Elizabeth Passarella, IT WAS AN UGLY COUCH ANYWAY: And Other Thoughts on Moving Forward
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[1:03]Elizabeth Pastorella is the author of.
[1:05]It was an ugly couch anyway and other thoughts on moving forward.
[1:09]This is guest hosted by Julie Chavez.
[1:12]Elizabeth is the author also of Good Apple, which was named one of the best books of 2021
[1:17]by Real Simple Magazine.
[1:19]Before writing books, Elizabeth was a magazine editor for more than 20 years.
[1:22]Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
[1:26]Vogue, Parents, Martha Stewart-Wedding's Real Simple and Southern Living.
[1:29]Elizabeth is originally from Memphis and now lives in Manhattan with her husband and three
[1:34]children.
[1:35]Hi.
[1:36]Hi.
[1:37]It's so good to be with you, Julie.
[1:38]So good to have you here.
[1:39]I'm so happy that you came on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read books and that I got to be
[1:44]the one to talk to you.
[1:45]I felt so excited to hear about you.
[1:48]The excitement is all mine.
[1:49]This is my second time on this podcast.
[1:52]And listen, obviously, Zippy was sick of me.
[1:54]Not just kidding.
[1:55]It is.
[1:56]No, she's doing everything.
[1:58]So I'm so delighted that she has delegated and passed the baton and you are just, yes, you
[2:03]are a ray of sunshine.
[2:04]And I'm so excited to talk to you.
[2:05]So this will be so fun.
[2:06]Thanks, friend.
[2:07]I'm super excited.
[2:08]And yes, she does all the things.
[2:10]So it really benefits me in this situation because it just means I get to chew the fat with
[2:15]more people, which is something that might be one of my gifts.
[2:18]So that's really exciting.
[2:19]I love it.
[2:20]Well, I'm so excited to talk to you about your book.
[2:23]So you're the author of Good Apple, which I have also read and loved at Sherry's recommendation.
[2:29]We talked about Sherry Pusey being one of our mutual, wonderful people that we know.
[2:33]But your new one is, it was an ugly couch anyway and other thoughts on moving forward.
[2:39]And I have to tell you, every time I have looked at this book when I've walked by it,
[2:42]I hear the line from Christmas vacation, which one?
[2:48]The one where he goes, it was an ugly tree anyway after a tree catches on fire when it
[2:54]catches on fire, when it from the grandfather cigar.
[2:56]Yes.
[2:57]And thought about that.
[2:58]Oh, I should be more, I should be marketing that.
[3:01]I should be making memes about me and the grandfather from Christmas vacation.
[3:04]I did not even think of that.
[3:06]I think we're going to need, I'll put my teenagers on it.
[3:08]They're really good with the meme.
[3:10]There's currently a meme generator.
[3:11]They told me that.
[3:12]And I was like, don't tell me that.
[3:13]That's like a lost day right there at least.
[3:16]Well, listen, this I have to say, and I haven't really told said this in any interviews
[3:20]I don't think, but this was not the title that I wanted originally.
[3:24]I had in my head a different title that really did not make a whole lot of sense.
[3:29]It was just this phrase that I had used in sort of a conversation with a friend and
[3:33]I thought it had this deeper life application meaning and it felt really high brow and
[3:39]good to me.
[3:40]And I thought it would anyway, I wanted that as the title of the book.
[3:43]I'm not even going to tell you what it was because it will not make sense.
[3:45]That makes sense.
[3:46]And my editor also said it will not make sense to readers.
[3:48]This is not a great title.
[3:49]And you know, my agent who is so supportive and so wonderful and also an amazing writer.
[3:54]It's really trusted to, she was kind of playing along with me and sort of trying to
[3:57]I think help me make it work.
[3:59]And then after a while she's like, Elizabeth, you're going to have to let it go.
[4:02]You're going to have to let it go.
[4:03]And they both said, we already, this title existed.
[4:05]It was the title of the first essay in the book and everyone, every single person on
[4:11]my team except for me was like, this is the title of the book.
[4:13]And I was like, ah, but maybe, but maybe not.
[4:15]And they were like, Elizabeth, this is the title of the book.
[4:18]And they were 100% right, always listen to your editors and your agent and everybody
[4:22]else was telling you what to do.
[4:23]And the cover and everything just turned out so punchy and fun.
[4:27]And so it absolutely went the way it was supposed to go.
[4:30]But just so you know, I had a different idea that was dumb in my head.
[4:34]Interesting.
[4:35]I love that story.
[4:36]My title has changed a few times, but it's funny how you can get attached to those
[4:41]pieces, right?
[4:42]And you think, no, no, no, I'm telling you guys, this is going to be great.
[4:46]And they're so gentle.
[4:47]And they're like, no, it's not.
[4:50]I kept rewriting the intro.
[4:51]The introduction to my book was the prologue in the book was actually the last thing that
[4:55]I wrote.
[4:56]I wrote all the chapters.
[4:57]And then I ended.
[4:58]I was writing this.
[4:59]I think I wrote 12 or 13 different prolocks.
[5:02]And I kept trying to, again, make this different phrase work and work it into the rest
[5:07]of the theme of the book, which was already written.
[5:09]And then I finally, you were talking a second ago about, you know, covers and somebody
[5:15]else used to cover that anyway, you were thinking about using.
[5:18]So I finally hit upon the beginning of this prologue.
[5:21]So it'd been the first chapter, our first paragraph of the first chapter of the book.
[5:24]And I was talking about dreams and children.
[5:27]And I love telling people my dreams and no one ever cares.
[5:30]And I say it's kind of like your children, like you always think that yours are more
[5:33]interesting than anybody else thinks that they are.
[5:37]And I had, I thought this is it, like this is a funny story.
[5:39]It's a funny commentary.
[5:40]I can work this into what I was going to say anyway, this is great.
[5:44]And then Jesse Klein, who is a wonderful hilarious New York Times bestselling author of,
[5:49]you know, you'll grow out of it was her first book.
[5:51]And then her second book was, I'll show myself out.
[5:54]And it's essays on motherhood.
[5:55]I mean, fantastic, wonderful writer sells way more books than I do.
[5:58]She has a chapter in her new book, which came out right around the time I was writing
[6:02]this.
[6:03]And I was reading her book.
[6:04]I'd ordered it.
[6:05]I was reading it.
[6:06]And she has a whole chapter that starts with, dreams are like children.
[6:10]Nobody wants to hear about your dreams or your children.
[6:12]And I just thought, well, like, if me, you know, like what am I going to do now?
[6:17]And so I did.
[6:18]I sent that to my editor and I sent what I'd written, my editor and she was like, well,
[6:21]good luck.
[6:22]That's the drawing board.
[6:24]So it ended up the way, just like the cover, it ended up the way it should have been the
[6:28]first place.
[6:29]Everything worked out.
[6:30]But I did have to rewrite my intro again.
[6:32]Oh my gosh, after that many times, that feels like it tracks though, because that is the,
[6:39]I mean, I feel like that's the theme sometimes of book publishing is, oh, you thought
[6:44]you were done with that?
[6:45]Question words like, no, you weren't.
[6:47]So the revisiting of things.
[6:50]And then also exactly what you're saying, I had never considered that other things coming
[6:56]out in this window can impact what's happening with your book.
[7:00]Right?
[7:01]It feels like it's baked and it's going into production and that's what's happening.
[7:05]And then nope, we got to change that.
[7:07]So yes, I love those stories though, because I'm a bit of a control freak.
[7:13]And no, I have no idea what that's like.
[7:14]I know.
[7:15]After reading your book, I was like, I don't think I have anything to talk about.
[7:18]It's going to be really tough.
[7:19]We don't have a lot in common.
[7:21]But I think that sort of just letting go.
[7:25]It's amazing how that lesson is one that needs to be hammered to me just constantly.
[7:30]So maybe we're in the right place for that exact reason.
[7:33]Yes, that's true.
[7:35]So tell me, okay, tell me about when you decided to write this book.
[7:40]Now you wrote Good Apple.
[7:41]Did you know you wanted to write a second book at that point where did you have that
[7:45]book?
[7:46]I did.
[7:47]I did.
[7:48]I did.
[7:49]I also, I mean, just to get into the weeds of book publishing, I had a two book contract.
[7:52]So I knew I was writing a second book because they had told me I was writing a second
[7:56]book, which was great because I was excited about that and had ideas and was kind of
[8:01]ready to go.
[8:02]You know, interestingly, though, when Good Apple came out, it was January of 2021.
[8:07]So we were still very much in the middle of the pandemic, especially in New York.
[8:11]It was winter and, you know, my kids were still in hybrid school.
[8:15]Nothing had gone back to normal.
[8:16]The city was still kind of in semi lockdown in a way.
[8:20]And so I started writing this book in sort of a late winter, early spring of 2021.
[8:26]And it was, it was hard, logistically, because places that I used to go to write, childcare
[8:31]I used to have full time school for that matter was not happening.
[8:34]So I just didn't have in terms of pure logistics.
[8:37]I did not have the schedule that I had when I was writing the first book.
[8:40]So that's what made it hard.
[8:41]Also I was just in a really bad mood, just a terrible mood as many of us were.
[8:46]And I really felt for a while like, oh, I've lost my sense of humor.
[8:50]Like life is just too hard and things are just too bad and everything is sad and nothing
[8:54]is ever going to be right or normal or good or happy or joyful again.
[8:59]So I started writing this book and I had some stories percolating and things that I, that
[9:04]I had left out of the first book or had happened in the time since that I really wanted
[9:08]to write and I was writing essays.
[9:10]And I guess maybe around late summer, early fall, I turned in a chunk of stuff to my
[9:15]editor and my agent and said, here's where I am, here's, you know, I don't, I try not to
[9:20]turn in, thanks piecemeal, I mean, I tried to turn in things when they're close to
[9:24]finished, but I said, here's about half of it, what do you think?
[9:28]And they both kind of said, like, there's stuff here, but you don't sound like yourself.
[9:33]Like you sound, you sound mean in certain places, you sound, you know, we're all, we're
[9:38]all evolved people.
[9:40]We're all multifaceted people.
[9:42]I can be mean, everybody knows that if they read my first book, I, I can, it's not like
[9:46]we're not allowed to be in bad moods.
[9:47]But I do think I was writing from a really dark place at the beginning.
[9:52]And so it was a lot of just life is not fair, this all sucks.
[9:57]And so some of that is in the final book, some of those.
[10:00]pieces are in the final book. In fact, I do write a little bit about what it was like just
[10:03]being in New York during the pandemic and how I put a sort of a nice shine on it, but I was lying.
[10:08]It was really, really a lot worse and a lot harder for me personally than I like to tell people
[10:12]when they asked. And so there's a little bit of that that made into the final book. But then what
[10:17]this book follows, there's kind of a thread that runs through this book of my family selling our
[10:23]apartment that we had been in and a building that we loved and the neighborhood community that we
[10:27]we sold our apartment and we were attempting to buy a larger apartment in our same building that had
[10:35]really been abandoned. It was a hoarder situation that man who had owned it was a doctor. He had passed
[10:40]away about 10 years ago. He had hoarded furniture, medical supplies, office supplies, all kinds of crazy
[10:46]stuff. His widow did not live there. She lived elsewhere in Manhattan, but she just had held onto it.
[10:51]I think it was overwhelming to her to think about ending it and selling it. It was overwhelming to
[10:56]her to think about letting go of it because it was her husband and she missed him, obviously.
[11:00]So we found out about this apartment in our building and proceeded to enter into a strange and
[11:08]sweet but strange sort of friendship relationship with this woman. And it took us over a year of
[11:14]talking to her and trying to find certain documents and government IDs and all kinds of things.
[11:20]It was a real up and down process of trying to buy this apartment. And so that story, once that all
[11:27]started, when I started writing the book, I knew this was a possibility. We at that point had seen
[11:31]the apartment, but I had no idea where it was going. So I started taking notes on my phone calls with
[11:37]her. Her name is Lois in the book. That's not her real name, but her name is Lois in the book.
[11:41]And I started taking notes on my phone calls with her because just the stories that were coming out
[11:46]of just talking to her, we were talking every week, every two weeks, and having these long
[11:50]conversations. And I just knew as a writer who knows a good story, which is the one I just knew
[11:57]that these stories about her were gold. And so I started kind of taking notes. And she knew I was
[12:01]a writer. She did know that I was working on a book, but I started writing about her and I started
[12:06]writing about this apartment that we were trying to get. And in the sense, the book really took
[12:11]shape out of that. So those, I didn't know where it was going. I did not know whether we were going
[12:16]to get the apartment, whether Lois was going to pass away in the middle of these conversations.
[12:20]I had no idea where this was going. So I didn't know how it was going to end, but I started
[12:24]writing those stories. And then, you know, so much about that situation informed so many of the
[12:30]other essays that are interspersed throughout the book, whereas Lois here was holding on to
[12:34]this apartment that was so meaningful to her. I was holding on to a couch. It was very meaningful
[12:39]for me. It was my dad's and that's the title essay of the book. It's this big ugly couch with my
[12:45]fathers that I hung out onto. So just obsessively after he passed away and I didn't want to get rid
[12:52]of it, but people are real estate agent told us we really needed to before we sold our apartment.
[12:56]So those kinds of things, what do we hold on to? What do we give up as we move through life?
[13:01]What do we need to move on from in terms of opinions or all of those things? So yes, the
[13:08]apartment story really was a gift. In that time, it gave us as a family something to hang on to,
[13:15]something that was hopeful for the future, which we really needed at that time in New York City.
[13:20]It gave me something to hang on to and kind of sink my teeth into as a writer at that time.
[13:25]So it was a joy to write this book at that point, but it started out really dark.
[13:30]I appreciate you sharing that because I think that's really a good,
[13:35]just such a good note for anyone who's a writer or really anyone who's trying to create something,
[13:42]it pours out of you in more ways than you would think. I think, you know, it's easy to kind of fool
[13:48]ourselves and think, oh, I'm separating this, but a lot of what we create comes out of who we are.
[13:53]And that's not in itself good or bad, but to have people, you know, like your editor in
[13:59]agent and people that are safe for you to to say this doesn't sound like you that we can help you
[14:05]with that piece. I think that's a real gift because it's a lot. Yeah. And also, you know, we can also
[14:12]go into things thinking, especially when you're writing nonfiction and you write memoir, I mean,
[14:17]when you're writing about your own life, you can go into something. There were several chapters
[14:21]like this with good apple. I had that book mapped out, not only in my head, but really on paper,
[14:26]really detailed. I knew exactly where it was going before I ever started. And this was different.
[14:32]This one was moving and changing and morphing as I went along. And I do think also you can think,
[14:37]you're going to start writing about one thing. And as you get going, it takes a different direction.
[14:42]And we all know that happens too. Something occurs to you as you're revisiting old memories,
[14:47]something that you'd forgotten about comes to the surface. You feel differently about something
[14:51]after revisiting it from a long time ago. So, you know, that's another thing about writing
[14:56]nonfiction is you think it's going in one way. And then it takes, it takes a turn and you kind
[15:00]of have to follow along. Mm-hmm. I told someone recently she said she wanted to write a memoir,
[15:05]but she was waiting for her mom to die. Sure. Because she had been hurt by her, but didn't want
[15:10]to hurt her, which I totally understood. And people had told her, you know, why don't you start?
[15:17]I said, I mean, you can write stuff down, but I did tell her, I think there's something to be
[15:22]said for waiting until it's the right time because you're going to feel differently. And in some
[15:30]ways, some things get better. I just think hopefully if we're growing more gracious as we grow,
[15:37]then hopefully we get more perspective, more wisdom on it. And so it becomes more universal as
[15:42]opposed to, here's why I'm angry. Right. I wrote it all down. Yeah. So, you know, my dad died
[15:50]the week before I was supposed to turn in the manuscript for Good Apple. And I called my editor
[15:57]and I said, hi, I'm going to need a couple more weeks, first of all. Yeah. Because I have to now
[16:02]go to a funeral. Second of all, I'm going to need to go back and revise. I mean, just putting
[16:06]him in past tense, like putting him in past tense in the book where he was in presence
[16:10]tense before. I said, I'm going to, I'd like to write about his funeral and about his death. I
[16:13]feel like that's an important thing to do. And so I went back. And it's funny, my, my mom has said
[16:19]about both of my books. She goes, well, you sure write about your dad a lot. And I said to her,
[16:24]you're right. I do. Now, part of it is because my dad and I temporarily were very similar. My
[16:30]mom, I adore her. I love her. We have a wonderful relationship, but we're really different
[16:35]so there are things that I feel like I can write about my dad because I know how it feels. And I
[16:41]know how he would have reacted. And I, I just think that I understand him in his motivations in a
[16:46]deeper way because I'm wired very similarly. Yes. But also, as I said to my mother, it's easier to
[16:52]write about him because he's dead. I do not have to worry. I, you, your, your memories kind of crystallize
[16:58]in a way. Yes. You tend to forget some of the unpleasant things. And you tend to overemphasize
[17:04]the good memories. I think that's normal. And you also, it's just easier to write about him when I
[17:11]know he's not going to get upset, offended, want to fact check me, whatever it is. So I said to
[17:16]her, I said, I'll write a lot more value when you die too. So that's the deal we have. That's the
[17:21]we have. But yeah, I, you know, I don't know if you've read Beth Moore's memoir. She has a memoir. She
[17:28]is like a pretty well known kind of Christian Bible teacher. I mean, I don't know if many people
[17:33]outside of kind of the Christian publishing world really know who she is. But she, she wrote a memoir
[17:38]recently. It's excellent. It came out a couple of months ago. And she very clearly says she was
[17:43]waiting for certain people to die before she, before she wrote it. Well, and that doesn't surprise me
[17:47]knowing a little bit of her history. I did a few Beth Moore Bible studies years ago. I think
[17:54]anyone who grew up in that era did probably at some point in that sort of area of the culture. But
[18:01]yeah, wow, I will have to read that. So it was good. You will love it. Yeah. It's excellent,
[18:06]especially if you have any familiarity with her, you will love it. Yeah. Okay. Well, put that on my
[18:10]list. And I have nothing else going on. I just sit around all day wondering what to do. So this is
[18:15]perfect. I loved when you were talking about your dad just now. I loved the story of you sitting on
[18:20]the countersmelling Cologne and saying once smelled like a gin and tonic. Yes, I should say that I was
[18:25]probably like six years old at the time. So he took me to goldsmiths, which is was the sort of family
[18:32]own down department store in Memphis to see where I grew up. And my dad was really into clothes.
[18:39]He had a hair dryer that he really loved. He liked his hair a certain way. He, you know, he was
[18:45]very particular about certain clones and what he wore. And so he did. He took me to the sort
[18:49]of men's clone counter at goldsmiths. And he sort of propped me up because I was little. I was
[18:53]tiny. So he propped me up and sat me up on the sales counter. And he was spritzing different ones.
[18:57]And I said, yeah, that one smells like a gin and tonic. And I thought the sales person was going to
[19:02]just pass out right there because I was way too young to know what a gin and tonic smelled like. But,
[19:06]you know, I mean, yeah. And I now now a gin and tonic is probably my favorite, especially this
[19:12]time of year when it's warm outside is my favorite drink. So the apple does not fall far.
[19:15]That is true. And I love a good gin and tonic. I mean, and plus the smell. But yes, you're sure
[19:21]it's not a citrusy smell. But that was what came out of my mouth. Yeah, the mouths of AIDS. Yeah,
[19:26]totally. Oh man, hat and what we do this dad. I love it. That was, but I love the way that you talk
[19:34]about the people in your life in this book. And I really think you have, I mean, I haven't said
[19:40]yet. I love your writing. And I really appreciate your, you have a really good perspective on
[19:51]yourself and on kind of the humor. And I think we're all so unreasonable at heart. And so having sort
[20:00]But an honesty about that, right?
[20:02]Like, hey, I know I'm being difficult
[20:04]and that's just what you're gonna get sometimes.
[20:07]I really like that about your writing.
[20:08]It's so honest.
[20:10]Oh, thank you.
[20:11]I love that you say we're all unreasonable.
[20:12]Oh, God, that is so good.
[20:14]Because, you know, like what's reasonable to me
[20:18]is not reasonable to you.
[20:19]It's not reasonable to my husband or my sister, whoever it is.
[20:21]So I just, yeah, we are.
[20:23]So someone we are unreasonable.
[20:24]I love that.
[20:25]You better hurry up and write that down to it.
[20:27]Shoot.
[20:28]Let me get a pen.
[20:29]Yes, you can copy, right?
[20:30]Perfect, Julie.
[20:31]Yes.
[20:32]I do.
[20:33]There is a chapter in this book towards the end
[20:35]that's called the chapter of questionable opinions.
[20:38]And we struggled with this one.
[20:40]We struggled with this one, my editor and sort of,
[20:43]and the copy editor, I mean, the copy editor was involved.
[20:44]Please do this, Mike.
[20:45]We were all, OK.
[20:46]Well, I, there were some, it is really just
[20:49]a sort of mashup of a few different things
[20:53]that I think I was sort of scared to say out loud.
[20:56]But really are opinions that I have.
[20:59]They're the opinions that I talk about in the car
[21:01]on a car trip with my husband.
[21:02]But I really, when I bring them up at a dinner party,
[21:05]people look at me like I'm crazy.
[21:07]So like, for example, I get into a whole thing
[21:10]about open kitchens.
[21:11]Like I don't want an open kitchen.
[21:12]I don't like open kitchens.
[21:13]I think kitchen islands are terrible.
[21:15]And again, I understand that that is unreasonable
[21:18]to some people.
[21:19]That is absolute madness.
[21:20]The idea that I wouldn't want a beautiful kitchen
[21:22]island with tools where my children could sit and talk to me
[21:25]while I cook.
[21:26]My children sitting and talking to me while I cook
[21:28]is my worst nightmare.
[21:29]It just is.
[21:31]I would like to burrow into a cave underground
[21:34]to cook dinner and come out when it's ready
[21:35]and have nobody talk to me.
[21:37]So yes, these are the things.
[21:39]And I talk a little bit, it gets a little bit more serious.
[21:42]The kitchen island is the lightest part of that chapter.
[21:45]I talk a little bit about therapy.
[21:47]I talk a little bit about just having children in general.
[21:50]How I really think I could have been very happy,
[21:53]having never had children.
[21:55]I love my kids.
[21:56]I didn't say, I think people hear that.
[21:58]And they think, oh my gosh, you regret having your kids.
[22:00]I don't regret having my kids.
[22:02]I could just see a sliding door smellment
[22:04]where both lives could have been OK.
[22:06]I mean, both lives are I love this life.
[22:09]And I also think I could have loved this life
[22:10]if it hadn't happened for me.
[22:12]So these are things that yes, you're right.
[22:15]Some people would not say out loud.
[22:17]I am just as a writer so apt to put my foot in my mouth.
[22:21]And it sometimes does get me in trouble.
[22:23]But I will say, number one, I am funded at dinner party.
[22:25]Invite me over.
[22:26]I will start a conversation.
[22:28]And I will get people talking.
[22:29]But number two, I do think that a lot of us
[22:32]have these thoughts or opinions or we think I'm the only one.
[22:36]I'm the only one who doesn't want to kitchen island.
[22:38]And here's Elizabeth Pesterle, it's OK to not
[22:40]want to get your island.
[22:41]So I just love I love being the writer
[22:44]that can bring that out of people
[22:46]or make them feel a little bit less crazy or less unreasonable
[22:49]in their own lives, that they have a pal out there
[22:52]who thinks the same way we do.
[22:53]Because we are all so different.
[22:55]And we are also entitled to all of our opinions
[22:57]and all of our desires.
[22:58]But I think there are certain ones
[23:00]we don't talk about so much.
[23:02]You're exactly right.
[23:02]The kitchen island cracks me up because I'm a talker.
[23:06]My children are talkers.
[23:08]And my husband is a hostage.
[23:11]So I think he wants a kitchen with no one in it all the time.
[23:15]And we have a small home, not New York size challenges,
[23:20]but we're in California, which is also its own real estate
[23:23]disaster.
[23:24]And so yeah, it is it's free, no.
[23:26]And I loved the part about that you
[23:29]could have been happy without kids.
[23:30]Because I that is something I've
[23:32]thought so much more about in the past years.
[23:36]And there's such a nuanced, really, I think lovely
[23:40]conversation to be had there about the way
[23:43]that we can be transformed by others,
[23:46]whether they're children or whether they're
[23:48]people in our life.
[23:49]But there aren't a lot of places
[23:50]where we see that talked about.
[23:53]So I really appreciated that talk or that chapter
[23:57]in the book because I think that being honest about that
[24:00]really does give liberty to other people to not only speak
[24:05]it, but maybe even think honestly about it.
[24:08]Because for some people it's a, nope,
[24:09]I can't think or believe that.
[24:10]I also, the therapy cracks me up.
[24:12]I'll do that later.
[24:14]Well, even if you, even if there is a,
[24:16]and I know it's tricky to bring up because there's
[24:18]so many people who want to be a parent and they can't be.
[24:20]And so it's hard to just say that,
[24:22]like, I have these three kids, like, take them relieve them.
[24:24]And of course, that's not what I'm saying.
[24:26]But you know, I think that also there are a lot of
[24:29]parents out there who are in the deepest just weeds
[24:33]with their kids.
[24:34]And it is hard and their marriage is suffering
[24:37]and their friendships are suffering.
[24:38]And it is so hard.
[24:40]And I just want to say, yeah, it is hard.
[24:42]It's so hard.
[24:43]It is not magical all the time.
[24:45]It is not my life's calling.
[24:47]It's so wonderful.
[24:48]And all the time, it's not.
[24:49]I don't feel like that very often.
[24:52]I mean, motherhood does not come super naturally to me.
[24:54]And I will say in that chapter too, I talk about, again, my dad,
[24:58]because I talk about my dad dad a lot.
[25:01]But I say in that part of that chapter,
[25:04]my dad did not want to get married.
[25:06]And he did not want to have children.
[25:07]He was like, having a great time being a bachelor.
[25:10]And then he met my mom.
[25:11]And he felt really hard in love with my mom.
[25:13]And so anyway, they got married, but it took a long time.
[25:15]They dated for a long time before they got married.
[25:18]And then he kind of was very ambivalent.
[25:20]Didn't want kids, wasn't sure.
[25:22]And so the story of them getting pregnant,
[25:25]my mom getting pregnant with my sister is,
[25:26]I think, not safe for work, maybe not safe for.
[25:29]That's my mom's story to tell about that happen.
[25:31]Understood.
[25:32]But she will say, once your sister was born,
[25:35]it was like your father was the only man in the hospital
[25:38]who had ever had a baby.
[25:39]He was just the most enthusiastic, guess what?
[25:44]And I say, we joke all the time in my family.
[25:47]It was like a refrain on loop all the time.
[25:51]Oh, your dad didn't want kids.
[25:52]Oh, your dad didn't want kids.
[25:54]It never made me feel anything less than completely
[25:58]loved and adored by my dad.
[26:00]It was a running joke.
[26:01]And he would always follow it up with like,
[26:03]oh, I'm not the luckiest man alive.
[26:05]So I just think that you can hold both
[26:08]in all circumstances.
[26:10]Every happy incident in your life
[26:11]has a little bit of a sadness to it.
[26:13]And every sadness in your life has a little bit of joy in it.
[26:16]Like, there are no 100% on either side.
[26:18]So I just think every blessing has a little bit of,
[26:22]you know, this is hard.
[26:23]And every hard season is gonna have some light
[26:26]at the end of the tunnel.
[26:27]So yeah, I just think that all things have two sides.
[26:31]Yeah, I think that's a beautiful way to think about it.
[26:33]And so important to be able to hold that space
[26:35]for those sorts of ideas and conversations.
[26:39]One question for you, you talk often about your faith,
[26:43]which I love.
[26:44]What is your, it's a part of you
[26:48]and you're writing about yourself, obviously.
[26:51]So I can see how that would be natural.
[26:53]What do you hope for people who may not share your beliefs
[26:58]or people who do share your beliefs,
[27:01]but maybe don't don't speak about them
[27:02]or don't write about it.
[27:03]What is the reason or what's what you want
[27:08]to give people by sharing that side of you?
[27:11]You know, there's a little less Jesus,
[27:14]I think in this book than there probably was
[27:16]in the first book.
[27:17]Okay.
[27:18]I felt a lot, I don't know, the first book
[27:19]just every chapter seemed to kind of wrap up
[27:22]in a little bit of like a little, a little kind of moment
[27:25]or a lesson or something I learned.
[27:26]And this book, I just let myself be a little bit more free.
[27:30]So if there was a situation I was writing about
[27:33]and obviously anybody who is a person of faith,
[27:36]no matter what your faith is,
[27:38]you're always looking at your challenges, your sufferings,
[27:41]your joys through that lens.
[27:42]So if there was a place for it
[27:44]and it felt like there was something I wanted to talk about
[27:46]I did and if there wasn't, I didn't.
[27:48]So I felt really free in that in this book.
[27:51]Listen, there are wonderful books out there
[27:55]for Christian people who want to be inspired
[27:59]or instructed or they want advice on their life.
[28:03]This is not that book.
[28:04]You guys, I'm not writing,
[28:06]I'm not writing any kind of inspirational,
[28:09]devotional, Bible study, self-help, anything.
[28:12]But at the same time, I think there is a little bit of a lack
[28:16]in our world in terms of books,
[28:18]for books that the person writing it might be a Christian
[28:22]and that might be something that informs their decisions
[28:25]in some way or another,
[28:26]but that they're not full on just like writing
[28:29]a sort of inspirational life-changing devotional.
[28:34]So I just want to write about my life,
[28:36]my everyday life, as I say all the time,
[28:38]I don't have a spectacular life.
[28:40]I have a really pretty boring life.
[28:42]I have a life just like most of you.
[28:44]I've been through small disappointments and griefs.
[28:47]I've been through kind of the everyday things
[28:49]of parenting and marriage and jobs and friendships.
[28:52]However, I do think, and this was the getting back
[28:55]to your question.
[28:56]This is what I think I would want people to know,
[28:58]especially if they don't share my faith is
[29:01]the reason I think that I can be super honest
[29:05]and pretty vulnerable and probably say some things
[29:07]that might make me sound a little weird
[29:10]or have opinions that might not resonate with everyone
[29:13]is because I do feel a lot of freedom
[29:15]in what is actually important in my life
[29:18]that my faith kind of speaks to who I am.
[29:20]And then I can be a little bit of a clown underneath that.
[29:23]If someone doesn't agree with me about an opinion
[29:26]about something or someone says something unkind
[29:30]about my sharing a certain aspect of my,
[29:32]it just doesn't devastate me.
[29:34]It really doesn't.
[29:35]It gives me so much more freedom in my writing.
[29:37]And I would hope that when people say,
[29:40]oh, I just loved how you shared that.
[29:42]Well, the reason I can share that
[29:43]is because I know who I am deep in my gut spiritually.
[29:47]So I can share the things that might be,
[29:50]I can share the words a little bit more.
[29:52]I can share the things that might be a little bit more embarrassing
[29:55]or I can say that the ways that I've completely screwed up
[29:58]in terms of raising my children.
[29:59]And there's...
[30:00]So many ways, so many ways, Julie.
[30:01]So I think I can be more honest about that
[30:04]because I do have this deep-rooted sort of firm foundation
[30:08]of who I am underneath it.
[30:10]And yeah, listen, I live in New York City.
[30:12]I mean, most of my friends are not,
[30:14]I grew up in the Bible Belt,
[30:15]but I live in New York City and also many, many of my friends
[30:17]absolutely do not share my faith.
[30:19]And I love getting a nice barometer from them
[30:22]of what they like and what they don't like
[30:24]and questions that they have,
[30:26]but it opens up so many great questions.
[30:27]And I think I've turned to Jewish friends in New York
[30:31]and also my dad was Jewish growing up.
[30:32]That's something that I talk a lot about in the first book,
[30:35]but my dad was Jewish.
[30:36]And so, you know, I do think that draws some people in.
[30:40]My New Yorkness, my Jewish dad will kind of draw some people in
[30:43]that might not otherwise have picked up my books.
[30:45]Well, I really, I know I said it,
[30:49]but I love your books, I love your writing.
[30:50]I love the way that you share exactly that
[30:53]because I do think your books have a sense of place
[30:57]not only in their setting, but your place in yourself.
[31:01]Like, you feel at home, in yourself, in your books,
[31:05]and to watch it and read about it is a real joy.
[31:09]So, I'm so glad you have another book out
[31:12]and I'm so glad we got to talk today.
[31:14]I did, and you do.
[31:15]Thank you so much, Julie.
[31:16]This was fun.
[31:18]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[31:21]to Read Books.
[31:22]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[31:24]at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:27]Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibiowans.com
[31:29]and sign up for my virtual book club
[31:31]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[31:34]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[31:36]for the Sound Editing.
[31:37]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:39]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.