Rebecca
Hey Nat.

Natalie
Hey Bec.

Rebecca
What do we got going on today?

Natalie
Well, we have another person who sent us a problem to reframe. So I don’t know, are we going to do the chit-chat thing beforehand, or are we just diving in?

Rebecca
Ok, we’ll just give the lay of the land. So we have this problem to reframe, and then we have an interview that we’ve been wanting to post, but we had some technical difficulties with it. But we’ve sorted it, so that’s going to come after this problem. So it’s just a potpourri today — an exciting potpourri.

Natalie
I like that, but I do think that there could be some links. I think that the problem that we’re about to consider and reframe could be considered something about the seasons of one’s life, certainly of mothering, and isn’t our interview about seasons? Don’t they actually connect that way? I think they do.

Rebecca
Oh yes, it certainly is about seasons.

Natalie
I’m calling this a win.

Rebecca
Ok, so we’re talking seasons.

Natalie
Seasonal potpourri. Here we go.

Rebecca
Seasonal potpourri, I like that. Ok, what’s the problem?

Natalie
Ok, so our friend Anne, she emailed in a problem that she actually wrote out almost like a personal essay — which was really beautiful, to actually see somebody’s thoughts on screen like that. She shared that she was really wanting this to be considered, but she was a little bit anxious, so this is her way of navigating that anxiety in terms of not wanting to put her voice out there and do it that way. I thought that was a different kind of brave than when Nicole shared her last one with us. So this is pretty exciting, and hopefully people will feel inspired to send in different problems to have us reframe in different ways like this, because I think this is great. It’s like having people share examples of how they might do it.

Rebecca
Yeah. So any way that you want to — call in, email in a problem. We’re here for you.

Natalie
Exactly. So this is what she wrote:

“I would say as soon as I heard that this was a segment on your podcast, I knew right away that I had an issue I needed reframing. It has plagued me for many years, as long as I’ve been a parent. I will say I have made some headway in the last two months, mainly through journaling, and also because my son has had an amazing teacher running an amazing program. But here goes — and Malcolm Gladwell, this is all on you.” Love that she put this on him. This is awesome.

“My issue that needs reframing is how our insecurities as adults plague us as parents, and end up rearing their ugly heads in our parenting styles and choices. How do we reframe our own insecurities, and thus reframe our parenting choices? When I found out that my first child was due in January, I had the comments ‘smartest kid in the class,’ ‘outliers,’ ‘pro athlete’ thrown my way. Within days of delivering my preemie December boy, I had a text that said, ‘The trifecta of the preemie boy December,’ thrown at me so fast it made my head spin, and it sunk in big time. And so it became an uphill battle to prove that this wasn’t going to be my child, and I put this on my son. Worked with him on letters, numbers, and his name from an early age because that wasn’t going to be my kid falling behind because he was the youngest. I know the data. I’ve seen it in kindergarten classrooms as well. But the thing is that I should know better, and so many more factors determine a child’s success. What is success, anyways? Yet I still couldn’t help myself. As I said, I have worked on this, and I do feel much better now, but it was a rookie mom mistake to let people’s comments and a damn book get into my own head. So how do we reframe our insecurities as adults, so we don’t put that shit on our kids?” What an amazing question.

Rebecca
Yeah. Thanks, Anne.

Natalie
Thanks, Anne.

Rebecca
Yeah, that’s an interesting problem. I wonder, is that more of a boy thing than a girl thing — that they say ‘preemie boy’?

Natalie
I have no idea.

Rebecca
Had you heard this before?

Natalie
I had never heard it, but as you’ve teased me about (and I would say is actually pretty accurate), I’ve also stayed away from reading the Malcolm Gladwells of the world because those have not been the books that I have done a deep dive into. I associate him with other thinkers like Brené Brown, right? There’s an example of a big thinker that I haven’t spent time unpacking.

Rebecca
Randomly, did I tell you that I had someone listen to the podcast and text me and say, “Yeah, I don’t like Brené Brown either. So I’m with your sister!”

Natalie
But it’s not that I don’t like her, it’s just that I haven’t been as exposed to that thinking. So when Anne wrote this, it’s interesting. I had never read the Malcolm Gladwell book, so in some ways, now, I’m curious to go read it and learn more. But I do understand the thinking, whether it’s about boys or girls per se — genderless, in some ways — I would see this as just an issue of parenting and insecurities. I think I get that.

Rebecca
I mean, right away I think mental fortitude is required — who said mental fortitude in our life? Someone said it the other day. Who said it?

Natalie
Maybe Clifford?

Rebecca
Oh, our aunt was visiting, and said that about you. That’s why that phrase is in my head. You have mental fortitude, Nat.

Natalie
Thanks, aunt Elaine.

Rebecca
And then later, Violet had heard it and she wanted me to process what that meant. But that’s what’s making me think that Anne really has to get her mental fortitude on to not let those comments affect her. How do you do that? Maybe we all need protective gear as parents to not absorb the offhanded comments, because probably whoever sent her that or said it was just shooting the shit, right?

Natalie
Yeah, these flippant statements.

Rebecca
Yeah, sometimes really flippant statements, those are the ones that hit the deepest. Sometimes.

Natalie
Yeah, for sure.

Rebecca
Because you’re not ready for them. You’re not having a big conversation.

Natalie
Yeah, it’s like an arrow that hits a point where you didn’t have even a chance to put up your shield. Can you tell I’ve been watching dragon shows? Arrows and shields, there’s my metaphors there.

Rebecca
I had some armour imagery too, didn’t I?

Natalie
That’s true. So we’re on point here.

Rebecca
But then I’m also just thinking about how every generation is trying to take a stab at not passing our shit on to our kids. I feel like our family unit, we did that more behind closed doors — they tried to sort stuff out and not put it on us, but in a way that had its own impact. Our generation — like you and me, as parents — we do a lot more talking. Violet came home from school the other day, and she wanted to sort out an issue. Then at the end, I couldn’t solve it for her, but she just said, “Thanks for talking it out,” which was really cute. I think it sounds like Anne, she’s got her own way to deal with it. She’s journaling.

Natalie
Yeah, which is an amazing choice.

Rebecca
So she has a strategy. I imagine she’s probably talking it out too, so in some ways she’s doing all the right things.

Natalie
Yeah, and isn’t that actually one of the hardest things to wrap your head around — when you are doing all the right things, why do you still get stuck feeling the negative feeling? That insecurity that just has lodged itself somewhere in your brain, about whatever it is. I think with parenting specifically, it is there. We know that, and as parents we have experienced that for sure, but I think you could flesh that out a little bit more and even say that beyond the parenting piece the idea of an insecurity as lodging itself in is something that is just so human to negotiate — which is why probably the Malcolm Gladwells of the world and the Brené Browns and all the others are so necessary at some level, because people are looking for other voices to help them through the navigation of whatever that insecurity is. We’re looking for help. But you’re right, Anne’s choice to journal is probably one of the wisest things she’s done for herself because it was so self-directed.

Rebecca
I’m trying to think if there’s anything — what do I have to offer? I certainly understand labels — with Violet and her heart, does she have to care? One place that comes up for me is every year when you have to fill in the health forms for the school board, and you’re supposed to write any history that you think is pertinent. I always have to debate — her heart surgery was corrected, so is it a problem I need to keep? Do I record it? Should I put, “Heart patient,” is there a label? In some ways it’s different because Anne is trying to expunge a label, and I’m wondering, “Am I not putting a label that should be there because I’m afraid of that label?” Do you understand what I mean by that?

Natalie
I do, but I do think that there is, as you say, a real similarity there — in that the word ‘label’ works with both situations. The label carries a lot of potential power. I think you’ve shared with me before that one of the pieces you feel a bit wary about (in terms of sharing it on those medical forms) is you want teachers to have the information they need, but you also don’t want them to view your child a certain way —with imposed limitations that may not even need to be imposed, out of their fear. I think that Anne’s fear of labels in this context, with her problem to reframe, is not that different because it’s the idea of the presumed label that comes from other people wondering about the child based on the limited knowledge that they have.

Rebecca
Yeah, by just writing that birth date down, are people coming with a whole bunch of preconceptions?

Natalie
Yeah. So you probably understand it more intimately than I do with Frankie. I’ve got some stuff that I wonder about in terms of his family history around the potential of certain learning disabilities that could show up along his journey, because that has run in our family — either side, actually, I don’t even fully know. The reality for what could play out for him at some point is there. But both you and Anne have got this very tangible experience of a potential label. Do you reframe any of your own ponderings about Violet and the heart stuff with her statement about journaling? Is that something you did for yourself?

Rebecca
Oh yeah. I think writing is a great way to just process the feelings and get a little further away from them in some ways, so they have less power over you. I would say probably the number one thing I’ve done for myself is write about stuff — write about it in a hundred ways, all various essays at various stages. I even have a children’s book that I’m starting. It’s funny though, because I wrote it and then I passed it to some writer friends, and they were like, “I think this book is more about you than a kid’s book.”

Natalie
And you’re like, “And?”

Rebecca
So I’m still not done, I still need to keep writing about the mother’s perspective. I find that interesting. In some ways, this is what I feel like we could sum everything up as, just the ongoingness of everything. The ongoingness of dealing with a label that your child may or may not need. It’s ongoing. It’s ongoing how we don’t put our shit on our children. It’s ongoing — just everything. Which would really bring me back to meditation — which you’re doing, Nat.

Natalie
I am. I’m doing it. Day three, baby.

Rebecca
Because really, how do we just be in the moment? How to accept the moment? Isn’t that really all that we can do? We can’t stop the labels, necessarily. They’re going to come flying at us. I don’t know, Nat. Talk to me. Please tell me I have this right.

Natalie
I think you really do, but I think you’ve said something really brilliant there that I’m not sure you’re even giving yourself credit for — the idea of writing and rewriting and rewriting the feelings, to allow yourself some distance, I think is probably the one piece of quote unquote advice (whatever we’re going to call it) that we might be able to offer Anne. You’ve done your journaling, per se, with the Violet stuff so many times, and yet it continues to come up. It shows up in different ways, in different forms, but the writing continues. As you said, ongoingness. Isn’t that Sarah Manguso, that author’s term that I use all the time?

Rebecca
I think it’s mine now.

Natalie
It’s yours now. You claim it. I think that the beauty — maybe the potential cathartic release in the writing — is important, because I think as parents, certainly as mothers, I’m hearing that both you and Anne are so concerned for your children and not wanting to impose your feelings upon them. But what about honoring your feelings for yourselves, and just claiming the space of needing to write about it a few more times — which could be till the end. I mean, you’re going to be mothering until the end, right? Isn’t that the reality?

Rebecca
And why wouldn’t we need to keep processing that till the end? I would say to Anne: write about that forever if you need to, because it’s going to shift — his strengths, his weaknesses, the challenges he has, they’re going to shift. Maybe you’ll need to keep writing about that.

Natalie
And sharing. Finding that one person, those two people, whoever it is that you can keep talking it through with, who you trust to understand the very personal feelings that you have attached to those insecurities, so that you don’t feel like you have to censor yourself in the sharing of those feelings. You’re already censoring them with your kid, because you don’t want to impose upon them. But you need to feel the freedom to say it, so that you can release yourself from it.

Rebecca
Yeah, and to feel like you can dig into this anew. Maybe it will be a little bit less this time, but you don’t have to feel ashamed for needing to process this again. I think that’s a big thing. Maybe that would be another encouragement to Anne — to release, or to put that shame she might feel for needing to process it. That ‘why can’t she just put that away?’ Like, ‘get rid of that thought, ‘bad thought,’ ‘not a useful thought,’ ‘just bury it.’ But instead, accept it.

Natalie
Well, honouring it.

Rebecca
Yeah, honour it and welcome that shame.

Natalie
That’s us harkening back to the old one in the other episode.

Rebecca
We’ll just play that other one again. It’s really the same stuff that we keep encountering.

Natalie
But it is! We have a friend who told us about that one counselling appointment she went to where she said that her counsellor had described an emotional life that is in so many ways like a tornado — in that you’re literally spinning in this tornado, and the only difference is how you hit that same problem the next time you make a turn. So you’re holding on for dear life inside that tornado, but you’re also hitting the same problem.

Rebecca
Right. I really like that, although I remember that metaphor not as a tornado, which is very violent metaphor. I remember it as a circle. It’s a calming circle that you go around. You have a tornado?

Natalie
Yeah, because this is feeling. This is emotion. It’s tornado stuff, Bec.

Rebecca
“Oh yeah, I’m going around the tornado again!”

Natalie
“Again! Woo!” But you know what, if you want to go all calm circle stuff…

Rebecca
You’re right, it’s not a calm circle.

Natalie
Yeah, but I’ve only been meditating for three days, Bec, so it’s all I’ve got. You’ve been doing it for what, 56 or something amazing? You’re probably way more centred right now than me. I am going to say, by the way, that you really do need to big yourself up a little bit more for the amazing stuff that you do do — in terms of not just care for your family and for yourself, but for me, but also for our listeners, oh my goodness. The amount of time that you’ve spent doing all of the work to get these episodes ready, you’re a caregiver. The fact that your emotions could go in a calm circle, I’m stunned.

Rebecca
Now that we say that I don’t think that’s true at all. It might not have been a circle.

Natalie
A cylinder. It’s a tube.

Rebecca
A buoyant cylinder with a little bit of movement. Ok, we had also talked about another very practical thing we could offer Anne — this notion that we’ve just brought up recently. This idea of self-nudging.

Natalie
Yes, and we’re going to be doing a whole episode on this, right?

Rebecca
Yes.

Natalie
That’s the plan, because I think we’ve got some stuff to do with this one.

Rebecca
So should we just leave it there, or should we introduce this idea of self-nudging that dad introduced to me?

Natalie
Oh, I think we should introduce it. But I’m just saying we’ll be returning.

Rebecca
Because it would be rude to not now.

Natalie
There will be a return.

Rebecca
Dad sent me this article — that’s where it came from. Although for you, did it come from somewhere else?

Natalie
No, it’s from you.

Rebecca
Basically saying that we can self-nudge ourselves into healthier behaviours. Just gentle self-nudging into drinking more water, or eating healthier foods, or checking your email less, or, I think in Anne’s case, saying kinder things to yourself. The thing that I found interesting from the article is that it’s easier to change ten things by 1% than one thing by 10%.

Natalie
Little movements. Micro-movements, almost.

Rebecca
Which is hard because we want often to see bigger movements, or we don’t feel successful. But little movements over time — little movements over one year of your child’s life will be significant. So that was just interesting to me.

Natalie
Yeah, I think that’s super-interesting. The idea of self-nudging that I was doing some reading about — I found this philosopher from the University of Helsinki, it’s coming out of behavioural science. It’s a legit area of study here that we could be all using to improve self-control. I think that our insecurities are often connected to a sense of a lack of control. It’s the thing that we feel like we can’t quite fix or make go away or jettison out of our lives. The thing that I read that was so brilliant to me was that you can actually structure your environment in a way to make it easier for you to make the right choices for yourself to achieve goals. For example, if your goal is to get rid of a label that you have lodged in your head that you want to release yourself from, then even the way you design your space — for example, when you journal — could be as simple as… it’s like product placement in a store, right? They put the thing that they want you to buy right by the cash, because it’ll make so much sense to go with your coffee to get that croissant that’s right there. It’ll be the same kind of thing. You literally product place for yourself. Next to your journal the best picture that you and your daughter — so I’m thinking of you right now, that you could have there of you and Violet, or in this case, Anne and her son could have this beautiful picture that is so inspiring to her, so that when she opens up her journal to think through this thought that she’s having, that’s the face that’s inspiring her action. Product placement, as in literally structuring the environment so that you are nudged towards the happier, more positive thought. Not just for this other person, but for yourself.

Rebecca
I mean, a simpler version of that would be, “Put the celery at the front of the fridge.”

Natalie
For sure. That’s self-nudging in terms of strong, healthy eating.

Rebecca
We get that right away, but it gets a little more complex when you’re talking emotions.

Natalie
Yeah. Actually taking stock of what your space looks like physically, what the structure of your home can look like to help to mitigate potential pains. I love when I walked into your office that I saw that all of a sudden your desk had moved again. It’s not even like a huge room. It’s a very perfect little tiny room. But you moved your desk so that it wasn’t looking at the wall, even though that was a really pretty space to walk into and see where it was you had moved it. So it was like, “No, I’m looking out the window. I’m claiming the outside space as what I want in my line of sight.” You making that move, according to what I’ve read about self-nudging, is actually part of the process. Now it’s choosing to sit in that space and absorb the beauty of nature. That’s the next step in that self-nudging.

Rebecca
I think I do like to nudge myself into different patterns. It changed up my process. Actually, I just heard this really great interview with the author Sheila Heti, who I like a lot. This is a bit of a digression, but still fun, and I want to share it. She changes up her writing process all the time. I have chastised myself often for not establishing long routines. I can get into a routine, but then I end up changing it. She says for her works, she changes her routine — it might be every two weeks, she might even change her routine. I found this so encouraging. Maybe there’s something to it. My brain, my body, my way of working needs these little disruptions or needs these nudgings. It makes me think that self-nudging is going to look different for each of us, so we have to make it work for us. I don’t think I can nudge myself into a 9-to-5 that looks very prescribed, but I can nudge myself regularly to shift my patterns. “Oh, I’m getting stuck. Ok, let me change this up.” Does that make sense to you?

Natalie
Yeah, and I don’t actually think it’s a digression from what we’re talking about. If anything, it links us back to when I said that the theme for today was seasons — the seasons of parenting, the seasons of emotion that we navigate. Sheila Heti’s idea of changing her writing habits for each book, it’s almost like each piece that she writes garners its own new seasonal wardrobe. There’s something about the need to honour the season you’re in, by recognizing it — by naming it, perhaps — and then also nudging oneself into different habits for that time. Anne shared that she’s journaling, so this could be the season of her journaling this process through. The next season might simply be to chat with her friend. That might be a different iteration of her journaling experience.

Rebecca
Yeah, maybe she wants to put journaling away at some point.

Natalie
And that’s fair, right? That’s not all of a sudden another thing to heap on oneself as like…

Rebecca
“Now I don’t journal!”

Natalie
Yeah. “I’m failing myself in this way.” I think we can go that road pretty quickly. Giving ourselves the freedom to say seasonal wardrobes are not just for really great shopping. It could also be for the way that we navigate our lives and our emotions.

Rebecca
The marketing and the fashion industry has it right.

Natalie
They know what they’re doing.

Rebecca
Ok, well, maybe we should leave it there because we still have an interview coming after this.

Natalie
Yes, that’s true. Hopefully people enjoy getting to listen to our friend.

Rebecca
Our really amazing friend Felicity Williams, who’s such a remarkable singer, and we had a great conversation with her.

Natalie
We get to share that with you folks.

Rebecca
Our relationship goes deep with her, so it’s fun.

Natalie
Yeah, it’ll be fun. Well, thank you Anne for sharing. It means a lot that you let us into that story with you, and we hope that some part of our conversation is useful, you can glean something from it — just feel heard.

Rebecca
Yeah, and we hope others will feel the impulse to send something in as well.

Natalie
Absolutely.

Rebecca
We’re here for you.

Natalie
No, but we really are. This is what it’s kind of become. That’s kind of a neat thing, actually, to be able to feel like we’re having conversations with each other, but we’re caring for other people too. That’s a neat little take on it.

Rebecca
It’s neat, allright. It’s neat, Nat. Ok, I love you.

Natalie
Love you. Bye.

Rebecca
Bye.

Hey Nat.

Natalie
Hey Bec.

Rebecca
How’s it going?

Natalie
Dude, ok. How are you?

Rebecca
It’s good.

Natalie
It’s been a long day for both of us, I think.

Rebecca
Well, it’s been exciting over here getting this set up, but I think we’re good to go now. You know what I realized, I was going back and I was listening to some of our podcasts and you know what word I like to say a lot?

Natalie
Tell me.

Rebecca
‘Interesting.’ Everything is interesting to me. In some podcasts, I say it so many times. It’s interesting, isn’t it?

Natalie
Becca, I celebrate that about you. Your interest in others is one of the most beautiful qualities about you. Let’s just reframe that right from the get-go here. I love it.

Rebecca
You like the word ‘interesting’?

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
I feel like I might need to expand my vocabulary, expand what I think about things, but just a thought I was having. You don’t have one word that you say, just so you know if you were interested.

Natalie
I don’t?

Rebecca
No, you don’t have one word that you hone in on. Can you hear in the background? That’s Felicity, she’s standing by. Well, let’s just bring you in, because your laugh is so distinctive, Felice. We are here today with Felicity Williams. Hi, Felice.

Felicity
Hey guys.

Natalie
Yay!

Rebecca
So Felicity Williams is a musician based in Toronto. She’s a member of the touring bands for Bahamas and Bernice, and has performed widely throughout North America, Europe, and Australia. She is an active member of Toronto’s creative music community, collaborating regularly on a broad range of recording and performance projects. You might start to recognize her voice because she wrote and recorded the opening lick piece for this podcast.

Natalie
Which was such an amazing gift to us, Felice, honestly. That’s been such a treat.

Felicity
It was such a pleasure.

Rebecca
And maybe you did that for us because you’re also a dear friend?

Felicity
Absolutely. Honorary sister.

Rebecca
Honorary sister for sure. I think of you as a sister. I was thinking about all the things we’ve done together. We go back so far. Some of the things that were coming up for me — you were in both of our weddings. But before that, we knew and loved each other’s grandma’s, that came up for me. And then way before all of that, we went to Mali together. That is a whole season ago.

Natalie
Oh my gosh, you guys were like 13 and 15. That was like 10,000 years ago. That’s so beautiful.

Rebecca
Do you remember the bread from Mali?

Felicity
The baguettes.

Rebecca
And how they would only be fresh, they would deliver all the bread in a bag and they would would only be fresh…

Felicity
For the first 20 minutes or so.

Rebecca
Yeah, but we had to make it last. Immediately when I think of Mali, I’m like, “The bread.” Today we thought it would be fun to talk to you. There could be a million things that we could talk about together, but we have been thinking about seasons of life and what seasons we find ourselves in. Do you like to think that way? Felicity, do you think that way, or you’re willing?

Felicity
I do. When you mentioned that we might be talking about that, I was thinking about it. Before we started recording we were just chatting about how my partner and I bought a house in Belleville earlier this year. In working on that, I ended up researching gardening a lot, because I’ve never had an outdoor space to work on before. I really fell in love with this Dutch gardener/landscape designer. Not sure how you pronounce his name, it’s Piet Oudolf. He’s amazing. I was remembering how he describes gardening as an opportunity. If you’re doing it throughout your life, you get to witness the cycle of the four seasons dozens and dozens of times. If you’re interested in gardening and the behaviour of a garden, it’s a beautiful opportunity to familiarize yourself and understand the changes that happen as you experience many iterations of those changes. I was thinking about how sometimes I think about my life as though it corresponded to one year, like, “Am I in the summer of my life? Am I in the fall of my life right now?” But if you think about seasons like wheels within wheels, seasons operating at different scales — I mean that’s just thinking about seasons as it relates to weather or whatever, obviously there’s metaphorical seasons.

Rebecca
What season do you think you are in? Like macro-season?

Felicity
That’s something I’ve asked myself. What’s the word for when you anticipate something negative? I’m like, “Am I still in the summer, or am I shading into fall?” Is childhood spring, and then your 20s and 30s, is that the summer, and then the fall is middle age, and then old age…? I’m like, “Where am I?”

Rebecca
Well, it’s true, because last podcast we were talking about how my mom had set us up to believe in our life that the 40s were going to be our power years.

Felicity
I like that.

Rebecca
So maybe this spring? It’s funny, I got a text from a friend — it was clear that she was listening because she just sent a text and she’s like, “You’re not in your power years. There’s no such thing as power years.”

Felicity
Because it’s too much pressure? Don’t think of it that way?

Rebecca
I don’t know. I didn’t get into it with her. I couldn’t tell if she was saying, “I’m sorry to say, but these are not your power years. You’re not going to find them.”

Felicity
“Your power years are behind you. Just accept it.”

Rebecca
Yeah. I don’t know if that’s what she meant. It felt a bit ominous. And then there she followed up with, “Your power is within.”

Felicity
Well, that’s nice.

Rebecca
So I think it was an encouragement. Although I received it (as I often receive things) as both. That sort of encourages me, but sort of feels like…

Felicity
Deflating?

Rebecca
Yeah, and like some prediction that feels hard.

Felicity
No. Not that.

Rebecca
Not that? Ok. I know I can choose to tell myself whatever story. Natalie, what season are you in?

Natalie
I would say that I’m in a season of watchful waiting. I am back in the classroom. I haven’t been in the mainstream traditional high school classroom for eight or nine years. I’m enjoying some amazing kids who are hilarious, and they actually make me laugh so hard, and that’s such a beautiful part of my day now. Every day for the last two weeks. I’m appreciating that, but it’s also a bit weird. We talked about this on another podcast, the idea of body memory as being a real thing — the things we feel in our body as truly connected to past traumas, and it’s totally weird that I’m back in the building where everything to do with my leg started. I’m not blaming my school, they’re wonderful people. If anybody’s listening to this, I love you all. But the reality is that that building is very much attached to my sickness. That’s a hard one. It’s actually just hit me over the last couple days how real that is.

High school schedules right now are crazy because of COVID, and so I teach for two and a half straight hours, there’s no chance to go to the bathroom, so when you finally do run to the bathroom, there’s no time to think about anything. You just have to get in, get out, get done back to the next thing — but I actually walked into the bathroom yesterday, had a minute to myself, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I was in here before. I cried in here a lot.” That was a bit weird to have as a body memory moment. You know me, I’m not totally prone to going to the negative very quickly. When I say ‘watchful waiting,’ that’s a term that they use in medicine here in Canada — they don’t like to treat things too quickly, they want to watch and make sure that it’s something that has to be addressed, and carefully addressed. So I’m trying to determine that for myself. What needs to be addressed here in this season, in terms of my body and my spirit and my mind? It’s a good place in some ways. It’s a really reflective space, but it’s definitely a season of observing. That’s what I’m feeling right now.

Rebecca
So you’re resisting the seasons altogether?

Natalie
Oh yeah. There’s no weather. Because if I go weather — again, with my leg, I actually really like the cold because then I can wear better clothes. The seasons don’t really fit in terms of matching ideas around where we’re at in life, because the summer is the hardest time for me, because I’m always stuck in this silly sock that hurts.

Rebecca
So you don’t see summer as a light season, necessarily.

Natalie
Not necessarily, not for me. I’m not rejecting the notion of seasons per se, but I’m flipping the script on that one for myself, just in terms of how I’m interpreting it. But I like it.

Rebecca
I think I have been coming out. I’m going to go with seasons, I’m going to call winter the hard one for me. I think I am coming out of a long winter season, I think, with my company She Said Films closing. We made the choice to do that. It’s been a lot of grieving, and I guess it’s been really cold. I’ve been shivering. Simon was talking to me, he was like, “I think the thaw is coming for you.” Although, just to stick with this, I am amazed in life at how you can think you’re in a new hopeful place, but how it’s kind of a constant battle in a way — which is a whole new metaphor. Frosts come all the time. Do you know what I mean? You can think, “This is a good season. I’m feeling hopeful, this is a good new place.”

And then for example, what happened to me last week is that my computer died completely. I just happened to have one of those Macs that’s a faulty Mac, or it was one of the models they don’t make anymore, so the data is attached to the logic board. They’re together. We don’t think they can recover any of the data, and it was not backed up, which is my own error, but it’s a hard one. It’s so hard, because we were just about to get a new computer. We’d been talking about it, we were like, “No, we won’t do it this weekend. We’ll do it next weekend,” and then my computer crashed. That feels like a big frost that has damaged the flowers that were growing. I’m tempted to call it interesting, you guys. Maybe that’s a word I go back to when I’m trying to reframe for myself when I’m talking to people. Maybe it’s a slightly healthier word than saying, “It sucks, I hate it.” I don’t know. Trying to analyze myself. Frosts. Does that resonate for you at all?

Natalie
Oh my gosh, yeah. Again, that bathroom, man.

Rebecca
Was that too frosty?

Natalie
Yeah, I guess that could be the bad frosty. That’s like the frost that bites a bit. I resonate with that metaphor for sure.

Rebecca
Felice, do you like that frosty?

Felicity
Oh yeah, I got my frosts on the go for sure. I liked what you pointed out Nat, I didn’t know that that was a term in medicine — watchful waiting, or waiting and watching, that patient observance of something. I like that idea.

Rebecca
And it’s certainly part of gardening. The waiting and the patience.

Felicity
Yeah, patience is a hard one. In the face of these challenges like you’re describing, that becomes a really important thing to cultivate.

Rebecca
I feel like you can relate to this one in particular, but just patience in the arts is such its own challenge. Nat, it’s different than teaching — or maybe it can apply to any career where you’re waiting for something to happen. I don’t think that’s necessarily what we mean by patience, is it? That’s kind of a watching with expectation. We’re talking about a waiting with no expectation, do you know what I mean? How do you wait without…?

Felicity
I’m Googling the etymology of ‘patient’ because I was just realizing it’s also the word for the subject of medicine. I wonder if it’s related to pathos, you know, suffering.

Natalie
I think it is actually, but tell me what you see.

Felicity
My research skills are being put to the test in real time here.

Natalie
You’ve been spending so much time in the studio, Felice.

Rebecca
While you’re researching for a second, though, do you know what I mean, Nat? There’s a difference between watchful waiting without expectation versus “What’s my career going to look like? And I want more things to happen.” That’s a different kind of waiting, and maybe that’s not patience.

Felicity
Sorry, can I just interject? I’ve got something here. I got a live one here. Mid-14th century, Old French directly from Latin ‘patientem.’ “Bearing, supporting, suffering, enduring, permitting. Slow to anger, self-restrained, having the temper which endures trials and provocations. Awaiting or expecting an outcome calmly and without discontent.”

Natalie
Well there you go. That kind of builds right in there to what you were saying, Bec.

Rebecca
So it all kind of fits.

Natalie
I haven’t done gardening maybe the way that you guys are describing it — Bec on your farm, and then Felice now with this new property — but in my little backyard, and even back when Clifford I lived in the condo we had this really large terrace that was growing stuff 20 floors up. It was really interesting waiting for Clifford, he had planted these fig trees on that 20th floor balcony, and they took years to really take. Basically, they were at their best when we left. Clifford was sharing it with me and saying, “This is a selling feature. I’m just going to accept that this is a selling feature.” Because they looked so beautiful in that season when we left, but he didn’t really get to see the work that he had put into the planting of these trees.

Up at the farm recently, when Clifford and I were driving home the other weekend that we were there with you guys, he was talking about the patience required in planting something and it not working — having to be patient with the quote unquote failures. Some plants are just not going to grow in some soil, but you’re not going to know unless you try. Peppers never worked on our balcony, but for some reason they’re killing it in a really good way in your field. There’s something kind of interesting about the experimentation of the work of gardening, which I think is definitely a metaphor for seasonal living, when we consider the things that we try and then don’t quite work, and then the things that we didn’t anticipate working but they really bloom. Sometimes they bloom too quickly, and then we don’t really get to enjoy them because then it’s just all done. I could probably tease that one out for a while.

Rebecca
Yeah, gardening is actually an excellent metaphor for so much.

Natalie
I know if anybody could see our cameras right now, all of our faces just went slightly to the side, like “hmm…” as we’re wondering.

Rebecca
I would like to ask you, Felice, all about the layout of your garden, all these things, but I’ll push that to the side for a second because I also have this other really big question, you guys. Felice, I always ask Natalie if she knows these cultural references. So for example, Esther Perel, that she’s that big…

Felicity
I’ve listened to the first season, but not the most recent one.

Rebecca
Ok, so I don’t have to explain it. Nat just goes completely blank and she’s like, “No, I have no idea who you’re talking about.” Then people will text her later being like, “You don’t know who Esther Perel is?” And she’s like, “No.”

Natalie
No. I don’t know.

Rebecca
I know. I feel like she would. She’s excellent. Anyway, you know how she talks about that idea that in a marriage, for example, there can be many marriages — maybe you’ve had five marriages in your marriage. I have found that really useful. I was thinking for us, it would be fun to talk about how many lives we’ve had. This in some ways is just another way to say it — first in terms of seasons — but my high school life, my university life, my early marriage life, my young kids life, my business life with a partner, now my business life more solo, our podcast? I don’t know, how do you guys think about that, do you find that useful? I’ve certainly found it useful in my marriage. This is the first time I’m thinking about all the lives I’ve had. What do you guys think?

Felicity
I feel like maybe because you’re in this time of transition, it prompts you to reflect on the past and maybe comb through the past and think about things — just all of the things that led up to where you are now.

Rebecca
Are you guys not constantly combing? Sometimes I need to know what other people are doing — to be like, “Is this what other people do?” Do you think of your life in lives?

Felicity
I don’t think about my life that way.

Rebecca
Or if you were going to?

Felicity
Yeah, for sure. I do, yeah.

Rebecca
No? No reflection at all. You’re probably the most reflective, one of the most analytical people I have met.

Felicity
I could be said to overthink and overanalyze for sure. That’s been said by me and others.

Rebecca
Yeah. I feel like we’re quite open about the various times we spent in therapy. Didn’t you have a therapist say something about overthinking?

Felicity
I don’t remember, but it’s interesting you bring that up. I’ve been talking to the same analyst for the last… I’m going to say, eight years? Before that, I was seeing another person who actually passed away and I ended up going directly from her to this other woman. We’re discussing now like that we’re probably going to terminate therapy towards the end of this year. In some ways, I feel like it’s such a long time coming. You’re saying you want to know what other people do? I’ve been Googling, “How long is analysis?” I know the whole point is that you decide and you work that out, and it’s personal to each person — but I’m like, “Have I been doing it for too long? What does it say?”

Rebecca
Like, “Have I messed with my brain?”

Felicity
Should I not have needed to do it for that long, or should I not have wanted to do it for that long?

Rebecca
Who decided that you should end it? Or it has been you’re not getting that much anymore?

Felicity
I was the one that raised the question of, “Is this…”

Rebecca
“What are we doing here?”

Felicity
I mean, is it meant to go on forever? And if not, you know, how do you decide to stop?

Natalie
I think that’s a really brave way to have started a conversation like that. There is a seasonal — this is like the end of a life.

Felicity
Marking something and being like, “I valued it so much, and it’s been wonderful. My therapist was wonderful, and I carry so much forward from that process.”

Natalie
Well yeah, you’ve invested eight years, Felice. I think that that shows a lot of investment in that time. Absolutely.

Rebecca
Do you think there’s also something connected to your garden? Are you like, “I’m going to learn from my garden now.” That kind of thing?

Felicity
You know, Andrew and I taking this step of buying this house — and I talked about with my therapist, how it’s really significant, making a home. Buying a home and making a home together. It definitely feels like a life step that is part of maturation and becoming an adult — although I guess arguably I’ve been an adult for 20 years.

Natalie
I like the ‘arguably’ part. I think that that’s a real good addition. Keeps one grounded.

Rebecca
You’re only an adult if you want to call yourself one.

Natalie
Exactly. You know Becca, when you first wrote that question down and I was pondering this one about the idea of how many lives have we lived, I had to laugh at that one because I feel like as a teacher I get to present a story of my life every new term with my students. I have to introduce myself to them at some level, and then they have to decide if they want to be in relationship with me or not as a teacher. Basically I’m painting a picture in the first day of class every semester. I can present myself whatever way I want to, really. One semester I might be like, “I love makeup videos,” which I do. I love watching makeup videos, and I’m good at it. In another life, I might have been a makeup artist. But then another semester, I might present myself as, “I love cooking,” which I also do. I could have been one of these Instagram chef people, that could have been my whole thing.

It’s this funny thing — lives that I have lived in my mind is one thing, but then there’s the lives that I tell my students I have. I’m not faking it, they’re all truths. I have to be authentic if I’m going to have them invest in this teacher-student life that we create in that classroom, but it’s kind of funny which ones I get to decide to pull forward that time or not, as opposed to constantly feeling like I’m stuck in some picture of a one-note life — which none of us are living, but I think sometimes when we tell a story (or maybe even, Bec, when you’re talking about combing), I definitely feel like my body can betray me in my dreams, where I end up dreaming some of the same old shit. The only word to describe it, and I’m like, “Why do you keep coming back? What life is coming back in my head at night that I don’t need?” So maybe that’s part of what my daily practice is.

Rebecca
It’s like some life trying to surface. “I wanted to have a chance, but I…”

Natalie
Maybe, right? I don’t know. So it’s interesting. The ideas of lives lived is an interesting one for me. See, I used ‘interesting’ three times in that one sentence.

Rebecca
I think it’s cool that you get to present your life to your students. I’m working solo so often, so I don’t really have anyone to present these potential lives, so I’ll just present them to you guys right now. In an alternative life, I think I would have liked to dress people like — stylist, buy people clothes. I always have felt so proud of how I can help my mom, or my grandma (I used to take her to The Bay and help her find outfits). I think I could do that for a lot of people.

Felicity
You guys are talking about past lives, I’m having flashbacks of being my 12-year-old self and at your house. Nat, I have a really distinct memory of you putting on your eyeliner and me observing it. You had such a technique that you had articulated, like you were saying it as you were doing it, and I’m like, “Wow, that’s amazing.” And Becca, when your bedroom moved into the basement (didn’t it at some point?), I remember that closet you had in the corner that was built for your clothes — different times where you were clearing it out, maybe for a seasonal change, like taking out summer clothes or whatever, and just being in awe of your wardrobe. It just seemed like the most incredible thing to me. It was like a sultan’s palace.

Natalie
That’s so cute. And Simon built you that closet, Rebecca!

Rebecca
Yeah, he did. That’s so amazing that he built me that closet.

Natalie
Your 22-year-old boyfriend building your closet out of nothing.

Rebecca
And you know what? Our house is Victorian, and they don’t have good closets. So he built a closet — he did manage to find a way to build a closet for Elsie. He’s done it again, so sweet. Felice, do you still ever have those yearnings to be a doctor again. Remember when you were like, “Am I going to be a doctor, or am I going to be a musician?” You weighed it pretty hard for a while. Is that gone for you?

Felicity
I don’t have the same kind of acute ambivalence about that specific profession anymore. But I do still, sometimes. I think even just because of COVID, and because of having this long hiatus of not touring and not really playing shows at all — I was supposed to be on tour in the US next month, and that got cancelled because of Delta. There’s just so much uncertainty on the horizon about what’s going to be possible for professionals to do music professionally.

Rebecca
Was that supposed to be with Bahamas?

Felicity
He was going to do it as a solo tour. The uncertainty that always exists with being a freelance artist, like you were saying before, is compounded now by all of this. Also, I think just because of having had that big hiatus where everything was suspended and it just feels like a fresh start in a way now, I’m like, “Maybe I do want to go back to school and study something else for the sake of having work that’s more predictable, in terms of income and everything.” I’m not saying I’m going to do that.

Rebecca
Like what? What would it be? Or you don’t know?

Felicity
I don’t know. I feel like there’s so many things I would be interested in studying. This summer when I was obsessively reading about gardening, I was researching garden design — like landscape architecture programs and stuff. Literally I’m just throwing darts. I haven’t seriously considered any one path, but there’s lots of things that would be interesting.

Rebecca
Although I feel like that’s where I go — like, “What could it be like? What life could you go down now?” I did not know you were sitting in your house in Belleville (like our properties are actually close) and studying gardening. Oh my God, I would have come and sat with you and just stared at the books, because I do find gardening so exciting too.

Felicity
Yeah, well, we can still do that.

Rebecca
We can still do that. There’s still life ahead of us to do that.

Felicity
Ok, I love you guys.

Rebecca
Ok, I love you both.

Felicity
Bye.

Natalie
Bye.