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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Shaun, welcome aboard to the show. So happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, Ari. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:So in full disclosure, this is the second time we're having you. The first time was so much fun. That one was actually recorded by my daughter, Emma. She might make a guest appearance. I'm not sure if that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:It's kind of up to her at this stage. But you did I think you've probably had the best one so far and I hope I'm not getting in trouble with my other guests, but your short story is wonderful. So I just wanted to appreciate you for that since I didn't hear it when it happened and now all the audience has to go and listen to the short one that you did because it was great. What we didn't get to do in the short one is talk about your book, which is in some ways wonderful, but in some ways also there's something very deep in it that we're gonna talk about too. And it looks like our guest of honor is joining us.
Speaker 1:Come join us. So so as as Emma gets over her shyness and and and joins into the camera, start telling us about your book. What is it
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Well, the book is about a pair of mothers and sons who have to repair broken bonds in the face of psychological and economic collapse. It takes place in 2009, and it's takes place in Aberdeen, Washington.
Speaker 1:And so there's some historical accuracy to 2009. Remind us what happened then.
Speaker 2:Yes. So, 2009, there was an economic crisis brought about by the collapse of the housing market.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 2:a And this impacted, yes, and people were impacted in Aberdeen particularly because Aberdeen still does a lot with logging and timber and timber products and so, like a lot of cash crop economies, they were hit particularly hard with less houses being sold, there was less demand to build them and so a lot of people were out of work in 2000 and
Speaker 1:And did you have a personal exposure to these personal stories, what was your kind of personal take on this?
Speaker 2:My, in 2009, I was actually graduating college and I actually was very I felt very fortunate in 2009 because I had a job. I was working at a mental health treatment center, and these were with teenagers, and many of these teenagers were experiencing profound mental health challenges as a result of trauma and traumatic grief. And so while I didn't have a personal direct connection to what was happening in Aberdeen, I certainly heard about it and read about it, what was happening in Aberdeen and throughout the country. And so, I decided to create a character, my main character Malachi Loud MacRally, whose mental health challenges and mental health collapse parallels his town's collapse into the crisis of two thousand.
Speaker 1:And from the from the stories that you did get exposed to, what drove you to write a book? What was the what was the thing that you really wanted to bring to the world?
Speaker 2:I wanted to bring us a book to bring us all together. At the time when I started writing it all throughout the process and still now, I noticed that so many things keep us separate. Mental health challenges, politics, money, various forms of love we want from other people, whether that's romantic or brotherly or whatever it is, things keep us apart. And the characters in my book, particularly the two of the characters, what they want most is to have everyone be together. And I think that that's something that I wanted in in this book as well.
Speaker 2:I also wanted to bring into the world a love of history and a love of this place in particular, Washington. It's a it's a Washington state novel for sure. But not only does it take place in Seattle, it takes place in Aberdeen, which is much more of a hinterland. It's a a place we don't always think about, which is a shame because places like Aberdeen produce things that we use all the time. Things our houses are made up of and we rely on them.
Speaker 2:And so, I I hope that the book can help us think about these places more, but also think about the people more. People, who we might pass on the streets or not think of, and the the main character Malachi Loud MacRally is one of those people and
Speaker 1:I love the name, by the way. So that's wonderful. So you you talked about, you know, us being apart. Are we apart more so than ever before? Is this a problem that's growing or have we just had this problem for ages?
Speaker 1:And what does this even mean? What does it mean to be a part?
Speaker 2:I go to church most Sundays, every Sunday, but I think that we've had this problem for for as long as there have been people. I think, you know, the I have my training in psychology, I studied psychology and I worked in mental health treatment centers for many years. I'm currently a public high school teacher and so to speak from, you know, a more science based lens, mental health challenges can often isolate us when we're dealing with traumatic grief, when we're dealing with trauma, when we're dealing with our own biological issues, whether through depression or anxiety, we can isolate. I think that the Bible tends to use language of possession. There are examples in the New Test, what's called the New Testament or the Christian Bible of possession and people who are possessed by demons are isolated.
Speaker 2:They're removed from their families, they're removed from their friends and we see depictions of, from my religion that I practice of of Jesus intervening and bringing those people who are isolated into community and into friendship again with others. And so, and I think in the back coming back to the lens of psychology, we see we see healers, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, and friends and family members reaching out to those people to bring them into community. And so I think that the the separateness has always been here. It just takes on different forms in our contemporary age. And so I think that the the key is in the sort of turning of the novel is about how when we try to love someone who's having challenges, that can trigger trigger our own awareness of our weaknesses, our own awareness of our frailties and where we fall short because as we try to love them, we see aspects of ourself that are not so great either.
Speaker 2:And so through that process, we know ourselves more. And at the end, if we're not more together, we at least are are wiser.
Speaker 1:There is deep, deep truth in that. I mean, know, the process of giving and support, I don't know why it is. I don't know if, I don't know how this works exactly, but I volunteer a lot, Rotary and many, many other groups. I've noted in that process of giving, you learn a lot about yourself and you gain that deeper sense of self awareness. I will say a small word of caution, that journey of self awareness can be painful.
Speaker 1:So if you're looking to be blissfully, you know, blissfully dumb I guess, you know that could be a good life to a certain degree but if you are choosing to learn more about yourself and your environment then it has huge rewards but also a little bit of danger. You talk about separation. What does that look like in community today when you see separation in the high school environment? I'm a parent, I don't live inside of the high school environment, my son just is going into high school. What is what is the manifestation of separation in that environment as, what do parents need to know if if anything?
Speaker 2:My main character is dealing with extreme forms of mental health challenges. His internal life is very profoundly difficult. He's either experiencing hauntings or hallucinations and so his experience definitely isolates him and is our experience is writ large, you know. I think that the average teenager isn't going through necessarily what my focal character is, but I do think that that young people are haunted by things that they've undergone in the past that they're not sure that they they want to talk about or that they can talk about. I think that young people have a I was listening actually to Ocean Vuong, who's a poet and novelist, he has a new novel out, The Emperor of Gladness.
Speaker 2:He as a teacher notices that young people are scared to try. Young people want to appear cool and appear that everything comes easy or they have a kind of devil may care attitude where if they look like they're trying too hard, they're gonna they're gonna draw mockery from their peers or even adults. And I I see that sometimes from others. I think that language can also be a barrier. I teach English language learners or immigrants and refugees, people who are learning English and I I think that that that can be a barrier.
Speaker 2:But even if we're having the shared language of English, an adult's way of speaking or a professional person's way of speaking compared with the young person's way of speaking, I think that that that can cause separation. I think that, you know, Bo Burnham's movie, I think it's called Eighth Grade, is a wonderful depiction of a teenager who on social media presents herself as a social butterfly and an expert in how to be socially adept, but then in her real life as shy and awkward and as scared stiff to open her mouth and make mistakes, and so there's this disconnect between what's on our social media versus who we really are. I certainly experienced that. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:How do you so you went into a dangerous topic, so I can't not ask the question. What you asked? How do you, you're a parent, how do you feel about social media with your kids? Is this like a no go zone? Is there a happy middle?
Speaker 1:Or is the future social media, they have to be on it? And you know, obviously my daughter has five social media accounts, six, she's a podcaster and yet she's not allowed to use any of them. There's a little bit of a paradigm happening there. She's giving me a little bit of side eye right now. I wish the camera could catch that.
Speaker 1:I don't have a great answer for this. I don't know what the answer is, so there's no right or wrong here. But what's your approach?
Speaker 2:Well, my son is seven. He and I mean, he uses he'll borrow our phones or his iPad to watch rudimentary videos, and he doesn't have any social media yet or he doesn't he's not even aware of what it is yet. And so luckily, you know, you Ari are blazing a trail for me and so I'll have to when he's of age, I'll have to actually call you.
Speaker 1:Okay. Have to call him back.
Speaker 2:I do watch my niece deal with some of it. She plays a lot of Roadblocks is called is the game she plays on it, and she is very social with her peers through that, and but at the same time, I use her I see her using it a lot, and I'm not parenting her, but it it certainly when when my son is of age, my wife and I dream of having him not or we dream or we plan, which one is it, of him not having social media until he's 16, 17, Maybe. Yeah. We'll see. You know, I mean, but it it I I do empathize with with Emma and other young people because as when I was a teenager, I didn't like it.
Speaker 2:I didn't need it. I didn't want it. But now as an author, it's like if I don't put it on social media, it doesn't exist. So like my book launch that I had on Friday, you know, I put pictures up that night.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. So so bring pull the book forward so we can see it full full blown picture. Absolutely. And so we can have it go. It's Whistlepunk Falls.
Speaker 1:Did I get that
Speaker 2:right? Whistlepunk Falls. Okay.
Speaker 1:So you did. Very much. Okay. So so it's gonna be very hard for me to ignore the book in the background, Jack of All. Is that yours?
Speaker 2:Yes. That is. Please bring
Speaker 1:please bring it forward and tell us about it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So this is my book of poetry. This came out last year along with a collection of short stories, The Wild Familiar. But Jacopo is much more of a directly it's my, autobiography in verse. It's a collection of poems and it's about being a dad, it's about being a teacher, it's about living with disappointments and it's also about, at the time I wrote it, pre totalitarian dread, now I think as I read it, it's just pure totalitarian dread, so.
Speaker 1:So that's a lot of fun. May I may I put you on the spot?
Speaker 2:How how bad would that Please.
Speaker 1:Okay. Would you be willing to read us one of your poems from the book?
Speaker 2:I would love that.
Speaker 1:Please. Alright. And and beware be be be let it be known that we have aspiring poet here to my left.
Speaker 2:Yes. I wanna make you
Speaker 1:read one of your poems though, I promise. Sorry, what did you say? You wanna read the remember? No. Know, she doesn't.
Speaker 1:Okay. So she calls me a giraffe and she drew a picture. A giraffe is a giraffe rat. It's especially when I'm not being a pleasing father. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe she'll read us that poem too, but let let's pick your favorite and tell her and after
Speaker 2:you've read
Speaker 1:it, I'd love to because this and I think this is true for you, you just shared it's true for Emma. Many times poems are inspirations from our lives. Emma talks about her friends, she talks about her trips, she talks about you know difficult things so there's always a story behind them so if you are able to and willing to, would love to hear the story as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, well here's my favorite of the collection and it's called You, Me and the Lion. You, Me and the Lion. It's no surprise that after I call you for a diaper change and you, not wanting to be taken away from your toy animals, scream and fall to the floor, fist and feet pounding, that I can fold you my arms around you, still writhing, and kiss you on your newly hardened head before I get you clean. Mommy will be home soon. It's no surprise I can do these things because the night is coming, and year around your cheeks are as sun warmed, soft, and new as any spring bud.
Speaker 2:And when I pick you up from day care, you let loose an unabashed whinny, trundling up to me, arms outstretched, fingers twinkling to angel feather fall onto my shoulders, solid now from lifting you and holding you close. Yet the night is coming. No surprise. A night when no one can work. What is surprising is that many children and their fathers don't have and haven't had these kinds of daily joys.
Speaker 2:My father didn't have them with his father. One day, his mommy didn't come home, and we shared our sweet times in deepening shade, which became the night that separated us. These facts about the haves and have nots and what was taken change things here, my son. For now, let's just say that there is a lion patting its umber paws along our street. We can see its slack tummy tucked inside its ribs and slowly rotating hips as it paces on claws thick and dark as rotten bananas.
Speaker 2:And we need to either feed it or flee, But we're not as fast, and mommy's bus will drop her off right in the lion's path. So shall we go for a walk? You're at the door saying, walk, walk, walk, and pounding. All I know is that the lion had a daddy once and drank milk from its mommy. And this knowing is a key.
Speaker 2:Let us learn how to feed it. Scratch its sinewy back. Stitch closed, flesh opened by a scourging. Trim the midnight edges around its shaggy mane, and walk beside it in the twilight to understand its roar. Take my hand, and do not be afraid.
Speaker 2:Mommy will be home soon. But the night is coming, and there is work still to be done among you, me, and the light.
Speaker 1:That was not light weight. That was not easy. Wow. That that you took me by surprise there. Holy cow.
Speaker 1:Okay. How much can you tell about the story?
Speaker 2:Well, I was a stay at home dad between 2019 and 2020. I dodged a bullet. I didn't know COVID was coming, I wrapped up teaching in June 2019 and was home with my son, he was he was 2.5, three and no, I take that back, During that stint, was I think one, 1.5, he was just starting to walk and I was thinking about how much I enjoyed life with my son and how much fun we were having together, but at the same time, very much aware of how broken and difficult the world was. Know, I was still working on this book, Whistlepunk Falls, and thinking about my students, and thinking about everything I was hearing on the news, and what was going on with our American political situation, and, you know, very disturbed by the darkness I see around me, and so how can I begin to to start discussing these kind of things with my son? And so that poem kind of flowed out from that.
Speaker 2:William Wordsworth wrote Surprised by Joy, a sonnet after the loss of one of his children and in this one, I'm saying, it's no surprise we have this joy, it's no surprise we have this joy, but night is coming. And that's one of Christ's lines in the in apostle John's gospel, he says, you know, night is coming, a time where no one can work. And he's speaking apocalyptically of the end of times. And so the lion sort of anthropomorphizes or personifies a heaviness, a darkness coming that we all need to confront.
Speaker 1:So, your kind of COVID, the political environment, the separation that we talked about before, are you are you alluding to this kind of separation or tear within the American people? Is that part of it?
Speaker 2:Most certainly. Yeah. The Whistlepunk Falls is not a overtly political book though, of course, I mean, the main character is half macaw, a native American, it's dealing with homelessness, mental illness, drugs, and how we respond to both those things, I think the political parties have become increasingly polarized with how they respond to that though, I mean, it's always been there, it's been there for a long time. But so, it's not overtly a political novel but it certainly has political implications. And then yes, with the separation and isolation of COVID and then yes, it's all kind of there.
Speaker 2:And then spiritually, intentionally or unintentionally, we become isolated from others at times in our life when we're going through something or someone else we love is going through something.
Speaker 1:Well, you. That was amazing. I appreciate you doing that live. I want to change the topic just a little bit and this is very selfish. For let's say a hypothetical aspiring poet who was releasing her book of poetry this year, what advice would you give the little Missy sitting to my left in her her road to publish her book of poetry?
Speaker 2:Great. Well, hi Emma. How are you? It's good to see that is quite alright. The last time we spoke, we actually spoke off recording and
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Emma, you asked me a very similar question and I did the mistake of talking too much and so I think what a young author needs to ask is what state is their manuscript in, how long is it, also what are their goals? Do they want to be in one of the big three, the big big huge publishing houses? Are they wanting to self publish or do they want something in between? I think I would start asking those questions, and if the young writer doesn't have an answer, that's okay too, but
Speaker 1:What's the, why do we want to publish the book? Do we have an answer? She wants to get a cat. Her giraffe father basically said that if she gets her book published, not just self published but picked up by some publisher, she can get a cat, so it's all working so she's giving more side eye. It's working towards a goal.
Speaker 1:Shaun, this has been such a delight. I am so grateful to have you on the show. Here's the question. It's a difficult one. If you had to go back to the most difficult point in your life, and if you want, you can tell the story.
Speaker 1:What would be the advice that you would have given to yourself?
Speaker 2:The the novel has its focal character who's having all these mental health challenges. It also has two other characters who are watching his struggle play out, and they're trying to engage him, but they also end up engaging their own frailties. And so there, what ends up happening is there's a love triangle among the three of them and there's, in any love triangle, there has to be unrequited love. And so I think I'll go to my, you know, I had several unrequited love relationships in high school and that's some of the energy in the book, though not all of it. And I think I would want to ask my younger self, what is the hurry?
Speaker 2:Why, why do you need a romantic attachment so much? What, what is this draw? Can it wait? And I'm, my advice would be, you will have wished later on that you didn't invest so much of your mental space, your emotional space, and your time into pining after these these girls, in my case. And that's the advice I would give, which probably wouldn't be received very well by my 16 and 17 year old self who, you know, subconsciously I knew that, but I think I had the compulsion to want to be in a relationship because I wanted to repair the the problems of my my parents' relationships.
Speaker 2:You know, I wanted to embark on my own family, and I wanted that too quickly. And I think I might reveal to my younger self, you're you're going to have a family. You're gonna get married. You're gonna have kids. There's no need to rush this, there's no need to kind of poison yourself with discontentment and self loathing that this isn't happening now, you know, be patient, you know, enjoy life as you are now and don't, don't try to rush things so much.
Speaker 1:I I I'm not sure that I could take that advice now, go slow. I think that all of us could probably take a dose of go slow as kids, as teenagers, and probably as adults. Shaun, thank you so much for joining the show. This has been an absolute delight, and I am I'm gonna make a personal recommendation to get your new book, Whistlepunk Falls, and, oh my god, please get the book of poetry too. I mean, if that's a taste of what's in there, oh my god.
Speaker 1:It's called Jack of All. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Ari. It was great being back. Emma, it was good seeing you again, and I wish you both well, and I hope our paths cross sometime in the future.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Shaun.