"I spent so much time as a child not being able to express my curiosity, I owe it to myself to put that into some form of words." - Shanta Lee Gander
During this conversation, Shanta Lee, Lisa, and Lauren chat about the multi-faceted levels of storytelling. From the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, to history and what has been left out to the story we can create and become. From mythology to reality to to time travel to identity and taking back yourself, there's so much that's unpacked and still being processed. Witness this conversation as a all three women wander with one another into many aspects of being, writing, creating, art, and so much more. From the act of writing it all down and collecting memories in order to reflect or just doing it for the sake of doing it and all the in between, this conversation has something for everyone and is worth the deep dive, even into the fear and the unknown. You'll discover something new.
Check out her website here: https://www.shantalee.com/
Learn more about the Take an Art Break Movement on the Art is Moving website here.
"I spent so much time as a child not being able to express my curiosity, I owe it to myself to put that into some form of words." - Shanta Lee Gander
During this conversation, Shanta Lee, Lisa, and Lauren chat about the multi-faceted levels of storytelling. From the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, to history and what has been left out to the story we can create and become. From mythology to reality to to time travel to identity and taking back yourself, there's so much that's unpacked and still being processed. Witness this conversation as a all three women wander with one another into many aspects of being, writing, creating, art, and so much more. From the act of writing it all down and collecting memories in order to reflect or just doing it for the sake of doing it and all the in between, this conversation has something for everyone and is worth the deep dive, even into the fear and the unknown. You'll discover something new.
Check out her website here: https://www.shantalee.com/
Learn more about the Take an Art Break Movement on the Art is Moving website here.
Welcome. We're here,
Speaker 2:We're here. And Lisa and Lauren's there. We're really excited today. We have SHTA Lee Gander here. Um, just tell us a little bit about your passion for art, creativity, poetry, and a scene in the unseen<laugh>.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Um, it's pretty fitting, cuz like I just shared before we got started live, uh, my best friend and I were creeping around at night, just looking at some of the bones and structures of history here in Pennsylvania. I love abandoned places. Uh, I write across genres. Um, I love exploring, especially the unseen within the south, but also the unseen within the landscape. Um, actually very fitting the day before we were, uh, crawling around, I was on my belly taking pictures of some tiny people's village. That was a part of an amusement park crumbling structures. So I find that on the page or even if it's behind my camera, like there are always things revealed, you know, in landscape. Um, especially if we're talking topography of self and I just all around love to create. Um, recently I got into some little bit of film making, um, for my exhibition, dark goddess, an exploration of the sacred feminine that's up right now at the filming museum of arts. So yeah. Um, here's actually my first book, ghetto claustrophobia dream of mama while trying to speak woman in Wil tongues and my second book, um, black metamorphs, which is a conversation with avid D is coming out next year through a TRUS skin press ghetto Claus phobias through odes. So yeah, that's I, I love to create and I find, I love that this is a dialogue like back and forth cuz that's a part of my creation process too. Oh,
Speaker 1:That's good. Yeah. I mean it's um, it's interesting because you know, you're you're I was going across and looking at all your work, I've read some of your poetry and some of your writings and you would call it multifaceted and it, but, but it makes total sense given what you're interested in doing, um, of course it would be multifaceted because that's exactly what you're talking about. You're talking about the multifaceted self identity, multifaceted cultural identity relationship with uh, history and the future and the present time and things like that. And I feel like, uh, when, when Lisa and I started to like dig into your work and stuff, we, we thought a lot about storytelling and the power of art to tell one's own story, but also to tell the story of us. Um, and so the question we sort of thought we would dive into is how art can help someone, uh, share their story. So how do you think art can do that?
Speaker 3:It's funny because the whole idea or concept of storytelling in and of itself, like if we take it off the mantle, not to say sometimes I think we put a lot of things on mantle art, you know, and art carries this whole heavy weight and then it implies that someone has to be an artist and capital artist and all that. But I wanna step back and until layer of story itself, story itself. Cause as I thought about that question in preparation for this, I thought is so bold and so human and we live for stories and everybody does it. Even for people who say I'm not creative or I'm not an artist or I don't, whatever things we like to claim, we're not, but get somebody on a good topic right. Of a story. And we learn it from our families. And I, I think there's a way it's funny because I think stories also serve, um, they serve different purposes. I, I feel like storytellers and that those we, um, share stories with around the fire, they can bear as our witnesses, you know? And it's also improv. I was thinking about this, you know, my best friend and I, we were, we were actually plotting, oh, what stories are we gonna tell around the table?<laugh> when it's dinner time, but it's time, you know, oh, we're gonna, we gotta tell this story. We gotta tell this story. We gotta tell that story. Cuz we do this co told narrative a lot. And people do that. People do that all the time where people will retell something and they'll say, no, no, no, it happened like this. Or I remember that, well we forgot this part. And it, sometimes it can be a part of healing, but sometimes the reason why I step back from that is I say, well, the other question that becomes, does heart heart have to take on that responsibility of having to fix something? Or is this because we're sharing because once you put a story out into the universe and it becomes community pots and then we're, we're getting something from it. It's like, I always compare things a lot to sculptures and how different people, depending on what they're seeing and walking around, they will all see different things. Oh yeah. And that's how it is with our lives even and memory. And so it all, I think it it's key. It's inherent to what we do as human beings. It's not necessarily attached to giving it a time actually giving it its title to say it's, even though it is, it is art, but to make it accessible is just what we do. If we think about it, it's just what we do because we also tell stories to ourselves almost like Lua buys. Right. Um, we repeat things to ourselves. That's why we have to be careful about what we're telling ourselves. Great. Right. So it's like so key, it's also key in not recounting our lives, but in making our lives. And if we so wish on stitching and stitching something back together, we can change a pattern with a story. I feel like, I feel like I Ramed, but I, my God,
Speaker 2:No, that made what I really, what I really like. Uh, I love that you used the word bio mythic. Talk about that because I love, I love the idea of living her. Life's like mythology, like a big story. You were talking about creating
Speaker 3:Story,
Speaker 2:Like the heroes journey or the heroines journey, right?
Speaker 3:It was yeah. Cause it it's okay. So I was thinking about this ZNO Hutten popped into my head the other day. And I was thinking about Jamie, their eyes were watching God. I was like, wait a minute. That was the heroines. She was the heroines journey before we recognized. Or we recognize that there was the hue missing or whoever the individual's journey. Right. And mythology is huge as I, I mean, I just mentioned, um, so my second book, black metamorph disease is coming out through a trust compressed next year at some point. And it just felt natural. Now, even though I pick on myself even and say, okay, the Greek mythology, everybody and the grand mama and their dog and their cats done it, but how can I do it? Right. We know that's true. But then how can we do it in a way? I mean, it still plays out in our headlines last year, it was naked Athena. I'm like Athena, you know, which is hence my, you know, dark goddess has been long before that for years just sitting in my body. But thinking about who else is in this Pantheon, what other female energy feminine embodies are in this Pantheon also beyond just deifying or reifying? What we say is the, the good or the great, how do we look at this also? How do we, can we look at our flaws through the lessons we get from them? And I think that's the bold myth and even fairy tales play. It's like, how do we, how can we mine that? And look at that and not turn away from it. Mm-hmm<affirmative> I'm not gonna close the there's a what shadow work. I, I don't it's like that. That's so that's too like, whatever it is, but I've always drilled into the, the balance of the dark, like all, all of that, but the dark is the good and the juicy and how can we take that? And how can also that be a part of our story. And I think we all have access to mythmaking and it, we don't have to beat anything. We're not in order to access it. Mm-hmm<affirmative> we are, we already are the myth,
Speaker 1:Right? You, well, just like, just like you were saying, right. Everybody has their own story. Everybody has their own perspective because they have their own experience. So of course everybody would have their own myth. My question is, is that, I feel like since we're talking about storytelling, actually feel like a lot of stories that we are told and then inevitably maybe tell ourselves yes. Are actually are packed with lessons that, that are maybe not the thing we should actually be learning mm-hmm
Speaker 3:<affirmative> right.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm<affirmative> like, I would, I, I kind of think about it as a learned behavior and I've been using the word a lot in my own mind. Like what kind of messaging did I receive as a child through those stories, through those myths. Right. Um, right. I mean, just any, any fairytale that I, uh, let's just, let's just talk about, you know, uh, Disney, uh, fairy tales when you were younger and things like little
Speaker 3:There's there's a little mermaid, little mermaid is very, literally, that's a very telling one actually, cuz she gave up her tongue. She, you remember that? Yeah. Where like she literally traded for some legs, Ursula shed. I mean that's a whole yeah, right?
Speaker 1:Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What kind of thing does that tell a young female? When, because little mermaid, uh, if you can't tell she was my FA because I could, I actually identify with her, she's a red head. I was like, oh yeah, that's me. And then I'm
Speaker 3:What,
Speaker 1:Um,
Speaker 3:Me,
Speaker 1:I'm not the
Speaker 3:Person I pump the brakes, like, wait a minute, wait, pump the brakes. I don't hold my tongue that way.<laugh>
Speaker 1:Right. I don't hold my tongue. And so right. But, but that, but it's also like how is that not being, um, ingested by me because I watched it, I memorized it. So of course it was being ingested by me. Of course, course I, it was impacting me, even though I had a separate person inside my own brain being like, no thanks. So, right. So I think we need to talk about the, it's not only about using art to tell your story, but it's about like what kind of story is being like almost put on top of you through, you know, I mean, I don't know how to,
Speaker 3:Well, no, that actually, it makes a lot of sense because so my first graduate degree, when I was wrapping up my MBA, I did some work around the grand narrative. I looked at feminism cuz like narrative in the business world started to be something that was like less woo, woo. More viable. How do you tell the story of your organization? How do you do it with funders? How do you do it with investment? And I started looking at well, what if the whole idea of narrative, how would I look at a whole movement? If it were an organization I drew up this whole model got lazy, never published it. Mm-hmm<affirmative> I wrote it. And it like for research and the whole idea of the grand narrative, which is big because there's, there are you're right. You're bringing up these layers, right? There's the layers of, well, you know, I am the myth or I am the one who's who can choose how I perceive. Then they're the layers of then your family or your friends or work or whatever is going to tell you how to perceive said things. So for example, this is a brief, quick example, Maggie Gillen hall and the lost daughter. What is that? How is, how is that character in that telling us about how we should feel about the mother who seems selfish, who seems self-serving right. So it's just like, there's a layer like a woman or, or a female identifying person could say, okay, yeah, I'm a woman. And then I'm a mother and then society, then the grand narrative about what a mother is supposed to be. Mm-hmm<affirmative> she's supposed to be self-sacrificing she's supposed to look in the mirror and say, get, go F off girl, nobody got time for you because you're gonna get to these kids. And then if you're married, then oh yep. Stand back in the line, girl, you gotta get to X, Y, and Z this. And I think that's why I zoned in a little mermaid. And so this narrative that is set up and also depending on how your family roles, right. This narrative of how you're supposed to be, what's expected and then how we then mediate between those things and those gaps in addition to mediating with or against, or for ourselves. When we come in contact with things that kind of challenge what we've been telling ourselves about ourselves, layered on what other people told us about ourselves or what they said we should. And then also then it makes it all the more greater responsibility I think. And then for myself, as someone who is creating clean stuff in the world, I personally want people to be able to look at my things or experience them and engage or go hopefully on their own inquiry or own request in some way, shape or form or think in some, some way and ask some question about what's beneath the surf. Um, mm-hmm<affirmative> cause it isn't about me and it stops being mine or about me, the moment it's in a book or the moment it's hanging on the wall or the moment I put something out, then people are running with it and having their own conversations hopefully, or doing their own things with it. And so therefore there and also, so, and then if we look at it another, if we get out of me sounding semi woo, woo<laugh>. There is the area of what you started with what we're told. So history, why example of history, like looking at who and what is missing in between those gaps, what we repeat, what we repeat about all sorts of things. And it's easy to then say, oh, I'm just gonna repeat this. And then when you look back at it, you're like, actually that was that there's some missing information, right? Like I'm sure that's both of you at certain points, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I love it. Well, you're really talking about is programming and conditioning. And what I love about this is what I'm, I'm taking from your dark goddess series is the dark goddess is like Lilith or segment or HACA. And they're like, usually they, the patriarchy is so afraid of them. Right.<laugh> and for me, yeah. Right. So it's like, for me, what I think is the dark goddess, like shakes'em up and then, you know, they, they get scared. And so I, I love the reclamation of the dark goddess within the feminine, in the sacred feminine, because we are conditioned to think, you know, um, Camelot, you know, where the Knight saves the, you know, oh yes,
Speaker 3:Saves
Speaker 2:The princess and you know, we're, we're, we're weak and you know, and so we're the dark goddess is actually like, no, you know, I have the power here and she's empowered and it is
Speaker 3:The dark word. She may, at times where her own children, at times she may be leaning back on her haunches, howling into the night.<laugh>, you know, she breaks your vision and you will not take her tongue. She'll take yours before. Exactly take.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. And it's also at the same time as talking about going, I love this. I love this idea of going backwards in our historical storytelling and filling in those gaps and not being afraid of what it might conjure up inside ourselves. And, and, and that, you know, a lot of your work is about fear, but it's about fear of yourself. And then it's a, it's a fear of self and it's just like, I love, I like the, all it, it is. It's just across the board. And so like, what if we did go back, what do you think would happen if we actually started telling the whole story? Cuz you are definitely interested in the whole, you're a very holistic, right? Yeah. You're not like just the good, just the bad, just this you're like, no, let's just the entire suitcase and look at every piece and then come up with an outfit. Right. So I
Speaker 3:Mean, I do that myself too. I do that with myself. It's not gonna like sell pitch myself as, oh, I'm like this. Nope. They're all sorts of pieces all there and I'm looking at them and they're looking at me.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So how do you do that? Do you do that through your writing? Is that how you mm-hmm<affirmative> do that for yourself?
Speaker 3:I do well for myself and also, I don't know. I mean, it's different, right? If I'm interviewing someone, my goal is, you know, as a journalist seek the truth, right? Mm-hmm<affirmative> balance neutral also though the extra layer for me is always creating the space so that this person, and I can have this space where we're creating something together and then like it goes out, uh, poetry. I don't always, I'm not in control of what, like even actually sometimes my pros, like what's gonna come out or I think about something, I keep sketchbook for 1,000,001 things. And it's just like, what's gonna come out. And it is integrating these pieces. I think I'm not saying this is the only reason why we're all having a hard time right now. I mean, there are layers, there are so many layers, but in the technical normal, before 2020, right. Technical, technically normal, the normal that was working for nobody.<laugh> right. We, we know this true. It's, there's a way that there's a fear in not if you reveal certain parts of yourself. So we're always trading and negotiating these masks. If we don't do that very carefully, we get punished. And we've seen this some among us who get punished for not negotiating those masks very carefully. Mm-hmm<affirmative> for myself. I've only lived in frigging boxes. I'm over it. I'm done with it. Mm-hmm<affirmative> right. I just, I can't do boxes. I can't do. Um, cuz I already put myself in enough of'em. I don't I'm I'm trying to like constantly trying to free myself from those. Therefore I'm hoping, and this is just based off what other people have told me about my work. They said it was a sense of permission. Hmm. I'm hoping if people take nothing else, right. Even if there's a poem, someone doesn't understand or you know, I'm telling these stories and my memoir that I'm working on, I am scared. I am like coming up with stuff that is when my family see, you know, it's like, they're very supportive and I'm also afraid in terms of when I'm around, even certain poems have been producing lately. I'm afraid I'm looking at them. I'm like who and what is this what's going on here?<laugh> and I'm hoping, you know, I like to say if I I'm a patron Saint in my own head of different things and I don't mean like, oh, patron, state piece or patron Saint of the unsaid, patron, Saint of the misbehaving. Like I'd like to encourage people to do those things. Cause I feel like a part of the reason why we have been having a hard time as a species is to just be, what would it look like? I, I posted one time as a whole rule questions. Mm-hmm<affirmative> what would be, what be like without institutional GS, what would we be like without male GS? What would we be like? And it was riffing off of a question that is posed. Like what would you do for 24 hours without Mel gaze? Like for about women. And I think what it was attached to something, but I said, no, let's go down whole nine without financial gaze, without all these waves and all these layers of seeing who would we be? And like, what's the feral state? Like I'm not saying flawless. It's just like some people blame Hanta said no, no, no, I didn't say that. But it's like, how could we be right. Our most seller love that. And I do try to do that for myself and in doing it for myself, I hope I can do it or help with somebody else's pathway to that. Yeah. If that makes
Speaker 2:For me, sorry. Oh yeah. What I love the feral cuz what we are domesticated extremely domesticated. Right. And you're, you're asking us to look in the mirror and go, where is that wild self? Where is that fair itself? I think that's really important. And for me, what comes up right now with women's rights on the chopping block? I mean, that's huge. It's big, it's a big time where people, women and men have to look in the mirror and really question themselves. How can um, how can women who are in the fear mode? You know what I mean? Express it now and then take their power back because we're
Speaker 3:We're, that's a good question. That's a good question because I've been okay. So I used to work in reproductive health several years ago. I used to work in public health several years ago. Very interesting thing is knowing what I know the rights have always been on a chopping block. That's number one, they always have been now for some people who are just coming to and realizing what's happening. It's been now, it's gotten now to a next level. Like if we have level three level four, level five being the highest it's gotten that the other thing is, so there are a couple of things operating for me with that question. I think of my answer from my familial perspective of how I was raised. I was raised by, I come from a line of women who never were gonna hand themselves over to anybody, not even to their male partners that was not happening. And I was taught to be that person I was taught. You are not handing yourselfer. And so therefore take yourself back now. I, you know, early Tony's thinking, ah, that doesn't seem quite right. That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem nice. It's like mm-hmm,<affirmative> that's not loving. And then I've like turned around. I was like, now actually there's listen to that. I'm gonna speak the language of the women upon whose shoulders I stand on. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so I had just been saying recently over the past few years to friends, you know, take yourself back, but different people, people take yourself back. I think we've given so much of ourselves over that. We didn't realize how exhausted we were until there was a moment that forced, again, those of us who could afford to be at home or not have jobs that forced us to be in public space where we, it was a force, you have to be sitting with yourself. You have to realize how much of yourself was at stake. Yeah. Always handing yourself over. And so what would be my thoughts about that? I say become a thief. Am my that. I mean go theft time, go theft time for yourself. Even if it's four or five minutes, maybe some might look at me and say, it's easy for you to say you don't have kids. Sure. But I wear many roles in my personal life. Theft time, if you cannot have a she shed, if you cannot, you know, you're not in that place, do it in your car. If you can't do it in your car, go do it in a friend's house or whatever theft time. Whether it's five minutes. What
Speaker 1:Argue for five. Yes. Yeah. I think what you said about like, well you don't have kids. I get, I have three kids and I get really mad when people tell people who don't have kids. Well, you don't have kids because I actually think especially women who don't have kids will fill their lives to the top. Sort of like prove something because if they can't be a mother, what can they be? Um, because you it's
Speaker 3:Almost like they're trying to prove something. That's a really
Speaker 1:They're and that, and I just, I usually what bothers me the most about it, it's women saying it to women and I'm just like people we got, we got a lot of work to do. And if we're, if we're up over
Speaker 3:Here, like each other, we do, we're beating each other in a ship we do with that. Yeah. And it's funny because I did parent, I was a ified child. I was in charge of my brother who has special needs and a two family, a two parent home. I was made to be in charge of him. And so I kind of did mother and then what I did, I architected to take myself back from that household. Right. But I was headed to college like, and I was like, I gotta take myself back. And so I feel like my whole life has been an act of taking myself back. But speaking to one of the, the points that, you know, both have made, if we're in red alert mode, mm-hmm<affirmative>, if we're in red alert mode and that's going through your nervous system, mm-hmm<affirmative> well then how could you properly, properly take yourself back? And I think it also goes back to surrounding ourself with some kind of nourishment so that we are surrounding ourselves to people who do give us that permission. We're not telling each other, well, you're not a mother or you are a mother and therefore, you know, or you, you work or you don't work or whatever that is. And don't, and isn't, and is, shaming, all the things that we do where we're like, well, so, and so's this. And it's just like, yeah, well, you know what? She charges for her time. Can we learn from that?<laugh> I mean, I'm just being real. Can we learn from that? Mm-hmm<affirmative> and so it's just like, how cut each other down, be like, I need to invite you to the table and let's share some, uh, you know, ingredients and figure it out. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. What, what can I right. Like approach it with either holding it every time you feel yourself going this direction, either hold up a mirror or ask yourself, what can I, what can I learn from them as opposed to, how can I judge them? What can I learn from them? Can I take away from this experience? You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. We've been, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I love your idea of taking time. I mean, it's, it's so funny to me that that sounds controversial and that's like,
Speaker 3:It's a, actually, there's a thing. I think I came across where I think it was for business ethics class, where they were talking about a case involving theft of time or something. I'm like, so I thought of the whole trope of a time thief.<laugh> there's nothing wrong with being a time thief. I love that. Do it and do the hell out of it, by the way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 3:Cause you know what, because if you, if there is no youth thief thieving your time, then people will take you including people's jobs. People will literally take you and squeeze you out like a washcloth. Then when they're done, they won't even re-wash you anymore. And lovingly dry you and put you back. They'll just tos you aside and get another washcloth to ring out theft time,
Speaker 2:Theft time it's well, theft time is self care, right? Just
Speaker 3:It, it is. It is. And, and I don't mean that even it it's so sad how all of these things would come buzzy, like self-care and I'm thinking, yeah, I'd like that spa and stuff. But if you don't have spa and stuff, right. A phone call with somebody will help, you know, people, your community. I always say that when I'm doing workshops and things, it's like build your community, your support system.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we have a taken outbreak movement and that's really, it's not, it's not like going to the spa. It's like just sit down and draw, you know, or make a line. Or if you're mad at hell, just, you know, walk in nature. So that's really one of our missions as artists moving to recontextualize what it does or what it means to do self care. It's very simple on some level
Speaker 3:Completely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. And it doesn't have to be completely stolen by some hashtag and stuff like that. It's basically right. A thing that, um, you do actually, and I believe that you do have to take it back. That is the part of you that you need. Right? Like you're, you have to take back so much of yourself, but one of those things, um, and I'm sure it's another culture, but I've only lived in an American culture. So I'm just gonna comment on that. Right. I think American culture basically is like that this, and maybe the reason self-care has to be a hashtag mm-hmm<affirmative> is that people think you're being lazy. Or me, this is my personal experience. I think I have to work and like earn my relaxation and I'm and I'm over here. Like it's, I'm trying you're that's that should just be part of living. That should just be part of being. Yeah. And it's not
Speaker 3:Really. Isn't great. Well, no, it's true. You, you have a point where it reminds me of the earn your living. Right? What do you do to earn your living or I hate, I really hate the question of, well, you must pay the bills and I'm just like, I wanna say, well, how are you paying that mortgage on being a human? Now I never said that. I'm not gonna say that to anybody. Cuz that's really snarky. But<laugh>, it's one of those things where it's just like, I, yes. You know, I'm not. So there are lots of movements happening to challenge, all sorts of things. So for me, I'm not like anti I'm not anti money. For example, I'm not, I gotta eat. I got, I got things to do. I like things. I like to go do things. And that requires right money. Um, but what I will say is the, the whole, the way we judge people's busy or leisure, you know, it's just like, are you doing something? And are you, I'm now the worst attitude because I am cursed with over achievement. So it's just like, you know, you asked me what I'm doing. And I could like, oh, I'm doing this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this right. Um, and we, in order to create, actually you do actually sometimes need that space for nothing. You need the space for that's right. To just, you know, no one's talking to you or no, one's asking you a question or you're not beating yourself down. If deadlines are real. Yes. I'm not gonna sit a parent and say, they're fake you can't mythologize deadline, unless you have some powers. But you know, it's like, it is a thing. It's a negotiation. It is definitely a negotiation. And thinking about how do we, it is that, that inquiry of, I, I once read a quote, it was something about a woman who's on her deathbed. Now, sometimes you don't know if they're making this stuff up, they make stuff up like this. It's like, whatever, whether she existed or not. Um, you know, a woman on a deathbed who basically at the end of faith, wasn't thinking, I wish I clocked in earlier. Right. I wish I paid that on time. I wish I did X, Y, and Z instead. She's like, well, I wish I ate more ice cream. I wish I did this. I wish I did that because like right now we do things like we'll beat ourselves up. Oh, I ate that. I shouldn't have ate that, oh, I want to go do this thing. I shouldn't have did that. I shouldn't. And it's just like, actually, you know, what, if something were to happen when your number's called, are you gonna be sitting there? Really? No, you're gonna wish you were like, oh my God, I should have gotten to some bigger trouble. I should have gotten to bigger trouble. Just go big. Yes, go do it. And I'm not saying harmony, anybody in the process of that, but like go. So I try to work backwards of the life. I kind of wanna, if I'm lucky enough to have a deathbed in my old age, I want to be able to say, you know what? I wanted to do those things. And I did mm-hmm<affirmative> I did, or I met the people I wanted to meet. I saw the places I wanted to see go. I do go to abandoned places. I, I wasn't allowed, I was strict childhood. So, you know, I'm living my teenagehood kind of with some adulting. I just wanna warn everybody. I'm I'm an adult. I play one on TV. I impersonate one as my best friend say she was like really, really good at it. Impersonating an adult. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love
Speaker 2:It. Wow. Interesting. I, I love the idea of bending time, cuz the time keeps on coming up in this, in this conversation and that time is actually controlling us on some level. Um, so how do we bend time and storytelling? And as we bend time, how do we take ourselves back? Do you know what I mean? How, how can we, how can you guide somebody a listener right now to, to be courageous and curious and just,
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was, that's what I was thinking is like, how are you not afraid to do it? How are, how, how did, okay. How did you figure it out?
Speaker 3:I, I grew up in a household where camp was in a word that you used, you don't say you can't do something mm-hmm<affirmative>. So as I've been writing and stuff has been coming up, instead of saying, God, that sounds so scary. That sounds horrible and hard. I'm not gonna write it. I just write it. When it comes specifically to spending time, there is this one chapter I'll never forget. And my it's a working, I say memoir ask, cuz I'm doing a lot of bending with it. And there was a chapter where it's um, oh, I think I took it from marque. Um, one of the titles of his books, blah, blah, blah, melancholy, horrors. But what I did is I turned it into mama's melancholy men folk or something. I was talking about my mother and I embodied, I inter looped some of her story with mine. And what I did is I embodied the boys. I came in contact with, I became them on the page and I went back in time. I was going back in time. I became them. I was the one asking for my number Uhhuh. I was the one doing certain things and, and breaking certain boundaries. Mm I was the one that instead of me having the crush on this boy going, I'm the one that's the boy who's being watched. And I did that and it wow. The, the way also there is such a thing in, in writing of time control, it comes down to, in a very practical sense, your tenses past present, future, how you're navigating it. Um, how you're doing that all in a paragraph, how you're doing that all in one sentence, um, memento. Um, was it Christopher Nolan directed by Christopher Nolan? If you look at that movie and there's a video, I forget the video on YouTuber. He describes how he did the storyline. I think certain parts of the storyline are in black and white and then the other parts moving in another way are in color to look at that and to look at, um, lost order. I know I keep referencing thanking one of my students. They, they suggested that and it, the way it does, we, we do it already, right? The way we do it, if we just think of something simple, right? How many people have been on the zoom call or in a meeting mm-hmm<affirmative> they need to scrap a paper. Why? Because they need to write down things like milk, sugar, flour, they are in a meeting. And they're thinking about what's gonna happen at the end of that day mm-hmm<affirmative> and then something said, or someone may even do something. And then you're taking back to being 12 years old. So what you just did, we're all walking time machines. And we do that. We're already to do it in writing mm-hmm<affirmative> or you know, people may do it on a canvas, right? You may capture something as it was, or you may put something in the landscape that wasn't there. Um, we do it and it's looking at something in space and time. And it's looking carefully about the, with the language that's being used with the vernacular, how something being said, is there, um, something that, a metaphor that stands for the thing of when it's about to happen, like a movie something's about to happen? What's the, what's the music? What is the color? What is the angle that is going to give that? What I did with my short film, dark goddess that goes with the exhibition of the photography and the, the archives that I dug in. And, um, for museum's collection there, I took a mash up of all these different things, like found footage of previous film and things. Some of my original stuff that I shot mixed with, you know, how is Carrie Carol? How is one of the scenes from Carrie? Very reminiscent to what a recent director did with Ari's the short series on Netflix and look, and I did it, I put'em right next by side by side and I did this, you know, we're always doing it and right. Technically it's going back and looking at the language, um, point of view. Mm-hmm<affirmative> the first, second, third, is it gonna be OmniGen storyteller like in Tony Morrison's jazz. Who is that speaking? Mm-hmm<affirmative> this timeless voice, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I feel like a cool like exercise for someone to do, like at the end of their day would to be, to search for the times during that day that they did that, where they were somewhere, but somewhere else at the same time, I think that would be a really interesting sort of reflection on your day. And it might get people to understand that they're cuz you're, you're like you're already doing it. You just need to accept it and then use it. You know?
Speaker 2:I love did SHTA freeze up. Maybe
Speaker 1:I might have left. We might have lost her. Yep. Oh, okay. I know
Speaker 2:<laugh> it's such a great conversation. I know. I love, um, she'll be coming back. I love the idea of what she was talking about, about taking a memory. May it be a trauma and look it from the perspective of say the, the person that you felt did it to you. You know what I mean? So say in, say in like grade school, I had a crush on a boy and he didn't like me, but I became so traumatized for my, you know what I mean? And what if I was that boy? Like she said,<laugh>,
Speaker 1:You know, oh, I did you mean
Speaker 2:How that would mean story? Like recontextualize your memories and your life story through that? Wouldn't that be powerful that I think writing that down. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I also, yeah, it's this, um, you know, she plays a lot with perspective and identity and who you think you are, who you think everybody else wants you to be. Mm-hmm<affirmative> who you are in present time, but also who are you in? Um, current time. Hello?
Speaker 2:<laugh> we were just riffing
Speaker 3:Off I'm can you, oh, I can't hear you.
Speaker 1:You can't hear us. Can you hear us
Speaker 3:See here?
Speaker 2:Technology
Speaker 1:Difficulties? Well, maybe should on again, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Oh, just, uh, yeah, I think it's a beautiful exercise to really look at memories and trauma. And I never thought of that looking at through the eyes of the person, not yourself, but that person that you think did it to you, you think did it to you<laugh> you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think there's a lot of, um, I think there's a lot of sort of, um, taking your right, like she was saying, taking yourself back into that, but also what can you learn from this situation? Um, right. She's definitely not playing the victim role she's taking. Right. And I love that. Okay. Can you hear, can you hear us now?
Speaker 3:Yes. Can you hear me?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yes. We were just,
Speaker 2:We were just riffing. I love, I love the idea of what you said. Like, I love the idea of like the memoir going back into your life and bending time. And actually, so I love like my metaphor would be, so I had a crush on this boy when I was in, you know, elementary school and he didn't like me and I thought I was the victim. Right, right. But what if, if I'm the boy, do you know what I mean? And what is he, did he feel and how that, that is healing and that is, it's amazing. I think it's profound.
Speaker 3:It gives you, it gives you, it gives you some freedom. Yeah. And it also, it's one of those things where you memory in and of itself is a time trick. Anyway, anytime they found that anytime the more we retell something, the less accurate it becomes. Right. That's true. Versus the memory that we leave alone until we surface it. Right. So it's not going back in like a file cabinet, untouched, their fingerprints all over it. That's yeah. And you know, maybe it's not necessarily a memoir, maybe it's through verse. Maybe it's through, I'm a, I've been journaling since I was 12 years old, you know, I keep, you know, record, you know, how do we, you know, how are we bearing witness? How are we thinking about those things? And even if it's not for healing, maybe it's just something that's a part of the tapestry that we just wanna recognize and say, I'm just gonna put this here. It's a, you know, excavating. I often use that term of the excavating and playing in my own seller hole.
Speaker 2:I was thinking the word archeology for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. And I also, I, yeah, I gotta appreciate, um, you kind of brought me off on my own pedestal for a minute there and I appreciate that it's that you, it didn't, you're suggesting it doesn't have to be anything. It just is. It's this thing. And, and I think there's a lot of power in that. A lot of people would assume that that is taking away from the experience, but I actually think you're inviting a lot more people to it. And, um, you know what I mean? Because like I'm over here because you know, I want everybody to take an art break. I'm kind of obsessed with it. And so I get on that train of like, you should do it because of this. You should do it because of that. And you're over here, like you should just do it. And I think just
Speaker 3:Do it.
Speaker 1:That's also like, there's, there's,
Speaker 3:I'm better than Nike. I'm better than Nike with Nike, the sweat shops. Like, even though I'm guilty, I have some Nike shoes, but it's like,<laugh>, I'm like, better than that. Like, like just do it, just go do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1:Yeah. Just go do it. I mean, that's like sometimes, you know, cuz I'm like, I'm, I'm holding people's hands and I, and I want them because I want them to do it. Right. Because I know what happens when you do it. I've you know, I know what happens when you take in our break, I've done it several times. I've watched everybody do it. And so I, I wanna find that right. Language like you were suggesting and maybe some people just need to hear that. Just go do it, just go do it. It doesn't need to be anything.
Speaker 3:Um, don't don't put it, put a thing on it because once you put a thing on it, like my, I would say like relationships, you start how, and it's this thing. And then it has to be courtship and then it has to be a thing. Then we have to call it something. No, we don't just cuz then it goes into that realm of justifying. Mm. And then you need to account for time. Nope. Nope. Even if you're just picking up audio files on your, I do this a lot. Pick up the phone, hit record, speak into it. Doesn't have to be anything.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of stuff that's like not necessarily on route to being published. I don't know what, what I'm gonna do with it. It's just there just hanging out.
Speaker 2:It's like the human being versus the human doing. But you know, I mean that that's always said, right. And this is all about being, just being, but also like, I mean, what I'm, when we're talking to you, I'm thinking like if you're being and you jump on that magic carpet, there's, there's a ride you're gonna go on. I mean it's unlimited imagination when I look at you, your pure imagination. Right?
Speaker 3:Thank you. Well, I mean, I hope, I mean, this is, I mean prime example, mm-hmm<affirmative> uh, you know, my best friend was like this, you know, I get to her place and she's like, oh, you know, we were due to leave the next day. We didn't know what time we're gonna leave. We're just gonna figure it out. No rushing. I was like, wow, you mean like, what am I gonna, this is so cool. We check out this abandoned place that looked really looked like it had no path. We did that. Then we just, you know, got to our destination. And then we're like, what do we wanna do? We'll just drive around. Let's see what's nearby. Let's just do that. I used to always, um, when I'd go to DC for conferences years, I loved nothing more than a ditch in my bags and just walk around like mm-hmm<affirmative> DuPont circle or whatever. I didn't know where I was going and I'm not from there. I didn't have any agenda. I just walked. I was just like, I'm just gonna walk. I'm just gonna see what's around. I want a nose around.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Nose around. I mean let's nose around life. I mean, thank you very much. I think that's great. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. I feel like honestly, I could talk to you all day. Yeah. Um, so<laugh>, I hope we can speak to you again in the future, but for now.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thanks for
Speaker 2:We get on so many things. You know what I mean? It's almost like we have to excavate what we were talking about.<laugh> cause
Speaker 3:I
Speaker 2:Know,
Speaker 3:I know, like I find that with a lot of conversations where I step back and I'm like, wow, let me think about this. Like I'm just sitting there, my friends do this to me all the time. I have awesome friends. They'll say something. They'll like, oh, I wanna just drop this question in your ear. What do you think of this? And then I take that question and sometimes I ask other friends<laugh> oh, and this is like this whole string. And I'm just like, what do you think about this? I was thinking about blah, blah, blah. Some, I mean it's out. Some of it's like really out there and I'm like, oh yeah, like<laugh>.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much. Um, I'm gonna go ahead and sign off for now and we'll maybe we'll be talking to
Speaker 3:You again in future. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.