Podcrushed - Tembi Locke

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

This week we’re joined by author and actor Tembi Locke. She takes us from her whirlwind childhood to her life today as a bestselling writer and performer. We talk about the heart behind her memoir From Scratch and her new audiobook Someday, Now, the rituals and traditions that keep us grounded, and why midlife can feel a lot like adolescence (in the best way). It’s a rich conversation on grief, creativity, and finding light through it all.   Preorder our new book, Crushmore, here: geni.us/CrushmoreBook   Look for the blue box at retailers everywhere or shop jlab.com and use code PODCRUSHED for 15% off your order today.   Head to squarespace.com/PODCRUSHED to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code PODCRUSHED.   Use code PODCRUSHED or go to Harbor.co/PODCRUSHED for $50 off and experience the security every parent deserves.   Head to prettytasty.com and use code PODCRUSHED at checkout for your first subscription order FREE (up to a $49 value), plus 15% off every subscription order after that.   Take the online quiz and introduce Ollie to your pet. Visit https://www.ollie.com/podcrushed for 60% off your first box of meals! #ToKnowThemIsToLoveThem   🎧 Want more from Podcrushed? 📸 Instagram 🎵 TikTok 🐦 X / Twitter     ✨ Follow Penn, Sophie & Nava Instagram Penn Sophie Nava   TikTok Penn Sophie Nava See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada. My first heartbreak was liking someone, thinking we were going steady, in air quotes, only to find out that he was taking someone else to the dance. Oh. Like the classic, like, thing you would see in, like, you know, a Y, A and a film, it was just, it was terrible, but I won't name his name because, you know. Yeah. Give him that gift.

Give him a little grace. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're hosts. I'm Penn. I'm Nava. And I'm Sophie. And I think we would have been your middle school besties. Practicing our Italian.

Yes, Certo. Welcome to Pod Crushed. We're so happy to have you here, Crushies. It's your favorites, Nava and Sophie. Before we get started with our episode today, which is an amazing episode. You'll want to stick around. and you'll want to stay for the end for a special treat. We wanted to remind you we have two live events, one in New York City, one in L.A.

We'll be in New York City at Symphony Space on October 14th at 7 p.m., and we are going to be telling juicy, never-before-told stories from our book, Crushmore. And then on October 16th, we'll be in downtown L.A. at Book Soup. It's our first, like, live promotional tour for the book, but also because, past favorite guest of ours, Nicole Beyer will be interviewing us in L.A. and Phoebe Robinson in New York. So you know that they are funnier than we are. Let's be honest. So this event is going to be like extra funny. So once in a lifetime opportunity, don't miss it. Also, today we are premiering an exclusive clip from our audiobook. Yes, there's an audiobook of Cushmore.

And this is from one of Penn's essays. And I think you are going to love it. So make sure you listen to the end so that you can catch this exclusive clip from the audiobook. Speaking of authors, we have an amazing author on our show today, Tembi Locke. You know her from her best-selling memoir from scratch, which was then adapted into a hit limited series by Netflix. I've watched it twice. So good. Yeah. She's not just a writer, though. She actually started off as an actor and she's graced the screen on series like Eureka and sliders and films like unbowed and dumb and dumber two. Temby's newest project is her audiobook Someday Now, a memoir of family, reclaiming

possibility, and a breathtaking emotional summer adventure as she faces the emptiness and an uncharted new chapter in her own life. We get into all things someday now. We loved having Temby on the show. She's a light. You're going to feel that light and that radiance, and we can't wait for you to listen to this episode. Hey, it's me, Steve Burns, and I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back, right?

Yeah, and look at us now. Like, we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown-up stuff, and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye. But for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada Media, alive with Steve Burns is coming September 17th, wherever you get your podcast. or you can watch every episode on YouTube. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey.

And together we have the podcast Office Ladies. Just because we finish rewatching the office does not mean we're going anywhere. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. Plus, you can revisit all the Office Ladies' rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. So follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free

Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Temby, are you kind of aware of the framing of the show that we'll start with 12-year-old, 11-year-old, 12-year-old Temby, and kind of like chart your trajectory to your current audiobook? Ladies, ladies, ladies, ladies, I'm in for it. I don't know how we're going to do this, but we're in for it because when you say 12-year-old, I'm like, oh, goodness gracious, oh. What does that bring up for you? Oh, so many things. It was talk about a season of change.

So 12, my dad remarried. I was changing schools. So I went to three different middle schools. Oh, my gosh. Wow. I actually can't imagine that. No, I went to one school for fifth grade, another school for sixth grade, a different school for seventh grade, and a different school for eighth grade. Oh, my gosh.

In that arc, you know, it was a lot of, like, there's just a lot of change. Like, change in your social groups, change in the family dynamics, changing of homes. And so I think when you ask me about my 12-year-old self, there's a little, like, anxiety keeps up because I think I was really, like, trying to hold on to something, you know, as, like, identities forming. And I also remember a lot of, like, code switching. I don't even mean that in the cultural sense. I just mean like school to school or mom's house to dad's house or, you know, like, oh, one day I'm going to, you know, be preppy. The next day I'm going to be punky.

The next day I'm going to be like I was just really in an emergence and kind of at sea. But I also think it made me really key into stories during that time because books were the things where I was like, oh, other people have had like really interesting stories. And that's when I was really into theater. I'm sorry, I really got into theater. Also, it was during that season. Was this all happening in Houston? Or were you kind of moving around? All in Houston.

I was in Houston, Texas. And Houston at that time was really like, Cowboys, Oil, you know, good old boy kind of world. Like, it just was like a, it was not the Houston that it is today. And so as a, like, a young black girl, also moving through all of these different spaces, I was like, I had this name that's South African.

And I really just wanted to be like, man. Or like, you know, some like where teachers could like see it on the roll call, know how to pronounce it. Like, no extra eyes on me when they had to say my name. Why could my life not be that? So I journaled a lot during this time too. I'm curious what that did for your relationship with your, sister, Attica. Like, did it, I'm trying to imagine you moving from place to place, going from

mom's dad to, I mean, mom's house to dad's house, like you said. Did that forge a really close bond or? Yeah, it did. I mean, I can see now, like, I think that that is the season when she really, when we really became each other's kind of right or die, because we were the only constant in each other's day to day, you know, even though we went to different schools at a certain point, we um you know we had the same home life at moms or we had the same home life at dads and like whatever happened to dads when i went to moms i could tell her we could talk about it right in a way that i didn't have any anyone else and also i think we just needed that to like laugh and let our imaginations run free and so we would watch like certain movies at dad's house which my mom was

completely not interested in and we'd be like oh my god like you know and it was all they were like super you know dad like love planet of the apes don't give me don't don't ask any questions ask no questions no further questions but he like loved watching that one and i think it's particularly the the one with charleston where there's like like the statue of liberty is like like on the sea and the whole world's destroyed right so imagine sharing that with us but i think he used it as a way as a teaching tool to talk about like society and government and all kinds of things. So Attica and I were in a formation of a shared, not only

family experience, but also a shared kind of creative aesthetic because we were in the same after-school programs that were doing the same plays and then we'd, you know, watch the same movies and the same TV shows. So I'm curious because both you and your sister are so creative, so talented, and honestly quite successful, I'm curious about like what of that came from your parents or mentors, especially as you're

moving around a lot, like were there adult figures who kind of nurtured that creativity or was it really the circumstances that brought it out? Both. I think my parents knew they always put us in some kind of creative after school program. Usually whatever was free, you know, and whatever was quick and like close to wherever they worked, that's where we were, right? And so there was that starting point. But I really want to credit, I want to shine a spotlight on my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, she had summer custody for us, and she had been a school teacher. And so she understood children, like in a real way. And she knew how to, like, pour in to us. And so she let us do things like, we'd wake up, we'd have breakfast, Tang, for anybody who knows what Tang is, we'd have, like,

sugary water drink. So we'd be, like, sped up on sugar. And then she would be like, okay, You can play until 2 o'clock, and you can have this room and do whatever you want. But at 2 o'clock, you have to put it all back and come in, you know, for this. And so she gave us, like, guardrails, but also free reign. And so we were, like, in a room with, like, furniture. So we had to imagine what these places could be. And later, when I really got, like, in my angsty later middle school, early high school years, and I was like, acting out a little bit.

I was doing the stuff. And there was some, like, we need to rain Timby in a little bit, some collective parenting talks, right? And what that looked like was my grandmother, I got grounded, which I won't tell you the story because it's too long of a story, but I got grounded. And my grandmother said, look, if you guys are going to ground her,

take her to the art store, tell her to get whatever she wants. But if she's going to be home in her room, give her something to do. And so I have this outlet. to paint, which, you know, and I painted these very moody, you know, kind of like morose, like, you know, things. But it was an outlet, and I think she knew that.

And so I think the adults kind of understood whether they were, you know, truly, truly conscious of it or if it was just something intuitive, like give these kids, give us these two girls space to let their minds roam. And I really am grateful for that because, you know, it did set us out of trajectory. And it did forge a closeness. That's incredible. That's such a good tip. I have a two-year-old now.

I think even, like, of course, she's so young, I'm not going to leave her in a room to do her own thing necessarily. But I do think it starts out in these, like, very small moments of, like, encouraging independent play. and an exploration, and I'm going to just file that little tip away for when she's a teenager. I love that. It also, I mean, not to go down this path too far, too far down this path, and other people have said it better, but that really makes me think about the case for, like, boredom and

what we're losing with, like, always being entertained or on a screen and, like, that there's a generation of young people who don't know what it's like to be in a room with, like, nothing, no devices. Like, what are we losing with that? I think we're losing a lot because, you know, yes, at the level of just like cognitive processing and creativity, right, but also slowing down internally and being able to like listen to yourself. Because even if you start off as I was, you know, on Tang, like sped up with sugar, you know, you are eventually going to settle, settle in. And I think that learning to be with oneself, without stimuli, you know, and just really be with yourself. So giving someone a paintbrush and a canvas or a pen and paper. All of those things are saying your experience is real and it's also worth, it has value and it's worth documenting. It's worth processing. And I just, I think that was a

gift that I can see now, you know, that was given to us. I just saw something recently about how memoirists are not necessarily experiencing life more intensely. It's just that they know how to document it and they know how to reflect on it and share it. And I think, I mean, that's kind of what you are just speaking to. Yeah, Sophie, I mean, it's so right. I mean, before I was, you know, a memoirist or even knew that I would write a book ever, I can see that there were all of these ways in my life where I was paying very close attention to details.

Some of it later became clearly was informed by my training as an actor, right? That is our job is to pay attention to the human experience, human behavior, how someone walks, the cadence in their voice, like, you know, the pitch of the sound of their laughter, like all of that. So we're paying close attention to details. And then I think because I have been a lifelong journaler, journaler, journaling my entire life, off and on, you know, not like an everyday thing, I think that their details, it's just documenting details, right? And there was photography. I loved photography and never, never really understood why, except I now know that it's more than just like a cute selfie. I'm really trying to, like, remember what I saw or, like, go back to it. I'm of the generation where we, like, made, like, yearbooks and scrap books and all of, like, the stuff that you now do digitally or, like, you know, your Instagram or your Pinterest page is, like, your sort of online, you know, sort of collage of your life and the things that interest you.

But when I was growing up, we did that in a very tactile way. And so I think you're right, as a memoir as all of that raw material of the details of our intimate lived. experience, then become the raw material that we shape and we craft into narrative that is more than just specific to us, but is universal to whoever might read it or listen to the book. Yeah. It's an incredible skill. Before we move on to your memoirs and your work, we have a couple of classic questions that we ask every guest about this middle school time.

The first one is, if you could tell us a little bit of. about your first experiences of love or infatuation and then also heartbreak. I will not name names. Sometimes people do. Sometimes people give a first and last. I am not going there. I'm not on record doing that. I'm going to tell you.

I was a girl who crushed hard, always. And I would dare to say, I think my first crush might have been in kindergarten. A little boy taught me how to tie my shoes. and I thought I was like in love like I could he could come home with me like we were just gonna like it was everything and we had like at that time they would like kids like nap in kindergarten and he had his mat next to mine for napping meant to be I mean right there we're already domesticated right I'm in kindergarten so but middle school oh my goodness so it was a lot of crushing from afar it was just like hardcore crushing from afar and really

I tried to get my locker reassigned so that I could be close to because I thought proximity might breed relationship. Who knows? The kid doesn't talk to me but maybe and so you know and nothing ever came of it but I was very very boy crazy very very boy crazy

we had things called like slam books and all these things where you'd write down like your crushes and all of that so my first like real though formal boyfriend relationship um i would say was in the eighth grade and it was very you know low key because i didn't my sister was at the same school and i didn't want her to go home and tell parents that you know a boyfriend um and it was sweet but then i went to a different school so it all you know went away my first heartbreak because we all all remember the heartbreak stories. Yeah.

We all remember the heartbreak stories was liking someone, thinking we were going steady in air quotes, only to find out that he was taking someone else to the dance. Oh. Like the classic, like, thing you would see in, like, you know, a Y, A, A in a film, it was just, it was terrible, but I won't name his name because, you know. Yeah. Give him that gift. Give him a little grace.

Look at her now. Yeah, exactly. Oh, he is. He is definitely. Another question that we ask everyone is, do you have a particularly, is there a memory that you think of and it makes you, like, cringe or you, like, laugh at, like, how awkward and embarrassing you were or the situation was? So I planned out my outfits every Sunday.

Cute. No, no, not cute. For the whole week. Oh, no, no, for the whole week. Wow. Okay. But I grew up in Texas and everything was very matching. matchy. So my sister has a similar story of this, but like, we literally would like, if you had

like a pink collar, then you had to have like pink socks. So I basically walked out of the house looking like color blocks or like looking like I was like, you know, I don't know, war of like garanamals, like everything was just matchy and strange and, you know, patterns. I love that. And I ended up one day at the Borghese makeup counter at the department store. And they had just come out with a new line of eye shadows. And they gave you the instructions for how to do your eyeshadows. And I thought, well, let's take the pink that's in the sock and the pink that's in the color. And let's put that on the eye as well.

And let's have a whole situation. And I took that whole situation and I took a school photo. Oh, yes, it did. So that is my, like, I was so emboldened by my choices that I thought it would be good to document it. Yeah, I love that. If you have that photo, we'd love to see it. Yeah, I love that. That's so sweet. Really sweet, really endearing. And we'll be right back. Every day feels a little bit different. Some days it's all about focus. Some days it's all about focus. Some days it's all about

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and use code podcrushed for 15% off your order today. This episode of Podcrush is brought to you by Squarespace. You may or may not know that me and my good friend Penn Badgley are like technologically cursed. We're like those cartoons where there's like a little rain cloud that follows them around and only like one specific character. That's me and Penn whenever we're trying to access tech. Something goes wrong, which is why we were thrilled to discover Squarespace.

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and designed to make parenting a little easier. And the best part, no subscriptions ever. Restore your peace of mind with Harbor, the only baby monitor designed to never fail you. Plus, Harbor has a special deal for my listeners, use code podcrushed, or go to harbor.com slash podcrushed for $50 off and experience the security every parent deserves. That's H-A-R-B-O-R dot co-slash podcrushed. Tell us about how you got to your kind of professional start, like what was your path to becoming actor, producer, writer, what came first? How did that all happen? What came first is acting? I mean, and it's my

first love, and it's the thing I did as a kid, and like I said, in these after-school programs. And so when I left, so I studied art history in college, and I was writing, but I never thought I would do anything with art history, and I never thought I would be a writer in any way. I was like, I'm a performer, I want to be on stage. And so when I left college, soon thereafter, I, um, was on a, I had a small role in a soap opera in New York City. And that role got me an agent and then, you know, I'm off to Hollywood. And so there I really began my career as what they call a journeyman actor. And for listeners who really don't know what that is, it's like, you know, an actor who like is not, you don't have like, you're not famous, but they're like, you would show up.

They work enough to like pay the rent, keep the lights on, you know, and they don't have to have a second job, right? That was kind of what a journeyment, the height of a journey of an actor. And that's what I did for many, many, many years. And I loved, loved it. And when I, and I married along during that time, and I read about that in from scratch, Asato, my late husband, and, you know, he's Italian and we're in L.A. And everything's going well. And then when he was diagnosed, suddenly my acting career changed.

Because for anyone listening who has either had, an illness in their life or has been a caregiver. You know that you, well, for me, I put that first and showing up in that space was more valuable to me at that point in my life and in my marriage than like I wanted to book every job in Hollywood, right? That was not the case. So I had to slow down. I had to slow down my career. And in that void, in that slowing down, I missed, I didn't know how to be creative. I was like, oh, what do I do if there's no director and no set and no scripts and no costume? What do I do with this energy that I have while I'm really home a lot? And that's when I started taking writing classes. And I took writing classes through UCLA extension. I did them online.

And when I could get to a class in person, I would take one in person. And again, I'm not thinking I'm going to be a writer one day. I literally was just trying to use writing as a way to and my creativity to a really large life experience. I was in my 30s, right? And I had an ill husband. And I thought, what do I do with this? And so that's really where writing began. And honestly, I kind of stayed in and out of classes and workshops for like almost a decade because I didn't have like big aspirations for it. And I was still acting. And it was after Sato passed. And then a year or so, after that, that I really began to think, oh my gosh, what have I been doing

with all this writing? And is there something here? And it was really my sister who said, you have a story in you. Wow. You need to write it. And if you don't write it, I'm not going to speak to you. Oh, wow. Really?

Attica. I love that. She's my rider, and she sees something that I couldn't see. And I wasn't, I don't think I had the bravery or the belief in myself. But the one thing about a loss that teaches many of us is that once you've had the hardest thing happened, you kind of, and I don't know if I can use like, you know,

curse words on the show, you kind of like, you don't give fucks. Like, you're kind of like, the worst has happened. What's the worst that could happen if I endeavor to try this thing that I've never done before? And so that really is what put me on the path to writing. my book from scratch was really my own internal compass telling me that if I didn't endeavor to do it, I would suffer an additional grief. I wanted to write this down. And then it was like, how do I use all of the knowledge that I have as an actor and like all of my creative sensibilities and my understanding of the human condition and how do you build character and oh, what a scene look like? And how do I craft all these journals and all of these like

writing prompts I've done in classes into a book. And that became from scratch. And then from scratch was then later turned into a Netflix series. As you're telling us the story, the question just keeps coming up in my mind like, what was that like for you to see such a personal, intimate story of yours portrayed by other people? Of course, you had a big hand in crafting the story and writing it. But I'm just curious what it was like for you in the process of making it and then also once it came out. I've watched it twice through. I love the show. Oh, thank you, Sophie. Thank you. I'm going to tell you, I might spend seven lifetimes trying to be able to explain what this experience has been like because it is so surreal. It is so all-encompassing. It is so

big. It is so beautiful. It's so I feel this like reciprocity that's just it's not just not just just with, like, viewers, but with everyone who made the show. And so the thing that, like, making it, yeah, there were days when I was like, I cannot believe this is actually happening. How did I get here? And what? There's, like, you know, Zoe Southania is, like, enclosed that, like, are inspired to close.

What is actually happening? This is a mind, this is mind-blowing, right? Yeah. And at the same time, I was like, wow. And I don't have to have the answers or know the why. I just have to say yes and take the journey. And so I tried, I spent a lot of time when we're filming the series, really surrendering to the big, unbelievable, magical once in a lifetime, never shall it pass this way again type situation that it was. and then when it came out

I think in my brain it's kind of like when you write a book like you know you're doing it and you know intellectually someone will probably read this one day kind of new because obviously Netflix was involved like this is actually going to be on the platform

and people will probably watch it but I'm going to tell you right now no one prepares you for the moment when it all comes together and I literally like I am so humbled by what was manifested

and then when it went live and everyone around the globe immediately because it's all in real time in 80 something countries and suddenly I first of all was in like deep prayer and gratitude to Saro, my late husband,

because I felt him right there with me, like I get emotionally just telling you now. But I was like, I felt like his life and everything that he went through, I was like, I could see that it had added up through all the pain that there could still be beauty in it. Because here were all of these people, around the world

that he would never knew that never knew him that didn't even know that it was based on a real story were all saying things like I want to call my mom to talk to her or oh my gosh

this makes me want to be a better wife or a better husband or oh I've been thinking of this and I thought that's what his life was about and so that was really like I get chills

thinking about it it was beautiful I heard you say that and then we'll move on to your new audiobook but I heard you say that when you were writing from scratch

you really felt like you had to credit Sorrow as co-writing it with you. And I would love to hear more about that. I definitely believe in life after death and that when our loved ones passed, they're still with us in a new way. So that really resonated with me. Well, so here's the thing. Like in this conversation,

we've been talking about like all of these sort of like upstart moments, like when I became an actor and when I moved to New York and I'd done all these new things. My whole life, my adult life, every big new thing I'd done, he'd been there for it. Choosing to move to L.A. to become an actor, like getting my first acting job. Like, oh, got my first movie, like, he was always there. So it felt so weird to try to do a new big thing, i.e. write a book and not say, oh, my God, I wish you were here. So often I started my writing process by actually writing to him.

Like, I'd write a journal thing to him, or I'd, like, talk to him, or I'd like, and I was trying to, in some way, shore myself up with, and, like, fill my cup up with all of his love. so that I felt strong enough to write it. Does that make sense? And often because the book has so much food in it and it has so many recollections about like our life and things, I even found that, you know, I would often cook like a dish that he loved and that we made together before I would write. Some of it was procrastination, for sure.

But some of it was also just, I think I needed to anchor in to write our story and to write the story my remembrance of him, I needed to grab hold of all the parts of him that still remained alive for me. And that's why I say

I feel like he was writing side saddle with me as I wrote that book. That's beautiful. I'm curious, you know, we're going to get to your new audiobook someday now. You say something in the audio book.

You talk about Sicily. You're going on this kind of like this college moon trip with your daughter. You talk about Sicily as like this place that's perfectly situated to like receive travelers and, you know, like people who are strangers. And you kind of talk about it in this sort of spiritual way. And I was thinking about my, my parents actually live in Florence in Italy. And my parents have gone to Sicily. Many times my mother is obsessed with Sicily. She loves it. I think it just has that effect on people. Yes, it does. And she,

has said similar things. I remember her calling me when she was in Sicily for the first time talking about how she felt like there was just this special spiritual energy. And some of that is about like where it is situated like on, you know, certain types of rock. And I don't remember exactly what she said. You probably know. But it made me curious about your own relationship to spirituality and what does that look like if there is any. Oh, this is such a great Great, great, great question. And thank you for pulling that forward out of the book because I kind of like had to ask myself this question of like,

why does this place call to me? And I've had many answers for it. But when I began to write this book and because I was returning there to write the book, I was really like focused on that question. And the answers that emerged for me as I began to not only just listen to my inner heart and sort of my own remembrances, but also listen to the place, is that there is something beautifully,

naturally spiritual about Sicily. And I do not, I'm not someone who goes to church regularly. I grew up in and around the church. I consider myself a very spiritual person. But nature is like my conduit to spirit. And what I mean by that is like the genera force behind all that is, right?

And so when I find myself in a place like Sicily, where there literally is sun, wind, earth, sea, you have all of the natural elements coalescing on a volcanic rock that is sandwiched between Europe, Africa, the Middle East. It is like in this space that is vibrating at a certain kind of energy. And I only, for me, I can say that when I get there, I breathe a little deeper.

Like my shoulders relax just a little bit. And I say, what is that? And I think some of it is the natural element. And I think there's a lot of you can connect to spirit easily in a place like Sicily. If it's just by sitting by the shore and listening to the waves, if it's going to a volcano and making you for a moment, contemplate the magma from the center of the earth that is spewing out. I mean, it's like bananas, it's bananas. And suddenly your relationship as a human being to the cosmos, to nature, to the earth itself, you can't help but have to engage it on

some level and start to ask some kind of questions, right? And so for me, I find that my spirituality, I'm able to really explore it. And in this book, of course, I found that nature was that entry point for me and in this season that I write about in the book. Yeah, I think that's so relatable. When you talked about like the sea, the sand, the wind, I forget all the things you mentioned, but I thought immediately of Cape Town.

I've only been once, but that's how I felt there too. It's like it's all coalescing, all the elements, all of the nature is like, it's so strong. So, so strong. And I think that places like that on our planet are very, that vibrate at that level are very special. And this is like independent of culture, independent of the people who are there. I'm just literally talking at the level of the land and at the level of the topography and the geography and the like Earth history. It's beautiful.

And I think that, you know, that Cicely has that. I was just going to observe in my, like, faith practice, we have this understanding of God as, like, the creator, this unknowable essence that you can know through attributes. So, like, generosity, justice. But obviously, maybe the attribute that most of us associate with God is creator. And we have this sense that, like, each one of us can also manifest these attributes not to the same degree as God. God, but that each one of us will manifest these attributes, but we'll have core ones that will be like the most vibrant within us. And so I think within you, I can obviously see that like being a creator is really prominent. So it also makes sense to me that you would really connect with like

a place where you can like see the creation. Like that just makes a lot of sense. I think it resonates with who you are. Yes, I take that in. I receive that and it resonates with me. And I will also say that I do think you're right. I believe my faith in humanity and in spirit and in all that is, is that there is a peace of God, if you want to use that word, spirit, in all of us, there is a divine light within all of us. And that is really the guiding principle of how I move through the world and how the connective tissue I find in so many faiths is that we're all seeking to be.

be as closely connected to that light as possible. And in relation to that light, receiving it, emanating it, radiating it, sharing it. And so creativity is a way that we are sharing a light, right? The light that we carry, but also hopefully the greater, bigger light. Yeah. That's beautiful to be beautifully put. Stick around. We'll be right back. Let's talk about collagen. It's the body's most abundant protein

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to be intimately told as a story so that you're just like in this ride-along, immersive experience with me as I bring the listener with me on this one summer that I take my family to Sicily when everything is changing, big inflection point.

And what is unique about it is that I also chose to record the island. And what I mean by that is to record the sounds, original sounds, the voices of the language of the sea as we talk about, of like the wind through the trees, like what is the, you know, the vespas on the cobblestone streets, what do they sound like? And so I did all of this sound capture separate from my writing. And then I put them together. And so when you listen to this audiobook, what I hope it does is it is, yes, fully immersive, but it transports the listener to Sicily, right?

And so that they, whether you've been there or you've not been there, but that the place come alive to you, the way it comes alive for me. So I call it like almost like a double memoir. Like it's the memoir, the story of like my family and what we're going through and all the things that are coming up. But it's also kind of, it's a memoir of this place at this moment in time. Because one of the things I do know about it and about life in general is that nothing is static.

And all the Sicily, largely in many ways, remains unchanged because people like, like it that way. But life is always changing. And in time, 10, 20 years from now, the place might not sound the exact same way. So this is a capture of a moment in time. Beautiful. You say in the audiobook, somewhere near the beginning, you said, I wrote it down. Some days middle age brought the same emotional awkwardness I had felt in middle school just with bills and a stiff back, which I thought was so funny and so perfect for podcrushed. And I was curious what parallels you have seen with the awkwardness of adolescence and intimate life. Well, I'm going to just speak. Can I just go bluntly here?

Let's just start with the most obvious biological thing. Hormones. Yeah. Is that the hormones surge upward and into the system and they take over and they rearrange your thinking and how you move in the world and your body gets awkward and so strange and you don't know kind of what's going on. And then, in the middle light, they decide to exit so quickly overnight with no warning. And you were like, wait, hold on, I thought we were friends. I thought we were here for me. And now the body's changing, the mind's changing. You're not sleeping well.

So, like, just at a biological level, there's symmetry. At a biological level, there's symmetry. Yeah. And so from that follows, I think you are really, asking yourself and investigating and in middle in like you know adolescence you're kind of imagining who you might be in the world and I think when you get to midlife you're reimagining who you might be and I found that many of the things that I have I turn to now I go back and I look at like my middle school self and it's like some of the same stuff I was interested in

but now I get as a full grown like woman you know to like fully lean into and explore and deepen with intentionality. And so I think it's just a season of, they're both seasons of great change, but they're also seasons of great possibility, right? And I think if we treat them with grace and in that way, I think, and we like, just as society is really like acknowledged, like, okay, adolescence is its own developmental stage.

I think, yes, midlife, but certainly when a family and when, if you've been a parent and the child leaves home, there is, it's a new season of life and it takes time to get your sea legs and to know kind of what's what and what's the family dynamic going to be like, who are you? Like, what's your new motherhood look like? What's the relationship with the child that you raised who's now, you know, an adult is someone, I heard someone say the other night, a cadult. That was lovely. It was very cute. I feel like a prominent theme in Someday Now is renewal and sort of like reframing an experience that you could take as one maybe negative or like empty nesting and transmuting it to renewal. And I think that's so encouraging because often it's sort of like, you know, once you turn 40, like they'll start winding everything down. I mean, I think a lot of like a cultural message that we've gotten. And I would tell you, I am here to lead the train.

Right? I will lead us to the front lines of like, let's dispel that. Let's get rid of that. Let's just call that the old way. And the new way is like, this is a beautiful, positive, you know, ripe time that we can, that is full of potentiality and to define a whole season of life. Like, and by the way, if you're in your 40s, you might have another 40 years. That's all going to just be empty. Yeah, exactly. It's true. Because I just kind of figured it out in my 30s. Like, I just kind of figured it out. And then it just drops off a cliff. Like, it makes no sense. And so we really, it's, it, it, it, it, it, it, I refused.

I rebuked defining my life by a negative or an absence or something that was limiting. And I really wanted to do. I love that. And I really wanted to do the reframe and call it renezzlement. not empty nesting because you are reimagining, redefining, re-tooling, and pouring into yourself in a new way in the season of life. I'm sure that people have written about this specific experience of re-nesting before, but I've never come across anything like that. And it was making me think about my own experience with my parents. I remember when my eldest brother went college the day before we dropped him off because we all went. I was up late at night.

We were at my grandmother's house and I was on, you know, chatting with my friends back home over the summer and my dad just like wandered out in the middle of the night into the living room crying. And I had only seen him cry once before and it was when his father had passed away a few years prior. And it was just, it was so disorienting to me. I'd never seen anything like that. I think he was in a state of disorientation, you know. It was so, confusing for him. But my parents have gone on to one thing of things I really admire about them is that they have really continued to live their life. I think they have renested. They definitely do not consider themselves empty nesters. And I think, yeah, people are going to find

this so inspiring. Thank you. So, I thank you. And I want to just for anyone listening and you point out that in your share, I think you said something really, powerful that a parent who you hadn't seen cry or be emotional or only one time before, which was at the loss of their parent. And that now their child was leaving, which was being experienced as an additional loss. And I do want to just say out loud that it is very normal to have an experience of some level of grief embedded within the experience because it is an ending. the childhood as you know it and the family unit as it was and as you created it and as you shaped it over me

that is ending something new is coming but you don't know what that thing is yet and in that moment in that liminal pivotal space so much comes up and if you have had loss a pivotal loss a primary loss in your life often this season will magnetize that earlier loss and kind of dial it up a little bit And I just want people, I just want to, I feel compelled to share that and say it out loud because I, when it was coming up for me, I was like, why do I feel so discombobulated? And why do I feel this grief? Like I should just be happy. She's finishing. She's like, I'm excited for her. And I was and I am. And also, because many things can be true. Yeah. I know that's, I think that's important that you highlight that. You talk about starting a new tradition with your daughter, Zoella, on the. this trip and sending postcards to yourself back home on your travels. And I thought that was so sweet and it made me wonder about, I mean, I think that's part of the process of changing this from empty nesting to re-nesting probably is like leaning into this new phase is to make it exciting, to make it special and novel and start new traditions. And I'm curious, is that something

that you are good at generally. I, as somebody who struggles to create traditions and stick to traditions, I find myself feeling like wistful about that, learning about that. Oh, I think because of the things we start, we started this conversation talking about me going to four different schools and different houses. And so I think on some level, I've always created ritual and I've craved tradition and craved that. And sometimes I was left alone to kind of find it for myself. But I will really say it was deep into my adult life and it was when I became widowed that it really punctuated for me

the value of ritual and tradition. One, I felt like I just really needed it for myself. But I also had a child who'd experienced a loss and I needed to, ritual gave us anchors. It gave us things. that we could count on. And it made us agents in the thing that we wanted to create. And so that's when I really got serious about those kinds of practices. And the postcards really came about as like a fun thing we would do. I'd be like, oh, like let's send a note back to ourselves and it'll be waiting for us at the house when we get there and we'll remember our time here.

And we, you know, we still continue. I do that for myself. It's just a fun thing to do. and often I'll send like a quote or something that's just a reminder. I also like postcards. I think they're cool. But I do think having a little bit of that in our lives is really valuable, particularly if you don't grow up in a faith tradition that has rituals, you know,

or your family didn't do, you couldn't count on that same Christmas in the same place every year. You know, as an adult, we get to choose and bring consistency into our lives. lives in very intentional ways that can be really lifting and fortifying and very connective. And so I say if there's something you like, ritualize it. Yeah. Like it's a good thing. I love that. I'm very close. I with my mom passed away about a decade ago. I'm very close with my dad. And we live together in the same city for the first time in like 20 years. And we have these little rituals that we've created. We never had rituals before, but we have these little rituals that we've created. And I found that like even if like last summer I was going through

like a really, I felt like a betrayal, like a very difficult situation. And I didn't ever talk to my dad about it. I just felt like he couldn't, it would have been overwhelming for him. But our little rituals, like knowing that I was going to go to his house and I knew exactly what we were going to do. And it really like was a big part of my healing process. And I wouldn't have considered that before. But it just like calms down my nervous system that I know exactly what's going to happen. and it's something that we enjoy, and it's brought us so much joy to establish these little rituals together.

Absolutely. And it's like, I think they're wonderful. And particularly, I really resonate with what you're saying with a parent and after a loss. Like, you need that, the thing that you can count on and look forward to is just awesome. I have one more question about Robert. It seems like in learning about your life,

Robert has been so intentional in the role he plays in both your life and Zoella's life and I saw there was a quote when you showed him from scratch which you were quite nervous to do because it's your love story it's a vulnerable thing to share with a new partner he said this is a gift to me because it's a template to your heart which I've done oh god that is so so sweet and so understanding And I'm curious what you've learned about inviting and welcoming a new family member into the fold, specifically after loss, for anyone who's navigating those same waters. Oh my gosh. I could, I mean, I could first of all talk about this for like so long and we could have like whole podcast, you know, on that and write a book on it because it really is, it's a big deal. It's like not not a big deal. but also you use the right word.

You said intentional. And I think particularly for blended families, families blended after a loss, coming in to a family unit and seeking to mel together and build a new bridge of trust when you, you know, aren't coming from the same starting point. And one of the things that, you know, Robert learned really early on, is that for a child who's had loss, any perceived inconsistency can be perceived as another potential loss,

which then can be an impediment to getting close. So you have to be consistent because you're saying, like, I'm going to be here. And I'm not policing. I'm not, you know, I just want to be a point of presence. That's his words. A point of presence in your life. And that, I really am grateful to him for being willing to show up in that way. You know, there are lots of, like, hard conversations and navigating it.

And it's not always easy, but so many families in America, I think it's something like one in three, one in every third person on the street is in some form of a blended family. Either they are parents were divorced or they're partnered with somebody who is divorced. Like, in some way, it's a very, common American experience, and it has its nuances. And I think making space for each person to have their own individual experience is really important. And to like, you know, I often felt like I was like the connective tissue between the two of them, and I wanted it to work out like so, so well, you know. And yet I also know I had to give it space because you can't force anything. You can

hope for the highest and best. And for any, you know, families listening, I would just say, take your time, listen to the kids, do check-ins, you know, really be willing to have honest conversations, which aren't always easy. Get a family therapist if you need a family therapist. Shout out to all the family therapists out there. You know, I think these things are really, really important. Tembi, we have a closing question that we ask every guest, which is if you could go back to 12-year-old Temby and say or do anything, what would you say? What would you do? Oh my gosh. I would tell 12-year-old Temby, you're going to have so much fun. You're going to have fun. It's coming. You will have fun. And just don't forget that. Don't forget that in the

of everything else. Don't forget that. And I think that's what's on my heart to say. I love that. Yeah, we've never gotten that answer. Yeah, because I think like 12 is that like cusp when you're still like a kid and you still like no fun. But by the time you get 13, 14 and it's all like, oh, I got to do well at school to get to

college. And it's all becomes like the fun, you know, you lose that I'm that like, I'm thinking of like the ripples in the lake, you know, just like that. smooth flowing water of joy that you can access so easily as a kid, and it takes a while to get back to it, but you can come back to it. That's what I would say. Beautiful. This was so lovely. You're such a special person. I'm so honored that we got to spend time with you. Thank you, Nav. I'm so honored. Sophie, thank you so much. You guys ask great questions. I can't wait to you. Thank you. And shout out to your parents in Florence.

Hello. I know. They moved there because my dad was working for UNICEF and UNICEF has a research center there. And my mom, after years of, you know, Pakistan, Albania, China, she said, it's time we go to Florence. You can listen to someday now, anywhere you get your audiobooks, and you can follow Tembilok online at Tembilok. Pod Crush is hosted by Penn Badgley, Navakavalin, and Sophie Ansari. Our senior producer is David Ansari, and our editing is done by Clips Agency. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet, now's the perfect time, because guess what? You can listen completely ad-free.

Plus, you'll unlock exclusive bonus content, like the time we talked to Luca Bravo about the profound effect that the film Into the Wild had on him. The conversation was so moving, and you are not going to hear it anywhere else. Just tap the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, or head to Lemonada Premium.com to subscribe on any other app. That's Lemonada Premium.com. Don't miss out. And as always,

you can listen to Pod Crush ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership. Okay, that's all. Bye. The first week we started recording for Pod Crushed in the spring of 2021. We began with what was supposed to be the fun part.

If you're a day one, that's a fan from Day One, Mom. You'll remember that every episode of Season 1 included a real story from one of our listeners, narrated by me, some punchy sound effects and music by our trusty engineer and music producer, David. We were still kicking this idea around, not sure how to best capture the middle school zeitgeist from the submissions we received,

but the point was undoubtedly to be funny. There were a few stories with a sobering gravity we loved, but stories of grief weren't how we believed we should introduce ourselves. We thought our listeners would want to laugh. Waiting for Nava, Sophie, and David to arrive for our first recording session on an overcast early spring day in Los Angeles, I sat at the head of a very long wooden table, archetypically long,

Game of Thrones long. It was a halved tree trunk, nestled in the grotto-like succulent garden of a very strange and viby house in Venice. I was renting with my wife and our two boys. A healthy distance from Hollywood, I was nonetheless filming the third season of You in the middle of the pandemic before the vaccines came.

It was a surreal and intense period being so isolated with a newborn and an 11-year-old, especially while the stringency of COVID protocols for my work demanded that we be a very conservative COVID family. My wife and I would every so often host a friend or two at Aragorn's table in the garden, evidently made for socially distant dining, if not plotting a siege. Underneath the table was a spider colony, so we didn't sit at this table any other time. Never. Our Siberian husky would often lie on it like a dead horse with his limbs sticking straight out, or perched sphinx-like and regal with his legs crossed, always evoking Game of Thrones imagery.

but no human being felt natural or casual sitting at this grand, rotting spider-infested outdoor table. Preparing to push this super-duper fun podcast of mine into existence, however, I found myself sitting down at the head with a transcendent gaze, uncharacteristically free from any fear of spiders. I had just received news that struck me like lightning. The girl with whom I'd had my first real relationship, having dated for five of our teenage years, undoubtedly one of my closest friends from youth, had died at 33, ultimately from the effects of 20

years of alcohol abuse. Want to listen to your favorite Lemonada shows without the ads? Subscribe to Lemonada Premium on Apple Podcasts. You'll get ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content from shows like Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus, Fail Better with David DeCovny, the Sarah Silverman podcast, and so many more. It's a great way to support the work we do and treat yourself to smoother uninterrupted listening experience. Just head to any Lemonada show feed on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe. Make Life suck less with fewer ads with Lemonada Premium. Are you looking for ways to make your everyday life happier, healthier, more productive and more creative? I'm Gretchen

Rubin, the number one bestselling author of The Happiness Project, bringing you fresh insights and practical solutions in the Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister, Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Craft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore ideas and hacks about cultivating happiness and good habits. Check out Happier with Gretchen Rubin from Lemonada Media.