Jedidiah Jenkins

Hi everyone, it's Sophia. Welcome to Work in Progress. Welcome to this week's Work in Progress, my friends. This is a first. This episode is airing on the day that my book comes out. I can't believe we're here. This is a big day for me. And I will tell you mine. My first memoir is officially out in the world.

And so to celebrate it and honor it and mark it in the sort of calendar of life, I wanted to bring on a guest today who knows a thing or two or four about putting your life on the page and who knows far more things about me. One of my best friends and favorite writers, Jedediah Jenkins, is here today. He's a three-time New York Times bestselling author whose books explore everything from a bicycle journey lasting 16 months from Oregon to Patagonia to the complicated relationship between a mother and son, explorations about faith, identity, family, and the questions that can change the course of a life.

Jed is the kind of person that you want to go to with your secrets and with your successes. And he's someone who can be that kind of space for you if you're a reader of his books. We met years ago at a gathering of people who wanted to make the world a better place almost 20 years ago now, I can't believe it. And pretty instantaneously, he was part of my chosen family. He was part of the group of friends who helped me find my footing back in Los Angeles after 10 years in North Carolina. He's one of the people I think of when I think of home.

There's so much to admire about my friend Jed. His relentless curiosity, his willingness to take a leap, and the way he brings people together. And so on the day that I am putting my own story out there, I just can't think of anyone I'd rather have here with me than a friend who knows firsthand. What it means to turn the pieces of your life into a book.

Let's dive in with Jadadiah Jenkins. Well, this is actually my dream come true.

Hi, Sophia. Congratulations on today.

How I love. Can you believe it? I love you.

It's an honor to be on your amazing show.

Well, I'm just so thrilled to be here. It's an honor to be your friend. And it's funny, we've talked about doing this for so long. And now I'm so glad that it took forever because we're in this kismet season.

Well, dear listener, I know this is Sophia's podcast, but I'm kind of going to steal the show because I want to make this about you, Sophia, you have, this is a gauntlet moment. This is a birth canal moment where I think everybody thinks they have a book in them and a memoir and autobiography. This like the story of your life and how you got here. I believe as a memoirist is, I believe is mandatory and it can be as simple as journaling, but I'm like people, you need to write your story because unless you sit down and try to figure out what this means, you don't know where you're going. You're just responding to the wind as opposed to being in the driver's seat of your life. And today I will tell you mine comes

out and it's like, people will actually get to hold it. They've pre-ordered it. They're going to go to Barnes and Noble right now. They're going to go to books a million. They're going to go to their local bookstore and get it and sit down and spend this next week or maybe all night binging it. And it's like, I know that's scary, but I want to ask you, like, how have you been feeling?

I mean, you know this. Thank God that the night I turned in my book, again, in Kismet was also the night you turned in your fourth book, literal mic drop. That is crazy. And for our friends at home, I FaceTimed Jed and was like, what are the chances that nearly 20 years into us knowing each other, this is happening to us on the same day. And I remember your gauntlet experience when your first book was coming out, when To Shake the Sleeping Self was coming out, and we had that insane week together in New York. We'll get there. But you were such a safe place for me to land at the end of this process because I essentially felt like I'd been picked up by a tornado and like battered into the rocks of my own

soul and dropped off on some foreign shore you know just wet and bruised and I was like is this normal I thought there I thought there was supposed to be all this joy in this process and then all of my gorgeous friends like you who've written books were like no it's absolute torture and then comes the.

Joy Well, and then comes the joy, which for me, the joy is being able to stand in a place of strength and say what your younger self wished it could have said in strength, even with a trembling voice. And then it's not just for you. It's when somebody says, I didn't know I could see myself like that. I didn't know that was an option. I didn't know I could stand up and speak out and be that. little girl who believed in her power and I could do that and bring her back. And that is when the joy comes, but it is, it is scary. It is overwhelming because you're talking about real people. You're talking about your life. You're talking about your family relationships, friendships, those people exist. This we're not writing fantasy novels here. And

it is this catharsis that I wish more people could experience.

Yes.

So dear listeners, I'm about to release my fourth book. And every single time I've done a book tour, I got sick, like, like debilitatingly sick. And by the way, I didn't not like, not like a cold or the flu, like my brain was like psychosomatically shutting down my body out of anxiety.

Yes.

And Sophia knows me as well as anybody like I don't do that. Like this was a totally new experience for me. And I've only learned out of repetition.

Yeah.

It's a fear response of like putting yourself out there and not knowing how people will receive you, which is, you know, that is the human response. But my question for you, Sophia, is being a public, because you were a public person first in a way and have had strangers digest your life and puke it back to you in a way that I hadn't.

Yeah.

And so like, well, first of all, let's set the stage of how do you feel right now about this book coming out today? Like zoom out.

I think only in the last few weeks have I really felt settled with it. There are certainly things I feel anxious about because I know to your point, I've been in the washing machine of a public life for a long time. So I already know how gross the world is. But I also know on the other side of the seesaw how beautiful it is. And I am nervous about what will be ugly. And I feel really secure in.

This moment because my story is mine.

Having exercised that muscle to some degree where you say something in an interview and they take it in a different direction or you write something and it's like you have a little bit of muscle memory of being in the public and having it become a conversation in a direction you didn't anticipate and surviving that and surviving it beautifully.

I've witnessed that. your strength and poise and you're blessed because you are a talker and you can find the words where some people, they just get bulldozed by a situation and they don't know how to process it. Like you have the tools, but I don't know. How are you feeling equipped for this new moment?

I think the interesting thing is as I, as I know myself better, um, And frankly, in the last couple of years, as I have finally put down the expectations of a culture and a society and the conscious and unconscious messaging that women in particular get handed from the time we're so small, the interesting thing is deconstructing that. Like, that was my version of a religious deconstruction. And taking that apart has been so seismic. And in a strange way, I've realized a lot of what looks like poise or confidence, a lot of what my therapist calls my alarming unflappability is actually just me knowing how to internalize how much that stuff really does hurt because the hurt is also inconvenient for other people. And it's really only recently that

I've gone, oh, I've actually been very traumatized by this kind of public attention. And by the way, women get chopped up like meat and thrown out for people to snack on. Like it's a really surreal thing. And I do finally feel like I can kind of give myself some flowers for you've survived this and you've been pretty classy through it. Occasionally you get a little upset and my like fiery Italian, you know, heritage from the Bronx comes out and I'm snippy, but mostly I really do think I keep it above board and that has been hard.

And I feel like I'm only finally now that I've really felt it and admitted that I am so much more sensitive than perhaps I appear. In the strangest way, admitting that it's been harder than I'd like to share.

Yeah.

Is making room for the hard to leave and for me to claim more joy. You know, and. There's something about that. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that my friends, you know, whether it's you or Sammy or Nia or like people, my people are like, you have just gotten so much funnier. And I'm like, okay, I love that because I'm not holding all of this stuff in pretending that it's easy. And so it's a really interesting dialectic where finally saying something the thing in the fullness of what's hard also allows for so much more that is the opposite of hard. And that's been kind of a head spinning thing in this process. And I feel like it's really been a gift.

Well, I think that is one of the gifts that this book will give people is that you process that on the page in a way that is very vulnerable and scary. And I mean, that's what, makes a page turner to be honest, but also I think what we're saying when we say you're funnier is there's like a, like you're leaned back in the chair and you're like making a joke because you think it's funny, not because the person is supposed to say the thing that is funny now. Does that make sense? And like, there's a, there's a settledness and it might just be finding love.

It might be finding true love and in the form that, It was always meant to be in. And I think there's just life being a series of waking up in a mummy suit. And it's our job, you know, at age eight or age whatever, 14, you're just like a mummy. And you're like, I guess over the next 30 years or 80 years, I have to peel this back layer by layer until I find my skin again.

Yeah.

And that's what that's what the art of memoir is.

And now a word from our sponsors who make this show possible.

This is kind of like a functional question, but I think it's fun because it's also my job and I listen to podcasts like this, but like, I think there's probably a lot of people listening right now who are either waiting for this book to arrive in the mail today or going to get it. And they're like, God, what, what if like, I have a story to tell, like my life has been fucking crazy. Like, how do you even begin to tell your story? What was, what was your just blank dry erase board? How did it begin?

Oh man. You know, I remember thinking, God, I wish I had And you know this about me, and I also know this is such an ADHD trait of like, look, this will be the journal that gets me to journal.

This will be the notebook.

That organizes my life.

You bought me this gorgeous journal like 10 years ago, and it's still mostly empty, but I carry it with me. I carry it with me for three weeks in Japan. I didn't write a word in it. I just like knowing that I could.

Exactly. Like, I do the same, and... I remember thinking, because you, you, at least when, when traveling, you're a great journaler.

And that's when I'm like performing the me I want to be right.

You're like, this is my Steinbeck moment and I'm in travels with Charlie. And, um, I remember thinking like, if I had only gotten in the habit of journaling, this would have been easier. But I also think I had to go through this kind of deconstruction of my own glass house or whatever to be in the space where I could start. And what I caught myself doing is I started making a note with the date in my iPhone.

Like I'd open the notes app and be like, I have to write this down before I forget. And I would do that. And after a couple of months, I was like, Oh, cause my book agent, you know, my, the agency that I am at has a book division. So my book agent just went into the system, you know, like my film agent can and sent me an email almost 10 years ago and was like, you have to write a book. I mean, it must've been 10 years ago.

I was, I was working in Chicago and I was like, I'm not doing that. And she would send me my pontificating on Instagram or like an op-ed I'd written and be like, this is a book, this is a book, this is a book. And I was like, leave me alone.

I don't want to do it.

It's too vulnerable. And, um, and finally, after a few months of collecting these notes, I emailed her and I was like, I think I'm starting a book. And then what I did like a lunatic is I went through my phone. I copied all of the notes into a Google doc with their dates in bold and and then the chunks, and then I printed it out, and I looked at it and was like, uh-oh. And then I started to think about what the big life events would be, and I started cutting up the pages and taping the notes by date under themes. So, I mean, it was full of beautiful mind. I looked like I was having a nervous breakdown, and basically probably was.

Strength.

And it, that was sort of the beginning for me because I had to visualize it. Like I'm a visual, I'm a visual artist as much as I am a person who loves words. And I had to kind of, I had to storyboard it basically like a director and then go, oh, okay. I think, I think maybe I know how to begin now. How did you do it in the first book versus how you do it by the fourth? Has it changed or is it the same?

Well, so my first book is about, I rode my bicycle from Oregon to the bottom of South America. And it's like a, it's an adventure book, but it's also about me coming to terms with my sexuality and processing growing up evangelical, blah, blah, blah. And so what, what helps when you write like a road trip book is the road trip gives you structure. You started and you finished.

And so then you can find the stories, the relevant stories. But I was beating myself up. So I rode my bike for a year and a half. And I journaled some, but I am a journaler. There's like different types of journalers. There's what I did today journalers. And there's what I learned this month journalers. It's like I journal with like profound revelations to me. Like, oh, wow, I didn't realize this is what this means. I don't do like Sophia wore a green top on Tuesday and I loved it.

And it's like, I, some people do that and they have volumes of their life. It's like, I've seen it. Do you know who does that? Tom Shadiac. He has walls and I doubt he's writing about people's shirts, but because he's such a philosopher, but like, I'm jealous. I'm jealous. But what I learned in the process of writing that first book and the subsequent ones is actually daily journaling.

Isn't that important? Because what really matters, the reason a memoir matters, the reason anything matters is how we narrativize and make sense of our own lives. There's a scene in your book that, you know, comes pretty early, but it's when your mom is having kind of a breakdown and she brings you along while she's having a breakdown.

And then years, 30 years later, you bring it up and she says, you weren't there. And it's like, Yes, I was. I was in that room. And it's... That was so profound to me because everyone has their life in their own head. and sometimes you're confronted with someone else's experience yes and that can be a very painful thing because you've had we're all narrativizing our lives all day this is why i did that this is why she did that this is why my mom did that like that is All we do all day is we're meaning making machines and we're making meaning of the story that happened to us and the things that we've done. Yes.

Like you probably were writing this book and you're like, oh, I think it's going to look like this. And then you get some distance from it and you're like, oh, this is what I was trying to say all along. And I didn't even know that until I was busy in it.

And I will say even for me, it really, it took me.

Until....

I was taking everything apart and then trying to figure out how I ended up there to finally connect some of the dots and go, oh my God, I can see the thing at eight. I can see the thing at 21. I can see the thing at, I don't know how, I don't, I don't even know how old I was in 2016, 34. And I can see the thing at 40. And they're all connected. They all have the same cord in them. And oh, my God. Oh, my God. You know, it's so, it's surreal.

Can't you feel, sorry to interrupt you. I just want to get this out because what you just said is so true, which is, I definitely thought at 26 that I would know everything at 44. Definitely. I was like 44, like, you know, but then you, you meet these adults that don't seem like they have their together and they have almost like a crankiness. And I'm kind of convinced hearing you go through your like portals of growth. It's like actually that humble spirit of, I am a work in progress.

And that's, that is not, that is a dot, dot, dot forever. And that is just a posture of living that is so different than I am a little collection of grievances. And this is who I am as an adult. And the world didn't shape itself to conform to my will. And I'm pissed. And I just feel like we've all known adults like that. And whether they know it or not, they might be fabulously wealthy and parents and driving their Tesla truck so proud. And they... are actually just fighting with the fact that they stopped growing. Yeah. And I just see that twinkle in your eye that you are like, and the twinkle is vulnerability, is tinged with fear. It's just like, God, I'm stepping into a new place. I'm stepping into a new place. And that is growth, and

that is beautiful. But it's like, that also is what youth feels like. That's what young people feel like. Yeah.

They're not so bogged down by what they should be doing. They're just doing. Yeah. And there is something I think to that, you know, my, my entire life. I mean, my, my first tattoo, literally the, the, the word means eternal student. My whole life, my goal has been to keep learning and that doesn't, you know, mean I've always done it right.

And I, I realized in conjunction with learning, I, I actually need to constantly be unlearning, unlearning shame, unlearning expectation, unlearning this idea that when you've said you're going to do something, you have to do it forever. No, you don't. You're allowed to leave the party if you're not having a good time. Literally, what else is the point of being alive? But when you talk about delight, there's the bit in that Mary Oliver poem where she talks about being a bride of delight. And I... I love that this salty older woman felt that way her whole life.

And I want to hold that. And I think the most sort of interesting part of this journey, you know, now having one memoir under my belt is it gave me back to myself in a way. And it made me confront some things. Like that's when we met was working, working on behalf of some people, of a group of incredible people halfway around the world that couldn't get the attention they deserved because of the hierarchies of grotesque assigned value in our society that we've all said that to spiritually forever. And we said, okay, we're going to be helpful here. And yeah, I had to sort of have this moment where I went, oh, I love that my natural spirit is being an advocate.

Well, and you write about that, which I love is like, and this is a trap that people get in. You got pulled into this world where that's an actress and there are people all over the world. They're like, she's a mom or, you know, he's a lawyer. Like that's what they are. And then the conversation is done and every single person in the world feels claustrophobic. Yes. By a four-word descriptor. No. 100%. And I, you know, and when I was like, oh, no, people, like, the people that are here, you know, in times we've done book events or whatever, like, together, and people are coming up to you, and it's like, they may love you, your work on screen, but they're always bringing up your activism.

You know, and you write about it. It's like, that is... that is a part of you. And I could feel that wash over you in a way that was like, wow, that is like acting is something you wanted to do and something that also kind of happens to you because it's like also so predicated on someone else saying yes. Yes.

Whereas activism is not waiting for permission. Yeah.

And the coolest part of it is though, I, I finally went, Oh, that my natural inclination to do this is, the thing I feel put on this earth to do, if I do so much of it that I don't give any of that advocacy to myself, I'm not being healthy. And writing a book essentially required me to apply my activism to myself. It gave birth to a whole other piece of me that I didn't know I had denied it to myself. I didn't know I had starved that part of myself because... The world tells you that as an actor or a quote unquote famous person, you already have too much. You're already given too much. You're given too much attention. So I just never paid any attention to myself. And this required me to give myself my attention.

And it was profound.

Well, and that's what I think people misunderstand about a certain amount of fame, where it feels like you're getting, giving yourself and getting attention all the time, but that's actually so often maintenance of a mask. And it's like protecting your actual inner self from the judgment of strangers and the perception of strangers. And so that's, it's mask maintenance, which is completely different than being self-absorbed, completely different than even being self-caring. It's like, and that is a journey that I like, I, Living in Los Angeles as long as I have and just seeing what fame can, what a challenge it is. It's like there's a certain level of fame I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. And

there's a certain amount of notoriety that I think is beautiful. That is just wonderful to give access and like respect in your field and like access to opportunity. And then there is this like incredible spectrum of it can go really dark.

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One thing I would love to ask you about because you do it so beautifully and I've had to do this and it's what sent me to the hospital. But like when you write about family and relationships and real humans and it's not, it's not a puff piece. It's not like everyone that ever met me was a magical angel.

Thank you. Goodbye. It's like, this is what it felt like to be in that room and to hear words that I heard. And so it's, What was your thought process in saying hard things?

What I had to do, and this might be part of also how my brain is wired, I can't figure out the thing unless I look at all of it. And I haven't often given myself time to do that. So this was a real exercise in patience and also in looking at in a way that I was not familiar with and that wasn't totally comfortable, but I wrote the big, full, everything chapters. And then again, what I found helpful was physically printing them out and redlining. And what I found helpful was how can I tell the truest, clearest thing and anything that isn't really necessary to that clarity, I don't need, especially something that might hurt someone or shed too much light on someone who might not be comfortable with that. And it was important to do that,

to also be able to say, I can't tell this story without this information. And I hope that doesn't upset you. This is the minimum. Yeah.

And some people live in such a self-constructed silo that they don't permit themselves to be upset when they should be like there are consequences to behavior and this is not sorry i'm not like here to like pad your walls because you didn't pad mine when i experienced what i experienced but i think what you said is so beautiful it's like there are there are truths that i cannot when you write a book and this is what my publisher has had my amazing editor has had to tell me time and again is because I do what you do. I puke it all out. And sometimes it becomes a journal and not a book. And the difference is a journal is everything that happened, everything you thought.

A book, everything has to be in service of the next thing. You know, I mean, you make film and TV. It's like if you in the first scene, if you show a gun in a drawer, you better see that gun again. It better get shot eventually. Like, why did you show me that?

Yes, that's your Chekhov's gun piece, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So it's like... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That being said, when you write a book, it's like, what is this in service of? And am I just writing this scene because I'm still mad at her or mad at him for what he did? Like, am I just making him look bad? Yeah. Or is it because this is in service of a lesson that changed me and made me stronger? Yes.

Yeah. Exactly.

And....

And that was important. There were things that I wrote. I mean, there was a section that I wrote about four years of my life in my 30s that I knew I had to write it like a dark night of the soul. I knew I had to write it like an exorcism. And I had to re-experience things that were not comfortable or honestly emotionally healthy to. Like I still...

I still pay for my old cell phone so that I have all those records. And I had to go through four years of it to make sure that everything I was writing down was exactly accurate. And in a strange way, it was very healing because I went, oh, I was never crazy. And in another way, I had to basically relive those four years and it was horrible.

And when I got to the end of it, I remember looking at it with my editor and saying, this is the longest Google Doc I've ever written. And it's awful. And I don't know what we're going to do with it. And I'm sure 70% to 80% of it's going to have to come out. But I can't make sense of it yet. I'm going to leave it alone for two weeks and go write something happy. And then I'll come back.

Feel free to chop it up. And then we'll get to work. And when I came back to it two weeks later, she said, you know, I gave it kind of a cut down, you know, only like 15%. And it's five chapters worth of material. And literally, Jed, my whole body went, no. And not in a pukey way and not in an upset way. I just went, no, I'm not going to give it. It doesn't deserve that.

And she was like, okay, so what do you want to keep? And I said, none of it. And I deleted five chapters worth of material from, Because I was like, I don't want it. None of it's actually the point. And yes, it would be juicy. And yes, it would sell books. And yes, it would make headlines. And I don't want to make those headlines.

That's so true. I don't want to make those headlines.

I don't want to sell that kind of book. Yeah. I don't want to do it. No, that is not the energy that I want to focus on. And she was like, oh my God. And I deleted all of it and started over. And I wound up writing a completely different chapter that was so personal to me that really required me to say, why did I continue to show up in a circumstance to prove that I could?

Who do I have to prove that to? And for what? Like, what's the proving doing for me?

Bye.

Changed my life. See ya.

Just because she's dropping these truth bumps doesn't mean you don't have to read the book because you got to get there to learn that.

But like this is it. It's a vague story, but you'll get it in the book for sure.

Who am I proving this to is so good. It's like, and aren't we all doing that?

Yeah.

And then what's so funny is we're so stupid. Like we can see in the world around us. people who have achieved X, Y, Z, they got the, they got Johnny high school, they got the husband, they got the kids, they got the thing, they got the job. And then three years later they're cheating and they're this and like, what, what are, we've externalized everything.

Yeah.

And I think it's exacerbated in the, in the line of work that you're in where you also have to perform and, a mask and interviews and a public persona. And there's an expectation that people have of you versus, and this is why your journey to love, which I've been front row for has been so extraordinary because it gives permission, not only to achieve what you deserve, but it gives permission to not know what you're doing next until you've done it and learned from it. You know, like There's no, there's no, you should have been here sooner, girl.

It's like, you didn't know how many layers of mummy you had wrapped.

No.

You don't know until you know, and that is total permission to just keep unwrapping the next strap. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, I love that. Thank you. Yeah.

It's been such a delight to live, watch, and now read. What do you know about yourself now that you didn't when you started the book?

I don't feel like I have to apologize for myself as much as I used to. I've always felt a little in the way, a little out of step, you know. And now I just, I think I really understand something that I've always heard parents say, but I understand it personally. You'll hear them say the days are long, but the years are short. And I've really been, I can really beat myself up at the end of the day or wake up in gripping anxiety. Like the minute I open my eyes and I'm like, what is this feeling? And why?

Like I was just dreaming. And now I feel, I don't know. I feel differently about what needs to get done in a day. I don't feel the same anxiety that I have felt for as long as any of you have known me, which is like, I'm always on location. I'm always gone. I'm always missing something. I'm always the friend people have to catch up with. You know, I'm never just around on a Tuesday. And now I'm like, I know who my, I know, I know who my people are and it doesn't matter actually. Like we're all, we're all in this season where life is so full and we've worked so hard to get here. I don't want to be, I don't want to be mad that the dreams I had 10 years ago came true because they mean I'm busy because In an interesting way, now

I can look around and say, oh, if I see you once a week or if I don't see you for the next 12 weeks, it doesn't matter because we're the same when we're in a room.

That's been a big revelation for me in my 40s of like, and this is getting like really therapized or whatever, like that 30,000 foot view. But I was such a collector of people like just who should be my friend? I want to be friends with everybody, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what I was doing was it was an, a frantic search for my tribe because I did not feel safe in the world. And I was like, I don't know, because when you grow up and I knew I was gay, you know, but in seventh grade I knew what it was called. And it's like, so I lived my adolescence knowing that if everybody finds out the truth, I am at square one. I've lost everyone. I'm alone. I'm homeless.

Like if, If this secret gets out, I'm done. And that baseline anxiety of total collapse, I'm surprised I'm not some doomsday prepper. I'm not, but like, I'm surprised I'm not. But that kind of hum, it caused me to be like, I need to find the angels that will be there. And what's funny is, and this was all running in the background. I didn't know what I was doing. This is me. looking back. This is why I want everyone to write a memoir, because you learn this by processing what was happened and finding the story.

Yeah.

But that's what I was doing. And now in my 40s, it's like, oh, I found the greatest people that really see me. I feel completely safe. I feel loved. I can not see someone for a year. And just like you said, because the foundation, basically we, I found people that are in the same river as me and the river is flowing. So whenever we, our inner tubes bump into each other, we're in the same place because we're in the same river, even though I haven't seen you.

And that is, I feel so grounded and safe. And so that, Oh my God, I'm missing this. Oh my God, I have FOMO. It's like, Yeah. The root of FOMO was they're getting closer without me or they're meeting someone I don't know and I'm going to be left out. Now at this side of my 40s, I'm like, no, I have found my people. And it is so like the roots are so deep that it cannot rain for a long time. And the tree is strong, you know?

Yeah, I love that.

And I feel that in you as well.

Yeah, it is. It's an interesting thing. when your, when your attachments shift from like more anxiety in the bucket to just being like, no, I'm, I'm secure. I'm good. And it, it really is like a breath of fresh air. It's a, it's a release and it, and it makes missing more fun and it makes reuniting more fun. And I don't know, it's just, It's a special thing to get to, and I think it's probably a little bit about age. I think it's certainly about this process. And in the way that you've given us the metaphor of unwrapping the layers of the mummy until you find yourself in it, it's something you build. You layer these truths in a sort of stack, and then they all exist, and you go, oh, I get it. Like I get it.

It's like a mosaic doesn't make sense until you step back.

Yeah.

It just looks like random colors. Yeah. Random tiles. Do you think that, because like I am on my fourth memoir, which is so like, it's a, it's also embarrassing because it's like, how much can I talk about myself? Like four books and I'm only 43. Like, what are we doing here? But I had a lot of mummy tape okay i and each i've i've seen each book as like a dragon it's like what is the dragon i'm slaying here what is the dragon i'm slaying here yes and do you find because i've met i've read amazing memoirs of one and done they're like i said what i needed to say now i want to live and i'm actually like exercised you.

Know yeah and now a word from our wonderful sponsors.

I will say, no sh- You're an amazing writer. You really- And I'm, like, such a snob.

You are a writing snob. That means a lot to me.

I love your voice. I can hear your voice. I think some people- And this is because you've written so much your whole life. Like, just not in 300-something page books, but, like, you've done that. But the voice is- is so there and it's, I don't know. I'm just curious what you feel. I know we just got here like today is launch day, but do you feel like this process, maybe I'll, maybe I have more books in me. Maybe. Yeah. What do you think?

I do. I think there was something really interesting and you'll appreciate this. I'm going to, I'm going to go left. I'm going to take us on a journey to get back to this, to where we are. We were talking about this earlier, that it's a weird thing when someone who is quote unquote famous becomes a writer. It's a different equation than your writing making you famous. And the fear of, you know, being set on fire in the public square, because I've experienced that at pretty... routine intervals for the last 25 years of my public career, it was very scary for me. And I could have written more of a quote unquote celebrity memoir. This happened, and then this happened, and I booked this job, and this

person was nice. I'm not interested in those books. I gravitate toward writers like you. I gravitate toward writers like Cheryl Strait, like Mary Oliver, like people who put their hearts on a platter So other people might understand what the inside of a heart looks like and how complex it is, you know? And there, there were some points, frankly, where I would think about the things that affected me the most deeply. I went back to Cheryl's work a lot.

And I was like, Oh fuck. Like I'm in trouble because there is nothing that she has not loved in the sunlight, even the darkest bits. And I was like, that's, that that's the writing my soul responds to, which means it's a version of the writing, not to say I'm, I'm a writer of her caliber, but it's the version of the writing I'm going to be required to do for myself.

And I was like, Oh yeah.

Oh, but it felt so true. And I don't mean what's on the page is true. Of course my, my stories are mine and they are true, but I mean like, true in terms of ah that's what it is like the life essence truth kind of thing and once I was really in it I thought to myself oh yeah there's so much more of this that I want to do and maybe it's that thing you know they talk about when I'm thinking of this because one of our best friends just had her second baby and And they talk about how a woman has a baby and then essentially has amnesia about how awful the birth was, which is the only way she'll ever have another one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm kind of like, maybe writers have a version of book birth amnesia where.

You get past it, right?

You forget that it was like, absolute torture and then you look at it and you're like oh and you love it so much you're like oh my literary baby you know I um I think I'm in that sort of pink cloud phase of it and there are there's a few chapters that I wrote that I loved that ultimately just didn't fit the the arc of the roller coaster of the book like they were too steep or too you know not for for a trick or whatever and they're just waiting. And I kept, the only way I could do it, the only way I could kill my darlings, essentially, was to.

Be like, book two. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll go in book two. So we'll see. What's so incredible is, like our darlings, a lot of times the darling isn't that it's necessarily right. It's that we worked hard on it. And so what I love, and anybody who tries writing, you'll learn this, is like, you might labor over a chapter for 10 days or 10 chapters and you got it.

And then you, someone decides or you realize it's not right for the book and you are heartbroken because that was 10 days that you spent. But in two months you will not give a rat's ass and you will go back and read it and be like, this isn't right. Or, Oh, this is right for something else. Like you never know the, like everything, see it as a rung on a ladder and you're getting higher and you don't like, you can't, you don't need to break the rung off the ladder and cradle it. It's, it got you somewhere. And that is like getting these stories out, finding what belongs in the structure, because it's important to remember that the person reading the book, even if they know your career, even if they're a super fan, they need to like, it

can't just be information. It has to be a story that is taking you in a direction and then if that story is true to the human experience, it doesn't matter if they don't know who you are. If they have never seen anything you're on, never heard your podcast, never read an article, and they just pick up this book, they will learn things about themselves. And you do that.

You ground us in your childhood. You take us into your career. And just like those confusing years of Like, the 20s are so weird because you're kind of an adult, but you're a child and you defer to adults, but then you know what's right. And then you try to stand up and you get squashed, but then you, like, you really capture that fumbling to strength experience. Which everybody has.

Yeah. But you really... Yeah, it really does. That's a great way to put it. Fumbling to strength is almost like you're a multi-New York Times bestselling author or something. You wrote something really early in the new book. I was trying to figure out what I could share about it because obviously your book comes out in February and all I want to do is talk about it, but it's not time. So I was like, ooh, maybe I'll pull a quote from really early because I have a whole doc in my phone also about your book. Can't wait for part two in February. But you write really early that you discovered new angles of yourself when lit by new experiences. And that that allowed you to find resilience that you didn't know you had. And sometimes fragility

that should be considered. And I was like, that's it. That's exactly it. Writing the book made me realize I've been so resilient. And also I should have considered fragility sooner. most of the.

Time yeah and like sometimes strength is actually masquerading as hiding from your own fragility you're like just avoiding it.

Yeah yeah you're like i'm so strong and it's like okay okay runner you know i i'm really curious how you think about it you know four books in three out in the world um for anyone who's been living under a rock catch up you have until February. But how do you think about that? Because you said, you know, how is it possible that I've written four memoirs, but you've gone through these layers of the onion of life, essentially.

And I love that the first book was about a trip, a big one, and that this latest book is about another trip and one that you took in a whole other phase of yourself. How do you think about continuing to tell stories now that you're in the.

Repetition of it well I think when you when we were talking earlier about you being a constant student and each portal that you go through is a new birth canal into a new era of self-understanding and that is a that is a very young-hearted way to be and like it keeps the twinkle in your eye and you never calcify into this like stagnant pool like we want to be flowing water that is what life should be and for me it's like you tackle the you don't know the dragon that's behind the dragon like there's always another like villain you know whatever like the final boss on mario it's like you think that you've get to the final boss. And that actually just gave you the strength to get to the next boss. There's always another boss.

I read about this in mother nature. Cause like the first book was really me trying to just deal with my faith and my sexuality and be okay. And like my fear of my like crippled masculinity and doing this big masculine adventure to like prove a point, you know, like to hide from my fragility and then ultimately finding it.

The second book is just now that I have this like broken free worldview, like what is the bigness and the expansiveness of all of life now that I can see outside of this, these goggles that I was handed in church.

Yes.

And then the third book was realizing, oh, I have one fear in my life, which is one day I'm going to get married to a man and my mom's not going to come to the wedding. And I am so afraid to have that conversation because I've decided that that she won't change. And so I have this fear. What if she does change though? Like, what if, what if I get married and she doesn't come and then she's devastated that she didn't come? Like I'm denying her that opportunity. And so I basically, we did this road trip and recreated her incredible youth adventures. And I, I tackled this demon and it was gnarly, very gnarly. And I was like, Oh wow. My trilogy of books, like facing my demons and, I'm now an adult. I'm 40.

Then I wake up at 40 and I'm like, I'm alone. I'm single. I hate my body. And when somebody likes me, I think something must be wrong with them because I hate myself. I love my personality. I love myself as a friend, but as a partner, what's wrong with people if they like me? And so that was like, oh my God, this other super boss villain, I have to face you head on.

Yeah.

And that actually came. So this book is about it's called Go Quiet on the Mountain, this new one. And it's like living in a tiny cabin on the side of a Colorado mountain for 60 days and eight weeks and just no phone, no toilet, no electricity, just being there, bathing in the river. It was being alone in a bucket and being alone with my thoughts. And like the romance relationship self-image thing, I didn't know that's what this book was about. This is what I'm saying. You don't know.

But I wanted to put myself in a new environment to look at myself from a new angle to see what is hiding in the shadows.

Yeah.

By putting myself in that scenario, I was transformed in a way that I could not have pre-decided. And that's kind of the message of the kind of books I want to write is like, I don't want to pre-decide what the book is. I want to do something that's going to give me the posture of attention to hear what wants to be said that I am avoiding or, you know, need a fragility I didn't know was there.

So that's, that's the journey of the books, but it's, yeah, that's four books. And who knows? I mean, I want to give myself permission that if I was meant to write five books, six books, and that's all, What amazing. That's a box set, baby. Like that's great. And if I move on to run a coffee shop, cause that's the next season of life. Oh my God. What, how exciting. Like, who knows? Like, I think I want to write books for the rest of my life. I can't wait to read your next book, but I give myself permission to be like, I, this is what happens when you grow up evangelical. And then you, you lose, you don't lose your faith. You evolve out of it is, that I know that who I was at 22 and who I was at 28 are totally different worldviews. And so I

have this humility to know, like, I don't know what I'm going to want to do when I'm 50. I don't know him. I know him. I know the foundation that he's built on top of, but I don't know what he's going to want. And so I don't want to pre-decide for him and then make him feel bad about changing his mind. I don't know. Yeah.

Allowing yourself to be open to the possibility of, requires getting comfortable with the fear of the unknown, but it also maintains, it maintains an accurate size of the world for you. And now a word from our sponsors that I really enjoy. And I think you will too.

Well, you say in the book that you want to be more of a risk taker. You like look up to these risk takers and it's like, this is a step, like this is a big risk to put your heart in a box on a bookshelf and say, I hope you like me. I hope you get it. And so what is that? Are you like, I don't care if you like me, this is true. Or are you like, please like me, but if you don't, off like what what is the truth of the truth of how you feel.

The very first thing that that wants to come out of my mouth is just please be gentle with it whether you like it or not just be please be gentle with it um i think i am bracing for the negative and in a way i feel more capable of dealing with it Um, but I also, I'm so touched by what feels positive. You know, I'm, I'm touched by what you had to say about my writing. I'm, I'm so touched. I just did an interview.

It's really great.

Thank you.

It really is.

I just did an interview with a journalist I really respect. And when we got on zoom, she said, I've read your book cover to cover. And then I read it again and I was like, well, Put a fork in me, I'm done. That is the greatest compliment. And it just, there are things where I go, okay, even if, no matter what, I've had that aha. It is meant to someone what my favorite writer's writing has meant to me.

And that I have to let that be the center of it. You know, my practice is not to be so concerned with chatter out there, rather like, what does it feel like in here? And that's hard for me, you know?

Yeah. It's interesting that you learn a lot about somebody or just humanity when you think about what compliment meant the most to you. Like, it's a good question because no one's going to say, you know, someone said, they're like, wow, you have so much money. Like no one would ever say that. I mean, somebody would in this administration, but like what, what means something to you, the compliment that sits with you, that you, that literally gives you fuel is that You know what Oprah says, like, did you see me? Did you hear me? And did what I say mean anything to you? Like that is what everyone is asking. And when you write a memoir, that is the most literal version of do you see me? Do you hear me? And does what I say mean anything

to you? And I'm so excited for a week from now for you to get emails, letters, DMs of, I didn't know I was allowed to feel this way. I am you. I feel this. I'm ready to stand up for myself. I'm ready to take a risk. I'm ready to love myself. I'm ready to expose my underbelly. It's profound. And I am so excited for you and for every reader.

Oh, I love you. Thank you. On the precipice of all this, you know, today's my book day and your next is coming. When you think about what a creative life requires, you know, what, what kind of courage it takes, like you said, to tell your story, you've gotten so good at it. What feels like your work in progress?

What are you still working on?

Thank you for that sweet compliment. I do not feel like I've gotten good at it. I feel like I just got started. Like I'm sometimes I'll read a book or like a book that I'm reading and I'm just like, I am such an amateur compared to like, this is amazing. But like you're saying, I'm always like, I want to write fiction. I've only written about myself. And that's because I have a lot to process. And I actually like, I guess I know you asked me this question, but I write, they say like, who's your audience when you're writing?

And it's like Stephen King writes for his wife, blah, blah, blah. I write for my 22-year-old self, like a little gay boy in Alabama or Tennessee that's like, doesn't know who he is and, but wishes there was some way to feel better. And so like I write for him and then, and then I write for him as he gets older.

Like this new book is for him at 33. My first book was for him at 23, you know? So it's like, as I get older, I'm writing for what I needed to, what I wished I could have read 10 years ago. And who did you write your book for?

Hmm. I think I wrote my book for every, for every version of myself that saw something or experienced something that was told, well, you can handle it.

It wasn't that bad.

Right. Because not every story in the book, to be clear, people are probably like, Jesus, what's in this book. It's not like a, it's not a trauma parade by any means. There's so much joy in it too.

And friendship and love. Yeah.

But it, Those things, what I came to realize was that stuff colors everything else. It's the hum underneath. It's like a leak. It's like a pipe leaking in the foundation of your house. The moisture gets into everything. And I had to remediate that. I had to clean that out. And I want people to be able to be who they are and say what is true and own.

The good along with the bad. So they have more space for more good. Like I have so much room for good now, but it took time to, to get there.

A memoir is, and a human is really like mentorship is map making. So I, this is like the new, I, I think I might write a book about this. I don't know. Or like it's, I kind of unfurled this at my last writer's retreat, which was like, what are we doing if not map making as we get older? Because everyone is in this like exploratory thing of like, I don't know what it's like to love. I don't know what it's like to have this job. I don't know what it's like to have a parent get cancer and pass away. I don't know what it's like. And then when you do, it is your job to then make, draw the map so that the next explorer can come and like, and to be clear, holding a map is not the same thing as driving through Yosemite and seeing Okay,

it's not the same, but you won't get lost.

Yes.

You won't get so confused. You'll move through and you'll still feel the grandeur and the profundity and the awe and the pain. But you'll at least know which way you're going and that there is a road down the way. And so seeing your life as a mapmaker for others is such a generous stamina because... Everything that you've been through and survived was so that someone else, some young girl being given this opportunity, being whatever, feeling a certain way about the way men speak to her or whatever it is like that, the map that you will hand her will, will help her navigate that situation, which will surely come. And that is, that's what writing is, but that's also what we should all be doing. And I

love our jobs.

I do too. It's so special. And I love you. Thank you for today.

I love you so much. And I'm so excited just to see people read this book. I can't wait to text you when I see somebody like reading it on the train. Like that's people have done that for me when they're just like at the airport or whatever. It's the greatest because it's like the universe. You couldn't plan it.

It's not like your friend reading it. It's like a true random.

Yeah.

I can't wait.

Oh, I can't wait. It's going to be so fun. Thank you for grounding this very big day in a very heart forward kind of way for me.

Well, congratulations. And I'm so proud of you.

I love you.

I love you too.

Thanks, boo.

Is the work in progress logo a butthole and spread cheeks?

No. It is a riff on like the 70s iconography of a news station. Oh, yeah. It's like it's the signal. Yeah.

God, buttholes are everywhere. Maybe because I'm gay. That's just what I see.

Listen, I respect it.

This should be over the credits.

Yes, perfect. Over the outro music?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please.

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