Rebecca
Hey Nat.

Natalie
I love that we’re doing the experience of a flâneur — a walking and talking through the neighbourhood of East Austin.

Rebecca
We are currently passing the vape and smoke…

Natalie
Truck.

Rebecca
Truck. They have trucks for, which is pretty cool.

Natalie
Burger: got one. Ice cream: gotcha. Vape…

Rebecca
There’s a truck for it.

Natalie
No, but this is kind of a neat experience, right? We’ve talked about this, and actually for our Patreon listeners, we talked about what it means to sort of take a risk and walk when one is away on a trip. And here we are, in South Austin, for… or in East Austin for South by Southwest, and trying to reframe and get curious, and do all of the kind of knowledge-gathering that we can to keep Reframeables punchy and interesting. That may mean taking a really long, slightly sketchy walk.

Rebecca
Yeah, we’re not sure.

Natalie
In fact, we are perhaps doing this conversation to make sure that if we don’t come home, you all know what we last saw.

Rebecca
Nat… actually, that’s not…

Natalie
Doesn’t that poster say ‘risk’? Risk!

Rebecca
We did actually see… oh, can you hear the crickets?

Natalie
Yeah — major.

Rebecca
We saw a really bad accident last night so that… that was jarring.

Natalie
That was jarring. I mean, actually, I’m not laughing at all — it was pretty horrific. And really sort of was emblematic of just how delicate and fragile life really is, and how we should all be holding our loved ones close and trying to do walks like this where we can see the world, but carefully — so do it in pairs, people. A la Noah’s Ark.

Rebecca
That’s our motto — ‘do it in pairs’?

Natalie
Don’t go it alone.

Rebecca
Actually, I did want to say…

Natalie
Actually, yes — that is our model, Rebecca. 100%. Don’t go it alone. Do it in community.

Rebecca
Oye taquito.

Natalie
What were some of the…?

Rebecca
I’m just going to read some of the signs as we pass, that’s what I’m doing.

Natalie
Ok.

Rebecca
We rent moonwalks, tables, chairs, snow cone.

Natalie
I think folks might be a little bit more interested in some of the things that we talked about at dinner, one of them being me getting a very uncomfortable email from someone from my past, and then us having to pontificate and philosophize about the obligation of how to respond.

Rebecca
Ok, I’m going to respond to that. I just want to read one more sign, which you’ve decided is not interesting, but: Las Cazuelas Méxican Restaurant. I love coming to the States and there’s so many more Mexican restaurants.

Natalie
Ok, that’s true, that’s true.

Rebecca
But yes, it was an interesting conversation because you were offended by getting the email.

Natalie
Yes, I was affronted.

Rebecca
It was an Instagram message, and then a couple LinkedIn messages.

Natalie
And then email.

Rebecca
And I just said I wanted you to feel like you could have any feeling about it, and that there was no way you should feel. So…

Natalie
Right. No obligatory feelings, just…

Rebecca
That, “Oh, this is the way…” I mean, if we shared what the relationship was, could we? Or no?

Natalie
Yeah, sure, whatever. It was an email from my ex-husband — like, why, this many years later, are you sending me an email and multiple emails to try and find some way to reconnect over coffee? I find that very affronting and invasive — there, I said it.

Rebecca
And I said maybe it doesn’t have to be that, or could it be something else — and fine, if that’s what you feel now, but what if you wake up tomorrow and you say, “I feel different.” Is that also ok?

Natalie
Right.

Rebecca
Are you open to that feeling changing, or are you doubling down on what this feeling is?

Natalie
And then I said, “I don’t think it’s about doubling down. I think it’s about actually honouring my feelings.”

Rebecca
And then I said… and then I had to acquiesce…

Natalie
Another glass of saké and said, “Hmm, maybe we both have a point.”

Rebecca
But also, if someone just keeps saying, “That’s my feeling,” you can’t really… that’s your feeling.

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
So at a certain point, the conversation just stops because someone’s having a feeling. You have to let them have the feeling.

Natalie
Yup. But there is something interesting about walking and talking about that retrospective feeling, because there was something for me in saying it, too. I could have just kept the emails to myself and been grumpy and mad about them. But I took a risk (as that sign said back there, ‘risk’) and I shared with you about it, because in some ways it’s better to have experienced my feeling of irritation in conversation with you than just having to sit in the feeling on my own. Because then you can push back and sort of help me to ponder what I’m navigating, as opposed to the emotional doubling down, right, of just doing it in my head, which is what could happen.

Rebecca
I’ve never done anything in my head, Nat. I’m just saying.

Natalie
Ok. Touché. This sign says, “East Side Austin Texas, stirring up something new for brunch, come and see.” We might tomorrow morning, once we’ve worked our way through all these big feelings. Anyways, I didn’t experience the end of that conversation at the table as, like, stopping. I saw it as, like, a natural pause in my emotional states.

Rebecca
Yeah, it’s good… it’s good to pause and pick it up and shift. You know what I mean?

Natalie
Potentially reassess — or not.

Rebecca
Yeah. Aren’t you supposed to walk and move, shake stuff off?

Natalie
Yeah — and actually, that’s something that they say in work settings that became popular… even before the pandemic started, but certainly throughout. That walking meetings became not just sort of the new way forward so that people can get their steps in, but actually so that they could be in conversation, that they didn’t have to look at each other while they were talking — which is perhaps the power of the podcast kind of art form, is that you can listen, you can kind of be in conversation with what you’re hearing online, but you’re also, like, finding a way to work your way through something in conversation, but without the eye contact, strangely. So maybe that gives you the space to think through a thought without the fear or feeling of any sort of judgement coming at you. So anyways, walking meetings — celebrate them. Ok, we’re passing a law firm at this point.

Rebecca
It’s beautiful.

Natalie
And it’s gorgeous. It’s like a big beautiful house.

Rebecca
It’s reminding me of the murder case that is just…

Natalie
Oh wait, because it is at the southern…

Rebecca
I think it happened and he was convicted of murdering.

Natalie
Oh boy. So it’s just generally not a happy thing.

Rebecca
I know he was a big southern lawyer that had been a lawyer — it was a family law firm for decades, and he was accused of, and then convicted, of killing his wife and son.

Natalie
Oh, so he was convicted.

Rebecca
So now any time I see ‘Law Firm,’ I’m just going to tell you that story.

Natalie
But specifically, like, a law firm mentioned in the south.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
It just fits.

Rebecca
That was my second foray into watching those live feeds of court cases… wasn’t I talking about this?

Natalie
I don’t know that you talked about it on here, but can I say now that you did it in the bathtub? You, like, listened to this whilst taking a bath?

Rebecca
Can I say that?

Natalie
Just said it.

Rebecca
Yeah. I think I was supposed to be doing something for us.

Natalie
But instead…

Rebecca
Some hard task, and I was, like, sneakily watching a court case. Where did that thing come from, that just landed by us?

Natalie
I think it was just, like, a little fork. It was some sort of plastic utensil on the ground. Rebecca, by the way, decided to take us off the safe street, which was just, like, people’s houses and said, “Let’s go into something more exciting.” So here we are on Cesar Chavez.

Rebecca
And actually, it would have been so much quieter for doing a podcast.

Natalie
But we wouldn’t have seen all these very interesting things. And actually our friend Ryan, from the Matinee podcast that I was recently on, talking about a really wonderful short documentary that I used to teach to my grade 12s…

Rebecca
Called?

Natalie
In The Shadow of the Pines — there we go. A wonderful 10 minutes of your life that you can just sort of let yourself be absorbed into somebody stop motion art, it’s wonderful.

Rebecca
About?

Natalie
It’s all about a young woman who is sort of trying to find her own identity. She’s from out in BC, of Japanese descent. Her father was a custodian at her school, and she navigated feelings around that. And then once he passes, she does this documentary kind of as a testament to him, and her own finding of herself in their shared love of mushroom foraging. It’s just a lovely 10 minute piece, and done in, like, stop motion and clay. Anyways, it was wonderful. But the idea of the walking and talking, is that why I brought that up? I got all distracted. Oh, no — on Ryan’s podcast, when we were talking about this short piece, we did it in a really crowded coffee shop. And I said, “How are you going to kind of capture what our little conversation’s all about in this really loud coffee shop?” And he said, “You know what? The iPhone has an amazing microphone, and when you have all the noises around you, you get texture.” So how are you feeling about all this texture, folks?

Rebecca
We’re bringing the texture.

Natalie
Cesar Chavez texture is happening everywhere here. What would you say, Bec, was like your… ultimate learning? Not just on this trip, but on this… on this walk?

Rebecca
I don’t know.

Natalie
C’mon, try — for me.

Rebecca
I’ll try. I’ll for sure try. I do find that you synthesize your learning very quickly.

Natalie
Oh, ok.

Rebecca
So you… “Oh, ok.” Yeah, like, you can come to clarity… it’s funny, because I used to have a friend who said I was always clear about my feelings.

Natalie
Ok.

Rebecca
You always know what you’re feeling.

Natalie
I don’t think I do.

Rebecca
No, I don’t know that you do. But you, like, thinking-wise… you maybe aren’t as clear about your feeling, but you are… you can philosophize a potential learning very quickly. Right?

Natalie
Right. Yeah. I think that comes from spending so many years with teenagers who are like, “So what does it mean?” And then you all of a sudden have to come up with some meaning — even if the meaning is, “We’re just trying to get to meaning.” They appreciate the talking about that meaning — or the process.

Rebecca
Right. I have really enjoyed being at South by Southwest, where the reason for us being here — as our mother pointed out, “Why are you there? And what are you getting out of it?”

Natalie
Yeah, it’s a little less clear, isn’t it?

Rebecca
And we really like the sort of interdisciplinary approach of all these different people coming together — like musicians, filmmakers, and tech, so much new technology happening here. I was trying to explain to dad there are robot lawnmowers.

Natalie
And pets.

Rebecca
Robot pets, tech apps that will talk to you about how you’re doing in a day — so basically, AI therapists. But I think there’s just so many ideas and discoveries that we don’t even know — like, ideas that we’re going to put together that we don’t even know yet, because of what because we’re taking in.

Natalie
Yeah — because of the links made, yeah yeah yeah. What is the concept? “Be weird in Austin.” I think that there’s something really cool about the freedom to be weird — which we’re embracing.

Rebecca
And now, some housekeeping. Hey Reframeables: do you get something from these conversations? Would you consider becoming a supporter on Patreon? For as little as $2 a month, you could help to keep this show going. It’s meaningful financially, and relationally — it feels like a hug. For our Patreon supporters, we do mini-episodes which we call Life Hacks and Enhancers — our five best things in a week. You could also tip us on our Ko-fi account, where Natalie’s recipe book is also for sale. Oh, and tell us what you want to hear more of — listener messages make our week. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter. All the links are in our show notes. Love, Nat and Bec.