Rebecca
Hey Nat.

Natalie
Hey Bec.

Rebecca
We’re sitting here in my car. This is where we’ve decided to record this time. We’re at the farm.

Natalie
And it’s silent in here.

Rebecca
There are no animals at this farm, if you’ve been wondering. We just call it the farm.

Natalie
That’s not true. There are two cats. Both of our cats are here, just in separate locations.

Rebecca
Because they don’t get along. They already know that. They’re frenemies. There are lots of birds. Simon, to follow up on my osprey comment, he sent me an article about an osprey returning. Apparently, they always return to the same nest. Maybe we already knew that.

Natalie
Oh, that’s neat. I didn’t know that.

Rebecca
But I guess they fly away to separate spots. They migrate to get warm, and then they come back separately to the same nest.

Natalie
They really give meaning to the idea of taking space to maintain relationship.

Rebecca
Right, that’s true. They’ve been pent up in this nest, and then they go away to recharge.

Natalie
And then come back and enjoy each other again. That’s actually really smart, and something to consider.

Rebecca
Alright, so for Thanksgiving weekend, Nat, what are you thankful for? Are you filled with gratitude this Thanksgiving?

Natalie
You know what, I am, because it’s sunny today, which is amazing. I’m sitting in a car with my sister getting to have a long rambling conversation, which I really enjoy. I’ve had a very busy week of teaching, and I texted with one of my besties who I work with at school and we were like, “Maybe this week we’ll actually see each other,” and then there was a little, “… No, we won’t.” We work in the same building. So the idea of a long, thoughtful conversation fills me with much gratitude, because that doesn’t happen very easily these days.

Rebecca
Thanks, Nat. I’m glad you like to talk to me.

Natalie
How about you?

Rebecca
I’m grateful for the turkey that you stuffed.

Natalie
Oh my gosh, with mom’s guidance, but I have to learn. She basically handed me the turkey — well she couldn’t lift it, because it’s that big — and said, “It’s your turn now.” So things have changed.

Rebecca
How did she frame it? She was like, “Passing on the…”?

Natalie
Oh, she said something quite specific.

Rebecca
She called it her swan song?

Natalie
This was her swan song.

Rebecca
This was her swan song turkey, and you were having a hard time handling that big statement, weren’t you?

Natalie
Yeah, it felt really dramatic.

Rebecca
Yeah, fair enough. Turkeys are so heavy.

Natalie
It’s a lot of work.

Rebecca
Before we started recording I was saying, “Do we even celebrate Thanksgiving? Should we?” It’s a problematic holiday, Nat.

Natalie
Yeah, inherently, but at the same time there’s something really important and beautiful about focusing on gratitude. I can get behind that part of the wording of the holiday, while at the same time making sure that our kids understand why it could be a really problematic holiday for so many big reasons that need to get unpacked. But there’s still a turkey involved, somehow that maintains. I still stuff the damn turkey.

Rebecca
And you still stuffed it, and you still held the liver in your hand and considered ingesting it. Did you?

Natalie
Exactly.

Rebecca
No you didn’t. Just mom was saying. That was from a book or something?

Natalie
Yeah, that was from a Louise Erdrich short story. It was all about the two characters — the one older woman is wanting the man to prove his love to her by eating the heart of a turkey. So I pulled the heart and the liver out. There was something weirdly tempting about biting it.

Rebecca
It could go down real smooth.

Natalie
The liver especially, oh my gosh. It was very smooth. But that’s a bit gory.

Rebecca
Yeah. This is going to be a bit of a leap because it’s mentorship. I’m just going to say it, the word mentorship.

Natalie
Is there such thing as gory mentorship?

Rebecca
Gory mentorship.

Natalie
Maybe, right?

Rebecca
I have to think about that. I don’t know why it’s on my mind. I’ve just always longed for this one person. I feel like I’m in a bit of a life / career shift right now, so it would be so nice to just have this wizened just walking with me, giving me all the wisdom. They would be in my industry, and just show me all the loopholes. But…

Natalie
You don’t have that?

Rebecca
Well, I don’t know. I think is that a romanticized idea of what a mentor is? If that is the mentor, then no, I don’t have that, and I haven’t had that.

Natalie
That’s a really interesting question, because I have spent a lot of my career searching for one, and I haven’t found one ever, truly, who would live up to everything you just described — because it’s probably a romanticized idea that doesn’t actually really exist. We just watched that last Ted Lasso — which, spoiler alert, so if you don’t want to know, then you better mute us right now — but the idea of Rebecca being Kelley’s mentor, and at the same time best friend, I’m looking at that and going, “Hmm…”

Rebecca
I know, that’s so perfect, that it…

Natalie
It seems as impossible to me as even just the idea of a career mentor who sticks around, for goodness sakes. I think that that is an issue. Mentorship is hard, I think that’s just really what it comes down to. I think that mentorship is hard, and career mentorship is really hard.

Rebecca
And do we all long for it?

Natalie
Well, I do.

Rebecca
Is it a female thing, or not particularly female / male gendered at all?

Natalie
I have no idea. I mean, I have longed for a female mentor. That is interesting. And yet yesterday, I saw on Instagram that a colleague had posted about being at the wedding who he called his “Padawan teacher,” so I guess that suggests to me that there’s a mentorship thing happening between the two of them.

Rebecca
Did you feel jealous?

Natalie
Did I feel jealous? Not of them. I was happy that some young teacher got a cool mentorship experience from a colleague I respect. But at the same time, was I jealous about the idea of mentorship? Probably. I would have loved somebody to have really taken me on.

Rebecca
My first instinct is to say, “No, I haven’t had one.” Just straight up, let’s joke about it: I feel like a victim. I haven’t had that. But then I go, “Ok, what have I had?” I’ve had various women in our church who have taken a real interest in me. Just recently, I went for a walk with a woman from our church. She’s more mom’s age, she’s fitting in the box of that wise person. She’s lived more, lived longer — life experience to draw from. It was just a nice walk, but then later she was like, “I was thinking about something you said, and I think I can relate it to the story of Job in the Bible.”

Natalie
Oh boy, suffering. Ok.

Rebecca
You’ve had, in recent times, what feels like a lot taken from you. That is my experience of it — I think you could say, “No, maybe that’s not how it is,” but that’s been my experience of it. And she’s like, “In this Bible story of Job, he gets more after so much is taken from him, and then he gets even more back.” Anyway, the story of Job in the Bible is very challenging.

Natalie
I studied it in first year university.

Rebecca
You did?

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
What did you make of it then, in a secular context?

Natalie
In that context, the prof was teaching it as a really interesting story. I think he was an atheist. He certainly wasn’t teaching it as any sort of a religious text, but it was very symbolic and even allegorical — all that stuff happening. I could see how somebody who is looking at your life could take that story and apply it as a text. But it’s depressing.

Rebecca
It is depressing. I was like, “Oh dear.” Then I’m going to get boils on my skin.

Natalie
Yeah, I’m not ready for that.

Rebecca
The house will be destroyed or something — and all his children die, I think.

Natalie
Yeah, it’s a lot.

Rebecca
But I did think it was sweet that she had been thinking about my life later, and had wanted to send me some encouragement — thinking about it enough that she wanted to apply a story. My point is that that in some ways did feel like mentorship, if I want to unpack it that way. She is concerned for me, she loves me, she is reflecting on my life. Is she in my industry and going to open a door for me at CBC? No, she’s not. But she is concerned about my wellbeing and that is beautiful, too. So I was thinking about that.

Natalie
Ok, it’s very mature of you.

Rebecca
And I like that she has lived a really different life than me. We’ve been talking about this, gleaning from people’s lives who are very different, and how that expands us. I was also thinking about I have had different people in my life say just offhanded comments that have been significant. My drama teacher in grade 11, I remember specifically, she said I had potential. I think that’s all she said. It was a nice comment, “I think you really have potential, Rebecca.” That has been significant for me. I remember that. It was just a one-off, we weren’t really tight. I didn’t go and have long chats with her in her office, it was just a one-off. Then in theatre school, I had a coach who came in to do a course. Again, it wasn’t one of our main profs. She said, “Rebecca, why do you only want to be an actor? Why is that what you want? You should want more.”

The way I interpreted it was: you have the potential to do more, go beyond that. I felt like it was very specifically seeing into my skill set, and saying, “Open your eyes a little bigger, because maybe your needs won’t be met by just doing acting.” I find that I want to tell my own stories, not just the stories other people are handing to me. That feels really important to me. So those could be examples of mentorship. Not exactly super romantic and satisfying, but people who have seen me for a few moments. My friend from church, she does seek to see me. You know the thing of sometimes people aren’t saying the right thing, like they don’t see you the way you want to be seen but they’re still taking the time to see what they see, if that makes sense? It might not even be what you want (to be seen a different way).

Natalie
At least they’re being present with you.

Rebecca
Yeah, maybe it’s that. Just being present with you and saying your life matters to me. I don’t know, what do you think?

Natalie
I think it sounds like you’re going to be the one doing most of the reframing for me today, because I am not as far along the journey as you are. I think, in theory, I can do some of what you’ve just suggested, and see retrospectively some of the lines that some folks proffered me at different times, but I think that at 43 I’m still longing for somebody to swoop in and be my mentor in terms of career — specifically probably because I’m in this state where I want to be making a shift, and so it would be so perfectly timed if somebody would do that for me right now. I’ve had so many wounding, weird, non-mentor mentor experiences. I’m not kidding, I’ve now had at least three women principals. In my world, as a teacher, a principal would mean something — that would be the perfect mentor, and actually you’re supposed to find yourself a mentor in admin, so that over time, you can get yourself to that place where you move through being teaching into administration. That’s the sort of plan for folks. By about 20 years in, I’ve had some folks say to me, “When’s your move?” and I haven’t wanted to.

I’m not going to blame all the models that I’ve observed, but there have been a few who have been pretty bad. I remember writing this really big grant with some folks at a school that I used to teach at, and the new principal who came in — who I was all excited about, because I thought, “Here’s this mid-40s woman, she’s going to change things around here,” and anyways, I somehow didn’t do the things she wanted me to do with this grant money, and the woman took me to court. Full-on court, like 5050 Yonge Street kind of court. I was sitting there with my union rep because basically she accused me of stealing money — which is impossible, because there’s no money to steal. It was just a crazy-making experience, and I’m not kidding, God was fully on my side in that one, because right in the middle of this hearing, where we’re sitting there with like board lawyers, an earthquake happened.

Rebecca
Job.

Natalie
Exactly, Job. One of the few earthquakes that happened in Toronto, so we all had to exit the building. I wanted to be like, “See? See? This is crazy!”

Rebecca
And did that throw the trial?

Natalie
It threw the trial completely. Well no, what threw the trial was that the lawyer looked at us and said to myself and the union rep, I don’t know why we’re here. This is very obviously not a thing — but they said it in legal language. So not only did she not mentor me, she tried to take me down eight pegs. It was so much anti-mentoring, it was the opposite of. So that really threw me.

Rebecca
And do you think it was you… I don’t know. Did you bring a vulnerability or an openness that she saw?

Natalie
That’s interesting. I have no idea, I honestly don’t know. I think I used to story it in lots of ways. As I’ve gotten further and further from it, I really actually have no idea. I could say, “Yes, I seemed like an easy target because I’m a big walking open heart.” (At the time, got more closed over time — life taught me that one.)

Rebecca
Seal that in.

Natalie
Seal that one in, button that one up. But no, I don’t even know what to say to that. I have no idea why. She honestly could have just been a new principal and didn’t want to get herself in trouble, and didn’t know the rules, and so kept sending off these board emails to say, “Is this how we’re supposed to do this?” But because my name kept getting attached to these emails, maybe it turned into this being an issue. It seemed like she was basically saying, “This teacher needs to be checked.”

Rebecca
Right. “So we need to monitor this.”

Natalie
There’s really honestly very limited abilities to explain that whole experience, except that God sent me an earthquake, so I’m going to take that sign. But I didn’t get a mentor in that moment, I got an earthquake. Then I had another one where it was the principal who I wrote the grant with, and then she retired. So she abandoned me. I remember sitting there, and again, I tried the vulnerability track. I was going through something at that point, I think that was right around my divorce. I took a moment, I actually took a risk and I decided to — we were sitting alone in a room together, I thought, “Here’s a woman, maybe she’ll just feel with me for a second.” So I cried, and she looked at me with what felt like the hardest eyes, and she said with all this emotion, “Can you do your job?” I can physically remember the sensation of going from teary to dry-eyed, and I shut down right there. I just said, “That is not going to be a problem,” and that was the end of it.

Rebecca
Oh my goodness.

Natalie
I honestly think that that was a really interesting moment. I 100% have learned (again, after the fact) that perhaps she unmentored me in that moment of how I would never be with someone. Not that I want to make people cry, but at the same time when I have younger teachers around me, I feel like I want to encourage feeling, because feeling is what allows for growth, and there was no room there.

Rebecca
But that to me says, like, how afraid was that woman of that emotion? What was happening inside her that she felt so threatened by your tears, or so threatened by what she thought you needed from her?

Natalie
Yeah. So maybe that’s the thing that I’ve recognized that’s right there. I think that mentorship, for some, feels like a really big ask. There is some sort of vulnerability required in the relationship that is created. Maybe this is why they’re so hard to come by, certainly in my experience, because maybe the mentor recognizes that there’s going to be a lot of giving, and perhaps less obvious receiving.

Rebecca
Simon, in all his podcast listening, he likes to listen to business people and all kinds of people. I like how I just summed that up — I’m seeing some birds outside as I said that, “You know, all kinds of people.”

Natalie
Focus, bring it in.

Rebecca
It’s so funny because we’re in a car, so you’d think I’d have nothing else to look at. But he was saying, “Of course everybody wants a mentor, but why would someone just start giving to you?” So we come maybe with this really unrealistic notion of why someone’s just going to give you everything they’ve got.

Natalie
Yeah. For what? Even though that’s actually on a list of what you’re supposed to do to make your next move in your career. If you see it on LinkedIn, one of the lines is always, “Find a mentor.” “Find a mentor,” that’s like, “Go pan for gold.” It just feels totally odd.

Rebecca
But I was also thinking, that woman seems an interesting example. I almost wonder what was going on inside her as well. Did she feel inadequate? I get asked to write letters. I was even telling you about this recently, I got asked, “Can you write me this reference letter, I want to go do this thing.” I was thinking, “Sure, I’ll write it, but I don’t feel particularly powerful or that I have anything down.” Have I figured anything out? There’s this thing that we want the mentor to have figured it out, so there’s this pressure on mentors. I’m like, “Get away from me, I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

Natalie
Maybe for her (because I’m not going to give her that out), she was literally going to be retiring the next year. She was at the height of experiential levels in the board around being a principal. Her next step was to go on to be a superintendent, but you don’t need a superintendent to mentor a teacher, you need a superintendent to mentor a principal. There’s the comedy, maybe she was going off in her own direction of looking for her next mentor, a superintendenty kind of mentor. The other side of it could have been that she was just tired. She’s retiring, she’s tired. “I don’t have any more to give to this young weepy blonde chick.”

Rebecca
“Pathetic woman feeling things.”

Natalie
“All of her feelings.”

Rebecca
You know what, there is that too. We do get tired as life progresses, and maybe less sympathetic. Is there that? Staying soft, how do we stay soft?

Natalie
Maybe, remember that line in Ted Lasso? Again, one more spoiler, but that line where Roy’s like, “And it hurt my… feeling.” That’s what it felt like to me. Feeling. Singular. Yeah, by that point when she shut me down, I was down to my last… feeling. So I went on to my next move career-wise sans feelings.

Rebecca
Oh, man.

Natalie
No, that’s not true. The kids bring the feelings back.

Rebecca
But maybe that’s ok, because we need to protect ourselves, maybe by shutting down. There are ok periods for that, where I’m just recruiting my own inner resources again so I can try again. You had mentioned that Clifford likes to use that idea of the asymmetrical needs? Does that apply here?

Natalie
Oh yeah, he talks about that in parenting. He’ll describe that of the parent to child — you’ve even mentioned it before, you and your eldest having a conversation and feeling like it’s very, very equal, but then all of a sudden recognizing the child shifting in it, because they are very definitively the child.

Rebecca
And it’s actually asymmetrical.

Natalie
Because you don’t get to expect of the kid the same feeling, or even to recognize your feeling. I think that it does exist in mentorship. I think it is asymmetrical, and probably then why a lot of people balk at even being asked to provide any sort of a mentorship relationship. As one who has been a mentor — I say that because literally I’ve had to sign the paper that says, “I will be your mentor,” when in school, they have these things for the new teacher induction program, a job of a new teacher. This happened after my time, so maybe they were dealing with too many people like me.

Rebecca
Actually realized they needed to start a program?

Natalie
They needed to do this, and so they ended up having it so that teachers would choose themselves a mentor and then that person had to sign off on being their mentor and then they were supposed to do that gig. I remember signing a few teacher’s things and I was their quote unquote mentor. It was really interesting when it became that paper-based like, like now my signature’s on it, now there really was sort of a, “Ok, what you’re gonna give me? Do you have a binder for me? Can I go photocopy this? Is this now going to dictate my next five years? Will this get me through?” So there was a real…

Rebecca
Like, a neediness to it that was…?

Natalie
Yeah. It could have just been those people who did it, but that’s also ok because they were in some ways given the permission to make those really large requests.

Rebecca
But you can see then why a mentor would be reticent to jump into this relationship of, “I’m going to be like, gimme, gimme, gimme.”

Natalie
Yeah, because it is asymmetrical. That’s all give, and then what do you get to receive back? I think the receiving back probably is supposed to be these kind of retrospective, momentary thoughts, where you’re like, “Oh, I learned that of myself.”

Rebecca
Or revealing the nuggets I have inside me, and don’t I feel good about the knowledge I have?

Natalie
Maybe, maybe. I like that, actually.

Rebecca
I just took that in a different direction, Nat.

Natalie
Yeah, that’s different than where I was going.

Rebecca
My mom bought this for our little farm up here. We are not a quotation family. We don’t put quotations on our walls. In fact, mom bought that block of wood that says, “Sandbanks is our happy place.” She bought it.

Natalie
Yeah, I just learned that this morning.

Rebecca
It wasn’t our aunt — so mom bought that.

Natalie
I attempted to keep my face really still.

Rebecca
Actually, I sort of love it, because I’m like, “You know what, what the hell? Let’s be that family. Why not? Let’s be a family that puts ‘I can do it’ all over the house.”

Natalie
Lots of affirmations, because maybe we need them.

Rebecca
But why am I telling you that? Oh — nuggets.

Natalie
Wisdom nuggets.

Rebecca
I think that’s why I’m saying that. Anyway, Elsie was like, “Are we that family now?”

Natalie
Well, we’re obviously the family that’s in search of some mentorship, so maybe we’re not getting this thing that we are looking for. It certainly hasn’t come yet, and I’ve been in this gig for 20 years, so that should suggest to me it’s not coming anytime soon. But maybe I’m getting it in other ways, which is where you started, so I need to kind of go to that headspace.

Rebecca
Ok, the other possibility is like I started off with: are we looking in the wrong places?

Natalie
Maybe. I’m wary of finding mentorship in the person that I’ve decided is the most amazing, because you know that line, ‘Never meet your heroes?’

Rebecca
Mm-hmm. Although I say, “Mm-hmm,” but I don’t know that line. Where’s that from? That’s from a block of wood sitting at someone’s cottage?

Natalie
Sitting on somebody’s counter. Somebody who’s been wounded really deeply has etched that into a really intense block of wood. But I think it’s the idea of people who we put on pedestals — that we pedestalize — then you meet them and then they’re very human.

Rebecca
Is that a word?

Natalie
I think so. I think it’s a good one, but I have to go look it up. But it’s a dangerous thing to do, because people are so human and so broken that inevitably, you lift someone up too high, they’re going to disappoint you, and then all of the weight of that disappointment crashes down on you.

Rebecca
And we are a very realistic family. I think it bothers Simon sometimes that I see people’s, I don’t know…

Natalie
Grit, or rough edges or whatever.

Rebecca
Grit, that’s a good way to say that. We all have them, so it’s really hard for me to hold someone up anyway — I’m so quickly going to see the shadow side.

Natalie
Or the dirt under their fingernails kind of thing. Yeah, so I have an example. It is an interesting thing for me to think back on some of the people who have probably taught me the most about teaching are the people who have disappointed me the most. I still have the line in my head from someone who said to me, “Parents are sending us the best they have.” Which is an interesting line to sit with.

Rebecca
Sending the kids to school, they’re the best. Is that what that means?

Natalie
Yeah, they are sending us their best. Because people who work with humans, we can all get really disappointed or frustrated with whatever issues are coming our way. But if you can reframe the individuals in front of you as being somebody else’s best — as in, first of all, a parent’s best, but even for those teachers who aren’t parents yet, so they don’t have that kind of empathy thing happening yet for children in the same way that comes about from having birthed a creature — I think that line is useful. I have certainly felt it to be useful, that I can really see that somebody has sent to me, to this classroom, a little person who has been poured into to somebody else’s best ability. And so I’m working with somebody’s best.

Rebecca
I’ve had a friend say that to me, too. She was encouraging me, she really believes that people are doing their best. Same kind of thing, that people are doing the best they can. It might not be your best. I think trying to see the underbelly, which I’m tempted sometimes to see as negative, and she’s saying, “Reframe that. That might be their best, so let’s look at it differently, or be more hopeful.”

Natalie
See, that person said this to me, and it’s a good thing. We can sit here and unpack that and go, “That’s a good thing. I really have a hard time in my head with my memory of that human. That person hurt me deeply.” And so it’s very hard to see that person as a mentor.

Rebecca
But yet they said something useful that has really sat with you.

Natalie
For a long time. So was that person to mentor? Maybe. I do wish that, like in that ‘never meet your heroes’ thing, I wish I didn’t have to be disappointed so deeply by that wounding. But at the same time, would I have learned as much if I hadn’t been as wounded? It’s almost like sort of looking back and searching through.

Rebecca
Looking for the gems there?

Natalie
Yeah, looking for the gems. That’s a great way of putting it. That’s exactly it.

Rebecca
We were talking about this, I think it applies, but this scandal that is now opened up with Hillsong, that church out of Australia.

Natalie
Right. This really large megachurch on the other side of the world that has influenced a lot of music.

Rebecca
All this Christian music. Some of them are really catchy, and there’s that recent one with Justin Bieber, he sings in it. I really like it. I found it really helpful, damn it. And of course, now the guy turns out to be… oh my gosh, religion. Christianity just does not shine, that’s for sure.

Natalie
Yeah, there’s a lot of screw-ups. 100%.

Rebecca
Ok, so the guy has now turned out to have abused the founder of Hillsong.

Natalie
No, it’s the father of the founder.

Rebecca
Ok.

Natalie
Yeah. The point being that the founder covered it up. He didn’t come forward and protect those kids. So it’s horrible.

Rebecca
So it’s tragic. But then dad was saying, “Now I can’t even like my Christian songs that I listened to in the car.” I was saying to a friend, “I get the kids ready for school. I pump them up with some of these songs sometimes.” She’s like, “Whatever helps them feel good.”

Natalie
Oh, that’s great actually.

Rebecca
To feel empowered.

Natalie
You’re saying it feels like, “Now I can’t even listen to the songs,” but then dad’s perspective was…

Rebecca
Dad was saying, “Well, you can’t reject everything that’s come out of that movement.” He was saying they’re just kids writing the songs — like 25-year-olds writing some of the music, so can you reject the whole movement? So you’re applying that to your own life. You’re saying “No, I’m not going to reject every good piece that came out of that person’s mouth.” Which is very wise and very mature, as you were calling me earlier. So now you are the mature one.

Natalie
Oh, that’s generous. But I think that it’s interesting that dad said that to you, because dad himself went to Humber for music.

Rebecca
The jazz program, yeah.

Natalie
He would have been young like that, and the vulnerability of what art creation, music creation requires of someone. There’s an empathy that his experience brings just to thinking on those young people who are trying to create this music that’s being shared everywhere — and how life has garbaged down on their journey now because of this person’s horrible…

Rebecca
Because they thought they had a mentor, and they thought they had found a great mentor.

Natalie
And their mentor is a fuckup. That’s really actually the horrible thing about it, right? This horrible, horrible ugliness.

Rebecca
I’m impressed with you, and people who managed to not get so jaded. You can just really want to give up completely when you have people disappointing you like that. By the way, one thing about this experience of recording in the car is it’s really hot.

Natalie
Are you warm?

Rebecca
I’m quite warm, and I think it might be affecting my brain. So when I’m having my moments of drifting, I just want to put that out there that I’m seriously overheating, and it’s bringing me back to an experience of filming. We had done this filming experience in a house, we had to lock down the house and turn off the air conditioning to film.

Natalie
Oh, for the noise.

Rebecca
Yeah, you need it really quiet, which is why we are in here. It’s really quiet. But now I’m starting to sweat, and it’s really hard to keep focused.

Natalie
Honestly, I’m channeling this like…

Rebecca
You’re channeling the sauna. You are laid back. You’ve got your arms up. I’m taking phone calls. I’m going to start talking at a much faster pace. Anyway, do you have something to say? Because I’d like to move on.

Natalie
I’m done. I’m good. Moving on.

Rebecca
Moving on, cause I’m jittery now.

Natalie
You need your second coffee, is what you need.

Rebecca
I think it’s my third. Ok, I did this project a while back, and we researched mentorship. We decided at the end that the better way to frame it is lateral mentorship.

Natalie
I really wish that that was my line that I gave you when you gave me one of these write-ups to edit, because that’s so good.

Rebecca
That’s our line. Lateral mentorship.

Natalie
That’s really good.

Rebecca
Yes. Thank you, Nat. So then it made me think: another way to look at mentorship then is that it comes from the people right beside you and your colleagues. So you’re not looking up, you’re looking side. I have this scene in my mind, because I know I love the Mare of Easttown. The last scene is these two women, these two friends and we’ve been on their journeys, and they are huddled next to each other. They each had something so huge taken from them, their children. They’re just weeping with each other. This image of them together. They don’t have a big mentor in the story, but it just struck me that they have each other in this moment. So is that just friendship, then? Is that just friendship, and why am I using the word mentorship? Is that lateral mentorship at that point? Or is lateral mentorship friendship?

Natalie
Yeah, I have to sit with that one, because I’m not totally sure. I really do believe that there’s something inherent to the word ‘mentorship’ which involves guidance. I actually believe that guidance has to be a part of it. I’m not sure that every friend in my life (and I’ve had lots of really wonderful important ones), but not everyone has given me guidance per se. But yet, I think the ones that stick around — because sometimes friendships do just shift, based on geographies, even. But because we can stick around with each other a little bit more these days, because of social media — you know, so somebody pops up in your feed for a second and likes something or loves something that you have vulnerably shown to the world as important to you. That might not be a traditional presentation of mentorship, but it could be guidance — of ‘this is how I love you,’ and that can be a good way to receive. But I really do love the idea of lateral mentorship. Literally, you’re sitting next to me, I feel guided by you often and in a deep way that I really appreciate. Again, I think it goes back to what you said at the beginning. I feel seen by you when we have a conversation. I mean you’re teasing, you’re joking about being distracted looking out the window here because we’re in this car looking out on this field with the birds, and hot, so longing to open a window.

Rebecca
It’s ok, I’m going into a happy place here. I just drifted away. Are you still talking?

Natalie
But I know that I am seen by you, and that’s an amazing gift. So I have that mentorship experience happening here, which is different than one might assume from a younger sister. That goes back to that whole, “If I’m the older sister, I’m supposed to guide you.” Whatever rules are in place in terms of hierarchies, that doesn’t exist here. I think that kind of breakdown of the hierarchies should exist in all sorts of places. Definitely with the friends, with the colleagues. I’m not going to learn from the principals anymore. As a general rule, I think I’m going to constantly learn from my teacher colleagues who’ve been slogging it with me for a long time. That’s where my best learnings are going to come from. That, I think, means a lot. If I can really truly see it that way, without criticizing myself for failing. Still, a little bit of disappointment for never having had that.

Rebecca
Found the…?

Natalie
Top-down.

Rebecca
Yeah.

Natalie
I think that the lateral mentorship is the way to go. I think that it’s maybe the thing that I have to keep saying to myself is the way to go. Does that make sense? I still have to convince myself of it daily.

Rebecca
Because we still have this notion, because they’re still showing stuff like that on TV with Rebecca and Keeley from Ted Lasso. We still see that. It’s so much like what we’re saying about Instagram. We know we can turn that off, and then we see real life, and there’s so many positive things when we turn it back on, and we’re like, “Oh, that makes me want that.”

Natalie
Yeah. It’s like fighting something constantly, because there’s been something implanted in us as a goal — and I’m putting ‘goal’ in quotation marks — as if that’s a goal that is achievable, or even desirable, when I have something very different. What did mom make fun of me for saying? I think I used the word ‘iteration’ twice yesterday.

Rebecca
I’m not sure why she was saying that was so funny.

Natalie
Because I thought it was just a really good word, so I’m going to use it right now. Mom, I’m using it. I think a different iteration of mentorship is this lateral mentorship that you said that you’ve come up with? I think that’s a win.

Rebecca
It’s more current. I was asking Simon for his perspective on mentoring this morning, and he said that one of the guys he listens to calls it — a way to look at learning / mentorship — is, “Plus minus equals.”

Natalie
Ok, tell me more.

Rebecca
You need a ‘plus.’ This is connected to lateral mentorship, and going beyond that. You need a ‘plus,’ someone who is a teacher, but in this case he says it could come from 200 books. So you’re a teacher, and that’s maybe what we’ve had, Nat, as avid readers (or when you used to be).

Natalie
I am, just different.

Rebecca
Don’t worry, I’m still reading for us. I mean, you’ve read 200 books in your field for sure, particularly having done a PhD.

Natalie
Yeah.

Rebecca
So we need the ‘plus,’ but it can come from books.

Natalie
It doesn’t have to be a human. Yeah, I like that.

Rebecca
And then you need a ‘minus,’ so you need to be the teacher to someone. I guess that cements your learning too, as you give. And then the ‘equal,’ which is someone who’s in the weeds with you — the colleague.

Natalie
Oh, that’s very interesting.

Rebecca
That’s how he frames mentorship, “Plus minus equals.” Which I like, and that was a nice reminder for me that 200 books is a valid source of learning. I want to keep learning about writing. I’d done my MFA, but I don’t feel saturated or done, so I can keep going. If I don’t have that perfect writing mentor in my life right now, I can keep mentoring myself.

Natalie
Well, the person who wrote the book is still the person. The person put themselves into those pages. They might not be standing there with you, but they are, kinda. Their words are there. That’s actually really interesting.

Rebecca
Yeah. Which I just want to say, we’ve been debating whether we should have transcripts for this podcast.

Natalie
Right, yeah. Cause they’re a lot of work.

Rebecca
A lot of work, and we think we should because it’s sort of about accessibility.

Natalie
But it’s hard.

Rebecca
I was talking to a guy that works with me, he helps me do stuff. He was like, “Yeah, I don’t see the value, like who would read those?” Which is a fair question, but I am one of those weirdos that reads transcripts, because I like to learn that way from reading.

Natalie
So then it’s not weird, unless you’re going to say what Elsie would say, which is, “Weird is awesome.”

Rebecca
It’s all I wanted to say. I do feel like that is as much a way for me to feel like I’m with the person.

Natalie
Right. And yeah, when you get to sit and ponder the word on the page, perhaps for those who are visual learners. I do think I’m an auditory person.

Rebecca
You’re auditory? I think I’m visual. I have never been able to put that into words, so now I know that about you.

Natalie
I mean, we’re never just one thing, but auditory would definitely be my top — which is why I always did just fine in school with the lectures.

Rebecca
And not taking a lot of notes.

Natalie
Yeah, I would scribble notes, but they were more just points to bring it all together.

Rebecca
I was so detailed.

Natalie
Oh, yeah. We’re very different humans, Becca. I like that. Thus, I learn so much from you, lateral mentor.

Rebecca
Alright. Well, let’s go think about that, and air off. I love you Nat.

Natalie
I love you Bec.