Chloé Cooper Jones, EASY BEAUTY: A Memoir
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[1:29]Chloe Cooper Jones is the author of Easy Beauty, a memoir
[1:32]Chloe is a writer based in New York City in 2020
[1:35]Chloe was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing for fearing for his life a profile of Ramsey, Orta
[1:41]The man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner
[1:44]She was the recipient of the 2020 white and creative nonfiction grant and the 2021 Howard foundation grant from Brown University
[1:51]Both grants are in support of her book Easy Beauty
[1:53]A memoir which finds the author after unexpectedly becoming a mother
[1:57]And barking on a journey across the globe to reclaim the spaces both physical and emotional
[2:01]That she had been denied and denied herself
[2:04]Welcome Chloe. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss your beautiful memoir Easy Beauty
[2:11]Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure
[2:14]I will admit we almost did this two weeks ago
[2:17]And I just hadn't had enough time to properly read and prepare
[2:21]And I knew I would love the book and wanted to read the whole thing
[2:23]So thank you for letting me postpone
[2:26]And now I have read the entire book and it was really beautiful and moving
[2:31]And I thank you for sharing so many of these intimate experiences and thoughts and
[2:40]Your analysis of everything and at all of it. It was really great. So thanks
[2:45]Thank you. Thanks. That's very generous and thanks for just taking the time to read it
[2:50]I know everybody's very busy in their lives
[2:53]So it's a great honor when anybody just gives me that gift of their time
[2:58]I it was a pleasure
[3:01]Do we start by talking about Roger Federer because you have a whole section and
[3:07]My husband is a former tennis player
[3:10]I mean, he still plays tennis, but he taught professionally and coached and all the stuff and he is a massive Roger Federer fan
[3:16]So we watch everything all the time and I loved reading your whole section about
[3:21]Your sort of own to Federer and the beauty of his backhand and this one-handed backhand which I hear about all the time
[3:26]He said in the book he said I try to make everyone watch tennis with me
[3:30]Bobby relents and we spend hours on the couch half watching the matches
[3:33]But mostly talking about his adventures on Tinder and then you go on and you said when I saw a Roger Federer
[3:39]Play for the first time all those years ago a strange thing happened
[3:42]My perception was sharpened briefly allowing me a heightened moment of noticing
[3:46]Federer's backhand is beautiful and I didn't need anyone to explain that to me
[3:50]I could see it. He opened a door and let me in the more I watched him play
[3:54]The more I learned. He became my teacher my translator
[3:57]And so I became devoted to him. I sat out all his matches
[4:00]I began to hate his rivals. I moved forward learning more nuanced aspects of his game
[4:05]I watched videos of his footwork. I listened to people analyze his kick serve
[4:08]I found out what a kick serve was
[4:10]I felt an urgency to be in his presence
[4:12]As summoning he inspired nearly deranged reactions from his fans
[4:16]I was fascinated by the eyes on their faces when the camera pan to the stands
[4:22]All right, you and Roger Federer discuss
[4:24]Yes, well, so I I got into tennis because I would I didn't know anything about tennis
[4:30]I never played and I would watch tennis at a bar with a friend of mine who's a bartender who
[4:36]Which just like sees so many things in the game that I couldn't see so many nuances of the game or he would
[4:42]Understand how points were constructed and you know
[4:46]I didn't see any of that. I just saw ball going over the net
[4:48]And I'm always I think one thing that kind of links a lot of my interests is
[4:54]Perceptual experiences that seem at first very opaque or confusing
[5:00]And then through time or patience or education
[5:04]Or a great teacher or mentor a previously opaque or difficult
[5:09]Experience becomes sort of, you know, you can see it
[5:13]You can have real perceptions about it
[5:15]And I think that sometimes when we think about
[5:18]Geniuses often what we're locating not always often what we're locating is people who
[5:24]Give us the ability to change our perceptions about something and to see something
[5:30]So that passage you read about fetters such a good example because he was somebody that when I watched him play
[5:36]I thought oh, I'm seeing something else here
[5:39]I'm seeing something, you know, it's like it's not just somebody knocking a ball over a net
[5:43]Which is impressive and something I can't do
[5:46]But I was seeing somebody really play at a different level
[5:50]And I love that it maybe you've had that experience like watching the Olympics
[5:53]Watching some sport, you don't know anything about and then the best person plays and you're like oh
[5:59]Had that experience I can't think of a specific moment
[6:02]But yes, I know I know what you want. So that's yeah in general
[6:06]That's so fascinating to me and swim and I feel like diving and swimming
[6:11]Oh totally aren't like in the and I'm like I thought I swim
[6:15]This is swimming. Yeah. Oh my he had all of a sudden you see exactly
[6:20]How complicated that that
[6:23]Incredible, you know physical art is
[6:27]And so I think with fetter
[6:28]I just really admired him. He became like a teacher that helped me
[6:33]Understand a lot more about tennis and then I went
[6:36]On the tennis tour for a road about tennis for GQ for about a year
[6:41]And this is not in the book
[6:42]But I will say I did get to know
[6:44]Federer while I was on the tour and he was
[6:47]He's like everything you want him to be he was so gracious
[6:50]So brilliant so smart so good with everyone
[6:54]And we would walk around the tennis gardens
[6:57]And he would know everyone's name and he would know things about them and it would be
[7:01]Journalists coaches other players obviously, but also
[7:05]Security guards people that did the players laundry people who do transpo who re-strong rackets
[7:12]He would just know, you know, it's like that's his world
[7:14]That's his home and he treated everybody on the tour with so much respect and
[7:20]And genuine curiosity too like he always was asking lots of questions
[7:25]So he he's a rare figure maybe that
[7:29]Lips up to them. I thought lived up to the hype or at least is
[7:33]Unbelievably good at performing these sort of social acts
[7:37]But I think they were quite genuine
[7:38]So if your husband is a big Federer fan just say at Chloe thinks it's justified highly
[7:44]I'm gonna just have him listen to this whole thing
[7:47]Any other private Federer things you should know before we move on to the rest of the book
[7:52]One one really this may seem like a small thing to some people
[7:55]But is really was very
[7:59]Telling and moving to me is once I was interviewing him for a piece about one Martine del Putra about a completely different player
[8:08]I love by the way. I like yeah
[8:10]Love all the spirit and the crowd reaction and like oh my gosh, but okay, delto delto delto delto delto
[8:16]delto troz amazing
[8:17]I wrote a profile of him for cheeky. That's my favorite tennis piece probably that I wrote
[8:22]And Federer was like well, I want to talk about I'm like, you know just was so generous with his time to
[8:27]Be a secondary source on a profile that you know had nothing to do with Federer
[8:32]And he's in a lot of that profile
[8:34]But I think one detail that I left out is when when I was interviewing Roger
[8:39]We were in a hallway
[8:41]Outside of a press room. It was just weird moving together
[8:45]And I was asking him questions and he just went hold on a second
[8:48]It would stop and then he was like come with me and he found a place
[8:53]For us to be and he was like I just want to sit where we are I die
[8:57]Because I'm much shorter than him and I'm much shorter than everyone
[9:01]And he was like I don't want to stand above you like I want to sit somewhere
[9:05]And so he ended up like basically doing like a squat against a wall
[9:09]I could share sit so that he could be I die with me and then and then talk to me would only talk to me like that
[9:16]And I thought wow that's a very classy first very short lady. That's a very classy move. So
[9:23]Wow, that's amazing. I don't think that's a smoke and I think that's I think that's big
[9:28]And I think it's particularly big in light of
[9:31]Other terrible things that have happened to in similar alleyways and confined spaces by men who are the exact opposite
[9:38]And how they have treated you and your body and to have that as a counter foil
[9:43]I think that's right where counter balance to those
[9:46]Experiences is really uplifting. Can you you shared a lot in the in the book about
[9:53]comments and
[9:55]Insults and just all the complete like disregard
[10:00]for your feelings, which is, as I kept reading, just more and more, not only, you know,
[10:06]just unconscionable, but like, just so juvenile, right? I just kept thinking, like, who are
[10:12]the people who are like, who could be just so insensitive to someone's feelings? I just,
[10:17]but there are those people. But anyway, I won't rant about that. But basically,
[10:22]you said, even after some of these insults or whatever, you wouldn't even want to involve your
[10:26]husband because you didn't want to bring your sort of stuff onto him. Tell me a little bit
[10:32]about that. And if this book has changed that. Well, I think one thing that's important is just that,
[10:40]you know, I do talk about moments in which people have said cruel or unkind things to me often
[10:46]strangers, sometimes not, sometimes friends, sometimes people are very close to me. But I think that
[10:52]the point of sharing those is, I mean, one, it's like, it's very common. Like, none of these
[11:00]things are surprising. This is kind of a constant state of things. And I think the reason why is,
[11:05]or at least a large reason why is that all of us are moving around the world, like, with our
[11:12]major concepts. And so we're seeing all of us every single, it's not like the rare, you know,
[11:17]jerk or something. But all of us are moving around the world with certain embedded concepts
[11:23]about other people. And because our brains need to process things very quickly, we're sometimes
[11:29]reflecting back those first sometimes bad or stereotypical concepts wherever we are. And then,
[11:36]usually if you're a person of conscious, you know, conscience and compassion and the ability to
[11:42]critical thoughts, you'll you'll override those bad narratives of those bad concepts and you'll have
[11:47]second and third and fourth and fifth thoughts about people. But often when I'm in public,
[11:53]other people don't have time to do that, right? Because they're as busy as me. So what's often reflected
[11:59]back to me is not their, their innate cruelty. But I think more so the fact that we live in a world
[12:08]in which narratives around disability are still really bad and really backwards. And so what I see
[12:15]a lot is just people's assumptions about my weakness or my inability or my lack of agency. And I have
[12:23]to ask, like, you know, myself, like, well, where does that come from? And it comes from the way that
[12:28]quite often disabled bodies are talked about in just the world around us that there's something
[12:34]inherently lesser. There's something inherently de-sexualized about the disabled body. You know,
[12:40]I think of it always as like the bath from little women model where it's like the other sisters
[12:46]get to be smart and have romance and have lives and have agency and have really complex personalities
[12:52]where as bath is frail and an angel and perfect and then dies to help spoiler alert. She dies
[12:59]in little women. She dies and it's like her death sort of signifies the realness of other lives.
[13:08]And that's a narrative we see all the time surrounding disability. And if that, you know, that
[13:13]that were tragic figures, that were weak figures, that were figures that that exist for other
[13:20]people, realer people's inspiration. And that narrative, I just see that's what I actually see
[13:26]reflected back. So these moments of like quote unquote cruelty from others, I find are really
[13:34]linked up to bad social narratives that they're just not thinking very critically about or
[13:40]checking themselves or trying to have a second or third thought to transcend that first sort of
[13:45]negative, stereotypical thought. And so a lot of the work I feel so committed to in this book,
[13:53]a reason why I wanted to be so honest about a lot of these experiences is to try to in some way
[14:00]shift that bad narrative, even by an inch, you know, just if my book like does one tiny little
[14:07]dent in that narrative, then all the time and work will have been worth it. But I also think it's
[14:13]really important to acknowledge that I can do the same types of dehumanizing activities. I'm not
[14:19]exempt from it. I'm human like anybody else. I'm susceptible to all these bad narratives that I
[14:25]both internalize about myself or can turn on other people. So the thing I'm asking others to do
[14:32]in the book for me, I also am very explicit about recognizing that I have to do that myself for
[14:39]others. And so yeah, I mean, I think that that was maybe a long way of me not answering your
[14:47]question, but but felt like I have to address it. And then with my husband, it just, I think
[14:53]that I'm curious how you feel about this like in any sort of intimate close relationship,
[14:58]whether it's with your partner, your kids, your mother, your best friends, there's always sort
[15:03]of an awareness in me of not wanting to spill all my pain onto them or my hurt or my frustrations
[15:12]with the world. And yet, those are the people you need to share those things with in order to
[15:19]feel truly close to them in a way you don't feel with strangers. So that balance is just really
[15:25]tricky, I think in life. I still think about it a lot where that threshold is between intimacy and
[15:33]and that responsibility to not put everything on someone. You know, does that make sense?
[15:39]It does, but maybe I'm just too selfish because I end up sharing like every single fat thing
[15:46]that happened to me with my partner all the time. So I should probably take a page from your book
[15:51]literally and figuratively and probably zip my mouth shut a little more. No, I think I went too far
[15:58]the other way. And it, you know, I think I was for a long time, like always holding my true self
[16:04]back from everybody, including the people I needed to actually, it's just a, yeah, it's just a
[16:10]balance. So I don't think I'm any better at it. I think I'm just on the other end of the spectrum
[16:15]sometimes, although I think I'm a little better now. And I probably should have started this
[16:20]episode because we didn't even, I didn't even have you explain what this book is even about. I just
[16:24]went right into the tennis. So sorry about that. Maybe you should give like your one sentence about
[16:29]what the books about for people who know have analyzed back ends and their own, you know,
[16:36]interrelationship monologues. You know, for a certain segment of your fans learning to love Roger
[16:42]Federer is a good tagline, you know, like maybe it's true. You know, it's got me the conversations
[16:48]I usually had, right? But I mean, I, yeah. So my book takes place over the present of the book
[16:55]takes place over an 18 month period in which I'm traveling the world, mostly for journalism and
[17:02]other research projects. But as I'm doing that, I'm trying out sort of an experiment within myself
[17:09]to see if I can make some changes in my behavior, most specifically around my own sort of
[17:15]concept of my body, my disability, how disability is seen in the world, the way the other people have
[17:23]seen me, how that shapes my own behaviors and most specifically how it shapes my own ability to
[17:29]be a present member of my family for my husband and my son. Good. So now everybody knows what
[17:36]it's about. It's a quest. It's a quest that involves seeking advice from Roger Federer and Beyonce
[17:46]and like sculptures and stuff. So I have to say, I love the image of you laying outside of the
[17:53]Bernini sculptures with like one leg across, like stretching your hips and like I'm doing this
[18:01]like anyone can see, but laying at the grass, like, you know, looking up at the blue sky and
[18:06]stretching after like the stressful, difficult navigation of the museum or whatever else. But
[18:13]just that you're like, you know what? I'm going to lay here as long as I need to. I'm going to make
[18:16]my hips feel better. And I really don't care. And you know what? I was like, go you. That's so often.
[18:22]It is seriously because like I in an in an able body or whatever you want to, I don't know what
[18:29]the right word is. I don't want to, you know, just in a regular whatever, I would be really self-conscious
[18:34]to lay down in the grass and stretch. Unless I guess I was in my workout clothes and I was like,
[18:39]people might think I'm stretching from a run. They're like, like, if I were just to do that for
[18:43]fun, I feel like I would have all these sensors just be like, what do people think? And like,
[18:47]honestly, who cares? Jimmy, like, who cares? And I feel like you've achieved this, you know,
[18:53]even the way you answered that question about the insults or whatever is you it's like,
[19:01]you analyze the other people. You analyze the situation. You're very rational about it.
[19:07]But ultimately, you almost just don't care because you found your space for yourself.
[19:13]And you're going to live your life that way. And that's the way it is in the most respectful way possible.
[19:18]Well, I think that's the goal. I don't think I'm, you know, I don't think I figured that out
[19:23]all the time. But I and I think the book is largely about me struggling to do exactly that. And
[19:30]some chapters I'm doing a little better. And sometimes I regress a little bit. And sometimes I
[19:35]get brave and and can handle things. And other times I feel afraid of what it means to really
[19:42]try to be to take up. I think the way you said it is nice, like take up the space that I actually
[19:48]take up. That's a really hard thing that I'm still, I think, evolving on and trying my best to
[19:55]figure out. But I do think it just seems,
[20:00]like the most necessary project for me as a mother
[20:03]because anybody who's a parent
[20:08]has probably had this experience,
[20:09]like they're all these things in me
[20:11]that I wanted to hide from myself,
[20:14]all the worst parts of myself
[20:16]that I wanted to hide from my son.
[20:17]I didn't want him to be like me
[20:19]and I didn't want him to be afraid in the ways
[20:21]that I was afraid.
[20:23]And I kind of thought,
[20:24]well, I'll just tell him not to be afraid.
[20:26]I'll just tell him to be kind other,
[20:28]I'll just tell him to not be dissociated from strangers
[20:32]or, but of course, it's like it doesn't work.
[20:35]You actually have to model these things for your kids.
[20:38]And it's so infuriating to me as a mother
[20:40]that I have such an unbelievably observed and smart child
[20:46]which that's children are just like that.
[20:48]There's such sponges.
[20:50]And so a lot of this book is me sort of struggling
[20:52]with that sense of confidence or peace
[20:57]within myself so that I can then authentically model it
[21:02]for my child, you know, who is worth everything,
[21:06]you know, is worth any sort of personal struggle
[21:09]or change that I could do.
[21:11]It was the part where you talk about getting pregnant
[21:14]that you didn't know your pregnant until your five months
[21:16]along and how your whole life you've been told
[21:18]you couldn't carry a child.
[21:20]And the whole time you were carrying the child,
[21:21]you were worried about what might happen
[21:23]to the rest of your body as a result of that pressure.
[21:26]And then even after you have the child,
[21:28]the worry that continues and the judgment
[21:31]where people are like, should you have a kid?
[21:33]Like he's running down this pier.
[21:35]Like that was another one of these highly visual scenes
[21:38]where your immersed as a reader, like your son running
[21:42]and you can't catch up with him,
[21:44]which by the way is one of those classic,
[21:47]like with the scooter, you know, my kids scooter sometimes
[21:50]and then they're out of your control
[21:51]and you're just like, I'm back here.
[21:53]I see it all, but I can't do anything.
[21:56]But ultimately that is literally what it is
[21:59]to be a mom in general, right?
[22:00]Yeah, they're going on ahead of us.
[22:02]And even though we want to and we care,
[22:05]sometimes we just can't be there to stop everything
[22:08]from happening.
[22:09]It's like such a perfect mothering moment
[22:11]that you have there, a fear.
[22:14]Yeah, I think that's so nice that you say that
[22:17]because I think a lot of the point of that is like,
[22:21]everybody was so worried about me as a mother,
[22:23]they were so concerned and my OB like,
[22:26]is this even an ethical thing that you've done
[22:29]and to get pregnant even though I didn't mean to?
[22:33]I mean, I didn't, yeah, whatever.
[22:35]It was an accident, you know, he,
[22:37]everybody around me was just like,
[22:39]are you really fit to be a mother in a way?
[22:42]And that feeling, I think really kept me
[22:46]from experiencing in pregnancy and in the early years
[22:49]with motherhood, a feeling of like being a part
[22:53]of something larger than myself,
[22:54]that feeling of like being a part of like a tribe of mothers
[22:58]who were doing a difficult but valuable job.
[23:01]And so that sort of social reflection of worth
[23:05]that some mothers might experience
[23:07]where strangers are like, that's amazing.
[23:09]You're such a loving character.
[23:10]Like I never got that.
[23:12]I only got this reflection of like,
[23:14]oh, I don't think you should procreate,
[23:17]which is of course also the basis of eugenics
[23:21]as a belief that a body like mine should not ever procreate.
[23:24]And then it's, you know, of course,
[23:26]when Wolf gets running away from me on this pier
[23:28]and I can't catch up to him,
[23:30]it feels like in that moment,
[23:33]this validation of everybody's worst fears
[23:36]that in fact, I personally should not have been a mother.
[23:39]But in reality, it's exactly what you're saying.
[23:41]That is just the experience of motherhood.
[23:44]And so that constant awareness that you cannot
[23:48]and never will be able to fully keep your child safe.
[23:52]You can only do the best you can
[23:55]and love them as hard as possible.
[23:57]And so that I think in a weird way, that moment,
[24:01]and I'm so glad you are saying this and picked up on this
[24:04]and are responding to it in a weird way,
[24:06]that's actually the moment that I felt like I was just a mother
[24:10]and not a disabled mother.
[24:13]Just because it was like, yep, that's right.
[24:16]I'm gonna do the best I can
[24:17]and some of these things are gonna just be outside of my control
[24:20]and that's yet another one of the great pains of being a parent.
[24:26]Well, another one is that people will always judge you.
[24:30]And yeah, there will always be people on the outside
[24:34]thinking something about the way you're doing it,
[24:37]whether it's totally right.
[24:39]I mean, that's just part of parenting, right?
[24:41]It's like people, because no one really knows what they're doing.
[24:45]And so everybody feels like,
[24:47]I think everybody feels compelled to just
[24:50]rain on everybody else's parade, right?
[24:52]Like look at her, like I would be able to catch that kid,
[24:54]they might say, but you know what?
[24:56]Guy might not have either, you know?
[24:59]You might be able to run, but like,
[25:00]that kid might be running away from you in a few years.
[25:02]Maybe you're too good, I mean, you just don't know.
[25:04]So yes, unfortunately the two go hand-in-hand, but yes.
[25:07]But true, yeah, parenting.
[25:09]Well, you write really beautifully about your son.
[25:12]He's like a really awesome guy.
[25:14]How old is he?
[25:15]How old is he now?
[25:16]He's 10, and he's 10 years old.
[25:19]He's the coolest kid in the world.
[25:21]He's skateboarding outside right now, I think.
[25:24]And he's just amazing.
[25:26]Yeah, he's such a funny child.
[25:29]And now is like my best travel buddy.
[25:32]So he, I just had a two month tour, basically.
[25:35]And he went on a lot of the tour with me and just was like,
[25:39]oh, this is the best thing ever.
[25:40]Like he loves even waiting in airports.
[25:43]It's like a wild human, I don't know,
[25:46]any humans that love all the logistics of travel.
[25:49]But when we got home from tour, he was like,
[25:51]let's leave our apartment and just get an RV
[25:54]and just travel around the country all the time.
[25:57]So that's sort of his dream scenario right now.
[26:00]He's definitely picked up my travel bug.
[26:02]That's nice.
[26:03]Yeah.
[26:04]Go do it, just do it.
[26:06]Take a year.
[26:07]I think we're gonna go to,
[26:08]we're gonna try to go to Europe this summer.
[26:10]I was gonna take him in 2020,
[26:13]but you know, yeah, came up back here.
[26:16]But he's never been to Europe.
[26:17]So I think that'll be our next.
[26:19]We're gonna go to some museums and together,
[26:22]look at some art this summer, hopefully.
[26:24]That sounds nice.
[26:25]We're thinking about doing something similar,
[26:27]but oh, good.
[26:28]Let's see if I can also have an RV dream
[26:32]by the slept outside in an RV at this family birthday party
[26:37]where they didn't have room for us
[26:38]inside.
[26:39]And I think after like five of us in an RV for the night,
[26:42]they were like, okay, fine, you know,
[26:44]we'll go back to vengeance.
[26:46]Thank you very much, anyway.
[26:48]Are you working on another book?
[26:49]Do you think what's coming next?
[26:51]Yes.
[26:52]Let's go in.
[26:53]Yeah, I have two books actually
[26:56]that I'm kind of somewhat working on simultaneously
[26:59]that are in some ways like I think together
[27:02]the three of them form with an easy beauty form
[27:05]like a tripped deck is what I keep calling it
[27:07]just because trilogy implies that you would need
[27:10]to read them in order, but these are three separate books.
[27:12]And, but they all are sort of linked
[27:15]by a specific sort of underlying philosophical question.
[27:19]One is, you know, the first one's obviously about beauty,
[27:22]the second one that I'm finishing now is about devotion,
[27:25]the nature of ocean and some sort of history
[27:28]and philosophical ideas around devotion.
[27:31]And the third is about kinship.
[27:33]And so right now I'm kind of thinking
[27:35]through these three ideas and how they're connected
[27:39]and how I process them specifically
[27:41]through like experiences with art.
[27:43]And maybe it could be like easy beauty, difficult friendship.
[27:49]It's a goal to show some devotion, you know, yes, please.
[27:55]I don't have titles for these other books.
[27:57]I just have a material.
[27:58]So yeah, if you have any ideas, that would be funny.
[28:01]You have like an easy medium and hard, you know,
[28:05]medium devotion, hard friendship.
[28:07]Beginner, advance exactly.
[28:08]You could do like the scheme run like a green
[28:11]and a blue, blue square and then like a black diamond.
[28:15]Like diamond. Yeah.
[28:16]Yeah. Okay. These are good.
[28:18]I'm going to take these suggestions.
[28:19]Thank you.
[28:20]I'm not good, but go ahead.
[28:23]What is your advice for aspiring authors?
[28:25]Oh, great question.
[28:27]Okay, here's my advice.
[28:28]This is something a writing teacher said to me
[28:30]a long, long, long time ago.
[28:32]And I think about it almost every day
[28:34]that I sit down to write.
[28:36]Is she said to me, imagine that you're sitting down at a piano
[28:41]and you're looking at the 88 keys
[28:43]and you know that they have been played
[28:46]over and over and over again all these different configurations
[28:49]and that, you know, for hundreds of years,
[28:52]people have been playing these same 88 keys.
[28:54]And she said, now your job is to look at these 88 keys
[28:58]and play the note that only you can play.
[29:03]I always thought, you know, of course,
[29:05]like there's something inherently impossible about that.
[29:08]And that's kind of the point of her analogy.
[29:11]But at the same time, it's like whenever I think about that,
[29:16]when I'm writing a sentence, I'm always trying to say like,
[29:19]is this the note that only you could play?
[29:21]Is this a sentiment only you could express?
[29:25]Is this a way of writing that only I could do it?
[29:29]And the more I ask myself that question,
[29:32]the harder I sort of push into my own experiences
[29:38]and my own mind and the way that I process things
[29:41]and the things that I've read and my own lens on the world.
[29:44]And I try to sharpen through that advice
[29:47]like sharpen the specificity of that lens
[29:51]with the hope that when somebody reads my book,
[29:54]they think or reads any of my writing, they go,
[29:56]well, she's really playing music only she could play.
[30:00]You know, she's still using the same 88 keys that we all have to use. So that we only have 26 really 26. Well, we have 26 letters of letters. Yes, yes, it's harder for us.
[30:12]Yes, I know. We have it harder than then piano players. Yes, it's true lightweight over there.
[30:21]Yeah. So I love my advice. I think about it all the time. And I think this sort of paradoxical nature of that advice is actually kind of lovely.
[30:30]helpful in a way. Yeah, completely. Chloe, thank you. This was so interesting and fun. And thank you for the time and for letting me have a redo.
[30:42]Well, I'm so glad this was so lovely. Thank you for reading my book and for having me on my pleasure. All right, take care. Okay, bye.
[30:50]Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of moms. Don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at ziby Owens and at moms. Don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[31:09]Perfect texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.