0:00

Every great love story begins with a

0:02

Harry Winston diamond. For nearly a century,

0:04

Harry Winston has been the name behind

0:06

some of the world's most exceptional diamonds.

0:09

That's because every Harry Winston diamond ring

0:11

is as one of a kind as

0:13

the love story it represents. The ultimate

0:16

symbol of romance, devotion, and elegance. From

0:18

emerald cut and cushion cut to oval

0:20

and pear shaped, every diamond

0:22

is hand selected for maximum beauty and

0:24

brilliance and placed in a timeless platinum

0:27

setting. Say I do to

0:29

a Harry Winston engagement ring and

0:31

you're happily ever after at harrywinston.com.

0:36

Love now and for all. Was

0:40

stronger than anything. And

0:43

I love you more than anything. From

0:49

the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.

0:52

This is Modern Love. And today we're

0:54

starting a special series in honor of

0:56

the 20th anniversary of the Modern Love

0:58

column. Longtime listeners will remember

1:00

the early days of this podcast when

1:02

we had actors read Modern Love essays.

1:04

And I want to be really clear.

1:06

When I say actors, I mean like

1:09

household name, red carpet walk-in

1:11

actors. So we're bringing that

1:13

concept back with a bit

1:15

of a twist. For

1:17

the rest of the season, you're going to hear actors read

1:19

essays, but you're also going to

1:21

hear from musicians, writers, filmmakers, relationship

1:24

experts, all kinds of creative and

1:26

brilliant people who are thinking about

1:28

love and making art about it.

1:32

Kicking us off today is writer

1:34

Celeste Ng. She's the author

1:36

of three best-selling books. You may have heard of

1:38

them. Everything I Never Told You, Little

1:40

Fires Everywhere, and most recently

1:43

Our Missing Hearts. Now,

1:45

I know that Celeste is acclaimed

1:47

in the literary fiction world, but

1:50

the thing about her books is

1:52

they're also absolutely engrossing. I

1:54

actually, it's kind of embarrassing, but I actually

1:56

distinctly remember that I was reading Little Fires

1:58

Everywhere when it first came out. and

2:00

I was reading it while walking and I

2:03

bumped into a pole. It actually really hurt,

2:05

but it was worth it. Because

2:07

I was so completely absorbed in the

2:09

world Celeste created, I didn't

2:11

want to leave. The way

2:13

she captures the messy bonds between

2:15

parents and children constantly surprises me

2:18

and sets me in. Today,

2:20

Celeste reads a modern love essay about

2:22

exactly that bond, a mother

2:25

trying desperately to reach her child.

2:30

Celesteing, welcome to modern love. Thank

2:33

you so much for having me on. Celeste,

2:35

before we get to the reading, there's this piece

2:37

of trivia floating around about you that I need

2:39

to talk to you about. It's

2:41

that you are a miniaturist, you make tiny

2:43

things as a hobby. I

2:45

do, that is true, I can officially

2:48

confirm it. Tell me what that means,

2:50

what are you making, what's your process?

2:52

Well, I had a dollhouse when I was little, it used

2:54

to be my sisters and when she outgrew it, I took

2:57

it from her. And I just have

2:59

always loved little things, I've loved making them, playing

3:01

with them. I don't have a dollhouse now, but

3:03

there was a time when I was in college

3:05

in the grad school where I was making little

3:08

miniature foods out of polymer clay and I was

3:10

selling them on the then brand new site eBay.

3:12

And that was how I was kind of making

3:14

some side money so that I could go out

3:17

to eat every once in a while when I

3:19

was in college. And now I just

3:21

do it for fun, there's something about small

3:23

things that just fascinates me. I

3:26

too am a big small thing fan, which is fun

3:28

to say a big small thing fan. What's

3:31

your favorite thing you've ever made? One

3:34

of the things that I made that I'm still fond

3:36

of is I made a very small dim sum set.

3:39

So it's like a Chinese brunch, it's

3:41

a thing that I do with my

3:43

family and at least at the time

3:45

when I was making miniatures, there was

3:47

a lot of Thanksgiving turkey, there was a

3:49

lot of green beans, a

3:51

lot of hot dogs, there was no

3:53

Chinese food. So I made a

3:55

set and I gave it to my mom actually and

3:57

she still has it. Are you making these things with...

4:00

tweezers? How are you getting the sort of

4:02

details and the tiny tiny bow buns, for

4:04

example? Oh, well, I use tiny little tools,

4:07

but really it's just a matter of working

4:09

in the clay and getting used

4:11

to working in that small of a scale to

4:13

get like the little ripples of like a dantat,

4:15

which is an egg tart or the

4:17

kind of bready texture of a bow, something

4:19

like that. Did you have the sort of bamboo

4:22

containers as well? Did you make that? I think

4:24

I made them out of a manila folder that

4:26

I then sort of painted to look like the

4:28

bamboo of the steamer. That is so cute.

4:31

I always think some people have what I call the

4:33

tiny things gene and some people don't where you're like,

4:35

oh my God, that's amazing. How did you do that? And

4:38

some people are like, oh, it's really small. Okay.

4:43

Well, it's very clear that I have

4:45

that gene. Why do you

4:47

think you're so drawn to tiny things? Like where

4:49

does that gene come from in you? I've

4:52

been poking at that myself because I'm hoping that

4:54

I will be able to work miniatures into a

4:56

project. I'm still kind of figuring out how that's

4:58

going to work. But one

5:01

of the things that miniatures opens up

5:03

for me at least is that it's

5:05

an excuse to pay attention. If

5:08

you're going to make something in miniature, you

5:10

have to spend a lot of time really

5:12

looking at it. What color is it really?

5:14

What shape is it? What does that texture

5:16

look like? It's very much what brings me

5:18

to fiction actually is just that I like

5:20

to observe the world and this is one

5:22

way of doing it. In order to recreate

5:25

it in miniature, you have to observe really

5:27

carefully. One of the things that I love

5:29

about miniatures is that you often use them to tell a story.

5:32

People who do have miniature scenes or room

5:34

boxes or doll houses, they often like to set

5:36

up the things to sort of give

5:38

you clues about who's living there. What is this person

5:40

like? Like a snapshot of life. Yeah, exactly. And that's

5:42

very much, I think how I approach my fiction is

5:44

I think about it through the people who are there,

5:46

what are they like? What can you tell about them

5:48

based on what they leave behind or the kind of

5:51

place that they surround themselves with? Well,

5:53

I'm sure if there had been a Modern Love

5:55

essay all about the world of miniatures, you

5:58

would have chosen that to read today. but

6:00

the essay you did choose does have

6:02

some pretty uncanny connections to your

6:04

life and to your work. It's

6:07

called Bringing a Daughter Back from

6:09

the Brink with Poems. Now

6:11

I don't want to give too much away before we hear

6:13

you read the essay, but just to sort of set the

6:15

emotional mood, if I

6:17

ask you, and I'm sorry this is a tough question

6:19

but you're a writer, I know you can handle it,

6:22

if I asked you to describe this essay

6:24

in three words, what

6:26

three words would you choose? I'd

6:29

definitely say motherhood, poetry,

6:32

and then I guess I would

6:35

say persistence. That

6:37

is a perfect miniature

6:39

preview into the essay we're

6:41

about to hear you read, so take it away

6:44

whenever you're ready. Bringing

6:52

a Daughter Back from the Brink with Poems

6:55

by Betsy McWinney. When

7:01

George W. Bush was re-elected

7:03

in 2004, my

7:06

13-year-old daughter, Marisa, was so

7:08

angry that she stopped wearing

7:10

shoes. She

7:12

chose the most ineffective rebellion

7:15

imaginable, two little

7:17

bare feet against the world. She

7:20

declared that she wouldn't wear shoes again until we

7:22

had a new president. I

7:27

had learned early in motherhood that it's not

7:29

worth fighting with your children about clothes, so

7:33

I watched silently as she strode

7:35

off barefoot each morning, walking

7:37

down the long gravel driveway in the

7:40

cold, rainy darkness to wait for the

7:42

bus. The

7:44

principal called me a few times, declaring

7:46

that Marisa had to start wearing shoes

7:48

or she would be suspended. I

7:52

passed the messages on, but my

7:54

daughter continued her barefoot march. After

7:59

about For four months, she donned

8:01

shoes without comment. It didn't

8:03

ask why. I wasn't

8:06

sure if wearing shoes was a sign of

8:08

failure or maturity. Asking

8:11

her seemed like it could add

8:13

unnecessary insult to injury. But

8:16

all of her rebellion that year wasn't quite

8:18

so harmless. I feared she

8:21

was acting out in dangerous ways. As

8:24

we walked through the grocery store one day, she

8:27

reached out for an avocado, causing

8:29

her sleeve to fall back, revealing

8:31

a scary looking scab on her wrist

8:34

along the meridian where a watch band

8:36

would be. I

8:38

grabbed her hand. Oh,

8:40

Marisa, you must be in a lot of pain. She

8:43

looked away, saying nothing. I

8:47

tried to squelch a wave of nausea, chilled

8:49

by the knowledge that my daughter was harming

8:51

herself. I did what

8:53

parents do. I engaged with

8:55

professionals and took their advice. Marisa

8:58

went to a counselor alone, and

9:01

we went to a different one together. I

9:07

felt a pit of horror in my

9:09

stomach, as a psychiatrist told me in

9:11

front of Marisa, she

9:13

shouldn't be left alone, and

9:15

she shouldn't be allowed to handle anything dangerous.

9:18

No knives. If you

9:20

have any medication in the home, keep

9:23

it locked up and away from her. Later

9:27

that evening, we were unloading the dishwasher

9:29

together, her on one side,

9:32

me on the other. I

9:34

unconsciously passed her a sharp knife to

9:37

put away. Mom,

9:39

are you sure you can trust me with this?

9:42

She said jokingly. I

9:45

had held it together pretty well up to that

9:47

point, at least in front of her, but

9:50

started sobbing uncontrollably when she said

9:52

that. She

9:54

looked surprised and gave me a hug. I'll

9:57

be OK, she promised. I

10:05

started Tuesday night dinners, to

10:07

which I'd invite everyone we knew who would

10:10

be fine with the chaotic scene of a

10:12

weekday family dinner. Sometimes

10:14

three people would show, sometimes 20, and

10:17

we would eat the kind of simple food

10:19

that a working mother can throw together

10:22

between getting home at 5 p.m. and

10:24

having people arrive at 5.30. The

10:28

parents of her friends would come with their teenagers,

10:30

and at least for that one evening the

10:33

house was lively with people. I

10:35

wanted life to come to her. I

10:38

wanted her to float on the current

10:41

of rich connections. Other

10:44

evenings were filled with sullen, delicate

10:46

silences punctuated by minor

10:49

conflicts, me resisting

10:51

the urge to ask how she was

10:53

doing because I was afraid of

10:55

what I might learn, and

10:57

her courageously struggling to

10:59

understand teenagehood. As

11:05

she played the guitar in her bedroom, I

11:07

tried not to lurk outside the closed door.

11:11

But when the music stopped, I had to breathe

11:13

through my panic, wondering if she

11:15

was still safe. It

11:20

wasn't clear to Marisa whether she

11:22

should bother growing up. She

11:25

would ask me, do you like

11:27

your life? Her

11:30

tone implied judgment of my life without her

11:32

having to spell it out. You

11:35

drive, work in a cubicle, do chores,

11:37

and are terminally single. What's the point?

11:42

One day my son came home

11:44

from school talking about vandalism that

11:46

had occurred at the elementary school.

11:50

Someone spray painted stuff all over

11:52

the schoolyard, he said. Things

11:55

like too many bushes, not

11:57

enough trees. I

12:00

glanced sideways at Marisa. She

12:02

met my eyes and looked down, confirming

12:05

my suspicions. I'm

12:07

no fan of vandalism, but

12:10

I was actually glad to learn she

12:12

cared that much about something. It

12:18

turns out she did the deed with a boy

12:21

who was caught and required to pay a

12:23

fine. I asked

12:25

my daughter to call the boy's family

12:27

and confess, which she did,

12:30

and offered to pay half the fine, which

12:32

they accepted. I

12:36

started leaving poems in her shoes in

12:38

the morning. She

12:41

had used the shoes as a form

12:43

of quiet protest, so

12:45

I decided I would use them to

12:47

make a quiet stand for hope. When

12:51

one of your primary strategies as

12:53

a parent involves leaving Wendell Berry's

12:56

Mad Farmer Liberation Front in your

12:58

child's shoe, it's clear

13:00

things aren't going well. What

13:07

I wanted her to know is, people

13:09

have been in pain before, struggled

13:12

to find hope, and look

13:14

what they've done with it. They

13:16

made poetry that landed right in your

13:18

shoe, the same shoe

13:20

you didn't wear for four months

13:22

because of your despair. Before

13:27

she went to school in the morning,

13:29

I wanted her to read the poem

13:31

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver that talks

13:34

about not having to be good and

13:36

not having to walk on your knees

13:38

for miles repenting. As

13:41

Miss Oliver writes, you only

13:43

have to let the soft animal

13:45

of your body love what

13:47

it loves. Or

13:50

this from Mr. Berry, be

13:53

joyful though you have

13:55

considered all the facts. Would

13:59

that matter? to her? Would

14:01

she get my message that the world loved

14:03

her and she should really

14:06

try to start loving it back? I

14:10

wasn't going to talk her out of how dire

14:12

things were on the planet, but

14:14

could she, even so, find

14:16

reasons to put shoes on each

14:18

day? Raising

14:21

a child who had no hope for the future

14:24

seemed like my biggest failure ever.

14:30

I normally don't invite poetry into my daily

14:32

life. As an

14:34

ecologist, I embraced science. But

14:37

all I had to offer her at that

14:40

point were the thoughts of others who struggled

14:42

to make a meaningful life and

14:44

had put those thoughts into the best, spare-est

14:47

words they could. It

14:50

suddenly struck me, the

14:52

one who loves science, data, facts,

14:54

and reason, that when push

14:56

comes to shove, it was poetry

14:58

I could count on. Poetry

15:01

knew where hope lived and

15:03

could elicit that lump in the throat that

15:06

reminds me it's all worth it. Science

15:09

couldn't do that. I

15:13

believed, inexplicably, that

15:15

it was urgent to deliver the perfect words

15:17

in her shoe each day. It felt

15:20

like her life depended on it. One

15:24

day, I called in late to work so

15:26

I could purchase scissors and a glue stick

15:29

from a gas station mini mart. I

15:32

took the supplies and a stack of

15:34

discarded magazines into a cheap restaurant to

15:37

drink bad coffee and assemble poems

15:39

in the form of a ransom note, as

15:42

if my daughter had been kidnapped and I

15:44

had to disguise the writing to get her

15:46

back. I

15:49

frantically searched for the word bones so

15:51

I could nod to her budding sexuality with

15:54

rutkas, I knew a woman

15:56

lovely in her bones. But

15:58

superstitiously, I didn't want to clip

16:00

the word bones from a grizzly headline. I hope

16:04

no one would ask why I was late because

16:07

I had no idea where to begin, how

16:09

to explain. For

16:16

a few weeks, Marisa didn't comment on the

16:18

poems. She had to know

16:20

I was doing it because she had to remove the

16:23

poems from her shoe before putting them on in the

16:25

morning. I felt

16:27

encouraged, though, when I'd find a

16:29

well-worn, many times folded poem in her

16:31

pocket as I did the laundry. As

16:35

the days grew longer, she became more

16:38

involved in life. She made

16:40

plans, took up running, planted

16:42

seeds, decorated her room. I

16:46

could see that her putting on the shoes wasn't

16:48

deceit, but maturity. At some

16:51

point, I knew she had come out of

16:54

a long, dark tunnel. I also

16:56

knew it wouldn't be her last tunnel. The

17:02

most optimistic people often struggle the

17:04

hardest. They can't quite

17:06

square what's going on in the world

17:08

with their beliefs, and

17:10

the disparity is alarming. She

17:14

was temporarily swamped at the

17:16

intersection of grief over a bleak

17:19

political landscape, transition to

17:21

a mediocre high school, and

17:23

the vast existential questions of a

17:26

curious adolescent. In

17:28

retrospect, my poetry project was

17:31

a harmless sideline that kept me out

17:33

of her way as she

17:35

struggled not just to see the horizon,

17:38

but to march bravely toward it. A

17:42

few years ago, she was interviewed

17:44

to join a group of students on

17:46

a long trip to Sierra Leone. The

17:50

professor explained that it was likely to be

17:52

a very difficult time, far

17:54

from home with physical and mental

17:56

hardship. He

18:00

asked Marisa, if you get to

18:02

the abyss and it begins talking.

18:06

Well, she replied, I would

18:09

have a lot of questions for the

18:11

abyss indeed. After

18:17

the break, more from Celeste Ng.

18:24

Every great love story begins with a Harry

18:26

Winston diamond. For nearly a century,

18:28

Harry Winston has been the name behind some

18:30

of the world's most exceptional diamonds. That's because

18:33

every Harry Winston diamond ring is as one

18:35

of a kind as the love story it

18:37

represents. The ultimate symbol

18:39

of romance, devotion, and elegance.

18:42

From emerald cut and cushion cut to oval

18:44

and pear shaped, every

18:46

diamond is hand selected for maximum beauty

18:48

and brilliance and placed in a timeless

18:51

platinum setting. Say I do

18:53

to a Harry Winston engagement ring

18:55

and you're happily ever after at

18:57

harrywinston.com. Hey there, it's Ira

18:59

Glass from This American Life. If you don't know our

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19:58

app. This

20:10

essay is magnificent. Isn't

20:13

it so good? Amazing essay, amazing

20:15

parenting, just amazing insight. I love

20:17

it. I love that you

20:19

have such strong feelings about it. And in

20:21

fact, when you chose this essay, you said

20:24

to us that it couldn't be more perfect.

20:26

What makes this essay so perfect

20:28

for you? Well,

20:30

it touches on a lot of themes that I

20:32

deal with in my own work, but that also

20:34

are a really big part of my life. It

20:36

touches on first of all, the experience of parenting,

20:39

both my relationship with my own parents and then

20:41

my relationship with my child. Now, you know, it's

20:44

such a small word. It sounds like it's just

20:46

parenting. That's it. But what you're really

20:48

doing is you're trying to make a

20:50

human being who knows how to go out in the

20:52

world and to manage on their own and hopefully make

20:54

the world better. In

20:57

her essay, Betsy spends

21:00

most of her time quite terrified. She's

21:02

trying to reach her daughter, Marisa.

21:04

She's trying to give her hope. While at

21:06

the same time, she really is acknowledging

21:09

that her daughter has a point. The

21:11

world is broken in so many

21:13

ways. Who

21:16

do you find yourself relating to more? Betsy,

21:19

the mom or Marisa, the daughter

21:21

or both? Honestly, both.

21:23

I mean, I remember

21:26

feeling much as it seems like Marisa

21:28

does in this essay as a teenager

21:30

and frankly, sometimes still as an adult.

21:33

When I was a teenager, I also

21:36

would get really passionately angry about things

21:38

that were going on. And yet as

21:40

a teenager, you don't really have a

21:42

ton of agency to do anything about

21:45

that. I would learn that we had

21:47

dropped missiles on yet another group of

21:49

people for some kind of inexplicable reason.

21:52

And I was really angry about it. And so I

21:54

went through a phase where I, my

21:57

parents call my hippie phase, where I was I

22:00

was a vegetarian, I was doing all these things, and you're

22:02

doing all the things that we associate with, oh, teenagers being

22:04

teenagers. But for me, they were a

22:06

way of trying to align my life

22:09

with the things that felt important to me, right?

22:11

Tearing about the world, about the environment, about other

22:14

people. And I

22:16

had poetry-related rebellions as

22:18

well, actually. Really? There

22:20

was a period of time when I was very frustrated with

22:22

the world and I went around writing

22:25

quotes from T.S.L. Hitt's proof

22:27

rock, and sticking them onto the

22:30

bulletin boards at my school, surreptitiously.

22:33

And then by the time I got out of class, someone

22:35

would have torn, the custodians would have torn them down. What

22:37

was the line that you were writing on the, do you

22:39

remember? There were a couple. I

22:41

mean, one of them was the famous, have

22:44

I measured out my life with coffee

22:46

spoons? There's another one, do I dare

22:48

disturb the universe, right? Celeste, Celeste, this

22:50

is so, it's so funny, because, okay,

22:52

Betsy's daughter spray paints, too

22:55

many bushes, not enough trees. And you're

22:57

going around putting, honestly, beautiful lines of

22:59

T.S. Eliot poetry being like, take that.

23:03

So I felt Marisa very deeply there.

23:05

I think there's this feeling as a

23:07

teenager of becoming aware of what's in

23:09

the world, and yet you really don't

23:11

yet have any real power to do

23:13

anything about it. And so in some

23:15

ways, all you've got is words and

23:18

your own body, your shoes, right? Or

23:20

your wrists. And that's the

23:22

tension of adolescence, I think, that I

23:24

keep coming back to in my own writing, because I think

23:27

it's so powerful. You're at the moment of becoming an adult,

23:29

and you're just trying to figure out what you can do

23:31

with this love and this

23:33

anger and this desire to make things

23:36

better. But now that I'm a parent,

23:38

I also really felt for her mother,

23:41

this sense of knowing that your child needs

23:43

something, but not knowing how you can give

23:45

it to them, and maybe realizing

23:47

that you can't give it to them. This is just

23:49

something they have to figure out for themselves. I

23:52

think most parents Would wish

23:54

that they could just wave a magic wand

23:56

and have their child avoid all of the

23:58

potholes that they see. When you. In.

24:01

Their own th had right? But the truth

24:03

is that. The. Kids have

24:05

to go through it's and selves. I think about.

24:08

The things my parents said when I was

24:10

a teenager and my basic response was. Why?

24:13

Are you telling me this? Ah and

24:15

now as an adult and like oh

24:17

you were trying to steer me around

24:19

that pothole seen do you remember like

24:21

a specific thing they they said that

24:23

that come to my money mentioned I.

24:27

Think I was a very impatient teenager

24:29

and I remember there was one time

24:31

where my mom to said to be

24:33

you know you need to learn to

24:35

be more tolerance of other people. You.

24:38

Just have to be more patient. And I

24:40

think I kind of when. I

24:43

first if I responded verbally at all.

24:46

If you know she was right. And

24:49

I guess it's sinking because I do remember that

24:51

moment I remembered thinking at the time going

24:53

like well, there's all the suffering you can't be

24:55

tolerant of, your current about it and you're

24:57

not doing it right and you know it was

24:59

a very. Sixteen. Year old

25:01

response and it's it's not wrong but I

25:04

could see that she had the prospective. Now

25:06

that like. There's. Gonna

25:08

be a lot of sites and a

25:10

lot of those sites will be very

25:12

long and in some ways you have

25:15

to kind of pace yourself. You can't

25:17

just run into one wall. And

25:20

expect that it's gonna fall

25:22

over. and now I see

25:24

that. As. Her kind of

25:26

trying to give me some of that perspective, but

25:28

I couldn't I couldn't see things from that perspective

25:30

yet because I hadn't grown and us. And

25:33

you're talking about you as a teenager.

25:36

and another should have a line

25:38

or residents i see between this

25:40

essay in your life is that

25:42

bed see is an ecologist she's

25:44

a scientist and your own parents

25:46

weren't scientists correct yeah my my

25:48

dad was a physicist he actually

25:50

worked at nasa my mom was

25:52

i guess you would say is

25:55

still a chemist other she's she's

25:57

retired so they're both very rationally

25:59

minded insane I was going to say,

26:01

Betsy writes in her essay that because of

26:03

her science brain, you know, she didn't totally

26:05

have the words to speak to her daughter,

26:08

Marisa, so she used the words of poets

26:10

to try to get through to her. As

26:12

a kid, did you feel like your

26:14

parents ever struggled to figure out how to communicate

26:17

with you in any way? I

26:19

think so. Partly, it's a cultural

26:22

thing because my parents were immigrants, so they

26:24

came over from Hong Kong. I think frequently

26:26

about how, you know, I will never have

26:28

a conversation with my mother in her mother

26:30

tongue, which is Cantonese. There

26:32

was also, I think, sort of a thought

26:34

difference, but I think that from them I

26:36

really learned how to think like a scientist

26:39

in some ways. It's just not my natural

26:41

mode of expressing myself. And

26:43

so what struck me most about the

26:45

essay, I think, was that even

26:47

though the author was like, I'm an ecologist, I

26:50

don't think that way, she still

26:52

felt the power of poetry and

26:54

she still found these

26:57

poems. I think there's something

26:59

about poetry that really comes

27:01

in sideways at us, and it gets

27:03

around that rational bodyguard who's at the

27:06

front door of our brain, and it

27:09

sneaks its way in, and

27:11

it jabs us in

27:13

the heart in a good way, though. And

27:15

I think for my parents, that was true as

27:17

well, even though they were scientists. They both loved

27:19

reading, and we had books piled everywhere in our

27:22

house. So there is something about that language that

27:24

even if you think you're rational, it's getting to

27:26

you somehow. You

27:28

know, Betsy chose the poets Wendell

27:30

Berry and Mary Oliver to try to

27:32

help Marisa navigate this world

27:35

that was causing her pain, this adolescence that was

27:37

bringing her pain. What do you

27:39

think Betsy was trying to tell her daughter with

27:42

these choices? What was she trying to tell her? I

27:44

read those poems as kind of, giving

27:46

perspective sounds like such a condescending thing,

27:48

but I think I've dealt with depression

27:50

in my life, in college and afterwards,

27:52

and then I had postpartum depression.

27:55

And so I've had a lot of times in which I've

27:58

felt Like the world was out of control. like. The

28:00

gun at long dark tunnel like that he

28:02

talks about And one of things I realize

28:04

that depression can do is it makes all

28:06

of your problem is the same size as

28:09

you're literally you're losing perspective for you can't

28:11

know, was close up and really big and

28:13

about to eat you and what's really far

28:15

away. And one of the things I see

28:17

both of those poems doing is in some

28:20

ways kind of narrowing your view just a

28:22

little bit. And so in the Wendell Berry

28:24

for example he says put your faith in

28:26

the two inches if you miss that will

28:28

build under the trees. Where he's like to think about

28:31

these. Little. Little seems.

28:33

And. He gets more and more specific as upon

28:36

those on he says go with your love

28:38

to the fields, lie easy in the shade,

28:40

rest your head in her lap. there's a

28:42

sense of sort of the world getting smaller

28:44

and more manageable and away sing all that

28:46

stuff is going on. By. It's

28:48

almost a permission. Both of these poems

28:51

I seem to. Feel.

28:53

Pain. To seal that depression,

28:55

to feel that anxiety or that hopelessness

28:57

and yet also look for ways to

29:00

push through it. And

29:02

really love what you're saying. I

29:04

I think it's important that both

29:06

of these poems don't deny the

29:08

pain or the loneliness or the

29:10

alienation. Or the suffering or the the

29:12

terror. Of the world But they say

29:14

like there is this way like you're

29:16

saying the small individual way forward. Yeah

29:18

I want to say also want to

29:20

give that's a little more credit than

29:22

she gives herself. which is that I

29:25

think that often people who are in

29:27

the sciences or the more you know

29:29

hard subject to say, the publishing. I

29:31

think they tend to think that they're

29:33

opposites of sort of like so writers,

29:35

the artist, the poets. And I think

29:37

that artists in medicine, writers and poets

29:39

think of the end of the sciences

29:41

and their. Polar opposite She that I actually

29:44

things are much more closely related seems like

29:46

they are. One of the things that I

29:48

learned from my own parents is that you

29:50

are dealing with big questions as the universe,

29:52

how does the world work, how does this

29:54

process work and her but what you're doing

29:56

in your daily life almost always is you're

29:58

working on one varies. small piece of

30:01

that puzzle. You know,

30:03

I'm so struck Celeste, we started our

30:05

conversation talking about miniatures and how they

30:07

force you to focus on the small

30:09

details. And it strikes me that we've

30:11

returned again to the idea of the

30:14

small, right? I just have

30:16

one last question for you, Celeste. I know that

30:19

you have a son, he's a teenager. If

30:22

you were thinking about words that you

30:24

want him to carry through life, through

30:26

hard times, are there pieces of writing

30:28

that you would put in his shoe?

30:31

There are, I pulled up one of my favorites,

30:33

which is actually another Mary Oliver poem, which

30:36

is called When Death Comes. And

30:38

although the title, if you haven't read the poem,

30:40

sounds sort of morbid

30:43

and despairing, what she's saying

30:45

is when death comes, she

30:47

wants to feel like she's lived a life. There's

30:50

a line in here where she says, I

30:52

want to step through the door full of

30:54

curiosity, wondering what is it going to be

30:56

like, that cottage of darkness? And

30:59

she talks about how when she goes through life,

31:01

she wants to know that she's

31:04

paid attention in a way. She says, when it's

31:07

over, I want to say, all my life I

31:09

was a bride married to amazement. I

31:11

was the bridegroom taking the world into my arms.

31:14

When it's over, I don't want to wonder if

31:16

I have made of my life something particular and

31:18

real. I don't want to find myself

31:20

sighing and frightened or full of argument. I

31:23

don't want to end up having simply visited this

31:25

world. Hmm. And

31:28

I think that's maybe the best life advice

31:30

that I can give to my own

31:32

kid or to anyone, which is just

31:34

sort of while you've got it, the purpose

31:36

of life is living and

31:39

doing what you can while you're here. And

31:42

there's lots of reasons to be afraid, but there's

31:45

also lots of reasons to try anyway. That's

31:47

a message that I would put into his shoe. I

31:49

don't know if he'd read it, but he

31:52

might think about it, right? You

31:54

never know with parenting. He'd be like, mom, there's this

31:56

weird paper in my shoe. Mom, you

31:58

left your paper in my shoe. But

32:00

I mean, that's such a metaphor for parenting too,

32:03

right? You say all these things and you don't

32:05

know what you say that's going to stick with

32:07

your kid or be meaningful. And

32:09

so in some ways you leave the

32:11

notes in the shoes and you hope that

32:13

your kids take them and put them in their pockets and

32:15

carry them around for a while. Celeste,

32:20

I could talk to you for so much

32:22

longer, but I'm just going to say at

32:24

this juncture you've given me hope. You truly

32:26

have. Thank you so much for this conversation.

32:29

Thank you, Anna. This was so fun and such a

32:31

joy. Next

32:44

week, we continue our Modern Love anniversary

32:46

party with the heart-stopping voice of

32:48

singer-songwriter Brittany Howard. Love

32:51

is still an adventure. The

32:54

feeling of sending that text and

32:57

then running through your house like, eeeeeeeeeeee!

33:02

Modern Love is produced by Julia

33:04

Botero, Christina Joseph, Riva Goldberg, Davis

33:06

Land, and Emily Lang with help

33:08

from Kate LaBriste. It's edited

33:11

by our executive producer, Jen Boyant and

33:13

Paula Schumann. The Modern Love

33:15

theme music is by Dan Powell, original

33:17

music by Dan Powell, Pat McCusker

33:20

and Marion Lozano. This

33:22

episode was mixed by Daniel Ramirez. Our

33:24

show is recorded by Maddie Maciello. Digital

33:27

production by Mahima Chablani and Mel Golokhli.

33:31

Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones.

33:33

Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love

33:35

Projects. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks

33:37

for listening. Thanks

33:51

for watching.