Mia Birdsong, HOW WE SHOW UP
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[1:22]It's such a nice talk with author Mia Birdsong via Skype. She is the author of How We Show Up,
[1:29]Reclaiming Family, Friendship and Community. She's also going to be a part of my book club
[1:34]on June 23rd, if this is aired by then, I'm not sure. Anyway, Mia will be in my guest then
[1:40]so sign up at Zibi's virtual book club. Mia is a Pathfinder community curator and a storyteller
[1:45]who steadily engages the leadership and wisdom of people experiencing injustice to chart new
[1:50]visions of American life. In her work on guaranteed income as senior fellow of the economic security
[1:57]project, she tapped into the voices and visions of low-income people to reimagine the American
[2:02]social contract which she talked about in her TED Talk. Mia was an inaugural Ascend Fellow
[2:07]and faculty member with the Aspen Institute, a new America California Fellow and advocating
[2:12]residents with University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and practiced. She's been
[2:17]published widely and speaks at conferences and universities across the country. A graduate of
[2:21]Oberlin College, she loves to garden, keeps bees and chickens, studies, herbalism and occasionally
[2:28]practices archery. She currently lives with her family in the Bay Area. Welcome Mia. Thanks so much
[2:33]for coming on Monster and have time to read books. Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.
[2:38]It's like so ironic how we show up and here we are. You showed up for our interview so we're off on
[2:42]the right foot. Can you please tell listeners what your book is about and what inspired you to write
[2:49]oh that's a great question. So it's about a few things but fundamentally it is a book about all the
[2:55]questions that I had about belonging and interdependence and being in expansive, inclusive,
[3:06]beautiful, caring community. I feel like I grew up with some really amazing examples of how to do
[3:13]that but felt like as I became more successful and that's an air quotes. Success as kind of
[3:22]defined by the American dream. As I became more successful I became harder for me to actually be
[3:30]in the kind of family and community and kind of friendships that I wanted. The American dream
[3:38]standard for us kind of defines nuclear families, isolated nuclear families as a model for us to
[3:46]all kind of achieve. So much of what is touted a successful has to do with independence and pulling
[3:55]yourself up by your own bootstraps and I knew that all of those things were nonsense. We are not
[4:03]we are not independent. We are deeply interdependent and when we try to achieve interdependence we're
[4:08]actually cutting ourselves off from something that is like fundamental about what it means to be a
[4:14]human being. So I found myself kind of in this weird kind of middle space where the closer I got to
[4:23]again what is defined as as success by the American dream the harder it was for me to stay
[4:28]deeply connected to people and to feel like I was experiencing the kind of interdependence and
[4:35]mutuality that I wanted. So I wrote the book that I needed to read. That's the secret to it all.
[4:44]I feel like that's where all the best books in the world come from. Totally. And you were so
[4:49]it was so interesting in your introduction how you are such a frequent speaker and you go to companies
[4:54]talk all over and you know I saw your TED talk which was amazing but that like people would quietly
[5:00]corner you and say all these secret things. The one man who like made everybody leave so he could
[5:06]talk to you longer. Tell me about what people really wanted to know from you and and what that how
[5:12]that eventually made you rethink things. Yeah so my work for the last 20 years has been around
[5:16]social justice and one of the things that I focused on specifically around economic justice was
[5:23]really shifting our understanding of why people experience economic injustice so why people are poor.
[5:31]You know the stereotype that is that people are lazy or they don't know how to like budget or whatever
[5:37]and that's not true. People are poor because they don't have money. The problem is actually
[5:43]wealth hoarding. But one of the things that I would do is tell stories about the creativity and
[5:49]innovation that I saw in partnering with low-income families. And largely that was looking at
[5:57]the ways in which people really kind of collectively worked to mitigate their experience of being poor.
[6:03]So the stories I was telling were about how people practice this really deep interdependence
[6:08]and mutuality. So yeah so I would be you know I would talk I did my TED talk. I would talk to
[6:13]people at foundations. I would talk to people at think tanks. I would you know I went around talking
[6:19]and people come up to you after you give a talk and they have more questions. And for a long time
[6:25]I was only vaguely aware of this for a while. Part of what would happen is that there would be this
[6:30]white man usually kind of staying back as people were coming up and asking me questions and they
[6:36]would kind of wait for people to leave and finish and often like somebody would be like go ahead and
[6:41]they would they would shake their head and allow and I was like oh they're being really like
[6:46]deferential and polite. And then what they would say to me is you know they would thank me for the
[6:50]talk and then they would kind of confess that they didn't have that kind of connection and community
[6:56]in their lives. And for a long time I just was like you know I kind of was like oh that's too bad like
[7:02]sucks to me you and kind of went about my business. And then at this one talk this young man
[7:07]is probably in his like mid-30s. He did that exact thing. He waited for everybody to go. He came
[7:12]and he confessed to me about not having community. And then he asked me like well what do I do?
[7:16]Like how do I do that? And I gave him some like Pat answers about you know introduce yourself
[7:23]to your neighbors and I don't know just like things that weren't like wrong. But like really I just
[7:28]didn't actually know. I didn't know what he should do. And it was because I didn't really know what
[7:33]I needed to do. So that question like it stuck with me that he I gave him these answers that were
[7:40]really not thoughtful or you know really accurate. And it just it really stuck with me for a while.
[7:46]And I was like well what should I have said to him? And like what is the advice that I need to
[7:50]give myself? And I realized I didn't know. And then I was like okay so where do I figure this out?
[7:55]And it became very obvious to me. I was like oh of course the answers are always in the places where
[8:04]people are excluded from practicing the American dream right? It's the places. And I feel like
[8:10]continually whenever I'm looking for answers for issues we face or how to be a person in the world.
[8:18]It is in the places where people have not been successful at what America defines success as
[8:26]because that definition of success is so toxic. And is like fundamentally racist and sexist and
[8:32]classist. So the communities where I have seen the most powerful and inclusive and beautiful
[8:41]and caring examples of family and friendship and community are both you know like in my own
[8:47]black community among queer people among unpartnered parents among un-housed people.
[8:53]So those were the people who I went to as the experts for this book. And they did not disappoint
[9:00]like I feel like I was transformed by like talking with them. And because so many of these people
[9:08]were in some way connected to me right? So I'm like a lot of the folks in the book are my friends.
[9:13]I was like our relationships were transformed just by like having those conversations.
[9:17]I feel like sometimes just having a conversation and finding out what's
[9:20]deeply on people's minds changes things forever no matter what. But certainly when you talk about
[9:26]really things that are so essential to what people are thinking and feeling like their sense of
[9:30]community and belonging and you know what to of course contributes to overall happiness. So anyway
[9:36]I'm not surprised to hear that. You know I was really interested in your sort of definition of
[9:40]the American family and how that keeps shifting over time and how that fits into things. And your
[9:45]own story how you were prepared to adopt a child or a foster child. I'm so interested in the
[9:52]personal but you were going to adopt a child and you're all hell bent on that. And then as you
[9:56]were in the middle of it your husband came along and you met him and you were like do you
[10:00]all your plans. So tell me just tell me a little more about that and how you ended up with
[10:05]the family you never thought you would have, not typical. So I was raised by my mom.
[10:14]I had totally had a relationship with my father, but my mom was the person, the day-to-day person.
[10:20]She was also raised by her mother, and then her mother died when she was fairly young,
[10:25]like a tween, and then she was raised by her grandmother, and then her grandmother died,
[10:29]and then she was raised by her aunt. So there's definitely lineage of kind of like women
[10:35]raising the women in my family. So for a long time, I was quite sure I was never going to have
[10:40]children. It was not interesting to me. I did not like children. Truth be told I still don't like
[10:44]children like as a demographic. I like my own kids. They're awesome, but like I don't just inherently
[10:51]kind of like dig kids. So that was nothing I wanted to do. And then when I was 27, I vividly
[10:58]remember this. I woke up and I was looking up at the ceiling, and it was like a switch went off
[11:03]in my like uterus. And I was very clear that I was going to be a mother. And it didn't occur to me
[11:09]that I would do that with somebody else. I think partly because I had a model for that, but also
[11:14]because I am like very much an only child. And the idea of having to make parenting decisions
[11:20]with another person was like, I was like, I do not want to do that. So I had this whole elaborate
[11:27]fantasy of adopting like little pack of black girls and homeschooling them. And I was going to
[11:37]change my last name to amazing. And I was going to unleash them upon some like, you know, high
[11:43]school at some point. And they would be those damn amazing kids because I would have raised these
[11:47]like little revolutionaries. Never mind like that. I don't like the idea of homeschooling my
[11:51]children. Now that I have actually had to like do some of that is awful. And I was like how I
[11:57]would afford to raise a bunch of kids on homeschool them. And obviously not be able to work like
[12:01]that was not part of the picture. But I just had this fantasy. And then the reality part of it was
[12:05]was I decided I was like, okay, I am going to like I do want to become a parent and sperm cost money.
[12:11]But children, you know, there are there are because of, again, systemic racism. There are a lot
[12:17]of free black kids. Kids whose, whose parents have been who have been taken away from their parents
[12:22]because of white supremacy and the prison and policing system. And I was like, well, let me adopt
[12:30]a black kid who's like, whose parents have been, you know, their relationship has been severed.
[12:36]And I actually had to do a lot of research about and think about whether or not I wanted to
[12:40]contribute to a system that was taking children away from its parents. And I talked to women.
[12:46]And I know lawyers, I know who work with women in prison. And just, and they were just like,
[12:51]you know, the women I know would rather have their kid in your home, in your homes, like me
[12:56]specifically, knowing that I would absolutely make an effort to maintain their relationship with
[13:02]their kid and then have their kid like in, you know, a foster home or in like an institution.
[13:07]So I feel like I was like, okay, that makes sense to me. Yeah, so I had this whole plan. I was
[13:11]going to adopt a kid and had like, you know, called agencies and was filling out paperwork and
[13:17]scheduling like there are all these classes that you have to take as I was scheduling those.
[13:20]And then I met Nino. I knew within like three days of meeting him that I was going to marry
[13:27]him and we were going to have a family like we're going to have kids. And so part of me was like,
[13:31]damn it. I timeline is all messed up. Like I had, you know, put all these things in motion,
[13:38]but I was also like completely in love with him. So I was like, all right. So, you know, so now I
[13:44]have, you know, we're married. We've been married since we've been married for like 15, 16 years.
[13:50]We've been together for almost 20 years and we have two biological children. You know, I ostensibly
[13:57]have the nuclear family. But neither of us grew up with that kind of family as a model, right?
[14:05]I had my single mom. He was in this like amazing community of like, you know, hippies who
[14:14]he basically had like multiple parents and a whole slew of like siblings and they would just like
[14:21]run around in the Central Valley and like the rural Central Valley together barefoot and
[14:27]they were all like homeschooled at this like collective school. So neither of us had the experience
[14:33]of kind of like insular nuclear family. But I will tell you, even though that was not the model
[14:38]we have, like, we have to be really vigilant to not kind of sequester ourselves. It is like,
[14:44]there is so much built into our cultural norms and the design of our lives and the benefits that
[14:52]exist that really support insular nuclear families in this way that like we just have to be really
[14:57]vigilant to not let our family become isolated. And I will say like, it's particularly hard right
[15:02]now because of course we're just like all in the house together. But what it's meant for me is
[15:07]really clarifying for myself like, what are the roles of the people in my life, right? Like
[15:12]there are certain things that I get from my husband but there are lots of other things that
[15:17]I get from other people. And you know, part of what is challenging about marriage is that we
[15:24]the story we are told about it is that like, you know, you're going to meet somebody who is
[15:28]you're other half, right? So you already start out as like half of a person. And that person is
[15:33]then going to be like, you're everything. They're going to be, you know, the person who you're
[15:38]attracted to and have sex with, they're going to be your best friend. They're going to be your
[15:42]roommate. They're going to be the person you manage, you know, a household and finances with. If
[15:47]you have kids, they're going to be your co-parent. They're going to be your travel buddy. They're
[15:51]going to like all they're going to be your confidant. Like all of these things are supposed to come
[15:55]from this one person. And it is, I mean, I'm sure there's something like, you know, there are a
[16:00]few people who are able to like have all of their needs fulfilled well mutually by each other.
[16:06]But like that is not like that's mostly not what happens. And I think a lot of people end up
[16:10]in marriages like trying to change the marriage to fit into that idea as opposed to being like,
[16:18]okay, what are we actually good at for each other? Like how do we be in this thing together and
[16:24]fulfill the roles we actually can fulfill and then like get our other needs met elsewhere?
[16:29]You know, we started out in without really thinking through all of that. So a lot of our stuff
[16:35]is just intertwined and like, you know, I am a terrible roommate for example.
[16:41]But like, you know, we live in the Bay Area. Housing is expensive. Like we can't not live
[16:45]together. But that, you know, if we thought about it, that potentially would be a role we would
[16:49]not actually share with each other because I'm not a good roommate. I'm messy and I take too long to
[16:54]clean things up. So part of like how I think about family for myself is, is to try to continually
[17:01]just like re-examine what my assumptions are about what family should be. So my kids have,
[17:07]we have lots of chosen family. They have like deep relationships with other adults that are not us
[17:13]and that they're not biologically related to. We also just have a lot of people just holding us
[17:19]and, you know, considering us and we do the same for the other folks in our lives.
[17:23]And you wrote about in your book this fantastic welcoming system, which you posted on Instagram
[17:29]as well, where you have friends come over and you have like, it's essentially an open house where
[17:33]you're like, come on over. I'm not setting up. You're going to help me set the plates and then
[17:37]we're all going to clean up and you're going to leave and it's going to be, you know, I'm going to
[17:40]like kick everybody else out of the house and get my fill of that girl time or the bonding. And
[17:45]when I read that I was like, oh my gosh, I love this woman. Like, this is my dream that I would
[17:50]be able to do this and pull this off every week. Like, I love that. I just loved it.
[17:55]Well, I have, I have like a multitude of, and again, these are, these have been adapted now that
[18:00]we're, nobody's allowed in my house, but I have this multitude of ways in which I get to gather
[18:06]with the people who I love. So I have two women's groups, one of which either, there's one called
[18:14]Black Women's Freedom Circle and the woman who I started it with Amaka, she, they, we either meet,
[18:18]we would meet at my house or at her house. And then I have another women's group started by my
[18:23]friend Courtney Martin and we, she lives in co-housing. So they have like a common area and we always
[18:29]meet at her house in that, in that space. And both of those pre COVID were meeting once a month.
[18:36]Now they are both meeting virtually twice a month because we, we all are feeling like the need
[18:42]to really connect with each other. And I think especially because we actually have established
[18:47]these relationships where we are doing a lot of examining of our lives and like processing of things,
[18:53]it actually is like the perfect venue for us to be dealing with both kind of the global pandemic
[18:59]and this most recent cycle of white violence. So I have those. And then the other thing that I started,
[19:05]because I kind of liked, it's called drop by dinner. And I kind of liked the idea that
[19:12]my friends would just like come by and we would, you know, chat and have tea or whatever.
[19:18]But then I actually really hated the idea that people would show up like unannounced to my
[19:23]house. I was like, I kind of want that, but I really do not. So I was like, oh, I just need to
[19:29]create a container around it. Like I need to have like a day or an evening, right, that people are
[19:34]allowed to do that. So I created this thing called drop by dinner. I was very specific about who was
[19:40]invited because I was not for all of my friends. It really was for people who I felt like
[19:45]I was like, because I don't want to, I didn't want to, I was like, a clean up for it. I wasn't going
[19:49]to actually like prepare a meal, but really was people. I was like, here's what I'm going to be
[19:54]home. I will be making something for my children and you're welcome to whatever that is, but like also
[20:00]something because of a whole bunch of y'all show up. I can't make grilled cheese for everybody.
[20:03]So I invited people to come by. I was really clear that, you know, like I said, I might,
[20:09]I was not gonna clean my house. I might be wearing my pajamas. I don't know what kind of mood I'm
[20:12]gonna be in. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to prepare myself for hosting. That was part of the point
[20:17]is to not have the pressure of hosting. And I was like, you can tell me you're coming over. If you want,
[20:22]or you can just show up, you can tell me you're coming over and not show up and not tell me that
[20:26]you're not gonna show up. Like there's no expectation around like RSVPs because not party.
[20:32]And, and I was clear, I was like, I was like, you can't bring anybody like you can't. I don't want to,
[20:36]like this is not for your spouse. This is not for your best friend. This is not for your Tinder date.
[20:41]Except for kids. I was like, I don't want you to not be able to come because you can't bring kids.
[20:45]And then the other thing was that I was like, you know, if you come to my house, do not leave
[20:48]my house messier than it was when you got here. And if I resist, you cleaning up, tell me to be
[20:55]quiet and just like take care of things. So I, I will send it, you know, what I would do is I would
[21:00]send an email out to this group of people like a day in advance. We can advance depending on,
[21:05]you know, what I felt like I could, I could commit to. And it was amazing. Sometimes like 15 people
[21:10]would show up. Sometimes three people would show up. Everybody cleaned up after themselves. And
[21:15]the, the conversations that we were able to have and the way in which like my, you know, my different
[21:23]world's kind of collided in that space was so extraordinary for me. And it really like challenged me
[21:30]to, you know, the idea like theoretically having people show up at your house when you don't clean it
[21:35]and like you're wearing your pajamas is like, I was like, I like this idea, but it also made
[21:41]me uncomfortable. And part of what I wanted was to really push myself so that I could let the people
[21:46]in my life see me. It was really about creating some space for like authenticity and vulnerability
[21:54]where I wasn't trying to perform some version of myself. And that for me was one of the most powerful
[22:00]things is that like people actually got to see like my house and mess. And me like, you know,
[22:06]sometimes in a crappy mood because of whatever had happened in my day, I wasn't trying to pretend
[22:10]that I was okay if I wasn't okay. And I think that like especially right now again in the COVID era
[22:17]has also, it's a blessing that I was able to practice that because I feel like so much of right,
[22:21]you know, I don't know about you, but I don't ask people like, I don't see how are you
[22:27]and expect that people are going to just say fine or good. Like I'm genuinely, I'm like, how are
[22:32]you actually right now? Like what's going on for you because I feel like none of us are really okay.
[22:36]So having practiced that feels like I'm just glad I got all the practice in before COVID descended
[22:41]on us. Yeah. I mean, I guess I say how are you, but I don't really expect. Then I ask my next question,
[22:47]which is like the real question, you know, I gotta get the pleasantries out of the way. And then I'm
[22:51]like, okay, come here. Let's, let's, let's chat. So what made you, you are so accomplished and you've
[22:58]like talked to so many people and you have so many thoughts and ideas and the interviews and
[23:02]everything. Like what made you want to turn this into a book? Like, when did you get the idea
[23:06]and say like, I want to sit down and write this book. I want to do all these interviews.
[23:10]How did it become a book? Like totally real. I had not really like an editor approached me and
[23:17]was sad. Do you have a book in you? And I was like, I have like 12 books in me. We met up and she just
[23:22]asked me really thoughtful questions. And it helped me understand that there was this thing that
[23:28]I was trying to home in on, right? This like stuff I had been thinking about and trying to
[23:34]understand for myself. And she kind of helped me bring those questions to the forefront. And
[23:39]which is like, you know, what a good editor does. And really helped me understand what it was that
[23:43]I wanted to ask and what it was that I was curious about and what it was I wanted to figure out.
[23:50]And I feel like that's, that's the honest answer. I feel like it's kind of unsatisfying.
[23:54]Why is that unsatisfying? I think it's because I wasn't like, I wasn't like struck. I don't
[23:58]know that I would have or I don't know that I'm not convinced I would have actually written a book
[24:03]if an editor hadn't said asked me like, do you have a book in you? And now I'm clear. I'm like,
[24:08]oh, I'm like, I have several other books because of course, while I was working on this book,
[24:13]I thought of all the other books that I want to write because that's what happens.
[24:16]So now I'm clear about that. Like I have clarity about some other books that I want to write.
[24:20]this first one was really something that I feel like she helped pull out of me. I think that's
[24:24]great. I think it was like the universe speaking to you. The book was going to come out one way or
[24:29]another. That's just the way it came out. And it sounds like you really enjoyed it. Now that
[24:33]you have this long list of other ones too. I mean, it was also terrible. Let me be clear.
[24:36]Okay. Really, really, it's a lot of words. It is very challenging. You know, I asked because
[24:43]this is what I do. I was like, that was like, let me not figure out how to, I mean, I googled, like,
[24:47]how to write a power to write your first book. But I know lots of authors also. So I asked
[24:52]all of them. Right. So I got two different approaches to writing books. One was the people who
[25:00]like the insufferable people, let's admit it. They, you know, they get up at like five in the
[25:05]morning and they sit for like three hours straight and they're right. And then they take a break to
[25:10]like, you know, do calisthenics or something. And then they come back and they edit what they've written.
[25:15]And they just like do that, you know, every day. And then they have a book. Right. So there's those
[25:20]people. And then they were the people who I thought were my people. Right. Because this is what they
[25:24]said. They were like, oh, no, you like deliberate on it and you think about it and you talk to
[25:29]people about it. And then you sit down like the month before your deadline and you write for like
[25:34]12 hours and you crank out a book. And I was like, okay, because a friend of mine was like,
[25:39]well, how do you usually do things, Mia? And I was like, at the last minute and she's like,
[25:42]well, that's how you're going to write your book. So I discovered that I do do things at the
[25:48]last minute, but I also cannot really can like for more than like a couple days. I cannot sit for
[25:53]12 hours and write. Writing for me was very much like I would sit for 20 minutes and then I could
[25:58]feel that like it was like the words were coming out. And then as soon as I started to write
[26:04]garbage, I was like, oh, it needs to like simmer some or like percolate in some way. And then I
[26:09]would go and like fold laundry or get on social media or, you know, go down various rabbit holes,
[26:16]I would go, you know, water the tomatoes, just do something else. And then I would come back to it
[26:22]and like whatever it was head like cooked and then like more good words would come out.
[26:27]So I feel like I just like so much of people would ask me how's the writing going. And I'm like,
[26:32]I'm not writing a book. I'm making a book. But like 80% of the time is actually for me was not writing.
[26:38]It was talking to other people about it. It was thinking it was doing completely unrelated things
[26:42]so that whatever happens in my brain would like work on it. And then I would be able to like make
[26:48]words happen. So now I know that last minute and very slow and largely not writing.
[26:56]Well, I think that's what's so interesting is that everybody approaches it so differently and not,
[27:01]you know, just because you're not waking up at five in the morning to write doesn't make your
[27:05]your process any better or worse. Yeah. My process is great. Yeah. And so what's coming next?
[27:14]Did you figure out what your next book is going to be? Or you're just sort of like, I mean,
[27:17]I know that now is such a crazy time. What's coming next? That is a great question.
[27:23]Well, one of the things I'm working on right now because, you know, this book is not a how-to
[27:27]book. It's not like a guide. It's like a vaguely sketched out map. It is like a compass.
[27:35]So one of the things I'm working on right now with some folks that I love to collaborate with
[27:39]is a guided journal for the book. So that folks who want a way to kind of put into practice
[27:47]something, some of the things that they see in the book or to like ask themselves the kinds of
[27:51]questions that will help them figure out how they want to examine and create family and friendship
[27:58]community in their own lives. So I mean, that's like, I mean, I'm hoping I'm finished in like
[28:03]a month or so. And it'll just be online. I'll be free. So that folks who read the book can like
[28:09]reference that and like, you know, and I'm trying to make it as, you know, it's not a thing
[28:13]you have to go through from start to finish. You can kind of like pick the things that work for you.
[28:17]But that's been really fun to think about like what are the things that will elicit some new
[28:23]thinking and and then like actionable things for folks. So I'm working on that. What would
[28:28]else am I working on? I'm working on my garden that was really like literally and like figuratively
[28:37]grounding right now when shelter in place right before actually shelter in place happened. I was
[28:42]I'm a little, I'm not a prepper, but I definitely think about the apocalypse quite a bit and want
[28:46]to and like think about how I'd be prepared for it. So I totally put in a whole bunch of food
[28:51]because I was like, I don't know what's going to happen to our food system in a few months.
[28:54]So we have like tons of kale and collard greens and all kinds of other greens that we're eating
[29:01]from. We also have chickens so there's lots of eggs. So I feel like solid. And I'm also just thinking
[29:06]about like what are the things that I learned from the book? Like I'm learning more as I talk to
[29:15]people about it. So part of what I feel like I'm doing is actually like deepening the practices
[29:20]that I have been working on since doing the research for the book. As far as like next actual
[29:28]projects though, I don't know. That's not fair yet. That's totally fine. Do you have any advice to
[29:37]aspiring authors? Oh, I'm trying to, I'm like what's the advice that no one like other people don't
[29:44]say? I do think especially because this was my first book like writing a book is hard but also
[29:50]figuring out how you write a book is hard. So I think like, I think it's great to ask other people
[29:56]how they wrote their books. But I feel like there is a way in which I had to.
[30:00]who really do some like self-examination
[30:03]to understand how my creative process works.
[30:07]And it wasn't what anybody told me,
[30:10]that really was my own thing.
[30:12]And then I think it was about,
[30:14]and I think especially for folks who,
[30:17]I don't think of what we call procrastination as a bad thing.
[30:20]I feel like the way that my creative process works
[30:23]is actually antithetical to the culture
[30:26]of capitalism and patriarchy and white supremacy.
[30:29]And I think most people's creative process
[30:32]could use extracting those,
[30:34]like extracting those things out of their process
[30:36]so that they're allowed to kind of like move at their own pace.
[30:39]And then I think one of the big challenges for folks
[30:41]who are trying to create things as we often,
[30:43]there's a timetable, right?
[30:44]There's like, there's a deadline,
[30:46]there's a way in which we're trying to force
[30:50]our creative process into a box that is usually too fast.
[30:54]So I think a lot of what felt important to me
[30:57]was to actually figure out
[30:59]what the pace of my creative process is.
[31:02]And to like, you know, be mindful when I'm like,
[31:04]I'm like, when I'm actually avoiding stuff
[31:06]or, you know, being sucked into Twitter, right?
[31:10]Versus when am I pausing from the actual writing of it
[31:15]to do something that feels like it's allowing,
[31:18]you know, like I said, my brain and my spirit
[31:20]and like whatever to percolate
[31:23]and to deliver through writing in this case,
[31:27]whatever it was that I'm supposed to be saying.
[31:29]So I feel like we actually need to be much more patient
[31:33]and gentle with ourselves around our creative processes.
[31:37]Excellent.
[31:38]Well, Mia, thank you.
[31:39]Thank you for sharing your story
[31:41]and the story behind the story and all the rest of it.
[31:44]So thanks for coming on my show.
[31:46]Absolutely.
[31:47]Okay, thanks.
[31:49]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[31:51]Moms don't have time to read books.
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