Kitty O'Meara, AND THE PEOPLE STAYED HOME
[0:01]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:06]I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology,
[0:12]which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have Time to Accarantine Anthology.
[0:16]I'll proceed to that book. Go to COVID-19 Vaccine Research.
[0:20]And I'm the editor-in-chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write a new publication on Medium,
[0:24]and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there.
[0:28]And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram, at Zibi Owens, and my website is Zibi Owens.com.
[0:34]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Kitty Elmera is the author of the picture book, and the people stayed home.
[0:43]Kitty lives near Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, Philip Hagorn,
[0:47]their five rescue dogs, three cats, gardens, and books.
[0:50]A former teacher of middle school, writing, and literature, and a hospital and hospice
[0:55]chaplain. She's currently a spiritual director.
[0:58]Elmera has been a lifelong writer and artist, and the people stayed home is her first print book,
[1:04]which, by the way, was adapted from a poem she wrote on Facebook at the very beginning of the
[1:09]pandemic that went completely viral as we will discuss in this episode.
[1:14]Okay there. Hello. How are you? I'm fine. How are you? I'm good.
[1:20]It's lovely to meet you. Thanks for doing. Yeah, thank you.
[1:24]Thank you very much. I have to say what you do, the way you use your light in the world, Zibi.
[1:31]It's just amazing. Thank you for that. Books are so important, so, so, so important.
[1:37]They're my favorite thing next to my husband and four leggings. So I really appreciate what you do.
[1:44]Thank you for saying that. That makes me feel really good.
[1:46]I agree. I think books are so important, and yes, and I love what I do.
[1:51]It's an honor to be able to talk to all these authors and people who are making such a
[1:55]difference in the world, and I get to just like lift up, make sure that everybody here is
[1:59]who's accepted. Thank you for saying that. Oh, you're welcome.
[2:02]And I'm so excited to talk about you and your, well, the book for one, but really the poem
[2:09]that, you know, set the world on fire here. Would you mind maybe just telling listeners
[2:15]from your perspective what happened? You were a middle school teacher, hospice, hospice,
[2:21]chaplain, I think, and you've been writing your whole life and then you wrote this poem and it
[2:27]went viral. But you tell me in your words what happened and how it made you feel. Well, yes,
[2:33]it was March 13th, which was a Friday, almost a year ago now. And Philip and I had already
[2:41]decided to go into lockdown. I had worked in healthcare. He had been a science teacher and just
[2:48]retired. So we both knew maybe with greater awareness that it would be safer for us to do that
[2:57]earlier than later. So we did it. And of course, I was concerned about my friends who are still
[3:02]teaching. I was concerned about my friends very much in healthcare because, you know, it was being
[3:09]publicized that there was a shortage of PPE. I knew that in the Midwest it would come in a
[3:16]different wave than what I was watching, you know, every day on the news with Governor Cuomo. So
[3:23]so there was just a, you know, concern and the inability to do anything when you're in lockdown.
[3:30]And I, you know, I write poems and things and post them on Facebook. And, you know, my friends,
[3:36]there are a lot of theater, people, a lot of artists, other writers, but also a lot of teachers
[3:41]and healthcare workers. So a lot of people just go, yeah, there's Kitty writing something again.
[3:46]But I wrote this at a lunch break that day. I just kind of set it down as kind of a,
[3:52]oh, you know, a parable of fable, a little thing you could give to a child and say,
[3:57]you see how it went. It wasn't as bad as it as people might have thought it could be. It could
[4:03]be this wonderful time of healing. Of course, everything in my whole life came into that,
[4:10]that I was an educator, that I have this huge, huge mother instinct that I've always considered
[4:18]myself an artist and love artists. All of those things, the, the importance of healing our whole
[4:23]life. It also sort of came into it, but it was also kind of an unconscious moment of writing. It
[4:30]wasn't something I had been kicking around or rough drafted or anything else. I just wrote it
[4:36]for Facebook. You know, just here, guys, have a good day and I closed my computer and that night,
[4:43]that night I went back on just to, you know, do the, the check through and a friend said,
[4:48]oh, I like this. May I repost it and I said, yeah, sure. And I guess it was probably a couple
[4:53]days later that Philip was scrolling through his, his page and said, well, that's odd. A student
[5:01]of mine posted something you posted and you don't know her and we couldn't figure it out. Then a
[5:07]friend called a doctor friend of mine in Madison called and said the next morning. She said,
[5:13]Deepak Chopra just read you're something you wrote. And I said, what now?
[5:21]So I, you know, I went to Deepak's page and saw that and I couldn't think of the word what viral.
[5:29]I said, Philip, that thing, that thing happened with the thing that I posted. So then we figured it
[5:35]out and laughed at the irony of, you know, going viral during a virus. And then it, it just,
[5:42]it really went viral. And our lives were kind of upended. And I think I spent about the next
[5:48]three or four months just answering emails and comments on my blog of people soliciting,
[5:55]you know, use of the, of the poem for various endeavors and, you know, enterprises. And so it
[6:02]made my year of lockdown so very different than what it could have been for just the two of us.
[6:10]And our four leg, it's in everything. But also, I think compared to a lot of other people.
[6:17]So it's very hard for me to put it in perspective without, again, pulling the camera back
[6:24]and seeing how spectacularly bizarre and unique it was compared to what a lot of my friends were
[6:33]going to. Wow. And in terms of usage of you said you were responding so much,
[6:40]because on your website now on the daily round, it says unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
[6:46]I actually was want to read what you said, because you obviously feel very strongly about this.
[6:51]You said, please don't write to me on this or any other post requesting to use this poem
[6:56]as a slogan, a theme song, or any part of a commercial venture designed to sell things we don't need.
[7:01]I reserve all rights to the material for the time being using the poem to sell anything is also
[7:06]antithetical to its theme. I wrote it to inspire the creative artist and giver and all of us,
[7:11]not to prop up a corporate structure. I believe has contributed to the destruction of human kind,
[7:16]the earth and all living things. Okay. Tell me about that. And I say that with all gentle peace.
[7:26]I was like, all right, tell me what you really think, Kitty.
[7:33]I know. I've never been shy about that. Here's the thing. And it probably was the specific day I
[7:39]wrote that to. So you're inundated. I mean inundated. I went from zero to a thousand miles an hour
[7:47]and you know, you're shot into space in terms of the emails, the context, some by phone,
[7:54]but not as many. Of course, my voicemail doesn't work very well. So mostly by email and comments
[8:00]on the blog. And I don't have people. I, you know, I'm just this person living in her home without
[8:08]people to do her things. And so I took a lot of sort of, well, to do it with integrity, I felt
[8:16]they all had to be responded to, which is another reason I didn't move a lot for three months
[8:22]because I really wanted to get back to people. And most of them overwhelmingly were kind,
[8:29]were complimentary, wanted to use the poem for artwork, wanted to use it to create something and
[8:37]offer it to healthcare workers and frontline workers, to children, to older people who were in
[8:43]nursing homes, things like that. I love that. I really loved working with artists because most of us,
[8:50]the, the endeavors were either with no money changing hands at all, or if money were to be made,
[8:57]you know, we could donate it and we could agree on that. So those were wonderful things,
[9:02]but then to be contacted by huge corporations, you know, could we use this for XYZ? It was just so
[9:10]well, antithetical to really what the, the point of the poem was. So, you know, after
[9:18]several of those, I guess I, I hit, I guess my Irish temper got kicked in that day.
[9:28]Well, it's, it's still up there if you need to temperate it on me. Not, not to say you should.
[9:34]And I was reading, I was reading about the viral nature of, and the uses of it. And that the
[9:41]poem was in like a 26 city, something in Romania without crediting you. And like there were all
[9:47]sorts of bizarre uses of it that who could have ever thought. And now it's so great that you've
[9:54]turned it into a children's book on top of everything else. Is it true that Kate Winslet is reading
[9:58]the audiobook? I didn't have time.
[10:00]I'm to go check.
[10:00]I read that at first, she was attached.
[10:02]She, Kate Winslet did the reading for the books version,
[10:06]books.com of a really cool site,
[10:09]which you've probably covered on your podcast, but yeah.
[10:14]And I have to say when you say I created the book,
[10:17]all credit goes to the people at trial publishing.
[10:20]They contacted me on my blog, of course,
[10:24]and we co-created this together.
[10:26]And to me, the artwork and production is phenomenal.
[10:29]I just love it.
[10:31]I love it, too.
[10:32]It's amazing.
[10:33]It's like, it's so perfect for now,
[10:35]and it's just beautiful in its own right.
[10:37]I'm holding it up for the people listening,
[10:39]which you can watch on YouTube.
[10:41]Am I allowed to read the poem,
[10:42]or is that appropriation?
[10:44]I don't have to.
[10:45]I don't want to get in trouble.
[10:47]I don't want to be on YouTube.
[10:48]He's bad side.
[10:49]No, I read it on this podcast or not or not.
[10:52]I think it would be wonderful.
[10:54]I'd love to hear you read it.
[10:56]OK.
[10:56]Well, this is great, because then maybe I could just play this
[10:58]and read it to the kids.
[10:59]So I can, on a night that I'm really tired,
[11:01]I could be like, here, I've already recorded this for you.
[11:05]OK, and the people stayed home by Kitty O'Mara.
[11:08]And the people stayed home.
[11:10]And they listened and read books and rested and exercised
[11:15]and made art and played games and learned new ways of being
[11:20]and were still.
[11:22]And they listened more deeply.
[11:23]Some meditated, some prayed, some dance,
[11:27]some met their shadows.
[11:29]I love that page, by the way.
[11:31]And the people began to think differently.
[11:33]And the people healed.
[11:35]And in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous,
[11:38]and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
[11:41]And when the danger passed and the people joined together again,
[11:44]they grieved their losses and made new choices
[11:48]and dreamed new images and created new ways to live
[11:52]and heal the earth fully as they had been healed.
[11:55]Oh, beautiful.
[11:57]So beautiful.
[11:59]Thank you.
[11:59]So you wrote that though, like, the day that everything started.
[12:03]So this was almost like a wish, right?
[12:06]It's a wish that this is what happened.
[12:08]And then it became reality, a lot of it, in fact,
[12:12]with dolphins and the canals and Venice
[12:15]and like all the things that we saw happening with the world.
[12:18]But you couldn't have known that at the time necessarily.
[12:21]Could you or did you maybe just from what happened?
[12:24]Yeah, some of that was being reported, yeah.
[12:26]Right. And so then I took that with my belief that we come
[12:30]with gifts and we're here to share them.
[12:33]And I think sometimes the way we've orchestrated our lives
[12:37]and designed the world, we were prohibited from doing that.
[12:40]We don't have time.
[12:42]So I thought, OK, now we have the time
[12:45]to be with the people we love the most.
[12:48]And yes, this is an idealized version.
[12:50]Are there days when these poor parents with their children
[12:53]can find are not all going insane?
[12:57]Well, yes, at least together on the break.
[13:03]Yeah, we sure were.
[13:07]No lack of togetherness, that's for sure.
[13:11]Yeah, it was hopeful and wishful.
[13:14]Well, it's really inspirational and beautiful.
[13:18]And the illustrations, which I know I just shared,
[13:20]but especially the one meeting their shadow,
[13:24]the man meeting his shadow and sitting across from his shadow
[13:27]at the table in the dark.
[13:29]Oh, my gosh, it's like, it's gorgeous.
[13:31]It's haunting and gorgeous and true.
[13:34]And anyway, so what does it feel like now
[13:37]to know that like a little something
[13:40]you wrote during your lunch break has touched so many people?
[13:45]Yeah, that part is, of course, mystery.
[13:48]And it always will be.
[13:50]You try to parse it and define it and corral it.
[13:54]And you really can't because that is the nature of going viral.
[13:58]It's completely out of your control.
[14:01]And you can't pull it back.
[14:02]And no matter how strongly you request that people
[14:06]be careful with how they use it.
[14:08]So it's been an amazing spiritual journey for me, as well,
[14:13]in terms of letting go, surrendering, limiting myself,
[14:17]limiting my energy, focusing it again, refocusing it again.
[14:22]It's an experience that is, I would say, again,
[14:26]here I am taking mystery and making it
[14:28]contining it to logic and math.
[14:30]But I'd say it's about 90% blessing and gift
[14:34]and 10% of it I could have done without.
[14:37]So that's not a bad deal at all.
[14:39]I don't think.
[14:39]I think that's amazing.
[14:42]That's an A minus, right?
[14:44]Yeah.
[14:46]Explain with me.
[14:48]I'll take an A minus on any project.
[14:50]That sounds good, especially when you're not prepared.
[14:54]Yeah.
[14:55]You didn't even know you were taking a class.
[14:57]And all of a sudden, you got a grade.
[14:59]That's right.
[15:00]Right.
[15:00]Wow.
[15:01]Well, now that this whole thing has happened to you
[15:03]and changed your life and touched other people
[15:05]and all the rest of it, how does that make you rethink?
[15:09]And of course, we're still in this, right?
[15:11]I don't know if you've had your vaccine yet, where you are
[15:14]or it's one of them, OK?
[15:17]So we're approaching, hopefully, God willing,
[15:20]the end of this.
[15:22]What do you want life to look like after for not just you,
[15:26]but for all of us?
[15:27]What do you think it will look like?
[15:28]And what do you hope it will look like?
[15:31]Well, you know, the news of the world specifically here
[15:35]is not the curious I had hoped as I think everyone
[15:40]probably had for a little more peace,
[15:43]or a lot, a greater calmness in our approach to each other.
[15:49]What we're seeing in Washington is not,
[15:51]I think, what anyone wants to see.
[15:54]But I think those of us who have been in lockdown all this time
[15:57]and the great unheard masses here other than through our votes
[16:03]may come out of this differently.
[16:05]And I don't know how that would look,
[16:07]but what I guess I would hope would be that there
[16:11]would be a slower pace to our being.
[16:16]Not that we'll walk slower.
[16:18]Driving slower would be all right with me.
[16:20]But just not take so much on our plate,
[16:24]contemplate more during the day what lies before us,
[16:28]what our choices are and what our responsibilities are.
[16:31]See where kindness can come in.
[16:33]Because I think we've seen great acts of kindness.
[16:35]And those aren't promoted and televised.
[16:38]And they're not in the times in the post as much as the things
[16:42]that will get us riled and excited and hyperventing very quickly.
[16:46]And I think they're true.
[16:48]They're real.
[16:48]I've seen them.
[16:49]I've heard them.
[16:51]I've heard stories about them from others.
[16:53]And we can take those things in.
[16:54]And this experience, certainly, we know more about each other.
[16:58]There's no way we could escape that if we live in a family
[17:01]and we've been in lockdown together.
[17:03]And I think people who are creative will
[17:06]have used this time ably.
[17:09]And I'm excited to see the art that will come out of it
[17:11]and is coming out of it.
[17:13]Some friends of mine now who are in New York
[17:16]and have connections with Peru.
[17:18]They're mostly from Peru.
[17:20]They have a jazz band.
[17:22]And tonight they're releasing their album on a Zoom.
[17:27]And it's called Social Distancing.
[17:29]And it's bookended by their version of this poem, actually.
[17:33]Their musical jazz version of this poem.
[17:35]And I think these ideas that have been seated
[17:40]during this time of what we can be,
[17:43]perhaps will bloom and blossom in the days to come.
[17:47]And that's what I'm hoping for.
[17:48]I'm hoping that we'll see things we hadn't expected.
[17:51]That creative people will be putting together new ways
[17:55]for us to live, to meet climate change
[18:01]and all it's going to require of us.
[18:03]I'm curious to see if during this time people
[18:07]have begun to learn they can do with less.
[18:10]Or if they're such hunger and thirst
[18:14]that there'll be sort of a rush to get back
[18:17]to the way things were.
[18:18]And I'll tell you as a chaplain working spiritually
[18:22]with people at the end of life or facing these dire diagnostics.
[18:28]I'd always ask them, what would healing look like for you?
[18:32]And you would hear, of course, a wide variety of answers.
[18:36]And some people wanted to just get back to the way it was.
[18:41]But you can't because it's not that way anymore.
[18:45]Now you have had a coronary artery bypass.
[18:50]Or now you have received information
[18:55]that the end of your life is coming sooner than later.
[18:59]And so now it's not what it was.
[19:01]And so what will healing look like now
[19:03]because our belief was always as spiritual care providers
[19:08]that any kind of healing can happen right to the last breath.
[19:12]So what is healing for you now?
[19:14]And what does that look like?
[19:15]And I guess that's what I would ask our world.
[19:19]That's what I would certainly ask our country
[19:22]is what does healing look like?
[19:24]And what part of that are you able to contribute to
[19:29]with the gifts you've been given?
[19:31]I think I got off track there, sorry.
[19:33]No, that was great.
[19:34]This is what, this is, I don't usually talk about this,
[19:36]but this is my book that I got done during the pandemic
[19:39]to all your points about creativity and whatever.
[19:42]This is my contribution and all proceeds
[19:44]are going to COVID research.
[19:45]But anyway, I collected lunch essays from other authors.
[19:49]And yeah, I feel compelled to do my part, right?
[19:53]I feel like we all have to do what we can do.
[19:55]And I am not skilled in medicine or anything else, right?
[20:00]I can collect stories and help people read them.
[20:05]So, and don't diminish it.
[20:07]Be proud of that because that is a gift.
[20:09]And as I said at the beginning, that's your light
[20:11]and it's shining and that's exactly what we should be doing.
[20:16]And it's different for every single one of us.
[20:18]And it doesn't have to be what people think of as the arts,
[20:23]but what I like is that you bring the idea of art
[20:27]into what it is you do.
[20:28]So what is the art in the job before you find it?
[20:33]And for me, that means that you're creating.
[20:35]You're constantly evolving and making it something new
[20:39]and inviting contribution and co-creating
[20:42]with the people around you and their gifts.
[20:45]And it's a good time for that.
[20:47]And I think too much we look at what it's a bad time for.
[20:51]It's bad, the pandemic.
[20:53]Oh my God, it's bad climate change.
[20:56]Yes, yeah.
[20:57]We're way behind on these things,
[20:59]but we're capable of putting our creativity
[21:03]and intelligence to work and tackling these things.
[21:07]And my little book, your wonderful collection of essays,
[21:12]these little things that we do, they help.
[21:15]And I do want to mention that Stefano,
[21:17]Christopharo, and Paul Pereda are a big part of that book
[21:20]with their artwork.
[21:21]Like I say, it was just this wonderful co-creation,
[21:24]this team working together to make
[21:26]it as well as beautiful as they could.
[21:29]And those Zoom meetings were just joy,
[21:32]just pops of joy for me throughout the year.
[21:35]Well, I feel like the art in this book
[21:38]should be used in other ways.
[21:40]And I'm not sure what plans you have for it or whatever.
[21:43]But no, they're like, right?
[21:46]I mean, not to say it should be necessarily wallpaper,
[21:49]but it could be.
[21:50]I mean, it could be anything.
[21:52]Do you know what I mean?
[21:52]I know it's so pretty.
[21:53]It should be like, yes, and table plates, man.
[21:57]Yeah, I'm thinking tableware.
[21:58]I'm totally thinking tableware.
[22:00]That's saying home collection.
[22:02]Yeah, totally.
[22:04]Wrapping the tableware.
[22:05]I mean, it's gorgeous.
[22:06]It's really gorgeous.
[22:07]Anyway, I don't have a fun thing.
[22:08]So are you going to, are you going to write?
[22:10]Are you going to keep, I mean, you see,
[22:11]I'm sure you are writing for yourself all the time anyway.
[22:14]But are you going to try to write for publication,
[22:17]going forward?
[22:18]They, yes, tra is actually has taken on a second book.
[22:22]It's called The Rare Tiny Flower.
[22:25]And it's being illustrated and will be on launched.
[22:30]It almost sounds like we're shooting it out just late.
[22:32]It will be launched next fall.
[22:35]OK, and I just finished a third.
[22:39]And I never saw myself particularly
[22:42]confined to picture books.
[22:44]And I'm not confined.
[22:45]But even that I would be the author of picture books,
[22:48]because I am not a visual artist other than I
[22:51]like photography.
[22:52]But I do see, I think I'm a very visual learner.
[22:57]And I see what I'm creating when I write it.
[23:00]So it's a very happy marriage for me at this point
[23:03]in my life to write picture books.
[23:05]I'm having so much fun.
[23:07]Because it's just fun to be with a team working.
[23:13]To me is aesthetically joyful.
[23:16]And I have never been a team person ever in my life.
[23:19]I always wanted to do it myself.
[23:22]I hated when I went back for all these degrees.
[23:25]And my first time through with my theater degree,
[23:27]my English degree, you know, you did your work.
[23:30]You turned it in.
[23:30]You got your grade, dah, dah, dah.
[23:32]Then when I went back to school, it was always teamwork this.
[23:35]And teamwork that was like, oh, god.
[23:37]Because there's always people who don't want to do it.
[23:39]And you end up picking up the slack.
[23:42]And I think I've always been kind of bossy.
[23:46]That's just who I am.
[23:48]I have my ideas.
[23:49]I see the end product.
[23:51]I'm kind of a neat freak.
[23:52]I want to organize it and do it.
[23:55]So this is a revelation.
[23:57]And it's a real joyful one at this point in my life
[24:00]to be working with these wonderful people.
[24:02]And they're also kind and nice.
[24:05]And we have so much fun at these meetings.
[24:07]And it's just, it's bliss.
[24:09]Amazing.
[24:09]I love hearing that.
[24:11]Wow.
[24:12]Well, I think you also have a memoir in you
[24:14]if you ever feel like writing it.
[24:16]Because I think you have such a unique sort of soulful
[24:20]look at the world.
[24:21]And I think your experiences as a hospice
[24:24]in the hospice world and all this end of life information.
[24:28]I think there's a story there.
[24:31]But you can think.
[24:31]There probably is.
[24:32]It's a very illuminating pursuit.
[24:35]People think chaplains just walk in and hold hands
[24:37]and say prayers.
[24:38]And that's so much not what it is that it's
[24:42]a very great gift to be with people at the end of life.
[24:45]It's just illuminating.
[24:48]It is.
[24:48]It's literally like you're in the light
[24:50]and things are falling away from who you are,
[24:54]all the things that don't matter, all the things that you
[24:58]fret and worry about.
[24:59]And it's not because they're dying.
[25:02]It's because you're seeing so much more
[25:05]about what life is that it does include death.
[25:08]And that death is not to be feared.
[25:11]That it's this amazing, amazing stage of life
[25:15]and you get to witness it and be with it.
[25:17]And also, it's precarious, but I also
[25:21]think further illuminating as the spiritual care provider
[25:25]because it is not your heart loss, which is not
[25:29]to say you don't get pretty intimate with people fairly
[25:32]quickly when they're sharing things with you
[25:34]that they never share with their family.
[25:36]But I'll tell you, and I know this is going off track,
[25:39]but it's so cool.
[25:40]I think it's such a neat thing about it
[25:42]is some of the things they share with you
[25:44]that they won't share with their family
[25:45]are seeing their dead spouse over the last several months
[25:52]or years.
[25:53]And they don't want to share that with their children
[25:56]because they're afraid their children will not honor it
[25:59]or put them into a nursing home and doubt their stability
[26:03]and which is sad.
[26:05]But the stories themselves are just pure gift.
[26:09]So you should call it and the people passed.
[26:14]And then it should be a whole collection of your music.
[26:16]I can see the whole thing.
[26:17]So I don't know.
[26:18]You can email me when you work on it.
[26:21]And we can work on it together.
[26:23]Yeah, that would be fun.
[26:26]Anyway, I think it would be fun.
[26:27]It would be fun.
[26:28]I think it would be more than fun.
[26:29]I think it would be so helpful for people who fear death
[26:34]and who need that connection and insight
[26:38]that you are in a unique position to provide.
[26:40]But anyway, anyway, so do you
[26:43]have any advice to aspiring authors?
[26:45]Yes, don't give up.
[26:47]I quit teaching to write and tried
[26:49]to publish two books I wrote for middle school,
[26:52]middle grade, excuse me, quite a while.
[26:55]You get frustrated.
[26:57]There are so many hurdles and so many ins and outs
[27:00]and so many connections you don't have
[27:02]that you see would help if you did.
[27:04]And all of that, it's not the romantic, oh,
[27:08]just do like Scott Fitzgerald and write your short story
[27:12]and send it into the post and Maxwell, Perkins,
[27:17]or whatever, they'll take it.
[27:20]They'll write it, you're safe then.
[27:22]Everyone knows who you are and you got your career established.
[27:26]It just isn't like that.
[27:27]And it's quirky and harder than that.
[27:30]What I will say is I've come across so many people younger
[27:33]than myself who have found through technology ways
[27:38]to promote themselves and get themselves seen
[27:41]and heard and read that to me that's wonderful.
[27:44]But I would say don't give up,
[27:47]which I'm sure sounds tedious, but it's the truth.
[27:51]And also I think, get truer and truer and truer
[27:55]to who you are and don't worry about people saying,
[27:59]we don't like animal books, we don't want this.
[28:02]We're not looking for that.
[28:03]You write what you are.
[28:05]That's all that little piece was on Facebook.
[28:08]It was everything I am and not looking to please anyone.
[28:14]It wasn't about that.
[28:15]It was about the writing.
[28:16]It was about the words.
[28:18]It was about the meaning.
[28:20]And I think if you do that, you might be surprised what happened.
[28:25]That's a great advice.
[28:26]I love that.
[28:27]Wow. Well, Kitty, thank you.
[28:29]Thank you for sharing your time with me
[28:31]and your story and all of your insights and thoughts.
[28:36]And I really appreciate it.
[28:38]Well, I do too.
[28:39]This is so much fun.
[28:40]I just love it and I do love your podcast.
[28:43]I collect podcasts and I listen to them at night in bed
[28:46]if I'm not able to sleep.
[28:47]So it's been a real gift.
[28:49]Several of yours recently, especially have touched me deeply.
[28:54]And again, I just really thank you.
[28:56]Oh, thank you so much.
[28:57]That means a lot.
[28:58]Thank you.
[28:59]Yeah. All right.
[29:00]Well, have a great day.
[29:01]And thank you for your time.
[29:02]You too, Tiki.
[29:03]Okay, Tiki.
[29:04]Well, thank you too.
[29:04]Bye-bye.
[29:06]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[29:09]Don't have time to read books.
[29:10]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens
[29:13]and at Moms.
[29:14]Don't have time to read books.
[29:15]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com
[29:18]and sign up for my virtual book club
[29:20]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:22]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[29:25]for the Sound Editing.
[29:26]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[29:28]for providing this fantastic intro and outroom music.