Sarah Addison Allen, OTHER BIRDS: A Novel
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[0:58]Sarah Addison Allen is the author of Other Birds, a novel.
[1:01]Sarah is the New York Times best-selling author of Seven Novels.
[1:05]She calls Southern Fried Magical Realism.
[1:08]She was born and raised in Asheville, North Carolina, where she still lives.
[1:12]Welcome Sarah.
[1:13]Thank you so much for coming.
[1:14]On moms don't have time to read books to discuss Other Birds, a novel.
[1:18]Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here.
[1:20]I'm thrilled to have you.
[1:21]We were just commenting listeners that we both have color-coded bookshelves.
[1:25]It's a very happy zoom right now. I'll zoom should look this festive and colorful.
[1:31]Sarah, just let's get the preliminary stuff out of the way.
[1:35]Can you please share what your book is about?
[1:38]Sure. Other birds.
[1:40]It starts with a character named Zoe and she's 18, almost 19, and she's out on her own for the first time.
[1:47]And she travels to a small island off the coast of South Carolina called Malo Island to take possession of an apartment, her mother left her.
[1:57]And it's a very small complex, just five units. And that's where we meet all the characters.
[2:03]And Zoe is sort of the opening to the rest of the characters. And she is sort of the conduit in which all these close-off people open up.
[2:14]In a larger sense, the book about what we hold on to and the secrets we keep and the ghosts we have around us and how to let go of them.
[2:23]I feel like people are literally opening up their doors.
[2:26]I mean, the way you write is so visual. I felt like I was on the stage set of a play, you know, with the different doors opening and the birds and the office.
[2:35]Then please come, you know, like it was just so visual and sensory, the way you write that like you're literally there. I love that sense of place and the way you do that with your words.
[2:46]I have, it's my brain, it's the way I daydream. I think it is sort of cinematic and I gravitate to pictures.
[2:54]And when I'm asking what were my favorite books as a child. I always remember the picture books the most. Of course, you know, I read, I'll turn when I was a kid, but the ones I visualize or the picture books.
[3:08]In college, my senior thesis was on L.A. Rogrile just because I read a short story of his and which he details a murder, but he does it in slides backwards as if it's a movie going backwards and that stuck in my mind.
[3:23]So I think it's the way my brain works.
[3:26]Well, it's one thing to have your brain work that way, but it's another to be able to effectively communicate it on the page with language.
[3:33]That stuff is in my head, especially like if I'm doing like a design project or something like like I know I want it like kind of like this, but I don't know what exactly how to say that.
[3:43]Oh, gosh, that is the all writers. All writers are like that. How do you take what you see so clearly in your head and and put it into words.
[3:54]You communicate it to to other to readers. Yeah, it's a universal universal problem for writers.
[4:01]Writers are really just amazing translators. It's really what it is.
[4:05]That's right. We are translator. I never thought about it that way.
[4:09]So you have had such an interesting career. You launched with a debut New York Times best selling novel and you've had books translated in so many languages.
[4:19]Talk about having that first big success and then what that kind of did for you going forward and how you maintain that and then I want to talk about you know your the medical issues that came up and why you took a break and all of that.
[4:33]Garden spells. Garden spells was my big break, but I was an overnight success.
[4:38]12 years in the making it took me a long long time to get published and my dad was a writer and he's retired. He was a journalist. He was a columnist and and and he wrote beautifully and poetically and but he went to a job every day.
[4:55]He actually, you know, went to a building and wrote and it was nine to five and came home. So when I decided after college that I wanted to give this writing career ago, he did not understand.
[5:08]He was a historian back home and lived with my mom and I wrote as close to full time as I could possibly get. I did part time jobs and seasonal jobs and nothing was happening. I was writing. I wrote literally dozens of manuscripts.
[5:21]And he kept asking me, you know, when are you going to get real jobs Sarah. And so garden spells by, you know, was this huge surprise and I almost gave up writing.
[5:31]the book I came back to after I gave up for a while. And when I was asked what was the best part of being published. My answer was always my dad has stopped asking me when I'm going to get a real job.
[5:44]It was an amazing time. It was a stressful time. It was a time fraught with that with anxiety because I was completely unprepared for what it looked like to be a working writer what it was to promote your book.
[6:00]I was miserable. It was the best time in my life, but I was miserable. I didn't know how to handle it. I cried all the time. I would I over eight. I gained a lot of weight.
[6:15]And you know, and I had four best selling books in a row. Bam, bam, bam, bam. And then all of a sudden, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had stage for breast cancer and everything just stopped.
[6:30]My world just stopped. And I, you know, I went through treatment and I mean, I was in, you know, my scans are clear. I'm in remission. And when I came back to writing after taking some time off, I had, you know, I had entirely new perspective of what it was like to walk to that precipice and look at the end of your world.
[6:49]And what I saw was not a missed deadline. So I learned how to sort of take things in stride because oh my gosh, I know what's worse. And so I wrote two other books and then took another time long part off when my mom got sick and came back with other birds and losing my mom was a other whole new perspective.
[7:13]And at each point in my life, every dark blue point in my life has taught me something not only about myself, but about how to approach writing.
[7:23]And didn't you also lose your sister? I did. I lost my mother's mother's sister within days of each other. So yeah, sorry. Oh, thank you. It was, it was a tough time. And I couldn't write my way through it. I had to take, I had to take the time off. I couldn't focus at all.
[7:40]I had to talk about how they passed away is the school or all sure. My mom, I had actually started other birds and then my mom had a massive brain image and left to profoundly brain damaged.
[7:53]And I watched her die for four years and I fell into an incredible depression. It was it was like nothing else I've ever experienced.
[8:02]I had lost her, but she was still here. And because I was so very close to my mom, she was my best friend. When I moved out, I actually moved next door. So I lived next door to her forever.
[8:13]So losing her on that emotional level was tough. And she was getting to the end of her life. We knew she was in hospice, but then my sister died suddenly.
[8:23]And I was one who found my sister and I remember, you know, no one could find her and you should collapse in the yard and here I'm giving her a CPR and and she passes away and then mom passes away and then there are two funerals and six days and there was a lot of trauma.
[8:39]There was a lot of things to work through. And I could not write through it. I couldn't journal. I just I I just had this stop.
[8:50]You know, and I agree. It's like this. I don't know this huge boulder that sits on your shoulder or your back. And it's so heavy. You can hardly move and you think that your life is going to be that for the rest of your life.
[9:05]And I thought for a while, you know, I just don't I just don't know if I can write ever again if it's going to feel this bad forever.
[9:12]But eventually what happens with grief is that it gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's a pebble about the size of your hand.
[9:19]And you close your hand, put your hand in your pocket and you leave the pebble there and you walk around with that pebble for the rest of your life. You still feel it, but it's no longer that way. You always know it's there.
[9:30]I got to that point. I could get back into other birds and and I finished it. And it had a whole new dimension to it because it deals with mothers and it deals with ghosts and you know, people who have passed on.
[9:42]And so that's what brought me to this place a lot of dark, but you know that dark magnifies the light and with perspective, the light is so bright. You can hardly stand it.
[9:55]See, I think it's so amazing that you can go through all that.
[10:00]which is so awful and I'm so sorry.
[10:02]And yet still go on your website
[10:05]wearing a huge sweater that says happy.
[10:07]Like it's like, it's like, okay, I am choosing,
[10:12]you have to really make that a choice.
[10:14]Like that is an active choice
[10:16]that you have to recommit to over and over again
[10:19]to say like I am going to still have a happy life
[10:22]when so many people who I love are not here anymore.
[10:25]That's hard.
[10:26]That's exactly right.
[10:27]And you know, I've read bookings.
[10:29]I know from you, you know what grief feels like.
[10:32]And you know that it's a process you have to go through
[10:34]to get the other side.
[10:35]And one of the most important things I learned is that,
[10:38]you know, you can still grieve and still feel blessed.
[10:43]You can miss someone and still celebrate a good thing.
[10:48]They can coexist.
[10:52]How, what were you doing?
[10:54]Like who was taking care of you?
[10:56]How did you get through that?
[10:57]What did you do to get through it?
[10:59]I shut down, actually.
[11:01]You know, I have a very close group of friends.
[11:03]I have my dad, you know, I have my niece.
[11:05]I've got my family and my friends.
[11:06]But I found out very quickly
[11:09]that something I didn't know about myself
[11:10]is that I'm not a fight or flight.
[11:12]I'm a freeze.
[11:13]And I just shut down.
[11:14]I did what I needed to do.
[11:17]But after three hours in a day of, you know,
[11:20]intense doing stuff or, you know, caring for my mom
[11:22]or doing paperwork, I had to sit down and zone out.
[11:26]I could not think about how hard and heavy things were.
[11:31]And of course, therapy came in very handy during this time.
[11:34]But it was just a process we have to get through.
[11:38]And one of the things we get bogged down in
[11:41]when we're going through something hard
[11:43]is we think it's never going to end.
[11:45]And that and that, that sense of despair
[11:50]can sometimes be so hard to get out of.
[11:52]But I have learned, you know,
[11:54]through several waves of dark times
[11:57]does that give it time?
[11:59]They don't last forever.
[12:02]Hope is so important.
[12:04]And I try to end every book I've written on a sense of hope.
[12:08]You did the thing with bookends.
[12:09]And that just my heart swelled with that.
[12:12]Hope, hope.
[12:13]We need hope.
[12:14]Yeah.
[12:15]Thank you for reading bookends itself.
[12:18]In other birds, the loss of the mother
[12:21]is sort of a paramount feature
[12:24]and re-inhabiting a sacred space from the past.
[12:28]And then in the beginning, there is a death right away.
[12:31]Like you're in it.
[12:33]Like you're just marinating in it, so to speak.
[12:38]So did you go back and write that?
[12:40]Was that the way it was?
[12:41]Were you like, how did you map your life onto your fiction?
[12:47]I mean, I'm such a dancer when it comes to writing
[12:49]that I have an idea.
[12:50]I have always always, I know where it's going to be set.
[12:53]That's paramount.
[12:54]I always have to know that the setting almost
[12:56]has to be a character itself.
[12:58]And then I sort of build the characters out of that.
[13:01]Opening up the story in the very first chapter,
[13:05]the very mean hoarder dies when a bookcase falls on her,
[13:09]which every book lover's worst nightmare
[13:12]that I know is really good, so many books
[13:13]are going to fall on them.
[13:14]But I realized early on when I was writing, first writing,
[13:18]now the words is that character had to die
[13:21]in order for the rest of the characters to come together.
[13:24]But she didn't go away.
[13:25]She comes back in the sense of a ghost.
[13:28]And there are several ghosts in the story.
[13:29]We know we get a point of view from the ghosts.
[13:31]It's part of the magic that run the magical realism parts
[13:35]that run through the book.
[13:36]So we still get to know her after she dies.
[13:40]Yeah.
[13:42]And what, like when you are in a free flowing,
[13:46]things are going well, type of writing mode.
[13:50]What does that type of day look like for you?
[13:53]Like even on a good day.
[13:55]So you rebound from this horrific period of trauma.
[13:59]And now you're sitting down at your desk writing.
[14:01]Like, are you, like paint a picture of it for me?
[14:03]Are you all nicely dressed and made up like you are now?
[14:06]Or like, where are you?
[14:09]What does this whole thing look like?
[14:10]Oh my gosh, it is full of a lot of angst.
[14:14]And it is constantly fighting the urge to get up
[14:18]and do something that I don't really
[14:20]have to do like laundry.
[14:21]It is making myself sit down and write.
[14:24]And when I was away from writing, I missed it.
[14:28]When I'm back and writing, it's like, oh my gosh,
[14:30]I really missed this.
[14:31]I missed how frustrating it is.
[14:33]Because writing is hard for me.
[14:35]It's hard to make something beautiful.
[14:40]And I've said this a lot over the past couple of months
[14:44]that it's true.
[14:45]I am not a great writer.
[14:47]But I am a really great rewriter.
[14:49]The painful part is getting words,
[14:52]even if they suck onto the page.
[14:54]And then you can edit them.
[14:56]And then you can rewrite.
[14:57]And then you can put the magic in.
[14:58]And then you can find that right word.
[15:00]You can find that beautiful way of describing something.
[15:05]But the first draft is always ugly.
[15:07]And it's painful.
[15:08]And it's just making myself do it.
[15:11]I have a home office.
[15:12]And this is where I work.
[15:13]And I treated it as a nine to five job now.
[15:15]When I was younger, I wrote well into the night.
[15:18]I was such a night owl.
[15:19]But treating it as a job was a big sign of, well,
[15:24]I am an adult now.
[15:26]Look at me.
[15:27]I'm writing during the day.
[15:28]So this is what it looks like for me.
[15:32]It's a job.
[15:33]It means my commute is from upstairs to downstairs,
[15:35]which, you know, stays on gas.
[15:37]But it's a painful process.
[15:38]But it's, I can't not do it.
[15:40]It is so much a part of who I am
[15:42]that even if I wasn't published,
[15:45]I would still be writing something.
[15:49]Wow.
[15:50]And what about reading?
[15:52]How does reading fit into your life now and always?
[15:54]You know, my reading habits changed a lot once I became
[15:59]published because I,
[16:01]the interesting thing about when you're now being asked
[16:05]to read books before they're published for blurbs
[16:08]and things like that, it has opened up
[16:10]this entirely new world of books.
[16:11]I never would have read otherwise.
[16:13]And that's been a joy.
[16:15]But I can't write while I can't read while I'm writing.
[16:18]So I have to write the book and I have to be in it
[16:21]because sometimes other writers' voices will get in my head
[16:23]and I'll find my syntax changing a little from a book
[16:26]that's really affected me or I really, really liked.
[16:29]But so I go on binges after I finish writing
[16:33]and let's see.
[16:37]But the last book I read was Myra Malone's minuscule mansion
[16:42]which comes out in January.
[16:43]And it's a little silish magical realism kind of book.
[16:46]I enjoyed that.
[16:47]But I saw Kevin Wilson's new book came out
[16:49]and I downloaded it and I haven't read it yet
[16:51]because I really enjoyed his nothing to see here.
[16:54]So it's all over the place that I don't sit down
[16:59]with stack of books and read like I used to.
[17:02]I have to find time to do it,
[17:03]which I think is another adult thing.
[17:05]Sometimes being adult is fun, but sometimes it's just,
[17:08]uh, yeah.
[17:10]I don't like it.
[17:11]I want to go back to that time
[17:13]where I can just be in a nook with a flashlight
[17:15]and read like what I did when I was a kid.
[17:19]One of my kids the other night who's very young
[17:21]was saying how much they did not wanna be a grown up
[17:25]and like literally there were tears involved.
[17:27]You know, like all the responsibilities and all this
[17:32]and what if this and what if that and you know,
[17:34]what if they had, I don't know, it was so sad.
[17:36]I was like, no, man, I grew up and be nice.
[17:39]You know, not all the parts, you know,
[17:42]there's a lot of pain, but there's a lot of joys though.
[17:45]Like the little setting like, no, don't grow up.
[17:46]It's a trap.
[17:47]It's a trap.
[17:48]Don't know what you're talking about, just so true.
[17:52]So tell me about the differences with your fiction
[17:57]from sort of the before and after
[17:58]from your own health scare
[18:00]or not even scare your health, you know, challenge.
[18:03]And how did you diagnose?
[18:05]How did you find out about your cancer?
[18:07]And then like in the whole craziness of the writing career,
[18:11]like how did you just slam on the breaks?
[18:13]Like what was that like when like everything was
[18:16]must have been just swirling and going around you?
[18:19]He was traumatic and it was out of the blue.
[18:23]I was 39 and I actually had a break in my schedule
[18:27]between my third and I just finished my fourth book
[18:30]and I was set to go on tour with it
[18:33]and I was gonna sign a new contract for a new book.
[18:36]I had a chunk of time in which I had scheduled
[18:39]my dentist appointment.
[18:40]I needed new glasses and I thought,
[18:41]well, I'm not gonna have much time next year.
[18:43]So let's go ahead and schedule a mammogram
[18:46]and lo and behold, I had a four inch tumor
[18:49]that was so deep in the tissue I couldn't feel it
[18:52]and had spread to my lip nodes in my lungs.
[18:53]I had no clue, no clue.
[18:57]And here I am 39 faced with this while survival statistics
[19:02]are, am I going to live to 40?
[19:04]What's going to happen?
[19:06]And my world stopped, and it was the worst thing
[19:12]that's ever happened up until that point.
[19:15]But it also took me to a place in which
[19:20]after treatment, after it was all done,
[19:23]I was in a much better place
[19:27]that I wouldn't have gotten to that place
[19:29]had cancer not happened.
[19:30]And I am not at the point where I can think cancer
[19:32]for anything, but had I not gone through that journey,
[19:35]had I not learned what I learned,
[19:37]how if life had not made me stop,
[19:41]I believe I would still be as miserable as I was
[19:45]before it happened, it taught me a lot
[19:47]and it brought me to a better and brighter place.
[19:51]But I wish I would, I wish I had learned it another way,
[19:54]but the universe was saying to me, hey Sarah,
[19:57]and it was probably trying to tell me that all along.
[19:59]It just.
[20:00]It was like bam. I needed something big to teach me some lessons. Unfortunately, I had to learn it that
[20:06]way. But after treatment, after I got back into writing, I was determined and I got the question
[20:13]a lot. Are you going to put cancer into your books? Are you going to write about your experience?
[20:16]And my answer was always no, because I write magical things. I write about happy endings. I
[20:23]couldn't make cancer good and magical, but lo and behold, when I finished this book, my first
[20:28]after cancer was lost lake. What it was about was a character who had lost her husband.
[20:35]And she was coming out of this deep, dark place in her life, but she was finding something bright
[20:43]on the other side. So in a way, I ended up writing about cancer and I didn't want to do it.
[20:47]But I wrote about a character who went through something similar. Oh, my gosh.
[20:51]You talk. You've been talking a lot about the misery that came with the success,
[20:57]which I find very interesting because everybody assumes that success brings mostly joy.
[21:03]So was the sadness underneath something you had wrestled with forever, no matter what?
[21:09]Like, is this just sort of your baseline or was it something about this success that triggered
[21:14]something new in you? I think I am an anxious creature in general. I'm not a shy person,
[21:22]but I'm an introverted person. I keep my world very small deliberately because that's how I'm
[21:27]manage it. I don't like when I have a lot of things going around me. I don't like when I have a
[21:32]lot of things to do. So writing, you know, was a natural fit to me because I could be in my head,
[21:38]you know, where all the sparkles were. That's where I lived. And after garden spells was
[21:44]published and in, you know, efforts, success of that book, you know, having to travel and having
[21:50]speak in public. And the intense pressure I felt to continue that, to write a book that people
[21:59]would like as much. It was, I was miserable. And it wasn't the success and it wasn't,
[22:07]it wasn't, you know, the attention. It wasn't the fact that something good had happened to me.
[22:13]It was my inability to deal with it. Because I had never had to deal with it before. I'd become
[22:19]used to it, you know, and I understand how to deal with those kind of pressures being an anxious
[22:25]introvert. But back then I didn't because it happened so quickly. I thought, you know, I was going,
[22:31]my goal was to be a working writer. It was to, you know, have a book published. And maybe a few
[22:35]people would read it. And it would be good enough that I could keep doing it. But I didn't foresee
[22:40]that it would happen, that it would blow up the way it did. So it was trial by fire. I learned a lot
[22:45]about how to manage my anxiety just from that. So how would you, like, let's say there's another
[22:51]author out there, or they're about to have a book come out. And they do have that temperament,
[22:55]which so many authors do have, like, what is there any advice for getting through that? Or is it
[23:01]just you figured out on your own? Or like, what would you say to someone who's in your shoes now?
[23:06]Oh, well, I would say, you know, it's what I would say to myself. But, you know, I wouldn't
[23:12]listen, I wouldn't have listened to myself. It was, you know, take time to enjoy the good,
[23:16]take a step back and look, I'm put it in perspective. But also, you don't think that you have
[23:23]to give so much of yourself that you have to pretend to be this extroverted, outgoing person,
[23:32]because they liked your book. You want them to like you to just don't try to pretend to be
[23:38]someone else. Don't try to pretend that you're not scared to travel if you're scared to travel.
[23:43]You know, if you have nerves in public speaking, oh, my gosh, tell people that in your audience,
[23:50]they will understand. We are, we are so connected as human beings that we all get it. You know,
[23:57]even if they're, if you're talking to an extrovert, they get it, go easy on yourself. But honestly,
[24:03]what I've found is just with everything. It just takes time from the, from the deep to the,
[24:09]from the, to the detailed, you mentioned in a little like right up when we were fucking this
[24:15]session that you have a golden grams of session. So I want to hear, I want to hear about all the food,
[24:21]all the food stuff in your life, because this is great. I, oh my gosh, I'm a big, I'm a big food.
[24:30]I'm a big eater. I, you know, I'm, I'm not a, I don't have a very sophisticated palette, but I
[24:34]have always from, from the time I was a child equated food with love. And so I've been an emotional
[24:40]eater all my life. And this golden gram saying, I don't know what it is for the past year,
[24:45]I have just devoured them. And I don't put them in a bowl and eat them with a spoon and milk.
[24:50]They will sit there on the counter. And I will, you know, that will graze on it all day. And
[24:54]then it will blame people for eating them in the boxes gone when it's all my fault. But I have
[24:59]loved food, food shows up in, in all my books. I think it's, and it's so closely connected
[25:04]to my mom, food is love. I said it, it's a, you know, an extension of affection when someone gives you
[25:11]food. I also like the magical aspects of food like water for chocolate. Yes, I just, I can't not put
[25:19]it. It's not my books as well, because it's so much a part of who I am. I am, I'm, when my, when my
[25:26]mom got sick, I lost incredible amount of weight very quickly, which is the only time in my life,
[25:30]I have ever not eaten through something horrible. And so that was, that was, that was my huge
[25:36]clue that my, my eating was so close to not tied to my mom. And, you know, all these years after
[25:42]my mom, my mom insisted I three years ago. And so, and I've kept the weight off. And it's because
[25:47]my whole habit changed because of, you know, going through those years of, you know, I'm coming out
[25:54]I graze a lot. And, but I don't, I don't overeat, but oh, sugar is my big downfall. I mean, I will,
[26:01]I have to resist that, especially when you're riding and you, and you, you find you're in the
[26:08]middle of something that's something's just not working. It's that urge to go get a candy bar or
[26:13]something sweet because you bring zings. And it sort of opens up and makes you happy and make,
[26:19]makes you want to write something happy. So I have to resist that, but food has been a big part
[26:24]of my life all my life. Me too. I've realized that the only time I don't eat is if I'm really,
[26:31]really scared. Like, it's not grief. It's not, it's not stress. It's not, it's only fear. That's
[26:40]you. I feel like that will stop me. Now that's interesting. I never thought about that fear.
[26:46]Yeah. I wonder if it's something deep seated primordial that you do, we can't eat if we're on alert,
[26:52]um, you know, they'll be a distraction. I wonder if that's it, but that's an incredible observation.
[26:56]I never thought about that. Wow. What, uh, if you could get your mom's dish, like something
[27:03]she made you today, like, is there one thing you would be like, oh, I would love to just have one more
[27:09]bite of this. And I have a horrible cook. So I don't cook. So I, you know, I, and she didn't
[27:14]write anything down. I don't have any of her recipes. Her potato salad. Oh, my gosh, I wish I had
[27:20]her recipe for potato salad. She made it excellent potato salad. I wish I had that. She made something
[27:26]called a Russian vegetable pie that I miss. She was just, it was an extension of, you know, I love
[27:33]you. So here eat. She was like that all my life. But yeah, I, I miss that about about her. Just,
[27:39]she would stop by on her way out or on her way home and she would just drop off food. Sometimes
[27:43]I'd be gone and be food on my doorstep. She was like a little food fairy. So it was her way
[27:48]of showing love to not just me, but to everyone. It's classic Southern food pusher here, you
[27:57]So what, what is coming next for you after, after other birds? What's next? I'm working on my new
[28:04]book right now. It is as set in North Carolina. And it's got, you know, all my books have, you know,
[28:10]all the different genres, these romance and magical realism and Southern fiction and foody
[28:14]let all, all mashed up. And this one's no different. And it's, but it's set on in Central North
[28:19]Carolina during the rainiest season on record. And there are lots of buried secrets that are
[28:25]uncovered in the mud and so I'm having, I'm having some funds to sort of finding my way through
[28:30]the book through the mud as it were. But as difficult as writing is, it feels good to be back
[28:36]into, you know, the sense of normalcy. So I am glad to be writing again. That's wonderful.
[28:44]Oh my gosh. All right. So what's your plan today after we get off this podcast? What are you going to do?
[28:49]Oh my gosh. I had to go to the grocery store for Christmas party. I've got to get stuff for a
[28:55]Christmas party. I've got to go feed my cats and my niece is coming home for Christmas. So I'm
[28:59]very excited about that. Just boring stuff. What about you? What does your day look like? You've
[29:05]probably much more interesting stuff happening today? Oh, you know, lots of meetings,
[29:10]lots of podcasts. I have like four podcasts today. And if my team is downstairs today, they come
[29:16]in a couple of days a week. And, you know, my son does jujitsu today. And, you know, my daughter has
[29:21]a play date and all that stuff, craziness, cool pickups and all that stuff. Yeah, life interesting
[29:31]reading your book. Because you know, I don't thrive in a lot of things going on. But you do, don't
[29:38]you? It's this idea of having a lot going on is where you find your zone. It's that true?
[29:46]That is true. Yes. I know. It's weird. I think it's fascinating. Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.
[29:54]I think you're right. I like having a lot of stuff going on. That makes me happy. Anytime I feel like
[30:00]Okay, I have things under control.
[30:01]Then I add something new.
[30:03]I'm like, okay, I can manage everything on my plate.
[30:06]Time to open a bookstore.
[30:07]Like, let's do it, you know.
[30:09]So yeah, I like to be overwhelmed.
[30:11]I guess it's, you can read into that how you weld it.
[30:17]Well, it was so nice chatting with you Sarah.
[30:18]I really appreciate you like, you know,
[30:21]just letting me into your interior life
[30:23]and letting me pry a little bit.
[30:24]So and it's just been a joy just to see you
[30:27]and to be somebody watching someone else's
[30:29]beautiful shelves in the back.
[30:30]It's just a nice mirror, and I know it's perfect.
[30:33]It's perfect.
[30:35]I hope you have fun at the grocery
[30:37]and stock up on your golden grams and have a good haul.
[30:40]I apologize.
[30:41]I see that.
[30:43]Thank you, Zibi.
[30:44]I've had a blast.
[30:45]Thank you.
[30:46]You too.
[30:47]All right, you take care.
[30:48]You too.
[30:48]Bye bye.
[30:50]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[30:53]to Read Books.
[30:54]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[30:56]at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:59]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com
[31:01]and sign up for my virtual book club
[31:03]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[31:06]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[31:08]for the Sound Editing.
[31:10]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:11]for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.