just have to finish this as I emailed her back, like, on the comments. Like, no, no, no. Here's what I was trying to do. Like, I'm so sorry. And I was like, what am I doing? Like Yeah. I'm like, I'm putting my own family life on hold and, like, jeopardizing on time departures to talk to a complete stranger from don't even know where she lives and what Right. Going on in her anyway. So I get it. I'll just Yeah. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's quince.com/zippy for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quince.com/zippy.

[18:20]Naomi Davis: Well, tell me about writing this book. Tell me about, I know a lot of it were, they were sort of essay ish type pieces. Even the beautiful one you wrote about life in 2020 and crafting the plans to learn Italian or Spanish. Think it was. Yeah. And instead learning vocabulary of pandemia or whatever. Yes. Yep. Tell me about how this became a book and the writing process behind it. I feel I've always loved writing and I feel so fortunate with the blog. It's just been so fun to kind of do like And I've just you know, it's been very, very casual, the format and just the way I've done it and I approached it. And I actually I was pregnant with my last two in 2018. I was halfway through my pregnancy and I sat down to write a blog post one morning. I was I think it was twenty weeks. But, you know, I mean, pregnancy is just it can be a lot. And my twin pregnancy really, really took everything out of me. I remember sitting there and I was just like my back was cramping and I was just I was in like this throbbing pain and trying to just hone in on what I wanted to write. And I realized there were just so many hours that passed. And as I looked at what I'd written and I was reading it back, I was kind of surprised myself because they were more intimate and vulnerable essays or stories that turned into these essays that I didn't think I ever was actually going to open up about publicly. I held them really close to my heart. I just I wasn't you know, I just it was I wasn't ready for the world to weigh in. I talked about my crisis with faith that day. Was writing. I talked about finding out that we were having both both baby A and baby B, that chapter and and then beginning to open up about my fertility experience. And I was like, so I was truly like, I was so surprised. I was like, wait, what is happening right now? And I realized as I felt this pull, I really wanted to get it up. I wanted to share. I wanted to post it. I realized I wanted to give it its proper format so that I could really put it underneath this bigger umbrella of this messaging that I was trying to get across in what turned out to be, you know, like dozens of pages that my blog posts have always been short and sweet. And it just I was like, I got to figure out how to do that. And I realized this was the start of my book. And I feel really fortunate I was able to find incredible literary agents and an imprint that really caught the vision and understood what it was I wanted to do and supported me with that instead of trying to. I think sometimes it can be really easy to be put into like a little bit of a box of like, oh, let's do it this way. And especially being a blogger and having shared publicly the way that I have, I just I didn't want it to be anything regurgitated. I didn't want to do like a blog to book type thing. I really wanted to do it this specific way. So I feel so fortunate I've had that support to be able to do that. It was a very challenging process, too, though, because writing is so different from writing a book versus, you know, writing a blog post or an Instagram caption or something like that. So I learned an incredible amount during this process, and it just gets me excited because I hope to be able to use these new tools and gain more down the road just because I loved it, despite the fact that it was very challenging, especially in 2020, trying to write with, you know, all of these circumstances that were put on all of us. But I just I'm grateful it's done. There were many moments during that the last couple of months where I was I was like, I don't think this can happen. I don't know how I can find time to write without a child coming and stepping on my keyboard. So so what are some of the tricks and tools you made from changing from a blog post Instagram caption mentality to more of a book length with like an arc that has to An arc. I know I had to go back and be like, oh, an arc. Oh, really? Oh, interesting. I don't write like that. That. No, I really, truly had to sit down in the beginning. And, you know, I it's just it took it took a minute in the beginning to sit down and realize what I want, how I want to say it and not just to come flat out and say this, you know, but to kind of paint more of a story with it, which I actually really love to try to weave in a few of these experiences in a more storytelling format. But I think, you know, I feel really lucky that I was able to do it with I had a great editor over at Harbor Collins that was able to kind of sit down in the beginning and say, well, there's a lot of run ons here. But she also was really sweet to say, I understand that that's your very conversationalist in the way that you write. And so we can we can keep that. And I I didn't want to have to bring in a coeditor or a ghostwriter or anything like that. I was like, I know I have a lot of run ons when I write when I when I talk or when I but I I want this to be this way. If you we can polish it a little bit, but I really wanted it to keep that. And everyone was was very gracious and and let me do that. Now that you've done that, do you have plans for another book? Are you gonna, like, wait till more things percolate? Or what's the I we do I have another book, actually. But we haven't visited much of that yet. It's been as we've been launching this one, I I've been everything's kind of just sit in the back of my head, kind of I haven't been able to think. I know that we had a conversation a few weeks ago. Actually, someone was like, we should probably visit visit that. And I was like, I don't think I can visit that for maybe another month. Let's let's let's put the brakes on that for a minute. But but I am excited to maybe do something to a little bit different than this one. I loved doing essays, but I think it'd be fun to try to challenge myself with something else. So so we'll see. But down the road, hopefully, yes. Wow. Well, I just loved as sort of a fellow New Yorker and really appreciating what it must have been like even the five floor walk up. My sister-in-law used to live in a five floor walk up and even just like visiting her, I was like, ugh. I know, right? Well, I'm having the energy and I'm thinking about you with kids doing that and the groceries and like, you know, wasting away time so you didn't have to like tackle the stairs by like what I know. I know. It's so funny though. I look back at that chapter. I think we were there for about five five years. And it really is one of my fondest. Like, have such beautiful, vivid, happy memories in that 5th Floor walk up, counting those 67 stairs up and down, pregnant with two little ones, then with three. I mean, it really was. And I do. And I really was hopeful that, you know, how whatever that sort of challenge looks like you in your life, because obviously not everybody has to hike 67 stairs multiple times a day. I really think that when you reframe a challenge like that in your life as an adventure or just being able to look at it and build it as a as a positive habit. Like, I just my kids. And I think that's what helped me with my mentality is my kids never saw it's like, Oh, we got to hike the stairs. Like, they truly just grew up with the stairs and loved the stairs and the games we played on the stairs or whatever it was that I just felt like we had built it into our daily routine as as such a norm, you know? And I think that we all have that ability, but it's just it's just how we look at it. So it's amazing because it really was like this tiny shoebox department that was our favorite, despite the fact that it really felt like, you know, we were we were doing some sort of gym circuit to get there every day. Oh my gosh. But I love how you also reframed your body essentially and how your daughter, I think, was telling you that your tummy was doughy and soft and warm and everything. From such a loving place. I know. Right? She was like, oh, I love your warm, soft, doughy tummy, mama. Right? But we as women, we're like, wait, like, let me suck in. Let me like, hold on. Don't don't touch me. I don't know. We just we put a lot on ourselves. I think society doesn't help sometimes. But I realize as I become a mother, especially that that that's a conversation I want to make sure I don't I don't leave on the table. But that, you know, we're very we just I want them to be able to celebrate what gifts our bodies are from a young age, and especially as I know that they probably will grow up and have, you know, complex relationships here or there as they navigate their their own their own bodies and things like that. But I was like, I don't want to put all of my own insecurities, having grown up as a dancer or maybe in a household where it just wasn't necessarily a positive thing. Don't want to put that on them. And I think we forget that we easily can even even not meaning to write it just with like a one off comment or not wanting to get into the picture or jump into the pool with the swimsuit because we just don't feel ready or whatever it is. And so, yeah, I was I was also one that was a little nervous. I was just like, I don't I don't know. I know that I need to do this. It's important to me to share because I really feel grateful to have made that progress in my own my own journey, which didn't really happen until I became a mother, which I think is really interesting. So I am so glad you shared that. You know, I've had twins. I've had four kids like my tummy. Anyway. Yeah. But sometimes I think I've gotten too far. Like, keep telling my kids whenever they, like, look at my stomach or saying, no, no. I'm so proud of my stomach because that's how I got all of you. Not bad. You know? Yeah. I used to have a flattish stomach and that was fine, but it was I would much rather have you. And my daughter, we had a play date the other day and she was like, do want to see my mom's stomach? Because I was laughing at her because she had four kids up. No, no, no. Like, it's okay. Don't pull up my shirt. I mean, I'm all for it, you know? But like That's so sweet. Anyway. But that's so and that's that is complete. That's that's it right there. Like, she looks at you and you are her safety. You are her comfort. You are she loves she loves looking at her mom and she loves your tummy. And that like, I think that that's just if we could all look at ourselves the way that our children see us, you know, I think we would all feel a lot more confident and in what beautiful beings we are, you know, so oh, that's beautiful. I love that. And your other message in the book that was also so relevant and so great is this whole thing of just being a mom, right? And I had many years when I wasn't working out of the house and, you know, I'd go to like a dinner party or something and I feel like, well, I'm just at home, you know, I'm just at home with my twins or whatever. And I don't know. I felt so much that especially the men were just like, oh, okay. And then they, like, didn't know what to talk to me about. Yeah. Luckily, I really like to ask questions. So I'm like, okay. Back to you. But I always felt so bad about myself. Right? Like, I have nothing to add to this conversation now. Or like, you know, despite the fact that I was working so hard all day. Yes. 20 fourseven. And he was probably sitting at his desk, you know, reading sports online, pretending to do banking or whatever he was doing. Anyway, I do. I love that you say that because I do really think like we are so lucky in this day and age as women. Right. Like, we can really carve our own paths and find our identities outside of the home as well. But I just I that was so important to me because as I heard it more and more with people introducing themselves and saying that, I just I don't believe we should put it so far down the list of like important titles that you have to say, I'm just a mom or like, oh, you know, I'm just at home or I'm like, like, wait a second. No. So I think it's and I just I think it's such I love one of the women who endorsed my book, actually, Elaine Dalton. She's also an author, and she actually put in her kind of her title of introducing herself mother, author, speaker, whatever. And I thought I was like, that's beautiful that you place that before any of your other titles. And especially as with my messaging and everything else, I just was like, I love that to introduce yourself and put that importance there along with everything else that you're carrying. But to make sure that that has space and proper space, because it is like we forget it is such valuable work and full time work around the clock that I don't know what's more important. Yeah, yeah. Amen to that. The last question, what advice would you have for aspiring authors? Oh, I so much. But I think my biggest my biggest thing, I'm very much a perfectionist. And a lot of times I felt really pulled with some of these essays. I was like, I know that I need to do this, but sometimes I can find a lot of excuses because I want it to be right. And I think I think it applies to like a lot of other things I've done in my life, too, where sometimes you're like, oh, I really want to do that thing, but like, I need to make sure I have the proper time to give it or I need to make sure that, like, you know, every everything's in its place so that I can do that and share that the way I want it to happen. But life is bonkers, and it's just you don't know what's going to happen. You don't know where you're going to be in five years sometime. Right? Like, I just think sometimes it's important to give yourself that grace and just just do it. And I think we are so good, at least myself, speaking from my own experience of of coming up with a lot of excuses or saying like, know, maybe maybe I just put this on pause, maybe I hold it or whatever it is. But if you want to do it, you can do it. You can find the the ten minutes or twenty minute pockets here or there to start at it and work at it. And and I know that I do believe there's a season for everything, but you just you just just go just do it. And don't don't let the little circus in your head hold you back. So love it. Don't let a little circus in your head hold you back. That's a good one. All right. Well, Naomi, thank you. It was so nice to meet you. It was great to meet you too. And I love I just I really I'm gonna go change my bookcase in the other room. I just I don't know if I have enough you found you have lots of yellow books. Yeah. And I love that. I do. So gonna have to Really good here. Yeah. Add to my collection. Good luck. Thank you. Alright. Alright. Take care. Have a good one. You too. Bye bye. Thanks again to Shoshana for sponsoring today's episode and for giving 25% off-site wide for our listeners today with code book club twenty five. Go pick up a swimsuit or a beautiful dress or something and treat yourself. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on at zibby owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.