We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - How to Create Your Own Belonging with Michelle Zauner (Best Of)

Episode Date: June 15, 2025

Michelle Zauner on how to begin healing our mother wounds, using her sensitivity to deepen her relationships and be a rockstar, why she’s obsessed with sheetcake and winnebagos, and why she is still “afraid of her mental health.”  About Michelle:  MICHELLE ZAUNER is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy, shoegaze-inspired indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Her most recent album, Jubilee, earned two GRAMMY nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album. Her first book, Crying in H Mart, is a New York Times Best Seller. She’s currently adapting the memoir for the screen for MGM’s Orion Pictures. TW: ⁠@jbrekkie⁠ IG: ⁠@jbrekkie To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the kids can head to bed while the grown-ups wind down in peace. When there's more space to connect, unwind, and feel at home, the trip just feels better. So if you're planning to explore Canada this summer, make it unforgettable with Airbnb. Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. We're going to explain to you right away why we're a little extra sweaty today. And that is because our guest today is Michelle Zahner. Michelle Zahner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy shoegaze-inspired indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast.

She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psycho Pomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet and her most recent album Jub Jubilee, earned two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album. Her first book, Crying in H Mart, is the book I have given to the most people, is one of my favorite memoirs of all time, and is a New York Times bestseller.

She's currently adapting the memoir for the screen for MGM's Orion Pictures. Okay, Michelle's honor. I know that you're an icon and the world is obsessed with you, but we have loved you for a very, very long time, since the beginning. Okay, we have three children. Two of them write the music columns

for their high school and their college. And they, so music is a really high school and their college. And they said music is a really big deal in our family. And since Psycho Pump, like since the beginning, our house has been full of your voice. Every car ride. Yes. Wow, what an honor. And then one day we were in this little indie bookstore in our town and I remember walking

by a shelf and Chase, our oldest said, that is Michelle's Honor's book, Crying in H Mart. And I don't know, I mean, I knew from your lyrics that this book was going to be good, but holy shit, Crying in H Mart is so flipping beautiful. It's like your music, I don't like music that's like too cheerful at trying to trick me that the world is not shit. And I don't like music that's too depressing, like trying to kill me by only focusing that the world is shit. And your music, it invites me into the singular ache. And then it like widens to everybody. Every time it's like this alone together feeling listening to you, which is the same as your memoir.

So hi Michelle. Thanks for being with us and for all your work. This has been a great interview. Bye bye. Thank you so much for your time. Bye Michelle. Thank you. I'm Glennon. This is Abby. This is Amanda. Hi. I'm so delighted to get to chat with you all. I feel like I always was like, who is Glennon Doyle? She just lives on the New York Times bestseller.

I was like, who is this woman? She's incredible. And the reason why you know that is because you saw your book there for… 60 weeks. I was like, my neighbor. We lived together. There she is. We've been neighbors for some time and I'm so excited to put, you know, a person to the

name. Us too. So you are a rock star, award-winning writer, and all of this artistic brilliance has been brewing and building in you since childhood, but it really took off after the death of your mother. And the love story between you two is just epic. It just moved me so deeply. She moved me so deeply. And you say that she was not a mommy mom.

Pod Squad, listen to what Michelle says a mommy mom is. Okay. A mommy mom is a mom who takes an interest in everything her kid has to say, even when there is no actual way she gives a shit. Who whisks you away to the hospital when you complain of the slightest ailment, who tells you they're just jealous

if someone makes fun of you, I did that yesterday. Or you always look beautiful to me, even if you don't. Or I love this when you give them a piece of crap for Christmas. So, Michelle, that was not your mom. That was not my mom at all. I think a lot of my friends had mommy moms and it took me a really long time to understand my mother's affection and I think a large part of that were you know cultural differences.

My mom grew up in Korea and didn't immigrate to the States until after I was born and so she was really learning a lot. I think I just didn't understand that type of affection until I was older. There's a lot of like behind the scenes kind of like action, but she was very, very critical. And it created a very ambitious and like self-aware person in me in a way that I really value now, but was certainly at a young age, very difficult. I always compare my mom to my husband's mom, who is big time mommy mom. And whenever I got fired from a job, Fran, who's Peter's mom, would say like,

oh my God, that's just so typical of the man. They don't know what they're losing and all the stuff. My mom, when I got fired from my waitressing job that I had worked at for a year, and I was really upset because I was like, I was their best server. I can't believe they did that. Was just like, well, Michelle, anyone can carry a tray. It was just like very, very brutal. But it made me a much stronger person.

But growing up with that was like pretty challenging, I think, to be a young person. So you said her love was tougher than tough. It saw what was best for you 10 steps ahead and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. That's like the opposite of American parenting. I mean, there's something that's really important about that. Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think that I hope that when I have a child that I will find a good balance between both methods of parenting because I think that both are really important. And I can't imagine being a parent and figuring out the right way to do that. For instance, I went to piano lessons since I was five years old and I went to Korean language school every Friday when all of my friends were enjoying their weekends and I hated it. And my mom would never let me quit because she was like, you know, you have to practice piano 30 minutes every day. You're going to really regret not learning language. And I hated it so much. And now as an adult, like those are the two things that I find myself really wanting to excel at. And all of the things that she encouraged me to do are things that

she was so right about were things that I was going to really regret not focusing on during this really formative time. But I don't know if a mommy mom had gotten that sort of feedback from their kid. If they're like, if you don't want to do it, that's fine. I think there would be some regret there too that at that age, you do kind of need a little bit of a push to do some things that you don't want to do. So I think it's a really tough balance for for any parent and I don't know exactly what the right way is but I can see the sort of benefits and consequences of both styles of parenting. This might be a tangent but do you ever think about

whether that's a chicken or an egg situation, the piano and learning Korean? Like do you think it is because she prioritized those so much that you're drawn to them or is it? Oh yeah, all the time. Some days I'm like, maybe if my mother was so encouraging about me pursuing the arts that I wouldn't have wanted it so badly or I wouldn't have had to prove to myself time and time and again that this was what I really wanted and I wouldn't have ended up doing it.

Maybe it was like part of her large ploy all along. To make sure that I... She was 10 steps ahead. Yeah, she was 10 steps ahead. Maybe she was like, if I like withhold this like from her, then she'll have to really work hard for it. And that is what you need in a way to succeed at that kind of thing. And along with a lot of luck.

Yeah. I think about that all the time. I mean, I think also like whenever someone dies, you really romanticize like the things, be it positive or negative that they kind of leave behind. Like I remember I would hate it when my mom would like badger me to wear sunscreen, especially in like the 90s when that kind of like information wasn't as prioritized or whatever. I'd be like, why do I have to wear sunscreen? I'm 10 years old. I want to like hang out in the sun. I want to get a tan. And now my husband is always like getting badgered by me to like put sunscreen on and that kind of thing. And instead of being like, oh, maybe you're like being overbearing.

I'm like, oh, that's your mom. Like you're just being like your mom. So yeah, I think it's kind of a sweet thing. So did you say your mom wanted you to take the piano lesson? Because wasn't your interest in music a source of tension between the two of you? Was it the kind of music? Because your mom didn't want you to be into music. Is that correct? Yeah. This is the thing I like do not understand with Asian parents.

A lot of times, most of them will force you to learn an instrument, but God forbid you do something creative with it. So yeah, I don't know why it's so essential to play piano or violin in Asian culture. But I think a big thing was I never liked piano. I was very impatient and not very good at it. And I think that when I was 15, I started begging for a guitar because it was so much cooler. And my mom was kind of like, I've dropped thousands of dollars on this piano lessons you never pay attention to.

Why are we going to start doing guitar lessons now. And I get it because I feel like, you know, even with friends of mine, I'm like, this is a fleeting interest. It's like hard as like a loved one to just be like, do you really like, you know, need to start a crop garden or whatever, or like skateboarding in your 30s, like give it up. But yeah, I mean, I think that she just was like, I've watched you like discard so many passions. Like you probably watched your kids, you know, go through all the time that

I think it was hard for her to be supportive of this thing. At what she felt was like a very crucial age, which was like 16 and things are ramping up for college and you have to really double down to like get your life together. That she was just like, we've given you everything and I don't think you really know what's at the other side of living a life of an artist. And she felt like it was her duty to kind of protect me from that. And I totally understand it, but at the time I was like, you are like a tower of evil. Yeah. Keeping me from my true calling, you know?

And so that was sort of the beginning of our tumultuous like teenage puberty years. So there were a bunch of years that you said that you kind of missed each other, anger, separation. You were feisty, she was baffled. Tell us about that time and how it kind of impacted your relationship. Yeah. I mean, I think it's no surprise that I grew up with two extremely loud, opinionated, independent parents and they were so shocked when their kid doubled down on that in her own personality. My mom grew up in Korea, married a white guy, moved away from her family, hardly spoke the

language and took off and led a life of her own. And that was pretty rebellious and independent on her part. So yeah, I had that kind of spirit in me. And I grew up in the Pacific Northwest in Eugene, Oregon in a small college town that had very little diversity and really wanted to strike out on my own path. And there's like a really wonderful music community in that town. It's a very artsy, creative kind of town. And so I was naturally sort of drawn to that. And it was the only

thing that sort of felt like it had meaning in my life around the age of 15 or 16 when you're like so full of like these really intense emotions. And I just knew that that was sort of what I wanted to do at the time. And around that time, my grades started suffering and I was saying crazy things like, I don't know if I want to go to college. And my mom was like, this is World War III. She's out of control. She's out of control. And I think she just tried to double down and trying to at least protect me from that and make sure I went to college

and neither one of my parents went to college. It was very, very important that I go and here's this woman who feels like I've given this person every opportunity I never had and she's really bungling this and I need to fix it. And that was really hard for me and her love was very... she could be very critical. And I had never seen other parents sort of so brutally honest like that about just, you know, she hated everything I wore and there was no just like, oh, this is a face, she'll grow out of it. It's just like, why do you torture me with wearing this ugly shit all the time?

We just really butt heads. We were two very strong women that were not going to like lay it down. And it went on like that until I went to college. And I think she sort of felt like, okay, my job has come to a certain kind of end. You know, she's out of my house and I did everything that I could and now she's on her own. And I was kind of like, how do I do laundry? Just one more thing. Just one more thing. Can I do laundry? Yeah. Yeah. Like, and I think I just was like, oh wow, mom does a lot. You know?

And I was a young, confused feminist. My mom was a homemaker and I think as a young, confused, feminist. My mom was a homemaker, and I think as a teenager, I sort of looked down on that. I just didn't respect her in a way. And it wasn't until I went to college that I began to see all of this invisible labor that she was talking about and understood just how much she provided for our family in this way that we were very privileged to have

and how cruel it was to mean that all my life. Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muscogee or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease the 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000.

Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to college, you come back and at some point you're sitting in the car and she says to you, I just never met someone like you before. And hearing that from your mom was deeply healing for you. Why was that so healing to hear that from her? I've always made this reference and I don't think it's ever gone well, but it's so important to me. But there's a scene in The Sopranos where Meadow and Carmella are fighting.

And Tony says to her, like, "'Don't worry, Carm, she'll return to you.'" And I feel like that's such a thing with a lot of mothers and daughters. I know a lot of mothers and daughters that sort of get to that place and you have to kind of go away in order to return to one another

and really see each other for the first time. And I think that was sort of what happened for us is like only until I was out of the house that she was able to sort of reflect on a lot of things. And I was also able to reflect on a lot of things and we were sort of able to come together. And also the age of being in your sort of early twenties. And finally, I really felt like I saw her not just as mom, but like as a human being with agency and her own passions and her own desires.

And I think she also felt that maybe this thing wasn't a passing phase because I kept with it and she could maybe start to see how important it was and see me in this sort of new light. And so her saying that to me was so moving because it's such a strange thing to say to a person that you made. Yes! That's why it was so incredible. It was like this moment to me when I read it.

It was this moment like where it felt like there was a magical shimmer around that moment where it was like a moment of individuation for the first time. Like she looked at you like you had just appeared. Like for the first moment, you weren't just a reflection of her. You were your own being. And she saw that for the first time. What a beautiful thing to say. Oh, the problem

this whole time is just that I've never met anybody like you. And I had the opposite reaction when I read that. I had the wind knocked out of me because I was like, oh, it feels so alienating. Like the person that's so connected to you, feeling so distinct and remote from you. You know, if your mom doesn't even connected to you, feeling so distinct and remote from you. You know, if your mom doesn't even intuitively get you, how is anyone going to get you? Wow, yeah. But then I hear what you're saying.

It's like for the first time, you weren't just something that existed to oppose her wishes. You existed as your own thing. It makes me think of the question, does love exist without understanding? In that moment where she was saying, oh, I've just never met anyone like you, that made me think, oh, she doesn't understand you. But maybe she was just understanding you

for the first time. Well, I think that is a really beautiful interpretation that I haven't encountered. And yeah, hearing that question, can love exist without understanding my initial, my immediate response is no. But then to look at that relationship that is clearly untrue. I know that my mom loved me very deeply, but there was a lot of misunderstanding there. You know, there was a real struggle for both of us to understand one another. And I think we certainly loved each other all along. But yeah, there was not a lot of understanding. So yeah,

I think that my initial, my immediate response to that question is like, no, how can you love someone that you don't understand? But I think that I've had experiences where that's not the case. But can't you understand somebody like thematically without understanding the details? Like, she could have looked at you and suddenly understood like your switch from piano to guitar was like her switch from Korea to America. That your individuation was just like her individuation. There can be understanding without the details being the same, where she can respect woman to woman, right? Yeah, I also think that-

Right? You can tell we've discussed this before. Yes, we spent a lot of time talking about this because the family I grew up in, my parents, they often didn't understand me, but the way that they expressed that was in this critical way. And in the way that this sentence for me felt

when I read it, it is like this curious way. I just never met somebody like you rather than where did you come from Abby? You know, like those are kind of very different situations. I wanna talk a little bit about your sensitivity. You described yourself as so sensitive. I also live with a sensitive person. What does it mean to you?

I think it means so many different things. I'm just deeply impacted by very ordinary things. I'm impacted by obviously the intense emotional stuff, but I'm also very moved by ordinary circumstances, I think. I've just always been that way. Things that normal people are supposed to adapt to and adjust to bring on this monumental wave of feeling for me as I navigate them.

I think my sensitivity as an artist can also be like hearing the most ordinary words. The other day I watched an interview with Cate Blanchett where she talked about how when she got her Oscar nomination, the news of her Oscar nomination, they celebrated her with sheet cake and how that's a very American thing. And just like the word Sheetcake was so evocative that I just had to write it down because I was just like, that's such a moving image that like conjures so many different things. Or like the word Winnebago. Like I think a lot of people ask me what my creative process is. And it is like, sometimes I just hear those two extremely ordinary American phrases or words or proper

nouns and I'm just floored. I think especially in music, you have such a small word count that a word like everyone, you hear sheet cake and I just feel like you just see a sheet cake and it conjures some very specific childhood memory and place and taste. I just feel like that is part of, at least for me in my work, is just finding those moments like that where you're like, how can I use that to conjure a moment for many different people really quickly? I think that's a lot of what we do as writers is pull on the strings of that for many different

people. Or there are certain things that you just know or like, I know this is a very, like, I have my own personal attachment to this, but I have this intuition that it's going to touch a lot of different people too. And they could be all these collections of little details. Like everyone has a certain connotation of like a neighborhood TJ Maxx that for me, TJ Maxx was like a major place for my, it was like a holy ground for my mom. I think that sort of sensitivity allows me to think like, this should belong here.

And later down the line, there will be maybe like a dozen people that are like, yeah, TJ Maxx is like moving in an important place. I mean, that's essentially what crying in H Mart is. I was crying in this grocery store and I was like, I bet other people have done this. You know? And like, I need to share. There's like something really funny and really dark and really emotional and sad and moving

about this phrase. And I think that sort of sensitivity is sort of what led me down my path. So I think that's a type of sensitivity. And then, I don't know, I just like my feelings are just so easily hurt. Then there's the other part. But it reminds me of that quote that there's either nothing's a miracle or everything is. And the sensitivity would be like, we live in a world with sheet cakes and Winnebago's and TJ Maxx's. Like, and everyone's walking around,

like it's normal. It's like a kind of miraculous way of living, you know? And Winnebago, it like sounds like what it is. It's like an experience. I don't know what a Winnebago is, but I know it's like an onomatopoeia. Yeah, it's an onomatopoeia. Yeah, I feel like I hear that word and I'm gazing out at the Grand Canyon.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Through the window of the Winnebago. I'm a pioneer or something. Yeah. Eating a sheet cake with G.J. Maxx dress. Like Winnebago and sheet cakes are kind of opposites.

Anyway. They are, yeah. Aren't they? Because sheet cake is also like very like... And it's like so cookie cutter. Like this is what we do. This is our celebration. Baptism, sheet cake, promotion, sheet cake. It brings me right back to like my 10th birthday.

Like, and I see the candles on the cake and I can taste it. My aunt Sally made our sheet cake birthday birthday cake. So it's kind of like delicious, but also disgusting. Plastic. There's only difference is the name. And it's kind of like delicious, but also disgusting. Plastic. There's like a hint of plastic. And you know exactly what it's going to taste like every time. But you want it. But you want it.

Even though you don't. Death taxes and sheet cake. That's good. Very predictable. So, speaking of sensitivity, you, one of the things we have in common is that you also had a full mental breakdown in high school. I actually ended up in a mental hospital. I don't know if you actually were sent away.

I wanted to. I was like, I need to go. We were about to go at one point in time, but my parents were afraid. My mom was afraid. Well, my dad probably was afraid too that it would show up on like a record or something. And that they were afraid that it would impact future opportunities if you looked up like my medical records and saw I had been checked in somewhere. But I remember there being a moment where like, we're like, she's got to go. And I wanted to go. I felt like I was going crazy. And that part was really hard for me to write.

And I was worried actually that it didn't really come across like what... And I think a lot of people probably go through this, but last minute I ended up not going because they were afraid of like the 10 steps ahead when I'm applying to be a senator or something. Speaking of being sensitive to words, I heard in a podcast, you said, I'm still afraid of my mental health. And I thought she didn't say, I'm still afraid for my mental health. She said, I'm still afraid of my mental health, which is exactly how I feel.

So can you tell me what you mean? That time in my life was just so out of my control. And I think as an adult, I've certainly learned ways to kind of navigate when those sorts of feelings come on. It still does feel out of my control. There are sometimes just when there is a deep depression, I feel coming on. And I think as a teenager, I was more prone to leaning into that. So I'd be like, well, my body doesn't want to go to sleep right now. So I just wouldn't sleep and I wasn't eating well. I wasn't taking care of myself.

And now when I feel those kinds of feelings come on, I do go out of my way to try to incorporate like positive, basic people things like exercise and like sun or whatever. All the stuff that drinking water, like all the dumb things that you think like are for basic people, but are actually really crucial for every human being. And they are really onto something. I think I would just kind of like lean into listening to Elliot Smith and staying up to like eight o'clock in the morning on those days. But I know that that is something in me and it's like something kind of like that is out of control and I am very afraid of it, you know?

And a big thing is like, I'm very nervous about... I haven't really talked about this, but I have a real fear of being away from my partner, my husband. I have a real fear of being alone for a long period of time because I'm just very nervous about where my mental health will go without someone sort of keeping me in check. And I don't know how much of it is rooted in that. And also just this real trauma of like losing a loved one and being so afraid that the one person that sort of keeps me on the rails like something will happen to him. But yeah, I think it comes from that fear. And I've had moments where I've been alone for like a week or something, which is totally normal, you know, just to like for work or something and felt like, oh, this is

a little scary for me. But I have a better way of like handling it than I did when I was younger. And I think that that sort of mental breakdown kind of led me to know that I'm capable of those feelings. And that's why I'm sort of always afraid. And when my mom died and it was finally just like, now you have like an extremely real reason to fall into deep pit of depression and never get out of it. I think that's sort of the reason why I reacted the way that I did. When she died, I was just like, you have to get busy. You have to get a job. You have to get like three jobs. You have to like have projects afterwards. Cause I knew that if I really let myself lean into

that despair, that I just would never crawl out of it again, I think. I didn't know. Whew. Michelle, you already mentioned that your mom is Korean, your father is a white American. You describe a really complicated relationship with belonging. When you would go to Korea, they would kind of stare at you and try to figure you out. And then in America, kids were much less subtle and would just say like, what are you? And so what does belonging mean to you and

with whom do you feel most belonging? Artists. I think that sort of like outsider feeling is something that a lot of creative people have in common. And I think in a way that when you write a book or when you make music or when you're involved in creating something, you're basically making some kind of like home for yourself to be understood. And so over the years, especially the last few years that the book has come out and the sort of conversation has been a big part of my life, I've met a lot of other biracial people who have a very sweet way of saying, I don't feel

like half Korean and half white. I feel like 100% Korean and 100% this other thing. That is, I think, a really generous and sweet idea, but it's not something that resonates with me at all. I feel very much like I've always had this kind of fragmented identity and I think that my journey has been sort of about being okay with being divided in this way. I think that is a really big part of who I am and what I grew up with. I think a big reason why I do what I do is because I feel whole in being an artist. I feel whole like when I am playing on a stage and I've gathered people

into my house to like come watch me do the thing that is so uniquely my own and people have responded to that. So I think that that's where I feel the greatest sense of belonging is in a space that I've created for myself. We have a conversation, ongoing conversation on this podcast where we are trying to figure out how do we know whether our personality is authentically us or whether our personality is just this manifestation of our accumulated coping mechanisms and traumas. And I heard you say that much of your personality was developed in opposition to these stereotypes that were projected on you as an Asian American woman.

So you never wanted to be seen as docile or agreeable or hyper feminine. And so you kind of over indexed on the masculine raucous kind of side. And you are not even sure whether that is your genuine personality. And it makes me wonder, how can we figure out who we really are when so much of what we become is based on societal expectations that we actually have to reject? And so practically speaking, have you been able to determine what is authentically you? If so, how? And what have you learned?

And also, do you know who we are, Michelle? You've been talking to us for 30 minutes. Yeah. Send me an email. That would be great. I'd love to know. Yeah. I don't know if that exists or like what that would look like if we weren't...

I mean, that's what being a human being is, is being conditioned by things that happen to you. So I don't even know what like pure root of that we would be after. Because if we weren't conditioned by things, we wouldn't speak any language. We would just be primal beings, I guess. But I don't know. There's never been a world where that kind of pure self exists.

So I just, I don't really know. Men are also conditioned to be a certain way. And white people are conditioned to be a certain way. So to be fair, like I... There's a part of me that wonders if I wasn't doing certain things in opposition to my expectations. Like what I would be like. But then I also know like both of my parents are really loud, unapologetic, not docile people either.

I think that when I hit my 30s, like everything feels like my parents' problem. I feel like I think everything that I... Somehow like when I hit my 30s, I became obsessed with thinking like every single part of my personality, bad or good, could be attributed to my parents. Oh my God. You did it 10 years earlier than I did. I'm right there now. Michelle, I've said this 10 times on the podcast, but there's this New Yorker cartoon that came out recently and there's this dude laying on the couch in his therapist's office. And he says, I had a complicated childhood, especially lately. And he's like, 55.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for better or worse, I feel like I can source everything from, you know, either from my genes or the way that I was raised. I feel like it's all their problem. But yeah, I don't know. I guess I'll never know. But I do think I didn't feel comfortable doing certain things that now that I'm older, I

can recognize why. I mean, there's a lot of undoing that we have to do in our lives. And I think that it's really wonderful, as exhausting as contemporary discourse can be, it really can be eye-opening. I remember being in my teenage years and there is starting to be a dialogue about how women compete with one another and can be cruel to one another. And I remember being very impacted and aware of my own internalized misogyny and how that exists in everybody and how to work on undoing that.

And I still think that it's something that I have to work on all the time. I think it's something that everyone has to work on. For me, in a creative field that can feel like there's not much space for all of us, it's hard to not be envious or jealous of other people in your position and have this sort of scarcity mentality. And so I think that sometimes there's a really positive undoing of that. But when I was younger, I think especially because I was really drawn to male dominated fields, it felt like in order to be taken seriously, you had to present in a certain

sort of way. Mostly just to not invite a certain kind of question. When I was younger, I wore a lot of muscle teeth and I had very short hair cut. I liked myself in that way and I also liked myself in this way. But yeah, now I feel like I'm sort of at a place in my life where I have the option to appear a certain way and not feel threatened by that, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. So you're talking a little bit about the masculine and I was very grateful for how honest you were about your dad in the book.

You talk about how you hadn't planned for your mom to be the one to die first. There was a feeling of like, we're not gonna be in us anymore without her. She was the one that was the glue. There's this one line that you had about your dad, which we read out loud, but you said talking to him was like explaining a movie to someone who was walked in on the last 30 minutes.

Yeah. Talk to us about your dad. What did you mean by that line? And also just having listened to your lyrics for a long time. How do you feel about men in general? I have some feelings. I have some feelings and thoughts, but I just... She says like it's a sidebar. Extra one. First question is, what did I mean by that line?

I was really privileged in the way... I mean, I grew up with a... As an only child with a mother who was a homemaker, I spent so much time with my mom. She was kind of like my primary parent and my father never had a father. He was the youngest son of a single working mom and he had a tough life. He was an abused child and recovered drug addict. I think when he turned his life around and became like a successful working adult,

he really felt like he'd served his role. And I think that I am very lucky to even have that in my life. But I don't think that he took, he just didn't take as much of an interest in me as my mother did. I remember my dad actually telling me, I don't love you as much as your mom. And that being just like an insane, like, why do you need to tell me that? Wait, he didn't love you as much as he loved your mom or he didn't love you as much as your mom loved you? He didn't love me as much as he loved my mom.

Oh. Yeah. That goes in the category of just don't ask, don't tell. Just like keep that to yourself. Like me. My dad is just like such an open book. And maybe I get a lot of that from him to go back to like blaming everything on your parents.

But for better or for worse, he's the opposite of my mom. There's like no withholding nature to him. And so I think that sometimes that's like a very American concept that you should always be yourself and always tell the truth and you should always let everything. And I think as I get older, I realized like that can actually be really harmful and this can sometimes be like the sort of easy way out, the sort of unburdening of the truth all the time. Because there were a lot of things that I sort of wish that I didn't know about him

as his daughter. So yeah, that was just how I felt about him. What do I think about men? I mean, that's such a broad question. I think I've simultaneously been, I don't know, I have a great reverence for some men and a great disappointment in many, many others, you know. But I feel that way about women too. Yeah. What do I mean? What do I mean? I don't know. What are you getting at, Glyn?

What I... Good question. I think all the time about this part in Isabel Wilkerson's cast, where she talks about how experts in cast can identify what cast a person's from by just the way they walk into a room, regardless of what they're wearing, what they're whatever.

It's just a way that people carry themselves. And in terms of being a sensitive human being, I tend to either shrink or like react too strongly to the way that people who have been conditioned as men carry themselves in a room. Just the lack of yield, the lack of give, the here I am instead of the there you are type thing. So I think about that a lot in terms of also being a white woman and how I do that in other ways. It's something that I struggle with, that men, not men, but like the male act is just hard for me.

Yeah. I think it's something I both admire and am repulsed by. Yeah. I always think about this time, my old band used to have a rehearsal space in this warehouse and there was like a freight elevator that we would bring gear up and down for shows and stuff. And one time it broke and we were stuck in this freight elevator and I was just like, oh my God, what do we do? And I watched my male guitar player try to figure out how to operate and fix a freight elevator. And I was just like, what is it like to be conditioned with that kind of confidence?

That's incredible. And it's simultaneously so dumb and terrifying that you have the confidence to do something that could maybe kill us all. But you also have the strength and courage to try. And I also really envy that and want to find that balance in my life. I will also say I've been repulsed by... I mean, I just think that ideally, you find a balance of these things that the sexes can be conditioned by society.

I also watched that kind of masculine trait like totally fail because my father was not conditioned to learn how to take care of people. And so when my mom got really sick and was bedridden, I remember like we got this mouthwash because she had like all of these sores like that were a response to medication. When I would take care of her, I'd be like, okay, here's the mouthwash. And if you need the mouthwash, you're going to need a cup to spit it out in. You're going to want a tissue to wipe your mouth and like, you're going to want like lip balm afterwards, maybe water to rinse. My dad would just be like, here, mouthwash, and then peace out.

There wasn't like this list of like things like that he would kind of follow up as a caretaker. And I thought, you know, I wasn't repulsed by him. I was so sad that he didn't get to learn that no one taught him how to do that or to think about those sort of things. And I think that, yeah, I wish as someone who is conditioned as a woman, I had some of the courage to take on things that felt kind of barred from me. Even just like a lot of young boys are like given a toolbox as a kid. I never had that. So of course I'm not going to feel savvy around that kind of stuff because

you don't get that. You get these tools of caretaking. You get the dolls that you look after and dress and know how to maintain. So yeah, I'm interested in there being a balance of those qualities and the way that people are raised in general. It's so interesting in terms of that we can do hard things of it. It's like this has been a theme on the pod when women have come on and talked about the men in their lives or like what is it that makes you think, yes, I can fix a freight elevator. that makes you think, yes, I can fix a freight elevator, but no, I can't sit with this person in the hard,

like, walking people home type heart. Mm-hmm. A word that she said that just totally struck me was envy and how much I related to that. When I feel most frustrated by, like, a white male privilege, like, walking loudly into a room, I think. I wish I had that. I wish I had that.

Yeah, that's really, really, really, really something. But its connection to love is fascinating too, because that part of the book with the mouthwash, I remember your mom saying to you, when you were giving it to her, he doesn't know how to do it. He's my husband. How come he can't do this for me? Yeah.

And it feels like full circle to the car, which is like, I've never met someone like you. How can you not see me? How can you not understand me? Here are these two people who do life together for so long. He can look at her, but he can't see what she needs. Whereas you can look at her and see what she needs. And that was a love impasse for them. She didn't feel in that moment, like he could love her the way she wanted her husband to love her by helping her with the mouthwash. And it's just, like you say, the ability to condition to see those things. Yeah. I mean, but in the same breath, I couldn't see her or help her with certain things because of our cultural divide and our background. And that was also, it was so heartbreaking.

And a lot of what the book is about too is like, because even being, you know, half Korean and growing up with a certain type of food, I never ate Korean old person, sick person food. We ate barbecue meats and spicy stews and when you're going through chemo, that is not… That's what I watched my mom growing up eating those things. I didn't ever see her or have to make these more muted Korean versions of like what you know would be like chicken noodle soup or whatever. Like there are Korean versions of that that I never really I never made and some things I didn't even know about. So in a way there was this

inability for me to see her too because I just didn't have that upbringing and it wasn't until her friend Kay came to live with us that I realized like oh I'm really failing in this other way of caretaking and way of seeing my mom because we have very different upbringings and experiences. Or none of us failing and it just takes a bunch of people. Yeah. Like it's healing and caretaking is just a community

and we all bring something. So Michelle, your mom used to say over and over again, some version of no one will ever love you as much as your mom used to say over and over again, some version of, no one will ever love you as much as your mom does. And so, subtle again. And my question to you is, and clearly your dad agreed with that. So, dad concurred. Yes. So did that turn out to be true? Yeah.

Yeah. In what ways? I just like know it. It's interesting. I just, um... I don't know. Your mom is just like... My mom was just like obsessed with me.

Yeah. I don't know. Your mom is just like… My mom is just like obsessed with me. So like… I don't know. And so much of my like young adult life and childhood life was just like her… Just like endlessly listening to what I… Endlessly listening to like the, you know, banal like parts of your life like… With more interest than any other human being will ever give you. Because like I wonder how much of it is just like… That's mine. But anything that you say of it is just like, that's mine. But anything that you say is like, you know, that's from me.

And yeah, I just feel it. I just don't think anyone has ever been for better or for worse. No one will ever be as honest with me as her. No one will ever have my true... She just didn't want anything back beyond like me living well. And no one will ever... I know no one will ever give that to me again. I feel very loved by a lot of people and especially my husband,

but I do know that I don't think anyone will love me as much as my mother loves me. It's like unconditional love. Like a parent I feel like think anyone will love me as much as my mother loves me. It's like unconditional love. Like a parent I feel like does have unconditional love, more than you can have with a partner. Yeah, if you're lucky, yeah. Yeah, whether we wanna- If you're lucky.

I wonder if when you said before Michelle about you felt like the response to that question of do you need to be understood to be loved? You're like, absolutely. And yet I have this with my mom. And so I'm wondering, is a mother child or father child in applicable situations, the only relationship where there can be utter love

without understanding? Like, I don't need to understand you to know that I love you. Like you are just this marveling creature that I'm obsessed with by virtue of you being mine. Well, I think that like understanding is probably a spectrum. There's no like you either understand someone or you don't. You understand different parts of someone, you know?

Like I think about like my two best friends who I've known since I was in middle school. So I'm 20 years now and I don't understand them. They don't understand me anymore. They're like my siblings. We've grown in such different directions and we're very different people, but we have such a deep love for each other in this way that you can only develop in a way of like, in longevity, you know? So I think that both things are kind of spectrums, right?

Like I think that like there is just no like love or no love. There's just no understanding and no understanding. They're both like on this slider of like, I understand a deep part of you, but I also, I don't know, love you on a slider as well. And it's tied to like, you said, you talked about your dad's idea of brutal truth and knowing everything and being transparent and whatever. Maybe like love as understanding each other is sort of like a Western idea too. Because I mean, even in your, your mom used to say to you, too. Because, I mean, even in your, your mom used to say to you, always save 10%. Right? I mean, that was- Of yourself.

Of yourself. Always save 10% of yourself. She said, even with your father, I saved 10% of myself. It didn't sound like for her, love was equivalent to, I show you 100%, you show me 100%. Love was a different thing. What do you think about that 10% saving 10% of your self-advice even in love and do you follow it? Yeah, I mean I think it could also be interpreted in this way of just like you're never gonna know anyone 100%. Like we said, I don't even think I understand myself 100%. You know, like so I think that there's always something that's missing in translation.

And I think in a way, it almost feels like your partner, your romantic partner in life, at least in my situation, I feel like I have the most understanding from my husband because that's the person I've picked and am compatible with. And we understand each other very deeply. But I also, I know there was a lack of understanding between my parents and I, but they also love me tremendously. My mom in particular just didn't trust anyone. And it was really good advice to go through life of just, be careful. People are not to be trusted and everyone is self-serving and you have to guard yourself

against that. And for better or for worse, like that has protected me from a lot of stuff, you know? And I think it's given me a really great compass to lead my life. But the older I get, I kind of sort of see it from another perspective where I think that it can also apply to being withholding to protect people. I think that sometimes there's a kind of Western concept of like, always tell the truth and be so unapologetically yourself. But sometimes I think it's like an unburdening for you to have to tell the truth. And sometimes it's better for people

to not know certain things. One thing I thought was interesting was an example of this is like, when my mom was sick, she found out that her old friends who had kind of disappeared, her childhood friend who's disappeared daughter had cancer. And that wrecked her. She was just a mess because she was just so pained by the idea that a young child was going through what she was going through. And I think my aunt saw that and when her dad actually died two or three weeks before my mom, they decided not to tell her that it was better not to tell her. My dad and maybe me would be like, mom, sorry to tell you this, but this happened.

And I think that can also be a type of 10% of just like, what does that do right now for this person? And to really think about this, this truth, like, just like every piece of information I own needs to be put onto this person. Is it a good thing for them to know or is it better to keep to myself? That's like a really hard lesson I've been thinking about a lot lately. If someone says something to you that's cruel about a friend, do you need to tell them? No, you do not.

And I think that even a couple years ago, I probably would have. If someone says something mean about your friend or that might make them self-conscious. Like, maybe it's best to not tell them. Not because like you want to expose the other person, but because like you don't want that to weigh on their psyche. And I think it's actually more loving to withhold that kind of stuff than to just tell someone everything. Yeah. It's like wise love. Michelle's honor. Thank you.

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