The Daily - A Bit of Relief: Introducing 'Sugar Calling'

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

Today, we’re sharing an excerpt from a new Times audio series called “Sugar Calling,” hosted by the best-selling author Cheryl Strayed. Each week, Cheryl will call a writer she admires in search of insight and courage. She’s turning to some of the most prolific writers of our time — all over the age of 60 — to ask the questions on all our minds: How do we stay calm when everything has been upended? How do we muster courage when fear is all around us?To start, Cheryl reaches out to the author George Saunders, her old friend and mentor."Sugar Calling" is a new podcast by The New York Times. You can listen to the full version of the first episode here.

George. Hello. Hi, it's Cheryl. I know. How are you doing? Good. We're hanging in here. Hi, I'm Cheryl Strayed. I'm a writer and some people know me as Dear Sugar. So a couple of days ago, I called my old friend and writing teacher, George Saunders, to check in. Self-isolating even more than we usually do, which is really saying something. Right. To be a writer and told, okay, now you have to socially distance. And you're like, yeah, that's what I've been doing for decades, right? To some degree. Exactly. If you don't know George's work, you're in for a treat. He's a magnificent

writer. He's written several books, among them Lincoln and the Bardo, Pastorelia, 10th of December. He's also written many beautiful short stories that appear in The New Yorker. And whenever I read his work, I get that feeling of magnificence, that feeling of being truly transformed and lifted. He's done it as a writer, but he's also done it as a person. Where I was once one of your students and you were my teacher and mentor. Star students, I made it.

That's right. That's my main claim. I first met him in August of 1999, getting my MFA in fiction writing at Syracuse University. He's long been a source for me of wisdom when I feel lost and when I feel like I need to be in some ways transported out of whatever moment I'm in into something bigger. That's really strange. Yeah. You know, we've been lucky not to be sick, at least yet.

But beyond us, there are really painful and hard and difficult things happening to a lot of people around the globe. And that to me, you know, I have to say, has been terrifying, and it's been distracting. And I'm curious how you've been responding to that emotionally. Well, I think, you know, in some ways it's, I don't know, like it's always happening, you know, there's always misery. But, you know, I also think I've noticed about myself that in times like this, my mind wants to have answers for everything. You know, I want to have a take on things to give myself comfort. You know, it's kind of like, I think of it like, you know, when you slip on the ice and then that split second before you're about to hit the ground, that's really, you know, having no take. You're

just out of control and the pavement's rushing up. So I think sometimes you just go, yeah, we're in that moment. You know, we can pretend that we can stop time and have a take on hitting the pavement, you know, or being mindful as we hit the pavement. But in fact, it's really unknown what's happening. And, you know, I think especially for writers, it's both confusing and important, I think, to say, yeah, we don't know. We have to keep our sensory apparatus as open as we can so we don't miss any actual data. And to do that in the face of one's own anxiety is kind of difficult. don't miss any actual data. And to do that in the face of one's own anxiety is kind of difficult.

It is. And, you know, as you're talking, you're reminding me, you told me about an email you wrote to your students, your graduate students. George is still a professor of creative writing at Syracuse. And when I reached out to him recently, he mentioned that he wrote a note to his students there when they found out the school was shutting down. And I'm wondering if you could read to me what you wrote to them. Sure, sure. No, I'd be happy to. This goes like this. Dear SU writers, geez, what a hard and depressing and scary time. So much suffering and anxiety everywhere.

I saw this bee happily buzzing around a flower yesterday and felt like, moron, if you only knew. But it also occurs to me that this is when the world needs our eyes and ears and minds. This has never happened before here, at least not since 1918. We are, and especially you are, the generation that is going to have to help us make sense of this and recover afterwards. What new forms might you invent to fictionalize an event like this, where all of the drama is happening in private, essentially? Are you keeping records of the emails and texts you're getting, the thoughts you're having, the way your hearts and minds are reacting to this strange new way of living?

It's all important. reacting to this strange new way of living. It's all important. 50 years from now, people the age you are now won't believe this ever happened, or will do the sort of eye roll we all do when someone tells us about something crazy that happened in 1960. What will convince that future kid is what you were able to write about this, and what you're able to write about it will depend on how much sharp attention you're paying now and what records you keep. Also, I think with how open you can keep your heart. I'm trying to practice feeling something like, ah, so this is happening now,

or hmm, so this too is part of life on Earth. Did not know that, universe. Thanks so much, stinker. And then I real quick try to pretend I didn't just call the universe a stinker. I did a piece once where I went to live incognito in a homeless camp in Fresno for a week. Very intense, but the best thing I heard in there was from this older guy from Guatemala, who was always saying, everything is always keep changing. Truer words were never spoken. It's only when we expect solidity, non-change, that we get taken by surprise. And we always expect solidity, no matter how well we know better. Well, this is all sounding

a little preachy, and let me confess that I'm not taking my own advice at all. It's all happening so fast. Paula has what we are hoping is just a bad cold, and I'm doing a lot of inept caregiving. Our dogs can feel that something weird is going on. No walk again? But I guess what I'm trying to say is that the world is like a sleeping tiger, and we tend to live our lives there on its back. We're much smaller than the tiger, obviously. We're like Barbies and Kens on the back of a tiger.

Now and then that tiger wakes up, and that is terrifying. Sometimes it wakes up and someone we love dies, or someone breaks our heart, or there's a pandemic. But this is far from the first time that Tiger has come awake. He, she has been doing it since the beginning of time and will never stop doing it. And always there have been writers to observe it and later make some sort of sense of it or at least bear witness to it. It's good for the world for a writer to bear witness, and it's good for the writer too, especially if she can bear witness with love and humor and, despite it all, some fondness for the world,

just as it's manifesting, warts and all. All of this to say, there's still work to be done, and now more than ever. There's a beautiful story about the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Her husband was shot and her son arrested during the Stalinist purges. One day she was standing outside the prison with hundreds of other women in similar situations. It's Russian cold and they have to go there every day, wait for hours in this big open yard, then get the answer that today and every day there will be no

news. But every day they keep coming back. A woman recognizing her as the famous poet says, poet, can you write this? And Akhmatova thinks about it for a second and goes, yes. Yes. I wish you all the best during this crazy period. Someday soon, things will be back to some sort of normal, and it will be easier to be happy again. I believe this, and I hope it for each one of you. I look forward to seeing you all again and working with you, and even in time with sufficient PPE, give you a handshake or hug. Please feel free to email anytime for any reason, George.

George, that was beautiful. This letter to me sums up George. The generosity, the kindness, the wisdom, and also a dash of humor. Talking to him just makes me feel better. Writing is the way I make sense of almost everything in my life. And it's talking to writers that's giving me comfort right now. So I'm going to keep doing this every week, have conversations with writers I admire about this moment we're in. Writers who are over the age of 60 in particular. They've been around a while. I figure they might have some wisdom for me.

a while. I figure they might have some wisdom for me. It's my new show, Sugar Calling. George, thank you so much for talking to me. I carry you in my heart all the time, and I hope you and Paula are well. And right now, you can listen to my entire conversation with George Saunders by subscribing to Sugar Calling wherever you get your podcasts. Take care and be well.