Good Life Project - Mary Fons: she quilted her way to health, now it’s time to write.

Episode Date: July 31, 2016

Mary Fons knew she wanted to be a writer from a young age, and was pursuing that path when a catastrophic illness nearly took her life, leading to surgery and changing her future forever.As she recovered and started to stitch her life back together, she began working with her mom, Maryann Fons, a legend in the world of quilting and author of what has become known as the "Quilter’s Bible."Simultaneously rebuilding her health while building her own name as a leading voice in the massive quilting world, she began speaking, writing books, designing textiles and producing media and appearing regularly on television with her mother. Still, she knew deep down that quilting wasn't her dream. Writing and spoken-word began to call her back to a more deeply ingrained destiny.We recorded this conversation at a major point of inflection for Mary. She was about to make a huge move, and in a way, this conversation is her announcement. As we wrap up, Mary also reads a powerful spoken word piece that landed her writing and poetry big attention and accolades. You don't want to miss this.In This Episode, You'll Learn:The mind-blowing statistics behind the world of quilting.The catastrophic illness and events that changed Mary’s life forever.How Mary has learned to handle the stress of living her life in her niche’s public eye.How Mary navigated the tricky path to becoming a success in the shadow of a legendary woman and finding her way in the world of quilting.How to be successful and earn a living in quilting.How performing, improv and spoken word entered her life.Why Mary has decided to make the leap from writing to writing.Mentioned in This Episode:Connect with Mary: Mary Fons | Blog | Quilty | Facebook | YouTube | InstagramFons & PorterMake & Love Quilts: Scrap Quilts for the 21st Century by Mary FonsQuilter’s Complete Guide by Marianne Porter & Liz FonsCreative MorningsQuiltCon WestThe Modern Quilt GuildThe Neo-Futurists: Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go BlindMark TwainWrite Club Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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and stories you pretty much thought you'd left behind decades ago. It's all happening at the end of August, just about 90 minutes from New York City, and we're well on our way to selling out spots at this point. So be sure to grab your spot as soon as you can if it's interesting to you. You can learn more at goodlifeproject.com slash camp, or just go ahead and click the link in the show notes now. I look at people who I admire, and they're frequently people who do tons of stuff. Like the writer George Plimpton, like he was a boxer, and then he like flew a plane for a while. And you know, all these different things that these different people do, to me, that makes a pretty interesting life.

Growing up in Iowa, today's guest, Mary Fonz, pretty much always wanted to be a writer, and she started to pursue that in a pretty aggressive way until a pretty major medical incident hit, which led to surgery and changed the future of her life. And as she tried to stitch together what that would look like, she literally turned to her mom, who had become sort of legendary in the world of quilting in the U.S. In fact, wrote what was considered the Bible of quilting. This world, in case you didn't know, and I didn't know until I had this conversation, is huge. There are some 21 million devoted quilters in the U.S. alone. And from a revenue standpoint, it is a $4 billion industry.

Her mom, Marianne Fonz, had become one of the leaders since the late 70s in this space. And her exposure to that sort of planted the seed for her to literally think of the metaphor of stitching to stitch together her life after this major surgery, major medical incident, and at the same time, start to adopt or start to practice a lot more this art, this craft, this career and profession of quilting. And she built a very substantial name and eventually ended up working and today works side by side with her mom. But under the surface, something else was brewing and has been brewing for a long time.

And that is that Jones to right that has never left her. In today's conversation, we go deep into this entire dynamic, into her journey, into what it's like to actually have a deep passion and then move through a traumatic incident that shifts direction, have opportunity, but then also have to prove yourself under the shadow, the umbrella of a very well-known parent in the space. And then feel that calling again, that this is not quite it. And we learn also where her path is taking her from this point forward. Also, you will absolutely want to listen to the end because at the end, Mary actually shares about a seven-minute spoken

word piece that's really powerful. And I think it's going to be moving for you as it was for me. As always, I hope you enjoy this conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Yeah, I stood up this morning at like four. Wow. And I'm headed back tonight. Oh, you're going around to Chicago in a day.

Yeah, I am. But that's not so bad because Chicago, it's actually like a relatively human flight. It is. Exactly. And I'm A-list on Southwest. So, you know, I just waltz right up there. So you walk up with like your floppy hat and your sunglasses. You're that

important. I have been recognized in airports though. Have you really? I have. I have because the public television show is on in like 93 of the market so and it's pbs so everybody gets pbs so even if you don't watch quilting shows because you make quilts chances are decent that on like a saturday morning like i will be there like telling you how to make a half square triangle unit or something it's true so that's too funny does that wear you out when people recognize you? Are you cool with it?

Do you love it? I don't love it. Do you secretly chase after it? More, more, more. Hey, why don't you recognize it? Exactly. You look like a quilter. Do you know who I am? Well, no, I don't seek it out for sure. But there was this wonderful, horrible thing that happened to me. It was, I was very early flight. It was in, you know, Tampa or something like that. And I write in a journal like every day, books and books and books of these. And I got to my gate and I realized I needed more coffee,

but I had sat down with my journal and was writing in my journal. I was like, oh dear. So I put my pen in my mouth and I closed my journal and I put my journal in my purse and I went to get coffee. And that morning I had gotten up so early. I took a shower the night before, so my hair was like dried in the shape of the pillow. But I thought it looked kind of good in the morning. So I was like, I'm just going to leave it. So I'm walking back from the coffee thing and people are like looking at me. And I'm like, I think they know who I am. Like that guy did. And like, she's definitely looking at me and I'm like, I think they kind of think, I think they know who I am.

Like that guy did. And like, she's definitely looking at me. I got to the mirror later. My pen had exploded. It was like black on my face and my hair. Oh my God. And so, so being recognized, I mean, I was like, I feel kind of important, but it's not, it was not. It's because I looked like I was certifiably insane.

That and those things happen. Yeah. It's called being human. So we're hanging out in New York right now. You just jumped over from Chicago. And as people can gather immediately already from our conversation and from the intro that will have been pre-recorded and jumped into this before this, you are a quilter. So I knew almost nothing about this world at all. And I grew up in a family where my mom was a craftsperson my whole life. Her focus was on pottery and now beading. So I've been exposed to the world of making stuff with your hands my whole life. But quilting is this one thing I had no idea really existed.

And you did a recent Creative Mornings talk in Chicago. And you dropped some statistics about this world that blew my mind. So can you share a bit about how big and engaged this world really is and what it's about? Well, yes. So $4 billion industry, $4 billion a year come in and out of that world, those galaxies of the people who make sewing machines and people who teach classes and take classes and conventions. QuiltCon was just in Pasadena in February, the Modern Quilt Guild. I mean, there's all there's so much activity. And $4 billion is created, you know, in this in this industry, 21 million quilters in America, and that's

dedicated quilters and new numbers are coming out this year. I can't wait to get my hands on those stats. But there are 21 million people in this country, mostly women, which is a whole hot topic. Men and quilting, what does it mean? But they make more than one quilt, these people. They're not dilettantes. They make quilts. They have quilting supplies. And I looked, the online dating industry, by the way, is $3 billion a year. $3 billion. So we're like. So quilting is bigger than online dating. Yeah.

In money, in the numbers, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, people don't know about it unless they're in it. And I throw out those numbers a lot because it legitimizes what I do. If I'm sitting next to somebody on an airplane and they ask me what I do, you know, I'm a quilter, I'm a teacher, I'm a writer. And they're like, quilting? Nice hobby. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so I feel compelled to tell them these numbers because it legitimizes it. And then I feel sort of like, why do I have to say that? But they don't realize it,

but it's huge. Yeah, I had absolutely no idea. I mean, really, those numbers kind of blow my mind, especially when you think that you're talking 21 million people in the US alone and people who are actually dedicated in doing this. These aren't people who kind of dabble. So which brings up so many questions that I want to explore with you. But before we even get there, like my curiosity is what brought you to this world. So was this something that you fell into as a kid? And you're like, Oh, this is it? Or tell me about your childhood. Oh, God. I grew up in Iowa. My mom is a really famous quilter. So I have to take you back a

little bit to quilting in America because it's actually really like germane to my story. Quilts have always been made in this country. Always. Like since we got here, they've changed quite a bit, but we've always made the American quilt. But then when, 50s kind of had – like the 40s and 50s, women went to work, World War II. Then the 50s came along and everything was like better living through chemistry and polyester was awesome. And so quilts were seen as really like outre and lame. Nobody wanted to make them. Then the bicentennial happened, 1976, and people all over the country, women mostly, said, we should make a quilt to commemorate this huge event in our country. That would be like the perfect iconic

American thing. And there was like a back to the land movement at that time. And it wasn't really a hippie thing, but it was sort of this crunchy granola moment, you know, and so people started making quilts. And there was no quilt industry at that time. None. No fabric stores. No quilt con. I mean, nothing. Well, my mother was one of those people who made a quilt at the Bicentennial. And she met a woman named Liz Porter. My mom is Marianne Fonz.

She met Liz Porter in a quilt class in 1979. Or 1975. I was born in 79. And they started a company, Fonz and Porter, and they needed money for their families. They were single women. After both got divorced, they needed to feed us kids. And so they little by little built this business that turned, frankly, into like an empire. The Fonz and Porter brand is like the Betty Crocker of the quilt world. So you were born into quilt royalty. Yeah. I say the quilt mafia. Exactly. But so there's that, you know, that's my background on it. Mom just sort of kept following opportunities and making opportunities to seriously raise me and my two sisters. So we weren't into it. Yeah. Yeah.

I got to ask a question about that though, because when your mom started it, this was not the thing. No. You know, this is, if anything, devalued. And you've got a single mom who needs to put food on the table. And she starts a company around quilting, which was the thing which back then seems like there wasn't an obvious path to actually being able to earn a living and support a family doing that.

Have you had those conversations with her? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, she would do teaching gigs around the country. More and more quilt guilds were forming. And she just took jobs. And like me, I've been a freelancer for like 11 years or so, writing and then doing quilting now. And we both just like take whatever job is offered because we're so afraid we'll never get a job again. So she was just taking these things. And they wrote

a book. That's the big thing. That's what happened. They wrote a book about quilting. And it's like the Bible of quilting. It's called The Quilter's Complete Guide. Half a million copies. It's out of print now. So she just sort of followed her nose and followed the opportunities. And then they had the TV show and all this. But meanwhile, I didn't make quilts. I was not interested. Neither were my sisters. Quilting was my mother's work. It was like we were creative, writing, performing, art. But when I was 28, I had a catastrophic illness. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at a really late stage, a month after I got married. So I got married in September. In October, I was at Mayo Clinic, basically emergency surgery.

For those that don't know, ulcerative colitis can be lethal, actually. It's a really brutal condition. It is really brutal. I mean, your colon's eating itself. So when we talk about my childhood, it's like, was there something, you know, was it like internal pain or something that was eating, you know, my intestines was pretty heavy, but I don't think that that's the case. I think it was just a pathogen that developed, you know. And so within, you know, days of being admitted into Mayo, they took out my colon. They took out a whole bunch of things that used to be inside my body. And my husband was in the army reserves at that time. He went away for a year and a half. Everything was turned upside down.

Oh God. So you're in the hospital, you have your colon and other things removed. Your husband is gone. Soon to be. Yeah. So this life showed up, right? All these, you know, this sort of like intense life showed up. And so in all of this, which is years,? All these, you know, this sort of like intense life showed up. And so in all of this, which is years, and we're talking about years, but somewhere in the year of all that happening, I sort of woke up with this epiphany that when your life is torn into a million pieces, it makes sense to tear up perfectly good fabric into a million pieces and sew it back together again. It was like Eureka. Oh, my God. I get it. You know, I sew it back together again. It was like Eureka. Oh my God, I get it.

You know, I get it. And so do you think that would have come had you not been just sort of passively exposed to your mom, like in her work? I mean, that just sort of connect the dots type of thing. Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't know if I would have picked up needle and thread if it wasn't for her. Definitely. Definitely. And, you know, the older I get, I think maybe this is true for other people, the older I get, the cooler my mom is, you know, it's like, I'm so my hometown is not lame anymore. It's like, great. It's a small town more proud of my heritage or whatever. So yeah, it's totally my mom's influence. And then I followed opportunities as well, because when people heard that like the Fonz daughter was sewing and making quilts, it was like, hmm. So I did more and more. And it was hard for me to make sure in the industry, I had to prove myself, because it's like, oh, the Fonz cow, sure, she's making quilts, sure. So I had to like to work really hard to show my own point of view and my own interests and things. Did you feel that pressure? Did you feel like a sense of like you didn't want to be under the shadow and like everybody was looking at you to just coast in? doing serious work in the industry in my own ways and with my own vision. Now I think people are like, yeah, she's legit. But I replaced Liz Porter, half of the Fonson Porter. I replaced her on TV. She retired and I came in as the rookie and people hated me. Oh my God. I mean, think about,

I was thinking about this on the way over here, like how to describe it. Like if Chandler had been replaced in Friends by like some other dude, like six years in, I mean, mutiny, like people would have freaked out. And a lot of people did because I was a beginner. I learned how to make quilts on national television, basically, which I don't recommend. So yeah, I mean, I replaced Liz. People said, I'm going to stop watching the show. I can't stand how she makes so many faces. I was like, I can't do anything about my face. But yeah, it's been tough to, a lot of pressure to be good and to be different. Yeah.

What are the conversations with your mom been like around the idea of you're this legend in this space where I'm now drawn to devote increasing amounts of my life to? Yeah. I mean, the conversation, my mom's always been proud of me, like absolutely biggest fan. And people ask her, are you so proud of Mary? Is it your dream come true that you're sewing with her now? Because it happens so much is quilters want to sew with the next generation, you know, and the 30 year olds hope that their daughters sew or their sons will sew. It just happens because it's so rewarding. Making a quilt is so incredible. You want to teach someone what you know. And so people say, you know, it's just, it just must be a dream come true. And my mom says, I never dreamed it.

I mean, I never hoped that they would make quilts. I was never pressuring them to make quilts. And so the conversations between us are pretty like, it's just cool. And she respects my point of view and I respect hers. But recently I applied to the School of the Art Institute's writing MFA program and I got in. And the reason that I did it, and that's kind of a, that's like late breaking news. I haven't said it on the blog or anything, but it's going to sound kind of intense, but it's her life. Like it's my mom's life. I have, I love every minute of it. I genuinely do. And it's a really cool way to keep the lights on talking about quilting and making quilts. I mean, but it is a bit of a detour from my like authentic self. And I think if I kept doing it without

returning to that first love, then I would be, I would be wasting a little bit of something that's hard to describe, you know? So I'm going to go in the fall. That's, that's fantastic. Congratulations, by the way. And actually, I want to go down that, that path for you. One of my curiosities is, when you, I can't use the word stumbled into quilting because, you know, it's like like and you can't use the word predestined because it wasn't but obviously you know you were part of a lineage true there you go where there was a there was a path open and available and you were exposed to like what this world is all about and there there became a moment in your life where it was almost a form of therapy that allowed you

to stitch your life back together through stitching these things back together. And then you work like crazy to prove yourself, to step out from under the shadow of the legend who's your mom, who's helped basically build this entire field. And then you reach a point in your life where you're like, people are starting to say she's legit. How does it feel to now take that and say, I need to make a left turn? I mean, I have asked myself, like, are you crazy? Because, yeah, just when I get there, to the point where I'm turning down gigs to speak, because I can't, because I'm, I can't, you know, I'm already booked or something, or, you know, that's good. That's a good problem to have. And now I'm leaving it. And just what you said, you know, how do good. That's a good problem to have. And now I'm leaving it. And just what

you said, you know, how do you, how do you square that or why maybe there's some drive to prove that I could do it. And now I'm good. I don't know. I, the thing is you don't just quit this kind of job. I have a fabric line. I love making that. I have TV to do and things. So I don't just like, I'm gone. Like here's my two weeks. I will not be pulling out completely. and things. So I don't just like, I'm gone. Like, here's my two weeks. I will not be pulling out completely. No way. And I don't want to, but what was the question? I mean, it was really, I mean, once you worked so hard to establish yourself in one space, but you know, there's, there's another voice calling you, but how do you navigate away from that? I think it's because when I decided to apply to grad school, I had a secret. And my

secret, which was so hard to say, I mean, it was a secret. I am very close to my aunt, and I was visiting her in California. And I was like, you know, if I'm honest with myself and with you, and I burst into tears, I was like, I want to study writing. I mean, I just poetry and these, this is what I really love. I mean, and so it was so delicious and so impossible for me to think that I could take two years and study writing only and spend that kind of money on it and spend that kind of time on it. I mean, I don't know. I just, I I'm from Iowa and I think it's so sad, but there is this sort of like a writing degree, like I would, we're amazing people, but there's this, like, you know, we spend way more money on football in my hometown than the arts. This is what I'm talking about, you know? So it's sort of seemed like luxurious and maybe, you know, vanity or something that I would want to do this. It's weird because

my heroes are writers and everything. But it was, you know, I had to admit it. I had to admit it no matter what was happening in the court world. It was like, yeah, but it's not exactly right. It's like the princess and the pea, you know, that was set, you know, under the mattress, she could still feel it, you know, 20 mattresses high, she could still feel that thing. And I think that was it. Yeah. And it got to a point where you're just like, passion denied. You can have a deep interest in one thing, but that thing keeps coming back to you. Totally. Yeah. But I mean, I admire what you're doing because it's not an easy decision. And also, like you made clear too, it sounds like you're not saying, okay, I'm done with quilting. Now I'm moving to another. You're saying, no,

this will always be a part of my life. I've built stuff around. I still love to do it. But there's something that has been calling you that you're called more strongly to, and that needs more of your time now. I recently was talking to somebody who described their professional life as seasons and personal life too, just life in general. And they said one of the things that really helped them get comfortable with gaining a fair level of success in one space and then really shifting as just viewing it as I'm moving into the next season in my life and we're supposed to have seasons and being open to that. But I think it's a really nice reframe. Thanks. I was reading up on you. I was doing my research.

And I love serial entrepreneur and these different things that you've done. And one of the things that's tough, I mean, I respect that a great deal. And so I feel the same that you do, that you said you do about me, which is great. I look at people who I admire and they're frequently people who do tons of stuff. Like the writer, George Plimpton, like he was a boxer and then he like flew a plane for a while. And you know, all these different things that these different people do to me, that makes a pretty interesting life. But I'm so afraid of being seen as a flake or something. It's like, Oh, she did quilting for a while and now she's writing. And now, you know, I just don't want to be seen as someone who can't make a choice.

And why am I so worried about how people see me? I don't know. I wish I could take that chip out of my head. But, you know, it's maybe part of the reason it's changing is because I've shown I can do it. And now it's like it's legitimate for me to say, see, I can do it. I committed to it. There's also this other thing I want to do. So I'm going to do that.

And this is a hard question to answer. I know. But I'm curious what your intuition says. If you had done this purely privately and never stepped into the spotlight in any way, shape or form, do you have a sense that you have potentially made this decision substantially earlier? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Because this public face and this national teacher thing, I mean, there's pressure to keep it going. And there's pressure to keep delivering and being out there even more. And it is competitive. I mean, everybody has kind of their niche in the market. But, you know, these are all quilters who are trying to make a living and design and, you know, do you have a thread collection? I do, you know, do you have this and stuff? You know, no. How many likes do you have? How many Instagram followers do you have? So to back away from that, it's the fear is like, yeah, I didn't make it, you know, it's a defeat. So if it had all been private, if it all had been just me at my sewing machine, I think it

would have been way earlier, definitely, that I would have said, now, hang on a minute, why am I not in school, studying all the things that I love the best? Yeah, it's so interesting the way that, you people, when you start to get some modicum of success along with that goes almost equivalent modicum of exposure, which we love because it lets us turn around and then earn a living doing this thing. You have to be somewhat public with almost everything that you do to be able to do that. But there is that double-edged sword. The more public you become, the more you have expectations set on you. And then the more, yeah, you feel almost obligated to play a certain role. And yeah, so it becomes this interesting, you'd never complain.

You know, like it's an amazing thing to be in that position. And that's not what's happening. We're not saying, oh, woe is me. It's just acknowledging this shift in sort of like the expectations and the things that you think about when choosing to keep going or to listen to some other voice that may be calling you. freelancing before I started doing all this stuff. I mean, I was making it work, kind of. I mean, I was, I stopped waiting tables. That was cool. I was making a living doing writing gigs for anything, anybody. But there's the money piece, too. I mean, I don't have kids. I don't have, you know, my overhead is not that high. And I was an editor for four years of a quilt magazine. And, you know, great, great contract. You know, I could, I could just, you know, wander into, well, not Barney's, but every once in a while. And so, I mean, that contract is gone and all this, but, you know, teaching and doing all these things, it's, I like having money. I'm not going to say I don't because it's a strange turn in the conversation, but we were

broke. My family was broke. We did not have two incomes. And my mom, when she started doing this stuff, yeah, there was no industry. She built it. I mean, we waited on royalty checks for school clothes. Like that was the way it was. And so I was never hungry. I can't say like, I didn't have shoes, you know, but, but it was hard. And so I think there's a fear that like the money's going to run out. And so I do take those freelance teaching gigs and things like it's very hard for me to say no to them. So one of the traps too is I'm making a living. Like if I go to grad school, which I'm going to do, my financial picture has changed

dramatically, dramatically. And the reason just to say, you know, why I like having money, which is probably a really bad way to put that sounds pretty bad. It seems to be like access in some way, just not to like the country club, but just, you know, if I want to take a trip for the weekend to like go write someplace, you have to have money to do that. I have many friends who are like, that's not an option. You know, it's a staycation for them or whatnot. And I think as a writer, I do, I like to look at stuff and I like to look at people

and I like to go places. And to me that you got to have some lubricant in your pocket to be able to do those things. So it's also been really hard to leave because I don't know what that will look like when I go. Yeah. I mean, it's such an interesting exploration. I think so many of us navigate that, not just once, but the average person now is actually going to change careers in their entirety many times between the time they start working and the time that they, quote, retire, if they ever retire. Do you know how often? The last stat I heard was eight times. No way. But my sense is that may actually have gone up because that was a couple of years ago. And millennials are in the mix, mix, right? Right. They will, as a general, I hate to make like sweeping generalizations like that, but you

know, there's much more vested in actually pursuing things that have a deep sense of purpose than, you know, like other, I'm Gen X and we didn't have that sensibility for the most part. I'm an aberrant to a certain extent. But yeah, I'm really glad that this part of the conversation came out actually, because there is a certain shame I think that people feel around owning the fact that, you know what, money matters to me. It's actually, I'm a grown up, I don't actually want to be living hand to mouth at this point in my life. And it's

an important conversation to have. Actually, it's not about piling up cash in the bank. It's about what it will allow us to do and how it will allow us to feel, which is important. I think the further you get into life, the more important those possibilities and feeling a certain way becomes. what I do with my bank account. I mean, it's just, I don't really want, and it's nobody's business, but you know, neither is, you know, what you do with your significant other, you know, but I would be way more likely to just, you know, break it down on, you know, over coffee about something like that than talk about, you know, any of those other things that it is sensitive. And yeah, I think that has been part of the fear because, yeah, because I don't come from money in my youth. And, yeah, I just – I also have heroes that are sort of fabulous, right?

These fabulous women. And I want to be like them, you know? Who can blame me? I just want to, you know, Madonna or – but, you know, just sort of like wacky chicks. Simon Doonan calls them wacky chicks. Just sort of fabulous women who, you know, sort of take up the space they want and sort of aren't afraid to like, wear a pink scarf or something like that, you know, in a jaunty way. I love that. And so you emulate people that you like. And I think having a living that you're not afraid of all

the time or having an income that you're not afraid it's going to go away all the time is a great comfort to me. Some people don't care. And, you know, Jonathan, I heard the other day that some people are motivated by money and some people are motivated by power. You ever heard that? That there's like two kinds of business people, which is silly. There's never two kinds of anything. But I was thinking about that power. I don't care. I just, I don't want to be in charge of anybody but myself. I don't want to lead a team. It's just not my thing, but I don't want to put ramen noodles on the stove again. Yeah. I mean, and when you look at your childhood, the life that you came up, of course.

Yeah. I think, not I think, but I wonder if it becomes more complicated also in the context of earning a living doing something in the arts. Because that becomes even more fraught. Because when you actually start to become somebody who is financially successful in a field which is sort of based on personal expression, artistic expression, and whether it's art, craft making, things like that. I know in a lot of more traditional art worlds, you know, there's a big, oh, quote, sell out,

you know, and that's, I wonder, and I'm not meaning to ask you to blast the culture of quilting, but I'm just curious, is there a tension in that world between earning a livable wage and pursuing your craft? Well, what's really surprising and it's starting to finally come out is to make a living in the quilt world, you have to have multiple revenue streams. I mean, I think quilt books, when my mom and Liz wrote the big book, there were no quilting books. There were like 10. So they wrote this juggernaut book and it was a completely, there was no internet. So if you write a quilting book today, and I have one, it's going out of print. They all go out of print. There are so many books and people don't buy books as much because there are online tutorials

and people don't, I mean, and fabric. So I have my own fabric line and you know, that's amazing. It's a dream come true. And I hope I can do it for the rest of my life because I love it so much. The royalty on fabric, ain't nobody getting rich on fabric. I mean, you have to be- That's like books probably. Thank you. Exactly. They're just not, I mean, there's this perception. That's another, it's very interesting. I mean, this commerce and quilting discussion is really fun, but the, the perception is that your name's out there, your face is out there. You have Instagram followers. You must be like,

you know, really successful fabric books make you very little, so little, unless I'm missing something. I mean, there are super, super, superstars, sort of like, you know, the people have been in the game for a long time, and they do just great. And if you invent a new ruler, or you invent a technique that you copyright or something, which is hard to do, because quilting is stitching, it's hard to come up with something that's completely, completely original. We're standing on the shoulders of these giants who came before us, but there's no money in that, really. It's a quilt world that is a very robust quilt world, but there's only so much fabric you can put out every year. Here's a statistic for you. Disney, when they license to fabric companies, Disney gets about 12% royalty on

the fabric that they sell. So compare Disney to me. You can sort of do the math and understand. And yeah, and books is just very low. And so, so yeah, there's a tension in there. I mean, quilters, you can make a living. But part of the problem to the blog stuff, people give away this content for free. They start that was a precedent set early quilters are like, Do you like my quilt? Here's the pattern, free download. It's like, no. So you have to have multiple revenue streams and you have to work very, very hard because it's so full now. The industry is just, it's glutted with people who are trying to do it as opposed to when it was just beginning in the 80s. It was wide open, not to say it wasn't hard, but it was a completely different world. Right. So which brings up another question for me, which is that, and I don't know the ethos is our quilts meant largely to be given or to be sold?

Or how does that work? Mostly given. It's crazy. We spend so much money on this stuff and time and we just give it away. Quilters are so generous because we, I don't know, we just are. You make a quilt and you want to give it. Which is a gorgeous ethic. And at the same time, it also adds to that challenge of like if this is something you just want to do with everything, with your waking hours, you know, but you've also got to put food on the table.

How do you make it happen? Totally. The picture's getting clearer. Yeah. And I mean, we'd be here all day if we went into the, you know, women's work. Like, is a quilt art? Is it craft? Is it women's work?

Is it folk art? I mean, a quilter can spend hours and hours and hours and hours and lots and lots of money and have on a quilt to make a quilt with technical skill that just blows your mind. And then when you put a price tag of $2,500 on it, people are like, I don't know about that. I mean, and so because quilters, they think, you know, I should be making money on this. This is a really great quilt, you know, nothing extraordinary, just, you know, a nine patch, something really adorable, a star quilt, bed size, you know, I should be making money on this and social price it at like 250, $250 or $300. And if you took it down to the hours that she spent on it, I mean, you're talking about cents on the dollar. So it's a very weird thing. And it's unfortunate. How much does also, because my sense is that the average person, some people would probably be able to look at a quilt that was made by hand and see the beautiful stitch work and the thoughtfulness

that went into all the different elements of it. My sense is that probably a lot of other people would look at something that was kicked out by a machine just on a completely automated basis and not all that easily understand the difference between the two. So I wonder if there's also, are you battling against that as well? Yeah. Pottery barn sells quilts, crate and barrel sells quilts. The thing is though, when you have a tag on a quilt and all those quilts have tags, it's like lame. It's just not the same. Because when you give a quilt that you made, and by hand, by the way, means using a sewing machine.

I mean, really diehard, like, I'm sorry, very old quilters at this point are like, it's cheating if you use a machine. That's not true at all. You know, our great grandmothers would have killed, killed to have a sewing machine like the ones we have. So they're not any less authentic. But, you know, making something by hand when you give that, it's cliche, but you're giving your time. You're giving your time.

And so the difference is huge. But yeah, can someone tell the difference? I think so, because the batting, which is the middle of the quilt, a quilt is the top, the batting, the stuffing, if you will, and then the back. Mass-produced quilts made in China or India, they're really puffy in a weird way. It's cheap. It's cheap material. So quilters, we really care about what we use, and so it's cotton batting or it's wool batting, and you can tell the difference.

The idea of – I kind of want to move away from making a living also, but I think it's a really interesting conversation. It crosses so many, it's just this universal thing when you're trying to do something where it's a beautiful form of artistic expression, where you just feel like I love doing this. But at the same time, you're trying to hang your hat on being able to earn your living doing it. It's really challenging. One of the things that my fascinations with it also is, and again, I'm the dope when it comes to this, so forgive me if I'm just like making guesses or something. I'm just really fascinated and curious. One of my curiosities is around how communities come together and how we satisfy our need for belonging.

And so is there a genuine quilting community? And is that, you know, do people participate in this in part because it brings you into this world and cultivates a steep sense of belonging? Or is that not really a part of it? It does bring you together. You know, if you think about the iconic image of the women sewing in a sewing bee, you know, in 1890, they're sewing around a frame or they're quilting around a frame because what the women would do, they would make the quilt top, all the pieces of fabric, they would stitch them together. And then to make the quilt, I said, there's the top, the batting and the backing. It's not a quilt until it's quilted. So you have to stitch through all those layers and those pretty

designs and things to quilt the quilt. And it takes a long time. Back then they didn't have sewing machines. So it took a really long time. So they would get together, put the quilt on a frame and quilt it all together to get it done faster. And so that, I mean, that's like the girl's night out, you know, I mean, yeah, talking about everything, sharing problems, you know, someone gets sick and you make a quilt to raise money. So that has always been part of this. It's not a solitary act. People think of people stitching in their homes, you know, with a hoop, you know, and a rocking chair. But really, it's a very vibrant community. Now, you know, the Internet changed everything, of course, like everybody else. But now, because of that, people are sharing pictures and techniques and inspiration and things that really, I mean, quilts are made for the internet.

They're square, beautiful, graphic. Maybe Instagram, it sounds like, right? Oh my God, Instagram. I mean, Pinterest and things like that. Is there a huge quilt community on Instagram? Oh my God. It sounds like there probably would. Oh my God.

It's crazy. It's amazing. And people, I mean, oh, and it's great to look at quilts on Instagram. They're absolutely beautiful. These shapes, they translate really well. But so it used to be when you were, you know, when your sister was heading west to the gold rush, you know, and quilting has always been super trendy. Like people, so you're in Pennsylvania. You make a quilt from a lady's dry goods magazine.

You get a pattern. You make this thing. And then you send a block or you send the pattern to your sister in Colorado. Well, and that took a long time, but people were doing that. Now it's instant. So you have people sharing pictures with each other faster than ever. And that makes more people share them and more. So you have a quilting community that's huge and growing all the time and also catching people who might not have realized they wanted to make one or realize that quilting was still a thing because you're linked to your friend's page and she's a quilter and so forth.

So I see at quilt events all the time, market, festival, all these different conventions, you know, someone squealing from across the room and running to meet her friend who she's never met except they've been trading patterns and things online. You know, it's pretty cool. That is really cool. I want to touch on one other thing and then I kind of want to explore your writing. Sure. You mentioned that it's almost entirely for women or that's who's in it and that men quilters is a thing. Definitely.

There are many men quilters and this is, you know, there are scandals in this quilt world. I'm telling you, there are. There's like, yeah, art versus craft, feminism. You know, you talked about community. I mean, the old school quilters and the new school quilters locked horns when they started, you know, the new modern quilt guild started coming up and they're super minimalist. And the old school quilters were like, that's not a quilt. And like, well, she doesn't know how to sew. And there was this friction, which is easing, thank goodness. But the gender thing is like, it's nuts. A friend of mine recently hired

women to help sew this huge ambitious project of his 50 different quilts, and he hired women to help him. And it was like, firestorm. Because a man hires the women. Yeah. And it was this, I think I say as soon as you make a quilt in the 21st century, you're entering into a discussion about feminism and gender and art versus craft and all this stuff. But there are many men who did quilting and many. I just taped one of the TV shows with a male quilter and a male quilter hosts that show sometimes. So, yeah, it's out there.

And I think when I use the pronoun, when I'm talking to people about quilters, I say, you know, they were making quilts and the women were making quilts, talking about women. And I have to remind myself to say, and a few men, you know, back when women were making quilts and this and that, and a few men were there too. But it's, there's kind of a frustration because like, it's ours. Okay. Like it's ours. Can we just have this? Like stop invading. Yes. Yes. Because I mean, I know we have to like the exception proves the rule. I mean, I, women did not have a voice in art for a really long time and quilts were the way they could do that. It was like this subversive surreptitious sort of

under the radar thing where you, they were making masterpieces quietly, you know, and they were expressing themselves politically silently by putting this or such into their, into their quilt. I mean, so it's like, back off, but that's not fair. And I have a lot of quilters, you know, friends that are men. So, but it's very tricky landscape. You have to be really careful. Oh my God. Oh God. So from there, let's kind of, uh, jump writing, because it sounds like that's been this thing that's been bubbling up underneath you for years and years and years since you were a kid. And now you finally you've made the choice. And we've added you here as being a soon to be MFA student for Sue writing. It's funny that you said, you know, you grew up in Iowa, and that's just not where like, but the first thing that popped into my mind is, isn't Iowa like the number one writing program in the country at the same time? It is. Yeah, totally. Yeah. In Iowa City, the Writers' Workshop. It's so fun. Forever. Yeah, I know.

It's like these two different ends of the spectrum. I'm curious, why did you feel that for you the thing to do to move, to really honor that calling was to pursue an MFA? Ah, such a good question. Well, so I write a column for quilts.com. I write a bi-monthly column that's like melding these two things. Okay, great. I'm getting paid to be a writer. My blog, it's a very popular blog. I love to write it. A lot of people read it. A lot of people love it. Great. My writing is like effecting change in the world or it's making people happy. Great. So I'm making money doing it. By all accounts, like that should be enough. But I want to be better. And part of the reason that I want to be better and I want to learn stuff and I want to read more. Somebody said, you know, getting a writing MFA is pointless. You either sort of have it or you don't. What can they possibly teach someone? I think this person was not totally on

base, but- Somebody who got rejected from a writing class. I think they're pointless. Exactly. But somebody said, well, you learn how to read there. You learn how to read. You learn how to really be a reader. And then from there, you become a better writer. But the problem that I faced a while ago was, yes, I'm doing writing. I love to write in my journal. This is great. There's part of me that's being satisfied. But for me to be challenged in my life, to truly get myself into a place where I'm really having to learn something and be super merry, for me to do that and what I'm doing now in the quilt world, I have to go deeper

into it. I have to go deeper into it. I have to like pitch my own show to HGTV or like, I actually think a quilting reality show would be amazing. And so I've been thinking about, you know, pitching that to Amazon or something. But this is what I mean. For me to be challenged and do something new, I have to go deeper into the quilt world. That's not, no, I have to be challenged in my life. And the place where I know I will never stop being challenged is in writing. So that's why I had to give it a shot. And the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, amazing, right? And they're interdisciplinary. So you can take, you're writing MFA, you have a writing MFA program and degree, but you can take classes in performance and you can take, you know, weaving and things like that. So this is perfect because I feel like my life is sort of take, you know, weaving and things like that. So this, this is perfect because I feel like my life is sort of interdisciplinary

already. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I mean, you, you've also, you know, talk about performance side. You also, that's a part of your life also. True. Do you know the Neo Futurist? I've been made aware of it. Doing a little background research. No, you know, Lindsay, who is our podcast master here, who also is in Chicago was was telling me she had been, and I guess her dad like saw a show of yours also

or something like that. He loved it. I was like, so tell me what this is. Okay. The Neo Futurists, they're here in New York as well. I think there's a, an LA group as well. The longest running show in Chicago is a show called Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. And it's produced by the Neo Futurists. And the Neo Futurists are an ensemble of writer, director, performers. You have to audition to be on the ensemble. It's a very tight ensemble. You're there for years. The average tenure of a Neo Futurist is about five years. Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is 30 plays in 60 minutes. We set a darkroom timer to 60 minutes. And the plays that are in the show, the 30 different plays are, there's numbers on a clothesline above our head. The names of the plays are written on the back of the numbers.

The audience gets a menu, and they shout out the number of the play they want to see. And the first number we hear, we jump up and grab the number off the line, read the title of the play, and say go. We do the play. At the end of the play, we say curtain. That's the audience's cue to call it the number of the next play they want to hear. And we do that and we try to get them all done in 60 minutes. The difference is 25 years, it's been running maybe 27. It changes every single week because the plays, we roll a die on Friday night. We roll a die on Sunday night. There's three shows a weekend. We add that number together and that's the number of plays we cut

from that week's menu and the number of new plays we write and rehearse for next week's show. So the one other thing you have to know, your eyebrows are like, it's intense. It's great. So we never play characters. The aesthetic of the neo-futurist is you're always yourself. You're always in the theater. You can't pretend to be someone else. You can't pretend that the audience isn't there. And so, you know, I'm not going to be mincing around like I'm Marie Antoinette or something. I'm Mary and I can do direct or dress monologues. I can engage with you. There's dance. There's, I mean, we're not dancers, but you know, there's movement, there's movement pieces, there's poetry. One of the reason the show is so brilliant and people love it and come back every weekend for 27 years is because you'll see a play and it's two minutes long and it will break your heart and then curtain and the next play is so funny you're like you have to control your bladder i mean it's incredible and it's fast the plays aren't fast it's not like they're all sort of

sovereign in their way but we try to get it done in 60 minutes. And if we get it done, you know, there's this big, you know, hallelujah. And if we sell out the show, we order a pizza for the audience. That's like a neo-futurist tradition. Neo-futurism was born in Chicago and now it's spread. But I'm a neo, you know, I'm a neo-alum and it's one of my proudest accomplishments. And it did more for my writing than I hope the writing in the Faye does as much because it was intense. It's so good.

Those constraints to be able to tell a story like beginning, middle, and end in two minutes. And then if you have to do like 15 of those within a one-week period. And memorize it every day. You know, we don't use scripts. Kind of mind-blowing. I mean, God, boot camp for writer-performers. And it's amazing. The average person stays there for like five years, but do a whole lot of people not last.

Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think. It's a fierce, it's sort of like SNL. You know, like trial by fire, just like super fast. It's all new every week. That's amazing. But it's exhilarating. I mean, it's unreal.

And you pitch plays. Every week you have to pitch your plays. Say you rolled an eight. You come in on Tuesday night. You pitch the plays that you wrote. So there's like lauren green who gets to choose what's up on the wall it's consensus it's true i mean yeah only the lauren michaels or lauren michaels yeah the ghost producer of snl lauren green but the ensemble has consensus so if it commits everybody indeed so it's completely yeah it's it's Indeed. So it's completely.

Yeah, it's by consensus. And it's always scripted. It can never be. There is spontaneity, but it's not improv. That's the thing that's really important. I'm glad I remember to say it. It's not improv. Second City, Chicago, great improv history and culture.

But this is not. This is performance. It's scripted. And there's times for spontaneity. And we don't know what will happen because if we grab an audience member from the audience to be in the play with us or do fulfill some role in the play, which happens all the time, we don't know what they're going to do. So we have to work with them. But yeah. That's amazing. I'm going to have to go see that.

You got to see it. And I did the show here for a while. It's awesome. That sounds so cool. So that's a really interesting trial by fire for you. And I got to imagine that didn't like you said so much for your writing to work like that. And also just because writing is much as we don't like to admit it or any art form is there's a volume element to it. And when you're forced to just keep creating, creating, creating, creating, creating, I mean, that's a part of what makes you better. Yeah. So you go from there to now, two full years, luxuriously focusing on this thing. What's your hope? What's your greatest hope slash expectation about what you'll emerge from over this two year intensive dive into writing? And there's no there there. That I'm just – Joseph Epstein's a writer I really like. And people – he was saying, everybody wants to write a book. I want to write a book because it'll make me immortal.

He's like, nothing will make you feel more mortal than writing a book and seeing it on the shelf. And seeing it in the half-priced bookstore at some point. I mean, he's like, it's really – don't write a book. Just don't. Don't worry about it. And so – but of course, I have a book. I have a book I want to write. And it actually ties both of these things so perfectly.

I hope what I want is to become a better person and a better reader and someone who writes better. I mean, good writing. I mean, Mark Twain. It's just it's like he zeroes you out. He just like it's a it's like going to the spa or something for your head. So and I'd like to come out with this book. And it's called Piecing. And it's the perfect marriage of this quilting and writing because I have this blog and I pitched it to some agents, you know, I think this could be a book, you know, and they're like, no one's buying memoir. I queried nine agents. Three of them got back to me. The other people didn't. One of them, they were here

in New York. And one of them said, sorry, no interest. Good luck. And two of them said, it's great. We really like your platform. This quilting thing is fantastic. We can't sell your memoir straight up, but can you weave the quilting thing in? And I was like, yes, yes, I can. And so I am. And it's amazing, Jonathan. I mean, it's like, it's perfect.

And I never, I didn't even think of it, but weaving in the life that I have and the things that I see through this life of stitching and fabric and my family and my mother, my first memory was sitting on her lap, like listening to her heartbeat while she's hand quilted in a hoop, swear to God, first memory. And what does it mean to have a first memory? This is the idea I'm exploring in that chapter. I mean, everybody has one. Everybody has like the first memory of their life. Like, what's your first memory? I think it says a lot about us. I think it says a lot about a person to say, you know, my first memory is, I don't know, it's like a key. So that's the kind of thing I'm sort of looking into. So I'll work on that book in school. I love that. And now you've got me thinking about

what my first memory was and I have no idea, but now I'm going to have to really try and figure this out. Yeah. It's so interesting to me because I know a number of people have done MFAs, especially in writing and there are very different reasons that people do it. Many people actually want to use it as, okay, this is a place where I can take two years and just write and have expert guidance and how to have editing and input and read and stuff like that. And it's funny because I've thought about editing and input and read and stuff like that. And it's funny because I've thought about like, would I ever do something like that? Because I'm completely untrained. I mean, the only training I have is as a lawyer and the day that I could split my infinitives and stop writing like a lawyer was one of the happiest days of my life.

Totally. So do you write in a journal? I don't, you know, I keep saying I've got to start journaling. I've got to start journaling. And my whole – almost every friend that I have does, especially writer friends. And I never have. Yeah. And I'm always wondering, is there something wrong with me? Because I don't do it. But I process in so many different ways.

Yeah, exactly. That I think if I felt like it was really something I should be doing, I probably would have been doing it years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like journals, though. I think they look cool. See, there you go. You might decide on the train one day your cool journal needs to be filled. Absolutely. You were saying you thought about it? I thought about it, but I never felt a call.

And part of it is also because in my mind, somehow I link fiction with MFA in writing. And I write at least until now, it's all nonfiction. And then, but I recently realized that I probably have fiction in me. So who knows what the future may hold. I want to talk about sitting next to you on the table as we chat is a book. And in that book is a piece that you wrote that you originally will tell the

story. Well, thanks for asking. There's another show in Chicago that you must know about. And I don't know if they've got one in New York yet or not. Right Club, Right Club. Right Club is the brain child of my friend Ian. He worked for the Neo Futurists for a long time and sort of is in that sort of family of people. Right Club is two writers competing each other with opposing ideas. So two writers will be approached in Chicago community. Okay. Chicago writing community. Ian, for example, will approach two writers and say, okay, you're the bout next week. Or yeah, you're going to be the bout next week. It takes place at the hideout, like the coolest bar in Chicago. And he'll say, you've got love and you've got lust. And the two writers will go, all right. And so they go and they have a week to write and you get seven

minutes. So when the bout comes up the next week, you have seven minutes to read your piece or to do the piece that you wrote, defending love or defending lust, depending on what you got. And so you can write anything. You can write a poem, you can write a short story, you can write an essay, which is what I did. You can do anything you want as long as it's written and you're reading it. And the audience judges the winner. It's a little like poetry slam, which I have a lot of background in that as well. It's like that, and you cannot go over seven minutes and you have to, you have to just kick butt. And then if you win, you get to choose a charity that you want to give the hat, the amount that was in the hat to or something like that. And so it's really hard. I mean, it is really hard because you're going up against people who they're great. I mean, they're really good. And some of these people are performers and some of them aren't. But it's the work, you know, rain versus shine, love versus less, Santa versus Jesus. And the first time I did Write Club,

I lost. The second time I won, and my essay was included in this anthology. And the bout was native versus foreign. And sometimes you're like, yeah, you know, I had shine, rain versus, rain won, you know, all these writers sitting around, melancholy writers, you know, they voted for rain at that time. And I don't think my piece was as strong, obviously, as the other person. But I got foreign, which is, I think, easier to write a piece defending foreign over native, you know, but it's this wonderful, it's so great and so fun. And so yeah, I brought that I brought that essay. So this was originally delivered spoken word piece. So I have to perform it. Yeah, yeah, you want to uh i'd love to do we need to adjust the mic or anything i i think it's okay let's see maybe i should do this thank you for

the one second okay oh yeah the noise in the background there thanks for letting me read it if you use it or not or i know you do the riffs and things i don't know maybe no i love this okay sweet cool you can't choose your birthplace your land, but you can choose the fuck out of where you want to go. You're from Modesto. You live in Rome. You're from a family that traffics in burnt ham and thinly veiled hate. You practice patience and serve fennel, most delicious. You didn't learn that at home, did you?

No, you did not. A foreign agent was introduced at some point, a stranger, a new strand. A foreign idea went viral in your native, previously static brain. Often this sort of thing comes from a book, and we all know a book opens like a door. Foreign comes from the Latin for us, which means door. What can possibly be accomplished if you don't open the door? A closed room? What air comes in? What breath? None can come. Perhaps more depressing, none can leave. You stay in one place, you start collecting dust and precious moments, figurines. Just ask my estranged, senile grandmother, presently mellowing in her Texas nursing home. I'm glad she's in her native city of Houston. That's surely

a comfort to her, being there among the familiar faded church bulletins that pin to familiar beige walls. Of course, if she had gone to Dubai, instead of marrying the first man who gave her a moment's notice back home, she might not be gumming bland, pureed carrots right now. Oh, it might be carrots. She's 90. It's going to be carrots. But it might be curried carrots. And if it were, if she had eaten more curry over the course of her life, it might have aided her digestion, which curry is believed to do. And this would have ultimately benefited her DNA, which would have been passed on to my dad, who likely would have married a different woman than my mother if he had gone to Cordoba, unless instead of also staying in Houston. And sure, I'd be a different Mary, maybe with more almond shaped eyes tooling around muddy side roads and a beat up gremlin looking for work. But I'd probably be singing to a quality new ish American pop song. And I would likely not have spent four days in the hospital last week, as I did due to complications from a disease I think I got from my grandmother. Undoubtedly, I'd have a different set of problems. We are all unhappy in our own ways. But to be rid of the pathogen that developed naturally,

hereditarily, natively, if you will, in my abdomen, well, I'd roll those dice in a banana leaf minute. No, you can't choose who your natives are or where you're from, but you choose the foreign places you go. And if you are a serious person, aware that you are here for one shot and one shot only with no do-over, no eternal party to look forward to if you're nice, if you are soaked in the reality of this lovely and shatteringly painful moment that you've chanced upon, if you are alive, good people, you want to go, not just go on. You want to go to Perth or Venus or dinner at the new place. And you want to go now and go away and go

farther and go big and keep going. Keep going. I know it's fucking hard. It's so hard. And then what do we do when we can't take it anymore? We get out. We throw him or her or it out. We welcome the door, the for us hitting us in the ass. We wait for it, the door hitting us. It's pragmatic. It gives us the extra push. We escape to a foreign place, click through to a plane ticket purchase. We pack a change of panties, a phrasebook or nothing or a noose or a set of shiny new razor blades and we leave. Oh yes, we have all kinds of ways to go because what is foreign? While it is uncertain indeed and risky, of course, and frightening, yes, what is foreign is better than what we know. We do know that. The foreign is better than the leftovers in the fridge that never get any fresher, better than the preset radio

station that insists on being the same gesture away from the steering wheel day in and day out. It's better than the same old cereal flakes, the same worn satchel, the same old you, regardless of profile pic. What's unknown is certain to be better than the objects in our native habitat. The chair, the chair, the fucking chair. Familiarity breeds contempt. Contempt. I hate you. I hate you, you chair, you lout, you bore, you constant cracked milk pitcher with the flower motif on the side, you moth-eaten closet of dead-eyed dresses staring at me again, you standard typical native beasts. I'm gone. I'm gone. I'm leaving and I'm not coming back with the same eyes. It would be impossible once I step out and meet the foreign skies and the rearranged figurines on the

street. I cannot come back the same, which is to say that I will never come back, which is the goal. A new version of ourselves. It's what we want, what we eternally want. It's what we want when we buy. It's what we want when we drink, When we answer the ad for used furniture or new love, however used up that may reveal itself to be. Our desire to be foreign to our very selves is in every haircut, every diet change, every catalog course we select, every new job we take, every current endeavor for business or pleasure, every date, every first kiss at any bar in Chicago tonight, any night, every night of the same old seven-day week. We want what we don't have. It's the drive of our species. From the sea average sorority pledge to the lettered scientist, make no mistake, the latter is in the lab as we speak, introducing a foreign agent into the dish. Tomorrow is a brand new day, they exclaim cheerily. Why such confidence? Because tomorrow is foreign. You just don't know.

What hurt on Monday? Well, it might not be so bad. On Tuesday, you don't know. So get up, sunshine. Car pay tomorrow, motherfucker. Tomorrow is different, foreign to us and fresh. Forget the congenital, native today and its attendant malaise. Who needs it?

Nobody. Nobody needs it. I am proud to meet every dawn a foreigner. It's tomorrow that we live for. The foreign nature of it. The strange that gets us out of our creaking, musty, painfully native beds. Thanks. I really did get out of the hospital that week. I think that's why I like the fire. I was like, that was tremendous. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you for letting me share it.

That was really powerful. So much. I can see like your, me just watching the energy when you just read that speaks volumes to the decision that you're making about the path you're about to follow. They're really powerful. Thanks. So it's come full circle,

name this is a good life project. So if I offer that term out to you to live a good life, what comes up? Authenticity. Sometimes I have guilt that I'm so lucky in this life to sit around wondering whether or not I'm my authentic self, you know, how lovely that is, but what else can I do? This is what I've been given. This is what I lucked into this life, this body, this time. And so it is my duty, I think, to take what I can do and take it as far as I can. That's the good life, I think. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening. We love sharing real unscripted conversations and ideas that matter.

And if you enjoy that too, and if you enjoy what we're up to, I'd be so grateful if you would take just a few seconds and rate and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out. You can actually do that now right from the podcast app on your phone. If you have an iPhone, you just click on the reviews tab and take a few seconds and jam over there. And if you haven't yet subscribed while you're there, then make sure you hit the subscribe button while you're at it. And then you'll be sure to never miss out on any of our incredible guests or conversations or riffs. And for those of you, our awesome community who are on other

platforms, any love that you might be able to offer sharing our message would just be so appreciated. Until next time, this is Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple

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