Good Life Project - Mia Birdsong | How We Show Up

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

Mia Birdsong is a pathfinder, community curator, and storyteller who engages the leadership and wisdom of people experiencing injustice to chart new visions of American life. She has a gift for making visible and leveraging the brilliance of everyday people so that our collective gifts reach larger spheres of influence, cultural and political change, and create wellbeing for everyone. In her book How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community, (https://amzn.to/30WJWX9) Birdsong examines community life, reimagines family and chosen family, and points us toward the promise of our collective vitality. Previously, as founding Co-Director of Family Story, Mia lifted up a new national story about what makes a good family. As Vice President of the Family Independence Initiative, she leveraged the power of data and stories to illuminate and accelerate the initiative low-income families take to improve their lives. Her public conversations, like the New America series centering Black women as agents of change and her 2015 TED talk “The Story We Tell About Poverty Isn’t True,” draw targeted attention to the stories of people who are finding their way into leadership roles despite myriad barriers, while also highlighting the vibrant terrain of all marginalized people who are leading on the ground and solving for tomorrow.Birdsong is a Senior Fellow of the Economic Security Project. She was an inaugural Ascend Fellow and faculty member with The Aspen Institute, a New American California Fellow, and Advocate-in-Residence with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice. Mia lives and dreams big on the occupied land of the Chochenyo Ohlone people (AKA Oakland, CA).You can find Mia Birdsong at:Website : http://www.miabirdsong.com/Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/miabirdsong/ Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever hear the phrase chosen family? Well, it's about the people who become your family, not necessarily by birth or adoption, biology or partnering, though they may be a part of it, but by choice. It's the family that you gather and deepen into because they're the people you actually want in your life. My guest today, Mia Birdsong, she's been exploring the role of family and community, chosen family, and how it relates to everything from our ability to love, find deep and meaningful relationships and flourish and feel supported and at peace to its intersection with social justice,

equality, abolition, and more. As a founding co-director of Family Story, Mia lifted up a new national story about what makes a good family. And then as a vice president of the Family Independence Initiative, she leveraged the power of data and stories to really illuminate and accelerate the initiative low-income families take to improve their lives. She has this amazing gift for making visible and tapping into the brilliance of everyday people so that our collective gifts reach larger spheres of influence, affect cultural and political change, and create well-being for everyone. In Mia's new book, How We Show Up, Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community,

she really points us toward the promise of our own collective vitality. We dive into all of this in today's conversation. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good 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 Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes.

The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman.

I knew you were gonna 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. So many things I want to explore with you. Things around the moment, things around the work, things around the book and your ideas. You're hanging out in Oakland, California right now where it sounds like you've been planted for a long time. Originally though, from the East Coast, from actually New York. Yes. Originally from Rochester, New York. And then I lived in Brooklyn for seven years before I came to Oakland.

Yeah. So that was like after Oberlin? Yes, exactly. Got it. What was, I mean, so growing up in Rochester, I think we're probably similar ages-ish. 47. I'm 54, so I'm a little bit older. What was Rochester like then? Because I know it's from friends that have sort of been in and out lately. It seems like a completely different place. I feel like I don't know what Rochester was like, because my, certainly, I think this is often true for kids, but it was definitely true for me. My, the vast majority of time that I spent was either at home or in school. It's not like I was, you know, out. I was, I did lots and lots of extracurricular activities, so I wasn't hanging out in my neighborhood very much. And I certainly wasn't paying attention to what the city council was doing or what businesses were growing and which ones weren't and things like that.

So I feel like my childhood, it existed in a kind of a bubble, but not a protective bubble necessarily, just a very specific one. How so when you say not protective? So I grew up in the city of Rochester in an all-Black neighborhood and got bused to a suburb that was almost entirely white to go to school. And with like a handful of other Black kids to, you know, I'm doing air quotes to integrate it. And there was no, you know, there was no conversation kind of through the program that bust us about what our experience might be like going to an all-white school. There was no support for us. There definitely was no work being done in the school with like the staff to, you know, talk about

racism. So we all experienced, you know, tons of racism, we got called all kinds of things. There were lots of assumptions about who we were and what our families were like, and what our neighborhoods were like. For a long time, most of my white friends weren't allowed to go to my house because of what their parents assumed about the neighborhood that I lived in. So it was a bubble like in that I didn't really know what was going on in the rest of the city and the county but it wasn't like it wasn't a protective bubble. Yeah got it. And I mean I know you describe yourself as sort of like pretty much a latchkey

kid too from the time you're about eight where it was you're pretty much I mean even when you're back home sort of you're experiencing what you're experiencing during the day and then you're you're largely on your own because your mom is single mom um trying to raise a family and just working a lot yeah I mean she worked you know regular hours she worked like nine to five and as an only child and like I think just who I am kind of um fundamentally as a person I was very independent. So yeah, when I came home after school as a kid, I took, you know, took the bus home and would say, like after school that I was on my own, which frankly, I really appreciate in terms of what it allowed, like how it developed me as a person who is capable. And while I experienced, you know, kind of low level to medium level racism at my school, I also, I loved school, like loved it. I was good at it.

Like the way that, you know, kind of American education is structured happens to work for me. I did sports, I did theater stuff, I did music stuff. So I was very involved. I had a really like interesting, several interesting like groups of friends, right? So I, there were like all of the nerdy white boys that I was in AP classes with. And like during lunch, this is in high school, we would like sit and play Euchre or Hearts and like watch Alfred Hitchcock movies on the weekends. And then there was like all the kids who took shop classes and drove motorcycles, who I would sometimes hang out with. And then there was my cheerleading squad. And then there was all the like theater and music

people. And then there was like, my friends who, you know, did drugs and went out clubbing. So I had like, I had this really amazing community that I kind of and and, and like these groups of people who I kind of crossed over kind of traditional high school boundaries with. And I loved it, like totally loved it. I'm always curious when actually somebody shares something like that, where you can sort of like drop into different groups, different communities and feel like you're, you're at home. And part of my curiosity tends to be, was it that you were just really comfortable being in your own skin no matter who you were around and people loved that and wanted to be around that too? Or did you learn to code switch really effectively? So I actually think it was probably both of those things, right?

Like, I don't know that I felt comfortable in my skin, but I think comparatively for high school, I mean, I feel like I was kind of very grounded and confident for a high school student, but definitely felt super insecure. Right. For all of the kind of normal reasons that a teenager feels insecure, but also the reasons that a black girl in a predominantly white environment would feel insecure. And I code switched like crazy, for sure. And I also think that it wasn't that I felt at home in each of those places. I think it was just like my ride or die people from, you know, childhood to adulthood that I just like, that was my like group of people. And at some point I realized that I just wasn't going to have that. And I could, I could be more fully myself with lots of different groups of people, as opposed to being part of myself with them. And if they couldn't handle it, then I didn't want to hang out with them. And what I found is that most of them welcomed the whole Mia as opposed to just the

part that I assumed that they were cool with. And so I didn't feel like I found home in one place. It was really that I found home in a lot of places. Yeah. I mean, the way you describe it also is some really interesting foreshadowing there for the work that you would eventually end up doing. Sure, totally. A decade down the road from there. Bouncing around also, the other curiosity I sometimes wonder about, because I know this is a similar experience to me, was whether that experience gave you energy or took energy from you. The kind of code switching and bouncing around? Yeah. I think it was some of both, right? And I think that that's true of me now. I'm definitely, I mean, I think I'm an ambivert, right? Like there are times when I like absolutely get restored and energized by being with groups of people. I love public speaking, right? Like there's something about

that kind of like holding court with like an audience of folks that totally just like gives me a lot of juice. And at some point I need like tremendous amounts of alone time. Like I, you know, and I think that is again, partly constitutional and partly because I was an only child and I spent a lot of time alone as a kid and really learned to enjoy my own company. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Not an only child, but actually similarly why I'd love to be on stage, but I run for the stage door as soon as I'm done speaking. Exactly. on speaking. I just want to be walking alone somewhere after that. From high school, you end up in Oberlin. Did you have a sense for what you wanted to deepen into there? Or was it just sort of, let me see what's calling me? I mean, I think I went in thinking I wanted to major in psychology and that. I don't even

think I took one psychology class. So Oberlin was was at the time, one of the only colleges that had a freestanding Black Studies program, which I had, and I had no idea when I went, I just, I chose Oberlin because when my mom and I went to visit colleges, and I got, we drove into town, I was just like, the vibe is right. I was just like, this is where I'm supposed to be. And so my second semester of my first year, I took a like intro to Black Studies with this amazing professor, Adrian Lash-Jones, and my mind was just like completely blown. And I became a Black Studies major, largely to learn, you know, all of the things that I should have learned in the first 18 years of my life. And to just like,

to, I think, understand who I was in a way that I hadn't before. And I'm lucky that my introduction to Black Studies was deeply intersectional. So it was very much about learning about race, but also learning about gender. And I feel like I got to see myself in the world in a way that I hadn't before and see that my experience, you know, kind of both what I grew up with, but also kind of like how I interact with and am seen by American culture, like had a historical basis but also was like a shared experience yeah i mean i'm curious how that so you decide you want that to be your focus did you have a sense beyond deepening to your own understanding of how that

would end up informing what you would then turn around and do in the world like when you left? No. I was not and remain not somebody who really plans long term. I didn't take that major thinking like, oh, what am I going to do with this? What does one do with a Black Studies major? I had no idea. It's not even so much that I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I wasn't, I just wouldn't, wasn't planning anything. And, you know, my, my path to where I am now is very circuitous and random in lots of ways. And I still don't think about like, you know, what, I have no idea what's next for me. Like I finished this book, I finished my podcast, both of those projects, you know, took a huge chunk of my life for the last two and a half years. And I have no idea what's next. But I think at this point, I recognize that, that, you know, planning ahead in that way is not something that I do. And I also have enough experience with it all working out that I just have faith that I will find my next thing or my next thing will find me and it'll be what I'm supposed to be doing. absolutely from the earliest days and one of those you know i mean it's interesting you know

you end up in brooklyn eventually spending some time as a vp in the family independence initiative really i guess focusing on strengthening communities and to a certain amount um that exploring the ideas of self-determination um low-income people and that really it seems like that's also the birthplace of your fascination for family and friendship and community and bigger picture. Like, what is this thing we call the quote, American dream? And how do we define it? And what's it actually doing to and for? Yeah. All right. Well, let me go back a little bit. I mean, the things I left out about my path were like, you know, the time I spent in publishing and my few years apprenticing as a midwife and my stint doing country music.

Like there was some other things that, that existed kind of along the continuum that I didn't talk about because they weren't super relevant. So wait a minute, we can't just brush by those things. So especially like, all right, so midwife and then stint doing country music? Yeah, not for a living. But yeah, when I lived in Brooklyn, a friend of mine taught me how to play guitar and she and I started playing country music together.

We went to Merle Fest, we went busking in Nashville, and then when I came to Oakland in 2001, I wanted to keep playing music. So I like through Craigslist, I think like connected with this amazing singer songwriter called AJ Roach. And he and I were a duo for a long time. And then a trio, we got a fiddle player. And yeah, for, I don't know, three or four years, he and I would play around the Bay Area and occasionally go on like short tours, you know, in California. It was super fun. It's where I met my husband because my husband's musician was kind of through that music scene. Yeah, I have an abiding love for like old timey country music and bluegrass.

I love that. Okay. So, so my entry point to activism, but also to like the, the invitation to imagine the world that we want was through abolition. I was living in New York and a friend of mine who is immigration attorney was in Berkeley. And she, and I can't remember why she thought this was a good idea, but thank goodness. Thank you, Christina Velez. She invited me, she was like, you should come to this conference that's happening about the prison industrial complex and abolition, like at Berkeley, at the University of Berkeley. So I came to California, I think I don't think I'd ever been to California before and went to this conference. And my mind was blown. Like, I got to

hear Ruth Wilson Gilmore speak, I got to hear Angela Davis speak. And I was introduced to this idea that, you know, that is like, having this resurgence right now, which is amazing, which is that we don't need prisons and policing because they don't keep us safe. You know, and the thing that I think people focus on is the absence of prisons and policing. But what abolition is really asking us to do is think about what are the things that actually create safety and well-being for us? And, you know, when I ask people about it, like they know, right? Like people need food and housing. People need access to health care. People need education.

People need mental health services. People need like all if we think about the crises that we have, right? Like police are not like we kind of unleash police on all of these issues and challenges that they are not equipped to handle. Never mind that the system of policing in the United States has its founding in slave catchers and it's just infused with white supremacy and is really about protecting property because black people were property. And it's not about keeping us safe, right? So that entry point, like, I think planted the seeds of how I think about what we need in community. Because it's not that, you know, without prisons and policing, that harm isn't going to happen. It's just that we actually need to address harm in a way that actually reduces it, right? We need to address harm in a way that is reparative and protective of people

who experience harm, but that also works with people who are perpetrating it so that they don't continue to perpetrate it. And that only happens well in the context of deep community. Yeah, I mean, it is so interesting to see what's happening now and a re-examination of these institutions in a really major way. And then a reimagining of, okay, so what was the superficial purpose that was given to them? What is the deeper down reason that they exist? And what would we need to live in a quote, you know, like flourishing society if those cease to be there? Like what are the pillars that stand in its place, in their place for us to all thrive together and still feel safe and still feel whatever it is we want to feel from the illusion of what we think those

things are giving us. Yeah. And I think part of part of the invitation, too, is to examine like how we think about safety, because I think and again, when I've when I've talked somebody's breaking into my house, like, I'm going to call the cops. And I'm like, well, the cops are going to come like after, right, the cops are not going to be there in time to save you, you know, but you know, who will be there, like if you need them is your neighbors. So if you have a relationship with your neighbors, which is really about, you know, community, and if you have a deep relationship with your neighbors, and they actually are folks who would show up for you if they found out that like you were in the middle of experiencing violence. That's what's going to keep you safe, not calling police. The police will come and like try to get your stuff back.

But, you know, again, like that doesn't address the fear that happens when your home is violated. It doesn't address the experience of and the trauma part, right? That doesn't do anything for that. That's your stuff. What you really need is people in your life who are able to help you heal from the trauma that you've experienced and who help you actually feel safe. Police don't do any of that. Yeah. And an even bigger picture, when you look at, okay, so why do people who cause harm cause harm? What are the systems that happened underneath that that brought them to a place where that is what they felt like they needed to do? Absolutely. Harm doesn't happen in a vacuum. police don't prevent or address harm when it happens, but that police actually perpetrate harm, right? I mean, and like, obviously, they're like part of what we're seeing, we're seeing is,

you know, another cycle of of white violence and police being part of that, that they actually, like cause violence to human beings, and then are also perpetrating violence to the people who are protesting because of the violence that they cause. But outside of that, right, we can think about the fact that, like the violence that happens and the harm that happens when you remove people from their communities, the violence that happens when you have a system of punishment that reinforces this idea that people are either good or bad, when in fact, all of us experience harm, and all of us perpetrate harm. And one of the things that I feel like I learned from the folks who I talked to, for this book about safety, and about how we actually address harm, and

the idea of redemption, is that when we have a system that kind of creates that binary, that we're like, you're either good or you're bad, part of what we're doing is we're saying that we are not redeemable, right? Like us individually and collectively, we're not redeemable because if somebody is bad, we lock them up. We think of human beings as disposable. So therefore, when we cause harm, which we all do, we're saying that there's no way for us to find redemption. There's no way for us to repair whatever rift or severing is created by the harm we cause. And that, I feel like, is one of those things that continues to reinforce this idea of our separateness. But human beings, we are wired

for connection. We cannot survive without each other. We are deeply interdependent and we are meant to be in community with each other. Even the most hermetic person needs other people for something. Yeah, and I completely agree. or sleepy. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna 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 were gonna be fun on january 24th tell me how to fly this thing mark walberg you know what the difference between me and you is you're gonna die don't shoot if we need them y'all need a pilot flight risk so this fundamentally and and i guess in a more focused way, really understanding and exploring the ideas of abolition, especially around policing and prisons, becomes sort of like the jumping off point for you. It becomes a thing that draws you in and opens you up and starts to turn you into the broader question of the role of community in everything.

And then I guess that becomes really a dominant focus for you in a lot of different ways. Yeah, so there's the work that you mentioned that I did. So I came to the Bay and did, well, the first work that I did was actually at this organization called Health Initiatives for Youth. And I got introduced to harm reduction there and sex positivity.

And again, I think kind of like suite of orientations that were really about how do we support the physical and emotional well-being of young people in ways that see them as whole human beings and see them as connected to community and don't demonize people for choices that they make, but like, assume that all of us ultimately want to move toward our own wellbeing. And that work was really informative in terms of my, just, just kind of like adding to the, not just kind of the abolition approach about like, what are we getting rid of? But like, what are the things that we need to build the world that we want to live in? And then I had a kid and then I started doing work at the Family Independence Initiative, which you mentioned, and that's an organization that is focused on economic justice,

but is really focused on kind of shifting the narrative that we have about why people are poor and shifting how we think about resourcing poor folks. And the shifting the narrative part is being like, people are poor because they don't have no money, right? And people don't have money because of wealth hoarders, not because they are spending it on, you know, sneakers or lattes, not because they don't know how to budget, but because the money that exists in the United States is distributed in a deeply inequitable way. And that if we're going to support people in not being poor, then we have to recognize that being poor is an absence of money so that the way that you address it is by giving people money. So in many ways, it's like

deeply simple. It's tremendously simple. But because of all of the things that are built into the American dream narrative, right, this idea, This idea that America is a meritocracy. And even though we will acknowledge a little bit of systemic oppression, we have all these examples of people who worked really hard and made it. And we hold up those examples as a model for what everyone should do without recognizing that they're actually exceptions. And I put myself in this category, right? Like I am an exception in that way. And not because I'm like smarter than anybody else or, you know, was more thoughtful about how I like, you know, I just told you, like, I don't plan, I didn't plan anything. Like I just got really, really lucky. And we want to, you know, I think particularly those of us who have power and privilege and those of us who have managed to, for whatever reason, find ourselves kind of in the space of success as defined by the American dream. that that was our own doing, right? It's important to us that we are able to say, like, I deserve this because I worked really hard for it or I did whatever it was. And it's not that people don't work really hard. People work really hard. But like, so do all the people who are poor. Like, hard work is our kind of baseline. And certainly from the research and relationships that I have with people

who experience economic injustice, they are actually working harder than everybody else. So that's not the story, right? Like success is not about hard work. Success really is about either you have power and privilege because you were born with it, or you get lucky and you become an exception. So the idea of giving poor people money goes against this very deeply entrenched American belief that the way that you make it is you work hard. And that means that people who don't make it must not be working hard. And God forbid, we should want to reward that, right? Like people are like, you can't give people money

because then they'll become dependent or they didn't earn it. So partly my work at the Family Independence Initiative was about pushing back against that narrative. But I think the mistake that I made in that was trying to kind of emphasize and proving that people who are poor work really hard and have all of these kind of attributes, right? Because the fact is that the things that we're talking about, right, the things that money allow us to have are things that everyone should have, and because we live inside of capitalism, if you want housing, food, healthcare, education, like money is the way that we get that. And if money is our kind of the currency, I mean, literal currency for us to access things that are human rights, then everyone should have it. And it doesn't matter

if they work hard or not. It doesn't matter if they are, you know, following whatever rules our society has laid out for us. Somebody who fits every single stereotype that exists about who poor people are. The 55-year-old man who is smoking pot in his mom's basement and doesn't have a job still deserves housing, food, healthcare, and access to information. So those things are not things that any of us have to earn because they're just human rights. And you also can't unearn them. And I think that's kind of where I think about how abolition and my work around economic justice intersect. Because of course, what happens when somebody is imprisoned is these rights are taken away from them yeah and it on every level um i mean i

guess that's also where um because i know the conversation around guaranteed basic income which i know you've been a part of that conversation also drops in because if you look at these things as fundamental human rights then that becomes a much more conversationable thing to add in. And I'll say, you know, the research that I did for the podcast I did around guaranteed income, you know, was about two and a half years of research. And I did not imagine that there would be somebody, you know, a potential presidential candidate talking about it as problematic as his platform was. And I certainly didn't think that, you know, we'd be having this global pandemic, which all of a sudden made lots of people open to the idea of the government writing them a check. So I think that, and part of that for me is really, is really a reminder. And then, you know, and then now there's the abolition question is coming up when we're talking about defunding police. And part of that is a reminder to me that there's nothing that we ask for or want to build a world in which we are all cared for and have the things

that we need that is too much. It's never too much. And I think that this is just a reminder to me that we all really need to be dreaming really big about what it is we want and not think in compromises when it comes to what we demand from our systems and institutions and, you know, our government and our leaders. Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting time for both reckoning and reimagining, right? Really understanding what's gotten us to this place, to this moment in time. And then being open enough to reimagine, well, instead of saying, well, what would the iterative next step be? What would the process of, quote, reform be? This hasn't worked really across any domain. If we could reimagine this, if basically we were going to start this today,

what would that look like? I feel like nobody's, it's been really hard to get large numbers of people to step into that space. But it does feel like, I don't know where we go from here. I don't know if it sustains, but it does feel like at least in the moment while we're having this conversation, we've been closer to being in that space with a larger,

broader section of our population than at least I've seen in my lifetime. Yeah, me too. I'm cautiously thrilled by all of, and some of it's performative, but I also feel like performance is part of what creates culture though, right? So it still means something in the moment when, you know, babynames.com has their homepage. Have you seen this? Their homepage is a list of Black people who have been killed by police. And it says at the top, all these names were somebody's baby or something like that. Like it's, and it was, I, you know, somebody sent it to me and I went and I looked at it and I was,

it was really powerful. And, you know, and for an organization that in my experience or a business that in my experience, like tries to be apolitical, though, I don't think that's a thing, right. For them to have such a powerful statement on their homepage, like it means something. So even the things that are performative, like the fact that we're seeing corporations who have, you know, until now, not said the word black, you know, out loud, I think is important. And then I think I also I'm just like, okay, y'all, we need to like pace yourselves. This is, this is not a, this is not a short term thing. Like we really need to be thinking long term. And, you know, and then it's about like, actually crafting legislation and figuring out like, you know,

in your in your city, if like, you're doing this on a national level, like what's happening in your city? Like, what's the budget of your city? How much is being spent on policing and prisons or surveillance or parole and what else could you imagine doing with all that money yeah i mean it's interesting i spent um i spent a chunk of years studying um the theory and dynamics of non-violent um revolution and um and one of the one of the things that was really fascinating to me was that how easy it is to rally large numbers of people around an idea and a rally call to mobilize against something. Like, this is what we don't want. And how brutally hard it is to then create intelligently, well, even if we can't define, be able to identify these are the qualities of the thing that must replace this and then begin to replace it on a level or make it feel real enough so that people will transfer into supporting that on a level that will actually allow it to happen. And that is such a harder transition to make.

It's one of the challenges of progress, right? So if we think about, I mean, I've been thinking about both, you know, make America great again, right, as a slogan, but also the way in which, you know, a lot of businesses a couple of weeks ago or a month ago were talking about going back to normal. And there is tremendous comfort, you know, regardless of like what it actually is. There's tremendous comfort in the idea of returning to something that we have a picture of in our heads that that feels normal to us or that we can, you know, I think with Make America Great Again, like we all have a picture in our head of what that means and who's included in that. And for the people that that resonated with, that felt like safety, right? Returning back to normal, even though we know that the normal we'd be returning to was not working for the majority of people in this country, even people who think it was working for them, it was not working for them. But people know what that is, right? And when you're faced with this kind of invisible,

you know, global pandemic, this virus that is just like spreading around the globe, and someone's talking to you about returning to normal, like I get the comfort of that. So part of it is that we really need to be steadfast and kind of find the courage that we need to be like, okay, normal sucked. What do we really want? And be brave enough to actually kind of lean into that space. And then I think the other thing is that the people who, you know, it's not everybody's job to figure that out. And I think the people for whom like, who are committed to doing that work need to do a good job of painting a very clear picture of what it looks like if we win. And I think the other thing is that, and this is a big part of what

my work has been, is that there are examples of what it looks like in communities all across the country. People are already practicing abolition. People are already working in ways that are less extractive and less white supremacist and less patriarchal than the broader society. And part of what we need to be doing is actually looking for those examples and then following the leadership of the people who are making those things a reality for themselves. And that was a big piece of what I, you know, what I did with this book. 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 Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and 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. It is really that focus on, okay, so what is going to step in to make things better? And this idea of new community and also really reimagining when we talk about not just community but family like what do we mean by that what do we mean by friends what do we mean by family what do we mean by

extended family and and like you were saying like what are the models that we can look to right now to learn from which I'd love to explore a little bit yeah this has been really been the focus of the last chunk of years for you. I'm curious also, you know, because I think what really step one is, is this question, you know, like reimagining, well, what is it that actually makes for a good family or a good community? You know, I have, so I ask people this all the time. I'm like, what makes, like, what makes a good family? The first thing everyone says is love. And then they talk about, you know, people who will be there for you. They talk about people who care about you, people who will support you. And like, you know, if you're trying to do something new, like they'll support you in that. No one ever talks about structure. No one ever is like, what makes a good, like a really good family is that you have a man and a woman who are married

and they have biological children. No one has ever said that to me. And granted, like I'm not talking to like right-wing fundamentalists, but I think all of us fundamentally know that it is the function of family that is important, not the structure. And the fact is that the kind of insular nuclear family is a very recent invention. The idea that two people will provide, like all of the things that we need from human beings, that we would get it from like one other adult, and that two people can raise children is just like on its face absurd. Like that's never in human history ever been the case. We've always had extended families. We've always had chosen family, but always had family with people who are like in our tribe who we weren't necessarily biologically related to. We have always, and when I, you know, I'm talking about like thousands of

years of human history, we've always collectively raised children. are the very small percentage of people who has one person in your life who can be, you know, the person who you are romantically and sexually attracted to, and then like actually have good sex with the person who you can be roommates with, and manage a household with and commingle your finances, and travel with and be your best friend and your confidant. And then if you have kids, raise kids with. Like that is too many roles for two people to fill, to both fill for each other. So, you know, what I see is that a lot of folks who are trying to do that are deeply unhappy because they're not actually getting their needs met.

And they don't recognize, and this is particularly true of straight men, and they don't really recognize that there are other ways for them to get some of those needs met. You know, like I'm a terrible roommate. Like my, you know, my husband and I have lived together for like 20 years, but in some other configuration of our marriage and in a world where housing was not so incredibly expensive, like it might be better for us to like, you know, live in a duplex and I could make my mess upstairs and he could keep his, you know, part neat downstairs. So part of it is about re-imagining, but part of it is also recognizing that we actually used to do something else. So I think of it as both kind of understanding and looking to like our ancestral history and seeing how, you know, our people

did things before and then re-imagining those structures and ways of being in relationship with each other for a modern life, right? So for what actually fits our lives. Yeah. So it's more, it's really more of a questioning of why we're doing it the way we're doing it when we have so much history of doing it differently and very arguably experiencing our lives in so many different ways and levels better. I mean, it's interesting because also there's this expectation that's set, I think now that if you should be able to get everything you need from this nuclear family and you don't, you're feeling lonely, you're feeling stressed, you're feeling overwhelmed, all the different things that pretty much everyone tends to feel at some part of their journey in this sort of small, tight family.

If you don't feel those, then you judge yourself a failure. Exactly. And then you layer on top of that this sense of shame, which just makes things worse. And then I think people end up being silent about it, right? They don't talk about it. They don't have the conversations they need to with their partner about like what they can actually do for each other. And nevermind, like if you're not, if you don't have a partner, right, then what are you supposed to do? There are all of these ways in which our, our culture, our, the design of like, you know, houses and cars, and certainly all the

like benefits that exist in our culture are really created for and orient us toward the insular nuclear family. And there are a hell of single people in America who are having to just like navigate systems that weren't made for us and who are having to kind of exist in a culture that says that they're a failure, right? That says that there's something wrong with them. And not only is it saying that, but lots of folks also internalize that and assume that there's something wrong with them or feel as if their life is incomplete because they does not have a romantic sexual partner, but like her and her friend Cynthia are each other's plus one. They talk about retirement. They text each other every day. They have made this friendship that they have fill the role that many people look to a romantic and sexual partner for. And they both, you know, date people and have, you know, have had other relationships, romantic and sexual relationships, but this friendship between them is primary. And I love that. I just love the model

of that. And largely, like so much, so many of the stories that I tell in the book, and the book is, you know, mostly stories. It's mostly the stories that I tell in the book, and the book is, you know, mostly stories. It's mostly the stories that I found that helped me understand and answer the questions that I had about creating family and community. They're just these models that they're not like blueprints for us, right? They're not like, oh, like, this is what this person did. I'm going to go and replicate it. But it really is about having enough examples that allow us to expand our understanding of what's possible. And then we can kind of get into our own, you know, personal inquiry about what is it that I actually want in my life, right? One of the things that I learned from a bunch of the folks who I talked to

about friendship was about kind of like getting rid of the very narrow confines of how we think about what a friendship is and what it's for. And actually thinking about, you know, the people who like I think about the people who I consider close friends and like be in conversation with them about like, what is the culture of our friendship? Like, what are the expectations we have of each other? What can we count on each other for? What are the boundaries that we have? And that's expanded the relationships I have with those people into places that do not fit into, you know, kind of the American box of what we say a friend is. And I love the depth of those relationships. I love the kind of intimacy

that that's created between me and folks, both because we're like, we're actually having conversations about our relationship, but also because we realize like, oh, here's a, here's a thing that we want from this, this relationship that is not, that we wouldn't have discovered if we hadn't had this conversation about like, how do we be friends? How do we be friends? Yeah. I mean, so you're really blurring the line, you know? So instead of, you know, okay, so here's the box for family, here's the box for friends, here's the box for acquaintances.

It's just saying, okay, so let's throw it up against the wall and let's fundamentally ask the question, what do I want and need from the relationships in my life? What am I open to giving? And then how do I just construct it in a way from like the universe of people who are in my orbit that feels good, that gives me and that gives them what they need? And whether we call that family, whether we call it friends, who really cares at that point? But that requires,

I mean, it really requires, especially in a world today where you've got real separations, right? You've got a lot of people who go the traditional family route because maybe they feel it's right for them. And very often, part of that involves pulling away from all of those people who not long before really did serve a lot of those same roles. And now they become more isolated. They start to expect they get everything from the traditional family. And then the friends that they're moving away from feel like, okay, so now I'm no longer in the, I'm no longer part of that family, but I'm also no longer a part of the bigger community of people who decided that this is the model of, of what family looks like for them anymore.

And now you feel like, and society, as, as you mentioned, you know, like kind of labels them to a certain extent and says, well, you're, you're not doing it right because you're not there yet. And it just creates more divide. So, I mean, talk about really needing to have intentional open conversation and making this a very intentional act and process. I mean, it's so important. You can't just wait for it to happen and hope it does. No, there's a, there's a, I mean, you're, you're essentially choosing to counter our culture and doing that requires vigilance and tending, you know, so I'm, you know, I'm a cis woman and I'm married to a cis man. Like I am in a nuclear family. Right. And I think the, the challenge that I, that I realized in doing this work that I, is that I needed to be vigilant, right? My husband and I need to be vigilant about making sure that we're not closing ourselves off. And that's particularly true right now, because we're all sheltering in place. And I'm just in this house with these three other people. So I've really had to create a regular practice of making sure that I'm, you know,

having conversations with my loved ones about our relationships. I'm checking in with people. I'm receiving when people check in with me. One of the most powerful threads throughout the whole book is about how allergic we are to asking for help and accepting help and how powerful it is when we get over that. One of the things that, and this has been emphasized for me now that like COVID is happening, is that the offering support to folks I found is so much more powerful for them when it's specific. So instead of just people, you know, saying like, let me know if you need anything, I have been trying to insert myself into people's lives, right? Crossing this like boundary that we think of in our friendships, and trusting the intuition I have about what I know about people's experience and who they are,

and offering something that I actually think would be helpful. So saying specifically, you know, I know you've been doing a lot of caretaking recently, can I make like extra of what I'm making for dinner and bring it to you, as opposed to saying, let me know if you need anything. And then I think the same has been true for me. Like I've had, you know, I have a friend who in the beginning of COVID, she would text me and a couple of other people and say, hey, I'm going to the grocery store. Do you need anything? And I felt my kind of resistance to saying yes, when I knew that, like, I'm out of salt, right? And if like, I can't, I can't, I cannot cook without salt. So if I can get this one thing that that means I can like wait to go to the grocery store for another week, like that's actually helpful for me. So I have said yes, every time she has texted because there's always, you know, one or two things, will you get us coffee? Because I knew we were going to be out of coffee in a minute. And I would totally go to the store just to get coffee. But

who wants to do, you know, especially right now, who wants to do that? So there's a way in which kind of creating that cycle of support, both giving and receiving support, lets us know each other more deeply and creates intimacy. And I feel so much more held and so much less isolated because of the, you know, the past couple of months, the way in which I feel like me and the people I'm in community with have accepted support from each other and have offered support to each other. And like, that's one of the things that I, that I'm excited to take outside of, you know, COVID is just like allowing people, being vulnerable enough, right. To allow people to know me in that way and to be in my life in that way and to encourage other people in my life

to do the same. Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, being vulnerable and allowing yourself to be seen in a vulnerable state, even if it's a mild thing, like I need this, deepens relationships. I mean, what are the things that actually deepen a relationship? It is generally its vulnerability coupled with progressive revelation. And that has to happen both ways. And I often wonder if the reason that so few of us are comfortable doing that, and I'm raising my hand because I'm not the easiest person that way, is that there's something in us that's wired to keep score. And there's something in us that kind of says, well, I don't want to feel beholden. Somewhere there is a like credit and debit sheet that's being kept. And if it's not in balance on a regular basis, I'm always going to feel like I need to give or I need to get.

See, I think that's white supremacy. I don't think that's something that's wired like deeply. And it's something that we've learned. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. A hundred percent agree. But I feel like it is a learned behavior in a lot of us and it's so destructive. And it's almost like once you have a group of people who just start doing it, and part of the agreement is nobody keeps score. You know, it's like, I mean, I've experienced that in windows in my life. And it's sort of like everything dissolves and it becomes just really beautiful. Well, there's this generosity and abundance that exists when you do that, right? And part of it, I think for me, like when part of what I work through in my head when I'm offered support is that I'm recognizing that it doesn't just do something for me. It does something for the person who's offering the support. And I know that because I know what it feels like when I am able to offer

support. And it's not because I'm like, yes, now I have another like check in my, you know, column of what they owe me. And it's not about, you know, earning points with my gods. It really is about feeling like I am in this generative cycle of giving and receiving that is part of that like deepens my sense of my own humanity and deepens my sense of being part of, yeah, being part of like community. And I know how good that feels for me. So partly like with this friend of mine who texts me about the groceries, I'm like, oh, like me saying yes is a gift that I can give her. Like being vulnerable and allowing her to insert herself in my life that way is a gift that I can give her. Like being vulnerable and allowing her to insert herself in my life that

way is a gift that I can give her. And let me not interrupt the cycle and like mess it up, right, by not providing her with that gift. So it is an exchange, right? And I think it's important for us to recognize it as that. But it's not about like, you know, it's not about like, I'm going to do this thing and then they're going to owe me. Because I also feel like in some ways, like, I mean, I haven't done anything for them. Sometimes I leave eggs on the porch because we have chickens and there's like too many eggs. But like mostly she just drops stuff off and like that's it. I also know that like I'm doing similar things for other people. So it's not even about just like my relationship with her and the kind of like back and forth between us, but actually that it's much, it's part of a much kind of grander cycle of giving and there are moments also when you want to have boundaries

but at the same time you can negotiate ways to interact with people um one i know one of the stories that you tell i thought it was a really fascinating way to approach is you talk a lot about also um family around food and kitchens and friendships and how that enables all sorts of different things and how on the one hand it's really nice to sometimes just have people drop by granted right now like we're not really doing that but you know we're going to emerge from it but and then there are other times where you would feel like really intruded on um if somebody just swung by and we certainly live in a culture now where nobody i know in new york city does that you know yeah if somebody just knocked on my door if it was a friend of mine and said, okay, hey, let's hang out.

It'd be awkward. Yeah, it'd be awkward. I'd be kind of annoyed. But it's not that I don't want to see them. There's a context. And the way that you handled saying, okay, how do I make this happen in a way where we all feel good and comfortable, I thought was really fascinating. Yeah. So I, a friend of mine talked about the fact that she would love for people to drop by. And I was like, both like, yes, that would be great. And also like, oh, hell no. Like, I don't want people just showing up in my doorstep. Like I, because like, if I don't want to see them, that would just feel, I would be annoyed, like you said. So I was like, I just need to create a container for like a window in which like people are free to drop by. So I was like, I just need to create a container for like a window in which like people are free to drop by. So I created this thing called drop by dinner. And I emailed like 20 people. And it had a set of guidelines. And the first was, you know, I don't know if I'm remember all of them. But like, basically, like, I'm, I'm like, I'm not cleaning my house. I'm not preparing you a meal. You come over, bring something to add to, you know, the nourishment that we're going to have. I will give you whatever it is that I'm going to give my own children, but I'm not, this is not me. I'm not hosting, right? So that was

part of the thing. I was like, you don't have to RSVP. You can just show up. You can tell me you're going to show up and show up. You can tell me you're going to show up and then not show up and not explain it to me. It's really like we're not trying to kind of create, replicate any kind of like party situation. I also made it clear that they could not bring anybody with them unless it was their kids, because I didn't want childcare to prevent people from showing up. But I also did not want to extend this experience to people like that I didn't actually feel comfortable coming by my house when it's a mess. And then I was also like, don't leave my house messier than you found it. I was like, clean the dishes, even if I tell you not to.

So I sent it out to a handful of people. And I think 15 people showed up at the first one. And it was spectacular. I was wearing my pajamas. I don't think I had taken a shower that day. Everybody brought food. Some people had been to my house multiple times so they knew where everything was and some people had never been there before and just got support from other people and figuring

out how to feed themselves and get what they needed. And I would just do it every few months and I would give people maybe a day's notice or a week's notice. And sometimes three people would show up, sometimes 15 people would show up. And having my community collide in that way, the various parts of my community collide was fantastic. The conversations that we had were always really beautiful. And I loved just the experience of having my loved ones in my home. Yeah, I love that. I have a feeling that even us being so isolated right now, so many layers of fear and possibility and change and transformation being in the air, that as we emerge from this space, that people are going to start to become

more open to things like this. And I think I love the fact that you're sort of out there right now, planting the seed to reimagine models and ways to gather and ways to define friendship and family, so that as we emerge from this sort of cocoon that we're in to a certain extent, we can start to really think about this more intentionally. How do we want to step back into our relationships and our world and reimagine it and recreate it? It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out here in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? So many things. I think there's both kind of like my own personal growth and development that feels important to me, and that that doesn't happen outside the context of my loved ones and the in solidarity with, even if I don't know them. And that that happens in the context of not just, you know, my kind of human relations, but all of our relations. One of the things that I've leaned more heavily on in this time of

physical isolation is nature, right? Like, or the other parts of nature, because human beings are nature. I'm like, I can hug a tree, a tree is not going to give me a virus, right? And I'm not going to make it sick. So there is this web that I feel like connects me with the people closest to me, my other relations that are close to me, and then ultimately all of us. And that to me, kind of being in right relationship with all of those things feels like what it means to live a good life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment

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