Morgan Baker, EMPTYING THE NEST: Getting Better at Goodbyes
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[1:03]Morgan Baker is the author of emptying the nest, getting better at goodbyes.
[1:07]Morgan is an award-winning writer and professor at Emerson College.
[1:10]In addition to her debut memoir, her work is featured in the New York Times magazine, The Boston
[1:14]Globe magazine, The Brevity Blog, Talking Writing, The Boston Parents Paper, The Martha's
[1:19]Vineyard Times, Next Tribe, The Bark, Modern Dog, Cognacenty, and Hippocampus among many regional
[1:25]and national publications.
[1:27]She is managing editor of the bucket and runs Zoom, C-N-F workshops.
[1:30]She's the mother of two adult daughters and lives with her husband and two dogs in Cambridge,
[1:34]where she also quilts and bakes.
[1:36]Welcome, Morgan.
[1:37]Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books.
[1:39]I'm so excited to discuss your memoir and your experience with your beautiful dogs and
[1:45]saying goodbye and all the rest of it.
[1:46]So thank you for coming on.
[1:48]Well, thank you for having me.
[1:49]This is very exciting.
[1:50]Uh-uh.
[1:51]I showed my kids the pictures of all the little puppies lined up and that was like the
[1:56]hit of the day.
[1:57]And you tell listeners about your book and also how taking care of dogs and taking care
[2:04]of kids and all of it is just so linked and how hard it is to say goodbye to anybody
[2:09]who brings us so much joy and connection, animal, person, all of it and how you wrapped
[2:14]all that up in your memoir.
[2:16]Okay.
[2:17]That was, that's a lot or just take it apart today, say whatever you want about your
[2:22]feedback.
[2:23]Okay.
[2:24]So the book is about shifting identity and mental health and also accepting change.
[2:31]And I think your comment about goodbye is about change.
[2:36]And when we're having, when we feel really rooted and happy with how things are going,
[2:44]it's hard when all of a sudden things begin to change.
[2:49]So the book takes place mostly during the year that we did have a literal puppies and
[2:53]also my older daughter went off to college.
[2:56]And it was more goodbye than I had anticipated or a deeper goodbye than I had anticipated.
[3:02]I always sort of knew, yeah, I don't do well with goodbyes, but I was really surprised
[3:07]by how sad I was saying goodbye to the puppies, even though I knew they were going off
[3:13]to really good places.
[3:15]And I was surprised at the depth of my sadness, slash depression, one my daughter went
[3:23]off to college.
[3:24]Both of those sort of like hit me in the face.
[3:27]And I think I don't regret doing having the puppies at all.
[3:31]They brought such joy to our family and they were so much fun to have around.
[3:37]And the same thing with my daughters.
[3:39]I can't imagine my life without them, even though it's painful to say goodbye to them.
[3:45]And I read someplace and I agree with this that the more you love, the more you breathe.
[3:49]And I would rather love deeply and grieve deeply than avoid the grief.
[3:56]And I think that's, I think it's true for whether it's an animal or a person, but I've
[4:02]seen so many, I see a lot more death around dogs.
[4:09]It's just amazing how deep that relationship can be with a dog and how alone you can feel
[4:15]afterwards.
[4:17]But I, so we just keep adding dogs to our family.
[4:20]We're on dogs number four and five now.
[4:22]So I can't, I never really was a dog person, but I can't imagine my life without a dog
[4:29]now.
[4:30]So I don't know if that answers your question.
[4:33]Sure.
[4:34]No, I just, it's more a chance just to talk to you about it.
[4:37]And there's no right answer.
[4:38]So you write a lot about your daughters and even their mental health challenges, OCD and
[4:47]all the rest.
[4:48]And, you know, you write a lot about both of them, Maggie and Ellie, right?
[4:52]How do they feel about that?
[4:53]Did you run all this by them?
[4:55]How do they feel now that it's out, you know, tell me about that piece of it?
[4:59]So I think it's a really good thing to think about.
[5:02]And I know some people don't, Abigail Thomas, who I've done some work with doesn't write
[5:06]about her children at all.
[5:08]My kids were so, and woven into the fabric of my depression that it would have been hard
[5:14]to not include them.
[5:17]And I've written about them in essays.
[5:20]They sort of know that they're, you know, my muse and fodder.
[5:25]But to that extent, I never publish anything unless they've read it.
[5:30]And they have said, so both of them read this and their, and the parts that they're
[5:36]in, and they said, yes, this is okay, you can say A, but you can't say B.
[5:42]And so a lot of it is just respect for them and being very careful not to say more than
[5:50]what they want me to say.
[5:53]And I also, in my acknowledgements and here, I do want to shout out to them because I
[6:00]I really do appreciate how they and my husband let me weave their stories into my story.
[6:09]And I think I'm incredibly grateful for that.
[6:12]So yeah, I think writing about children is tricky, really tricky.
[6:16]But they're old enough now that they really can say, no, you cannot do that.
[6:23]And I have to respect that.
[6:25]Yeah.
[6:26]I've also wrote really beautifully about your husband and even meeting your husband and
[6:30]your whole relationship really so that by the time the reader gets to the passage where
[6:35]he has the anaphylactic episode, I was, you know, I'm going to, I won't refer to myself
[6:41]as the reader anymore.
[6:42]I personally was like, oh my gosh, is he going to be like, what happens?
[6:47]And that was terrifying and how you didn't want to put your daughter in the position
[6:52]of waiting for the ambulance because of her own anxiety and what position you were in
[6:57]in that moment.
[6:58]And I know sometimes when things really go terribly and you have to just operate in the
[7:03]chaos in the moment and sometimes it's after where you let all the feelings sort of seep
[7:08]in like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that just happened.
[7:10]But tell me a little more about that and the fear from that moment and how you, you know,
[7:15]recovered from him just like collapsing in the hallway and the aftermath of the internal
[7:20]bleed.
[7:21]And I was like, no, you poor thing.
[7:23]Yeah, that was a bad night, bad couple of days.
[7:27]So I do really well in crises.
[7:30]I can manage it.
[7:31]I can, I just know like we need to do this, this, and I was like, Ellie can't be here
[7:36]because if she sees him, that will like throw her for a loop.
[7:40]So I'm going to send her out, which also annoyed her, but if you have to sometimes
[7:44]you have to make choices, which is the, you know, better of the two evils.
[7:50]So I do really well.
[7:52]I also have been, I've unfortunately this idea of anaphylaxis has happened a number
[7:57]of times in our family, but that being said, exactly as you said, I fall apart the day
[8:05]after I completely disintegrate and all the what if start falling into place.
[8:12]And yeah, I don't do well today after I'm awesome.
[8:16]You have a crisis, call me, I'll get you through it.
[8:19]But yeah, no, day after I'm a puddle on the floor, don't send you the hospital survey.
[8:26]You were not going to fill it out.
[8:27]Right.
[8:28]Well, I can very much relate to that.
[8:32]I feel like I'm good in a crisis too, because like you have to, you have to just do it.
[8:35]And like all the adrenaline and everything, you know, in your book, I found it really interesting
[8:41]the differentiation between sadness and even as you said here, I was sad in my kids
[8:46]when I first thought I was depressed.
[8:47]And I think so many, I won't say just moms, but so many parents, but I hear a lot more
[8:52]from moms about, you know, what it's like when kids go away.
[8:55]And this is sort of your life's work in a way, no matter what you're doing, right?
[9:01]And I think about it all the time, like wait, this period of time can end like for real.
[9:07]What?
[9:08]Right.
[9:09]Right.
[9:10]And so is it like how do you make sure you're taking care of yourself in the right way when
[9:13]that time comes around and how do you distinguish not to put you in a position of being
[9:17]like a counselor or anything, but how to know when it's gone too far, how to know how to
[9:21]take care of yourself.
[9:22]And really what we all can do to prepare ourselves for the kids leaving.
[9:27]And it's the same as honestly, it's like looking at my dog every day and I'm like, I'm
[9:31]going to miss her so much one day, you know, it's like, what do you do when something
[9:34]is here and you know, won't be here forever and you love it so much and, you know, all
[9:39]that.
[9:40]Yeah.
[9:41]I think it's really hard.
[9:42]I knew, and I think I wrote about this in the book too, but I sort of, the minute Maggie
[9:46]was born, I sort of realized, oh my God, she's going to like, they start leaving the
[9:51]minute they come out of you and or they come home with you, but I haven't gone through
[9:58]this now.
[9:59]I think.
[10:00]I think it's really important.
[10:01]I didn't do this.
[10:02]So this is learning from my own, like, mess up.
[10:05]But I didn't really have a lot.
[10:08]I did do a lot besides being a mom,
[10:11]but I didn't really think of any of those things
[10:14]being as significant as being a mom.
[10:17]And my whole identity was wrapped up with,
[10:20]I'm gonna, you know, try to be the best mom I can be.
[10:23]And then when they left, I was like, oh my God.
[10:26]Now, you know, I have nothing.
[10:28]But I realized that I did.
[10:30]Like, I still teach, I still write.
[10:33]I'm with my dogs, I'm with my husband.
[10:36]I have a really full life.
[10:38]And it's a good life and it's fun.
[10:41]But if you had told me,
[10:42]I don't think I would have believed it before they left.
[10:46]And I would like, I mean, if it's possible
[10:50]that other people don't,
[10:51]I think everybody is sad when their kids leave.
[10:54]I mean, it would be sort of weird if you weren't.
[10:57]But the depression part,
[10:59]people don't need to fall into a depression.
[11:02]They, you know, obviously some people
[11:04]are biologically wired that way.
[11:08]But I think now, so I take care of myself now much better
[11:13]than I did when they were young.
[11:15]I exercise all the time.
[11:17]I sew my quilts.
[11:18]You know, if I can't do one, if I can't sew every day,
[11:21]I try to sew every other day.
[11:23]I read, I'm an excellent napper.
[11:27]So I've built in, you know, walking my dogs,
[11:30]you know, little things.
[11:31]And they don't have to be like some,
[11:32]and I also am a firm believer of using a timer.
[11:36]So I'll set my timer for like half an hour
[11:38]and I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna go sew for half an hour
[11:40]when the timer dings, I'm gonna go back to my work.
[11:43]Or I take 40 minute naps and I set my timer.
[11:47]I'm now I'm sort of wired to wake up at the 40 minute mark.
[11:52]And it gives me something to look forward to on a break
[11:54]from correcting papers or, I don't know,
[11:57]whatever I have to do.
[12:00]And exercise, I never appreciated.
[12:03]I sort of, like I used to play tennis a lot.
[12:05]So my exercise was sort of built into my life.
[12:08]But now I really make a space for it
[12:11]and it makes a huge difference.
[12:13]I know, I know that, I know that to be true.
[12:15]And yeah, I guess it's really hard, it's really hard.
[12:21]So my, I'm very lucky.
[12:23]I mean, I don't know how to take it whichever way you want.
[12:26]But when the pandemic hit the health club
[12:29]that I belong to and my cousin belong to,
[12:31]we all worked out together shut.
[12:33]And then they sold it and now there's a huge bio cam,
[12:37]whatever building there.
[12:39]So we all went on zoom and some of us have just stayed on zoom.
[12:42]So I'm like here, do, do, do, do.
[12:45]And then I just like go, you know, two rooms over,
[12:48]change my clothes and I start working out.
[12:50]So it's, there's very little, yeah.
[12:54]I don't have to make an effort.
[12:55]Some people are like, I can't stand that idea.
[12:57]I need to be physically in the place.
[12:59]And I was like, yeah, no, I get that.
[13:00]But you know, I like what, I don't know what the word is.
[13:04]I like everything, it's easy, you know.
[13:08]So I like easy, me too.
[13:11]I'm actually in the past and an exercise class right here.
[13:14]I just didn't move the chair and put the video
[13:17]on the computer versus, you know, going to the gym.
[13:20]But I will say, I did finally go to an exercise class
[13:23]this summer while I went to four before I like injured myself.
[13:26]And yeah, I don't, it's fine.
[13:29]But it's so different being around actual people.
[13:31]I have to say, like I got so much more energy
[13:33]in a different way from being in a room
[13:35]of people all working out.
[13:36]And then I couldn't quit.
[13:37]You know, I felt gilted into the whole thing.
[13:39]So, so there's that.
[13:40]Yeah, no, there's no, I mean, you have to do what fits for you.
[13:44]Yeah. But I also do the alarm setting thing.
[13:47]And I feel like I should be more conscious of the fact
[13:50]that I do that and do it more because it is so helpful.
[13:53]Like I'll be like, okay, it's 945 until 10 o'clock,
[13:57]I'm going to just do emails.
[13:58]And I'm not going to look at anything else.
[13:59]Okay, for 10 to 10 30, you know, I used to like write it
[14:02]in it when I was studying.
[14:03]I'm going to study English from this time to this time.
[14:06]But it is a way of chunking up the time and getting things done.
[14:08]That's really helpful.
[14:10]Yeah, I don't know why it works.
[14:11]If I just sit down without the timer
[14:13]and say, I'm going to work for half an hour, I don't do it.
[14:16]Or sometimes I do.
[14:17]But the timer really like keeps me on.
[14:21]And I tell my students that and they're like, what?
[14:23]And then they do it and they're like, oh my god.
[14:26]Yeah, so I have to do that more often and more consciously.
[14:29]I did it for my kids the other night.
[14:31]I'm like, we have 12 minutes to do all the dishes
[14:33]and clean all of this up.
[14:34]Go. And everyone was like having the best time.
[14:36]And I'm like, no, it has ever had more fun
[14:38]cleaning up the kitchen than we are having right now.
[14:40]I don't know what's going on.
[14:41]It's awesome.
[14:42]That's great.
[14:43]Yeah, okay.
[14:43]Mental note more timers.
[14:45]So tell me what it was like reliving a lot of this stuff
[14:50]and making it into a book and figuring out what to include
[14:52]when not to include and really having to kind of go there.
[14:55]What was that like?
[14:56]So the book took, it's been a long process
[14:59]and it changed a lot.
[15:01]The hardest part was writing about my depression.
[15:05]And I had written about it.
[15:08]And then I gave 10 pages to an editor who I respect a lot.
[15:13]And she sent it back with some notes.
[15:16]But her biggest note was you need to go deeper.
[15:19]And you need to really talk about it
[15:21]and like what happened and how you felt
[15:23]and what you thought about doing.
[15:25]And part of me was like, I do not like you at all,
[15:30]but she was totally right.
[15:32]And it was hard.
[15:34]And to be fair, it's hard for my husband to read it.
[15:37]He's like, I lived it.
[15:38]I don't need to read it.
[15:39]And so I'm aware of that.
[15:42]But I also, yeah, it was hard.
[15:45]And picking out what to include and what not to include
[15:49]was trial and error, I guess.
[15:52]You know, there were a lot.
[15:55]So for instance, there were a lot more scenes
[15:57]of me saying goodbye to the puppies
[16:00]and all of a sudden, you know, through one revision,
[16:03]I was like, okay, people don't need to see me
[16:05]give away seven dogs.
[16:06]You know, if I give two to other five,
[16:09]I'm gonna be sort of similar.
[16:11]So, you know, it was, and it's, you know,
[16:14]I think any writer will tell you that cutting
[16:18]is one of the hardest things.
[16:21]You get rarely attached.
[16:22]And I was like, oh, but I took these puppies
[16:24]meant so much to me.
[16:25]And it's like, yeah, but the reader is not gonna care.
[16:27]So you have to sort of switch your hat
[16:30]and from writer to like how is someone else gonna read this.
[16:36]But yeah, it's challenging for sure.
[16:38]I feel like going through a couple, you know,
[16:42]losses with you was really hard.
[16:45]I don't know that I could have gone through more
[16:46]than you put in there
[16:47]because I feel like my eyes were welling up with each one.
[16:50]It was so vivid, the way you write,
[16:52]but all the details of every scene,
[16:54]even like when the one who wasn't spray started
[16:59]going into labor early and worrying that the puppy was,
[17:02]I mean, these scenes are so vivid
[17:05]that it just felt like I was going through
[17:07]your losses with you.
[17:09]I don't know how much more I could have taken.
[17:11]Well, thank you.
[17:12]I mean, I'm sorry that you went through them all.
[17:14]No, no.
[17:15]It's okay.
[17:16]I appreciate your comments.
[17:18]I, yeah, at one point in the writing,
[17:22]I was like, okay, this was like a title
[17:25]for like all of five seconds, love and loss.
[17:28]And I was like, okay, that is still vague
[17:30]and everybody tells you nothing.
[17:33]But I think my takeaway from loss
[17:38]is that it doesn't negate the loss,
[17:42]but something comes out of it
[17:44]and a deeper appreciation for what you do have compassion
[17:50]for other people who go through losses.
[17:53]And loss, unfortunately, I've been thinking a lot
[17:56]about this recently.
[17:57]Loss is just like a huge part of our lives.
[18:00]And sometimes I tried really hard to just like wipe it off
[18:06]and just keep myself super busy.
[18:09]And I'm very good at being busy,
[18:11]but you have to process it somehow.
[18:13]And that's what writing the book really was for me.
[18:16]It was how I made sense of all of this
[18:21]because some of it, like the anaphylaxis stuff
[18:24]that I live with with my kids and my husband
[18:27]is really challenging.
[18:29]But I can't think about it every day
[18:31]because for every minute,
[18:33]because I would never go outside.
[18:34]So it's learning how to weather and bear the pain.
[18:40]I guess it was a loss.
[18:42]And I think some are harder than others.
[18:46]But yeah, we all, everyone has something
[18:49]and everyone, you know, there's loss in everybody's life.
[18:53]It just is a different, you know,
[18:54]I lost my family that I grew up with,
[18:57]but I was thinking about this the other day.
[18:59]I was like, okay, so if my parents had never gotten divorced
[19:02]and I was like, but then I wouldn't have my stepfather.
[19:04]Or I wouldn't have, you know, it's like,
[19:07]so you sort of have to be like, okay.
[19:09]So I, you know, sometimes life is hard,
[19:12]but sometimes it's really wonderful too
[19:14]and you get something really grayed out of it.
[19:17]That's very wise and all very true.
[19:20]All right.
[19:21]No, it's, you know, all that looking back.
[19:23]You never know.
[19:23]What if this, what if that, well,
[19:25]that's just not what happened.
[19:26]So, you know, let's figure out how to make sense of it
[19:29]and easier said than done.
[19:32]Right, very easier said than done.
[19:34]But when you do it, or when you reflect on it,
[19:38]it really does help because I really do love my stepfather.
[19:43]And I, you know, and if I actually was in New York
[19:49]and, you know, and I'm like, okay,
[19:52]if the hadn't gotten divorced,
[19:53]I would grown up my whole life in New York
[19:56]and what I've gone to the same school,
[19:57]what I've met my husband, you know.
[20:00]So I'm I'm happy with the way things turned out. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[20:07]So I thought about this and
[20:10]I guess my biggest piece of advice is don't give up. You know, I I did put this book away for like three years and
[20:18]thought to myself I'm done. I'm this is just never gonna turn into something that I'm proud of and
[20:24]and
[20:25]then for a variety of reasons I took it out again, and I'm like oh my god
[20:30]I know how to fix it and
[20:32]So I would say and I say this a lot to my students even with an essay like if you cut a paragraph from an essay
[20:39]Don't throw it away put it in a document and save it for another day
[20:43]And so I would say you know whether it's an essay short story or a book of any kind to not give up
[20:51]I also think having
[20:53]some sort of feedback
[20:56]helps and
[20:57]There's so many ways that you can get feedback if you have a friend
[21:02]Who also so I have one friend here who's a really good writer and she's an incredible editor
[21:09]And she read the book one time, but so I took a lot of her advice
[21:14]But then I met all these people through the pandemic and now I have this
[21:18]I don't I haven't met half of them in real time
[21:22]But I have all these great writer friends now and finding a writing group for a class
[21:28]I think it's hard because you're doing it all alone all the time and you need to check in with other people
[21:36]So I think oh and the other piece of advice that I was thinking is try not to be defensive
[21:41]Because you're only
[21:43]Shooting yourself you need to listen and then you know afterward my husband gives me so he's really my first reader and
[21:51]I trust him a lot and
[21:53]When I you when we started when he started reading my stuff, I would get really pissy and
[22:00]Was like how dare you and that's not what I meant and then I was like oh well
[22:05]It's not what I meant and why did I say it and so now I mean
[22:08]We've been married forever. So now he tells me whatever and I just know like just
[22:14]Listen don't react and then I go into my little this little office and I either like say to myself
[22:21]I don't agree or I look at it and like oh he has point
[22:26]So yeah, it's hard, but it's so rewarding when you do it
[22:30]I mean you've written a book and you have another one coming out. I mean it's
[22:36]It's an incredibly rewarding feeling even if you don't get published. It's still a rewarding feeling because you learn something about yourself
[22:44]It's true
[22:45]There's some
[22:47]physical evidence
[22:50]Been here and thought about something and you can like plop it on the table like there thoughts go ahead
[22:57]Right
[22:58]Yeah, that's one of the reasons why actually I really like quilting and I used to do pottery
[23:03]But I wasn't very good and it's very hard to do pottery and quilting at the same time and have a life
[23:08]But those things are really finite
[23:12]You know, I can make I make a quilt and I can hold it in my hands and say see look at what I made and writing
[23:18]Is very different than that
[23:20]So I like having both because I'm like this is concrete and this just keeps going and going and going and going and going
[23:28]I should have mentioned all the parts of the back that involved the quilts because they came
[23:34]All these important points obviously when you do them for your daughters being born or you you know
[23:39]And when at the end when you were saying where there are there
[23:43]Who am I gonna make quilts for now and your husband something like oh my gosh, you're gonna have so many more occasions
[23:48]No, but I I love that because it's like what we think
[23:54]There's so much more to come and it's so it's
[23:57]And sometimes you just need to hear that
[23:59]Yeah, no, I think that's a really good point
[24:02]And I am I have a
[24:04]Making a queen quilt right now for a niece
[24:08]And then I have two baby quilts lined up. I have friends of mine are becoming grandparents
[24:13]One in October and one in November. So I have and I love I mean, I love all my quilts
[24:19]But I love baby quilts. I they're they're really fun to make. They're also tiny. I mean, you should just go on Etsy and just start selling
[24:29]He will he then you'll never run out of quilts. I know it's fun though to what it's really fun for me is
[24:36]Thinking about who I'm gonna give it to
[24:38]What their color palette is like I talked to the parents last
[24:42]There was just a coincidence that we were talking and I turned to my friend Bob
[24:46]And I said what so what color should I make the baby quilt blue green aqua
[24:52]And he was like yeah, and he said green and I was like great
[24:56]And it's really fun because it's not necessarily the palette
[24:59]I would work with for me
[25:01]But it's really fun to think about the pattern and the colors and like let's see
[25:06]What would zippy like and I can see in the back that you like multiple colors your bookshelf is all lined with
[25:12]So I would figure out something like that. It's fun. Yeah
[25:17]Actually, this is throwing you off. I really love blue
[25:19]I love blue's whites and blues. You know all that so yeah, this is just background. I should just redo it and make it all blue
[25:33]Maybe I will
[25:35]Not enough for the rainbows. All right. Well, thank you so much Morgan
[25:39]This was so fun and you know your book is just like one of these great examples of you go into someone else's life for a little bit
[25:45]And you learn so much and you take a little bit away and then it informs your own life and how you do things and it's so important
[25:52]I think that's why we read and why we write and anyway, so thanks. Well, thank you
[25:57]This has been a lot of fun, and I really appreciate being here and I will think about blue for you
[26:05]But if you did those would be the colors
[26:09]All right, thanks Morgan take care. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Bye
[26:11]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[26:17]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
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[26:29]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact texture sound for the sound editing
[26:32]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music